When the Rec had a bowling green ………..

Now, I don’t remember the bowling green on the Rec, by Beech Road, but lots of people over the years have talked about it.

I have always thought it was on the south side of the Rec, close to Wilton Road, but not so.

It occupied a space in the north west corner, and this I know because I am looking at the OS map for Beech Road, dated 1956.

I know the bowling green was not in the original plan for the Recreational Ground and had disappeared by the 1970s.

Just when it was deemed no longer a recreational asset will be down to people’s memories and a trawl of subsequent maps.

And back then there was that other bowling green beside Cross Road, it became the car park for the Irish Club.

All of which leaves me to wait for comments of those who remember the bowling green on the Rec and when it disappeared.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; detail from the OS map for south Chorlton, 1956, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

Walking the streets of Manchester in 1870 ................ part 4 ... calling on Mr and Mrs Hall at no.35 Wood Street

Now I am standing outside numbers 33 and 35 Wood Street in 1903.

33 and 35 Wood Street, 1903

In time I will search out who had been living in the two properties although by the time Mr Bradburn took his picture on March 20th 1903 they were unoccupied and in a pretty poor state.

That said I suspect they had never been prime examples of good housing.

In 1870 when we were walking the streets of Manchester they backed onto Paul’s Court, which consisted of eight back to back properties facing onto a narrow open space.

Originally our two houses had been made up of just three rooms but at some point in the 19th century they were extended, by the simple process of knocking through into the two homes they backed  onto.

Without more research I can’t be sure when this was but I do know that in 1871 number 35 was occupied by Mr and Mrs Hall who had moved in the year before and were still there twelve years later.

He was a general labourer aged 46 and had been born in Manchester.  His wife Ann was three years younger and was from Ireland.  They had two children, but the youngest, Jane carries a different surname and there in no clue as to the relationship with Mr and Mrs Hall.*

Wood Street, circa 1900

The rate books show that when they moved in they were paying 2shillings and sixpence which a decade later had risen to 3 shillings.

And back in 1871 number 35 was unoccupied.

Their immediate neighbours made a living from a mix of skilled, semi skilled and manual work.

Three doors down at number 29 Mr Leslie was a shoemaker, while his wife was a seamstress, and there was a brass moulder, butcher, poulterer, two charwomen and a cotton weaver close by.

33 and 35 Wood Street, circa 1900

Now we can actually pinpoint numbers 33 and 35 on Wood Street, for while they have long ago vanished, maps of the period place them directly opposite the Wood Street Mission.

Today the site is a small car park for the Rylands Library and just down from that space is a passageway which may have been the entrance to another court called Bradley’s Yard.

I like the idea of being able to walk along Wood Street and stand in front of what had been a house I have come to know.

Of course the challenge is now to peel back more of its past and in so doing reveal a little of its residents and
owners.

We know the names of some of the other occupants, and also that for two decades it was owned by the Taylor family.

Back of 33 and 35, once Paul's Court, 1900

But there will always be much that we will never know, and I suspect the young Jane Thompson will be one of those lost stories.

Still a trip down Wood Street is well worth it.

The Mission Hall which the Hall family would have seen every day is still there and is well worth a picture.

After that there is always the Rylands Library or a quick walk down that passage sandwiched between the back of the library and the side of the Magistrates Court and on to a small open square.

Location, Deansgate, Manchester

Pictures; Wood Street, 2007, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, numbers 33 &35, m05389, backs of numbers 33 & 35 m05391, A Bradburn courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  and Wood Street, circa 1900, from Goad's Fire Insurance Maps, Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Wood Street, 2017

*Wood Street, 1871 census, Enu 2 11, Deansgate, St Mary’s Manchester, 1871

Visitation of God or manslaughter, the death of John Bradshaw in Eltham in 1837

Rural communities have never been the peaceful idyllic places some would have us believe.

In just a short two decades, the small township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy experienced two murders, a series of daring burglaries and two cases of infanticide.

There were also groups of violent drunks from Manchester who persistently intimidated the local residents and just a mile or so away passengers on packet boats travelling along the Duke’s Canal from Stretford were pelted with stones.

Some of the crimes were opportunistic, others like the poaching of potatoes from the fields on the northern side of Chorlton were organised by gangs who came in from Hulme equipped with wheel barrows and their own sacks.

From the Times February 1 1837

And then because the southern end of the township opened out onto the flood plain and was relatively remote it was perfect for illegal prize fighting which could attract hundreds who if necessary could escape over the Mersey into Cheshire and thereby evade the Lancashire police.

All of which makes me think that the drunken attack on the landlord of the Castle in Eltham High Street in the January of 1837 will not have been an isolated case.  Indeed just a few months later an armed gang of escaped convicts from Woolwich were apprehended trying to make for the woods to the south of Shooters Hill.*

Now there is a danger in elevating two events into a crime wave, but I rather think it is just that we haven’t looked too closely at the newspaper reports or the Quarterly Sessions.

And so back to Mr John Bradshaw, late of the Castle in the High Street and the story of John Foster who came to the assistance of the landlord.

Like so many nice tales of the past its telling emerged from a chance discovery of a newspaper report of the inquest into Mr Bradshaw’s death and the work of my new chum Jean who is a descendant of John Foster.**

The Foster’s ran the smithy in the High Street and were well respected that stories of old Mr Foster were still circulating into the town almost a hundred years after he first arrived from Carlisle.

The Castle in 1909

The story itself is not an unusual one, a drunk by the name of Lucas fell foul of the landlord who ordered him out and in the subsequent scuffle Mr Bradshaw was hit and fell over.

And this was where the young John Foster came into the story attempting to remove Lucas from the pub not once but twice.

In the meantime Mr Bradshaw had died and the medial opinion was his death had been “caused by a sudden fit or a convulsion of the brain, produced by a fall.  His death must have been instantaneous.”***

The inquest was held in Mr Bradshaw’s pub which was a common enough practice, given that after the church the only other public place large enough would have been the school house or a pub.

Now I have come across quite a few inquests from the period and what I always find fascinating is that they provide a rare opportunity to hear ordinary people, many of whom have not left a scrap of written material about themselves or their times.

And so here we have John Foster, along with John Heritage and Mrs Bradshaw speaking directly to us of the event that happened that night.

Nor is that all for in the course of the inquest other people are mentioned all of whom it should be possible to track down.

But most striking is the clash between the coroner and the Jury.  He was satisfied and said so that the death was “by the visitation of God” rather than at the hand of Lucas which conflicted with their verdict “That the death of the deceased was caused by over excitement, produced by the conduct of James Lucas.”

Remarkably the Coroner refused to accept the verdict, directed them to think again and when by a majority they returned the same decision commented “I cannot agree with you that your verdict is a proper one. [and was] bound to order you all to appear at the Criminal Court and take the onion of the learned judge whether I am bound to receive such a verdict, which is in direct opposition to the evidence.”

This is a judgement by the Coroner made all the more odd given one witness reported that it was Lucas’s blow to Mr Bradshaw which had resulted in the fall and subsequent conclusion commented on by the surgeon.

Now unlike other inquests I have written about we do not know who the jurors were and that is a pity because they appear to have been a resolute bunch prepared to stand up to the Coroner.

So much so that the foreman was moved to comment that “If we are obliged to attend without returning our verdict, I am quite at a loss to know what use it is to call jury.  For my part I have come to the determination to return no other verdict.”

All of which makes me feel for these “little men” who were prepared to stand their ground against the professional with all his authority.

Now that could just be the end of the story but not quite.  John Bradshaw was buried in the parish church and there will opportunities to pursue the lives of the others mentioned in the inquest.

And so to Lucas.

From the court records, 1837

A search of the criminal records revealed that a James Lucas aged 51 went before the Kent Assizes on January 30th 1837 for manslaughter and was acquitted.

There is of course a slight mismatch in dates.  The inquest report is dated February 1st and the hearing was the day before.  But given that the Times reported that the inquiry was adjourned until the following evening when the Coroner had consulted a higher authority “as to whether I can receive your verdict” it may well be that the jury was once again ignored.

As it was James Lucas was in Well Hall in 1841, a widow living with his two daughters, Harriet aged 14 and Emmie aged 12.  His given occupation was a sawyer and so now a new search begins, for information on his wife Sarah and perhaps some of the other people named in the inquest who may well have worked with him.

*Convict Chase and Capture, the Times May 8th 1837
**Tragedy at the Castle Inn, Jean Gammons and based on a report in The Times February 1st 1837
***evidence of Mr David King, surgeon

Picture; The Castle Inn from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/ 

In the midst of plenty ........ two children sleeping rough “one under a Salford Railway arch and the other below an old staircase in a Deansgate entry”

It still beggars belief that in a city some called the “second city of the Empire,” which proudly displayed its trade links to the world in its brand new Town Hall and would ambitiously build its own route to the sea children slept rough on the streets,  making a pitiful living selling matches, and shoe laces later in to the night.

First Shelter, Quay Street, 1870

But of course it happened and in response to the stories of children sleeping under a Salford Railway arch and another below an old staircase in a Deansgate entry, the Night Refuge for Homeless Boys opened its doors.

Its full title was “The Boys’ Refuge and Industrial Brigade” and on January 4 1870 if offered a handful of boys found on the streets of the twin cities, a bed and breakfast, before turning them out on to the streets again.

Within a decade the organisers had expanded into a  ranges of activities designed to help young people and a full half century later could point to a whole series of achievements, from rescuing children  off the streets to residential and vocational homes,  seaside holidays, and involvement both in the courts and in legislation to protect young people.

Along the way it also migrated some young people to Canada.

But it began with that one building.

It was on Quay Street off Deansgate and a quarter of century later Mr Shaw one of the prime movers in the shelter reflected on those early days.

“In a dark little room on the ground floor of the house was a living room where meals were served.  A front collar was a living-room by day and a school and band room at night.  The back cellar, described as being dark and damp as a cavern, was made to serve the purpose of a bathroom and lavatory .  

The sleeping accommodation was almost amusingly primitive. 

It took the shape of hammocks hung out round the upper room from strong hooks in the wall, each hammock having two iron legs which fitted into sockets in the floor.    [and] when the boys jumped into bed ‘with a burst’ away went the held fasts and sockets and even a portion of the wall too, and that a dusty heap in the middle of the floor was generally the rest.

Mr Shaw and a group of Boys, 1883

In the year 1870 there were some forty inmates of the Refuge.  Today nearly 500 boys and girls are being cared for and trained within the institution to a life of usefulness, while according to the last report issued in 1894 , not less than 2,595 children come more or less under the influence of the Society and its branches in the course of 12 months.”*

Those involved were motivated by strong religious convictions, but also by that simple and obvious response that not only was the plight of destitute and neglected children and an abomination but “while we leave the little children practically uncared for we shall never want for a fully supply of candidates for our reformatories, workhouses and goals.”

The building had a short life and the organisation relocated to Strangeways but the scale of the problem was such that one refuge was not enough.

That lack of provision was highlighted “in the winter months of 1871 when three boys applied at the Refuge looking for shelter.

Major Street Shelter, 1905

As the home was already full, they had to be turned away. Seeking warmth and shelter and being unable to afford three pence to stay in a lodging house for the night they had wandered up to the brickfields of Cheetham.

A few days later a newspaper reported on the demise of a young boy who had been burned to death at one of the brick kilns in the neighbourhood. This boy was one of the three who had, had to be turned away much to the consternation of the committee.

It was this incident that convinced the charity that they needed another building in which to receive any child in need of help, whatever the hour and this led to the opening of another on Major Street.

"Open all day and all night children in need of shelter could be brought and receive food and a bed for the night, whilst their individual circumstances were investigated. It ensured that no child requesting aid would ever be turned away again.”



Location; Manchester & Salford

Pictures; the first refuge opened in 1870 and a group of young boys from the charity in 1883, and the Major Street Shelter 1905 courtesy of the Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/

* The Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges A quarter of a century’s progress, Manchester Guardian, January 4 1895

**A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

One big House on the High Street

2015

Now I have written about Cliefden House on several occasions, and will go back again in due course.

In the meantime here are three photographs over a full century and a bit and each has it’s own story to tell.

The first was taken recentlt by Ryan and despite the changes of businesses it is not so different from Jean Gammon’s taken 38 years earlier.

1977

Step back another 60 years to 1909 and the transformation is pretty stunning.

Back then it was a private residence and in the middle of the 19th century had been a military academy.

It was built sometime around 1720 with an eastern addition dating from the mid 19th century and together this made for a large 17 roomed house.

In the 20th century the front garden and wall were lost when the High Street was widened and more recently with scant disregard for such an elegant old property businesses have set about about adding the most appalling signage to the exterior.

1909

Pictures; Cliefden House, 2015 courtesy of Ryan Ginn, back in 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons, and in 1909, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers,http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm 

The Lost Chorlton pictures ......... no 9. ......... Beech Road

Now I had quite forgotten this picture, which had sat as a negative in the cellar for four decades.

And I am rather pleased it has come to light.

We are on Acres Road and to our right is the box factory which had once been a laundry, and opposite is the hair dressers which was to become Cafe on the Green.

Directly ahead is the pet shop which closed earlier in 2019, and beside it The Village Wholefood Shop.

Back then there was a debate about that bit of open land, with some of the traders urging the Corporation to make it into a car park which the Council agreed to if the traders made a contribution to the cost.

This never happened and what had once been a fine house before it was demolished remain open land for another decade.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Beech Road, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking the streets of Manchester in 1870 ......... part 3 ........testing the story of dark secrets and awful tragedies in Wood Street

Now it is very easy to fall into the trap of using newspaper reports to draw a picture of the past.

And so far that is what I have done in the new series on walking the streets of Manchester in 1870.

As everyone knows, just yards from the broad and affluent main thoroughfares of the city, was another world where unless you were very poor you dared not venture.

Wood Street was one of those.

It was and is a narrow street off Deansgate and is best known for the Wood Street Mission which sought to provide basic support for the very poor.

The charity was established in 1869 and is still going today.

Its activities included running a soup kitchen, a rescue society and home for neglected boys, and a night shelter for the homeless.  It handed over thousands of clogs and items of clothing each year, as well as hundreds of toys at Christmas.

Around the Mission poverty not only busied its self but was pretty much what defined the street, and those newspaper reports dug deep into the squalor and human misery.

There were five articles published by the Manchester Guardian from February to March 1870 and they ranged over the back streets of Deansgate, across to Angel Meadow and up Market Street and down to London Road.**

The descriptions of awful living conditions, drunkenness and prostitution are as shocking to day as they were nearly 150 years ago.

And the reports are essential reading for those wanting to know more about living conditions amongst the very poor and in particular as a backdrop to the growing movement to care for the legion of abandoned, destitute and abused children.

But nothing should be taken at face value, which meant trawling the records to test how far the vivid descriptions matched reality.

The starting point as ever were the street directories which list householders and with names you can search the census returns to find the families which in turn will offer up information on occupations, the numbers of people living in each house and the density of housing.

Wood Street, 1849

And that data can be matched with maps of the area, making it possible to follow our journalist along Wood Street.

Not that it is that simple, because in 1870 the entire residents of Wood Street were not worthy of inclusion in the street directory which meant looking instead for the nearest properties on Deansgate, and using the name of the householder to visit the census return for the area.

43-49 Wood Street, 1903

Happily it paid off and just over half of the twenty pages of the particular census return were for Wood Street.  In total there were 276 people living in forty four properties, many of which were in closed courts off Wood Street and accessed by dark narrow passages.***

Some of the courts had names like Smith’s Court, Bradley Court and Pilkington’s while others didn’t even rate a name.

Most of the properties were back to back and consisted of just two rooms and will have been in various states of repair.

And at random I fastened on the Ellis family who lived at number 3 Robinson’s Court which was at the western end of Wood Street hard by a Hide and Skin Yard.

The court was accessed through one of those narrow passages off Wood Street and in turn led off to another and unnamed court.

Robinson's Court, 1849

Robinson’s Court would have been dark, admitting little sunshine or fresh air and its occupants would have had daily to cope with the smell of the Hide and Skin Yard, just yards away.

Mr Thomas Ellis was a stone mason’s labourer, aged 33 from Manchester.

His wife Mary had been born in Dublin and was a silk winder.

Together with their four children they occupied the two rooms which made up number 3.

No photographs exist of their home but by exploring the rate books we know that they paid one shilling a week and that their landlord was John Highams who owned all six properties in the court.

33 & 35  Wood Street, 1903

A further search of the rate books will reveal the extent of Mr Higham’s property portfolio and by finding out just how much Mr Ellis earned it should be possible to judge how significant that shilling was to the family budget.

What is interesting about Wood Street is the number of lodging houses which according to the article were at the bottom end of the market with overcrowding being the norm and some verging on “vice shops.”****

I think it may be impossible now to ascertain how accurate was the journalist’s observation of “drunken women standing about the doorway, or coming in with some drunken man whom the gin shops of Deansgate have half maddened.”****

But I suspect the discovery of a group of women in another house is all too true.  “On the knees of the centre figure of this strange group lies a little month-old baby, dying-the last of twins.  It is miserably thin and the yellow skin shows the articulation of its frame.... the eyelids are drawn close down, and a long bony arm weakly and painfully raises itself.”****

One of the courts off Wood Street, 1903

We will never know the identity of any of the group or the final fate of the child, but a few days later the mother had taken refuge in the most debased of lodging houses.

Today Wood Street is still narrow, the Mission building is still there but as for the rest it has long ago vanished.

Location; Manchester, 1870







Pictures; Wood Street, 2007, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, numbers 43-49, 1904, m05386,numbers 33 &35, m05389, backs of numbers 33 & 35 m05391, A Bradburn courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  and Wood Street, 1849, from Manchester & Salford OS, Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Walking Manchester in 1870

**In the Slums, Manchester Guardian, March 3 1870

***Wood Street, from the 1871 census, Enu 2, 9-20, Deansgate, St Mary’s

****In the Slums, Manchester Guardian, March 3 1870

The Romans really were in Well Hall .... 1,900 years ago

The discovery of what could be the remains of a Roman hypocaust system has been uncovered in an archaeological dig in the back garden of a house in Well Hall.

Elena Verdi of the 'Istituto di antichità classica di Napoli, announced this morning that "the find is very significant and raises the possibility that this was part of a villa complex or even the bathhouse of a previously unknown Roman military establishment".

BREAKING NEWS

It can now be revealed in advance of the press conference to be held in Naples at the offices of the Istituto di antichità classica di Napoli at midday, that the remains discovered in the garden of a Well Hall house are not Roman.

A saddened Elena Verdi, will announce that her team were a little hasty in their conclusions.  "I think we were all too excited by a metal box inscribed with an advert in Latin for 'Mario's take away fish paste', and in retrospect concede the remains appear to be an early 20th century  black pudding mine, which were known to be extensive in the Well Hall area at the time."

It is also believed she has withdrawn the souvenir plastic models of Roman soldiers carrying the inscription. "Visit Well Hall and take a break from all that conquering" which were found at the dig site.

Location; Well Hall

Picture; the remains, 2019 courtesy, Istituto di antichità classica di Napoli

Lost Tudor home found in Chorlton ..............

Now there are many myths, and half-truths about both Hough End Hall and Barlow Hall which circulate and pop up for debate from time to time.

The young Henry VIII, 1530-35

The most persistent are the tunnels which are supposed to connect the two, along with another which runs from the Horse and Jockey on the Green to the site of the old church.

So, the story goes they were dug during the Reformation and Counter Reformation as an escape route during religious persecution, while the pub tunnel allowed expensive and illegal casks of French brandy to be stored in the vaults of the church during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Of course, they are total tosh.  The residents of Barlow Hall were Catholics and those of Hough End Hall were Protestants and so hardly likely to conspire in challenging which ever form of Christianity was official during the 1540s into the 1590s, and neither the old St Clements nor its later replacement had a vault.

But it now turns out that there maybe more than a little truth in the story that Henry VIII had a hunting lodge somewhere close to the western side of Chorlton Park.

A chance find in the Royal Library of a book listing where the King visited during his Royal Progresses suggests that in 1539 on a trip to the North he commissioned the construction of a grand lodge close to an unnamed stream near what is thought to be Barlow Moor Road.

The building predates the second Hough End Hall which was built just over fifty years later and may have used some of the timbers and glass from the King’s house.

Sadly, nothing now remains of the lodge according to Eric Thistlewaite who was a superintendent at Manchester Parks and Recreational Grounds [retired]. He confirmed that prior to the laying out of Chorlton Park in the 1920s an extensive programme of digging in the location had found nothing.

Hough End Hall, 1849, all that is left of Henry's hunting lodge?

The most plausible explanation for the lack of any evidence is the simple one, that the lodge would have been made of prefabricated units which were assembled on site, and sometime in the mid-1590s Queen Elizabeth sold off everything including the fittings, furniture, and the fabric of the building to recoup losses made during the costly battle to defeat the Spanish Armada.

But the presence of the lodge has led  Mrs Trellis of Sandy Lane to call a meeting to petition King Charles to honour the township with the prefix Royal.  “I think” she said “it would be a great honour to live in the Royal Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and who knows one day we may even be able to find out who the King entertained in his lodge, which I believe would have been just before his ill-fated fourth marriage”.

The exact location and time of tonight’s meeting has yet to be announced.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Henry VIII, circa, 1530-37, by Joos van Cleve,   Royal Collection RCIN 403368, and Hough End Hall in 1849, from The Family Memoirs, Sir Oswald Mosley, 1849

Will Didsbury lose its name?

There is a growing interest in renaming the old township of Didsbury.

Saxton's map of Lancashire, 1577

The smart money is on that older spelling of Diddesbury which appears on Saxton’s map of 1577.

This would be more accurate, and some have argued would lend greater gravitas to our suburb, be more in line with its historical origins and be a powerful marketing ploy to attract tourists from China, the Sub-Continent and the powerful economies of south east Asia.

The cost of changing to the new name would be outweighed by interest from Tourist Boards and travel companies looking for somewhere new to sell holidays to families who are tiring of places in the sun and overcrowded and expensive destinations.

But a small and vociferous group have gone further and would prefer to see the name eliminated from all maps, road signs and official documents in favour of Northenden and Barlow Moor.

Mr. Renfrew of the Ancient Association of Topographical and Projectionists said at their annual meeting, “Too long have we laboured under the name of Didsbury, and it is time to shake off the vestiges of the clinging past and be ‘bloody, bold and resolute’.  

To this end we want the rehabilitation of the names Barlow Moor and Northenden.  We support the division of Didsbury into two self-governing entities on the model of the old Scottish Burgh.  We would leave the actual division of Didsbury and the new boundaries between Barlow Moor and Northenden to a Convocation of the Good and Wise”

We shall see

Location; Barlow Moor and Northenden

Picture; extract from Saxton’s map of Lancashire, 1577, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

Rediscovering our recent past the Coldharbour Estate in Eltham sometime in the 1950s

I rather think that we often overlook our most recent past.

There was one history teacher of mine at Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern School who maintained that if wasn’t at least a hundred years old it didn’t class as history.

Now I know what he was getting at but that ignores so much of ore recent past, a past still vivid in the memories of many people.

So today I have decided to look at the Coldharbour Estate some of which will have clocked up sixty-six years of history which makes it older than even me.

The estate is “a large and spacious estate developed on the site of the Coldharbour Farm by the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich from 1947.  It is sliced in two by a major road, William Barefoot Drive, where the small shopping centre and community buildings are located.

The estate was planned as a ‘garden suburb’, and there are many attractive greens.  From the open space at the Court there is a magnificent view of Eltham Lodge.”*

And there is the St Albans Church, “a small red brick church designed by Ralph Covell in 1953 it has a nice square tower and gently bowed window, and is linked by an arcade to the original vicarage.”*

The estate was not some where I knew well but only because none of my friends lived there so I had no reason to visit it, and when you are sixteen there are far more interesting places that call you over.

So I never went and now forty-seven years on and 230 miles further north I guess I won’t.
But that is not to say I have ignored the place.

Like many other post war developments it was a part of that determined effort to provide decent housing in pleasant surroundings.

And Coldharbour must have been significant enough a place to warrant a set of postcards by Tuck and Sons Ltd.

My favourite is the one of Witherstone Way mainly because of what was written on the back which announces that “The HOUSE MARKED X IS MY HOUSE. La maison c’est chez moi”

It has been dated to 1976 but the card must be older and is in that tradition of local communities getting their own visual record of what they were like, along with that even older habit dating back to the beginning of post card of marking the spot where you lived.

And reminds us that once the image had been created the company continued using it despite the fact that by 1976 the cars and the fashions had moved on a full twenty years if or more.

Pictures; Witherstone Way and St Albans Church and the Mound, courtesy of TuckDB, http://tuckdb.org/postcards

*Spurgeon Darrell, Discover Eltham, 2000

When nostalgia gets it wrong

Historically there may have been a time when Beech Road was empty of parked cars, vans and scooters.

Beech Road, 1979

And lots of people will tell you that they remember just such a time.

But you will have to go back a long time.... perhaps to sometime just after the last war or one Sunday before the arrival of the Beech Road bar and coffee culture.

And even then  you might be hard pressed to find the entire road from the Rec down to the Green totally empty.

For proof here is Beech Road in 1979. 

I have no idea now what day or what time but busy it was.

And that offers up a corrective to all those who remark that there were no cars then when seeing an old photograph.

That advert seen on the side of Walker's barn, the Green, 1979 

In the same way lets not pretend that street adverts were any better all that tme ago.

Neither photograph is the best, but then the negatives sat in our cellar for over 40 years, and were taken when I was just begining to snap away.

But they make the point.

And let's not forget that on Friday and Saturday the overflow from the Irish clun stretched along Cross Road, Beaumont Road and Beech Road.

Location; Chorlton, 1979

Pictues; Beech Road and a poster, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson