Lost Woolwich .......... no 3 relaxing in the allotments 1905

Now of all the places I knew in my youth I have to say Woolwich is one of those that has  undergone some of the most radical change.

So much so that big chunks of it I have difficulty recognising.

The Arsenal, Powis Street and even the old Pie and Mash shop were as familiar to me as they were to generations of people who grew up in Woolwich and are now just distant memories.

So with that in mind I have returned to images of a time before now.

This one is dated 1905.

I doubt I will ever know who these three men were or exactly what each grew on his allotments.

But it is a fine picture taken on a sunny day over a century ago

Picture; from Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, Amberley 2014

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago …… walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

The real surprise was the conversion of the railway arches into Deansgate Locks which are described as the “Trendy nightspot for those who want to party the night away. You'll find establishments such as The Comedy Store, Revolution and Baa Bar. This canal side location is perfect for those who want to stay in one area, find DJ's playing all night and plenty of cocktails".**

All a bit brighter than 40 years ago when the best you could hope for was a passingboat.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, 2003, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

**Deansgate Locks, https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/deansgate-locks-p37991

Chorlton's own radical ... Thomas Walker

This is the story of Thomas Walker one time pillar of Manchester society but also a radical politician who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade, supported the French Revolution and was indicted for treason in 1794.

The family lived at Barlow Hall from the late 18th century spending the summer there before moving back for the winter to their town house on South Parade which faces what is now Parsonage Gardens.
And it was there that a mob attacked Walker who was forced to drive them off by discharging a pistol in the December of 1792.

This was at the height of political debate over the issues of press freedom and the French Revolution.
“Emboldened by drink and fired on by agitators, groups hostile to the radicals began to gather around the city.  Walker was in no doubt that this was pre planned.  

‘Parties were collected in different public houses, and from thence paraded in the streets with a fiddler before them, and carrying board on which was painted with CHURCH and KING in large letters’ 

On four separate occasions a mob gathered outside South Parade, broke the windows and attempted to force their way in.  Supported by friends Thomas Walker was forced to fire into the air to disperse the crowds.

The magistrates did nothing to prevent the events and while a “regiment of dragoons was in town, booted and under arms”    and ready to disperse the rioters no order was given.

As if to add insult to injury the main concern of the magistrates when they finally met Walker was that he should not fire at the crowd again if the mob returned!  These attacks had been matched by similar ones on the home of Priestly in Birmingham and in Nottingham.”*

Walker survived both the attacks and was acquitted of treason, after which he retired to the new family home at Longford House where he died in February 1817 and was buried in the parish church on the green.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures;  Barlow Hall, circa 1890, from the Lloyd Collection, and the Walker family gravestone in the parish churchyard from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2011.

Next; Thomas Walker and the campaign to abolish the Slave Trade

* The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

The day I lost a Chorlton Chartist

Well to be more accurate, it was more the day I invented one who never was. 

It all looked so good.  In the June of 1847 Alexander Somerville had walked the lanes of Chorlton looking for evidence of potato blight and discovered a potato called the “radical.”

His autobiography recalled how he had been flogged while in the army for distributing letters arguing that the military should not be used against those groups campaigning for the Reform Bill and there he was being quoted by Engels in The Conditions of the English Working Class.  So as you do I made an assumption and I was wrong.

He did “earnestly desire to see the enfranchisement of the working people” but disagreed with those Chartists who “think they can effect that great consummation by fighting for it.”* “In the first place, there is yet not a national desire for that enfranchisement; there is on the contrary, a general aversion to it among all persons of property.”  

This led him in turn to attack the Chartist leaders because “their practice has been to excite hatred between classes [and] until there is an alliance between classes there cannot be in Britain an act of universal enfranchisement.”

This correctly harps back to the convergence of interests between the reforming elements in the middle and working classes during the campaign for the reform bill in the 1830s but misses the point that by the late 1830s that shared interest did not exist anymore.  The middles class had the vote and could see no reason to share it.

So given the worsening economic situation, and the rejection of the first Charter it is easy to see how some Chartists might be drawn to physical force.

Now despite never being a pacifist Somerville was equally unhappy about the use of violence.  He had after all been flogged for trying to stop force being used against the supporters of reform in Birmingham in 1832, and maintained that the Chartists “avowed belief that they can do physical battle with a few wretched pikes, against the regularly armed military forces, are not likely to obtain sympathy of the people, interested in the preservation of property.”

It was this same opposition to civil insurrection which had led him in 1834 to inform on a plan  to assassinate members of the Cabinet and the Royal family and seize control of Parliament and the Bank of England.  In is autobiography Somerville justifies his actions on the grounds of the strife, loss of life and damage to property which would have ensued had the plot gone ahead.

But there is that other giveaway clue in his comments on the preservation of property, which mark him out as marching on a different path. He was convinced that those Chartists who were hostile “ to the existence of private capital , moneyed or landed” were wrong.  It was this that led him to oppose the Chartist Land Plan as unfeasible.

Equally he could see that “the capitalist, merchants, master manufacturers, and master shopkeepers” by continuing to block reform would not be able to escape the consequences of heightened class conflict.

So if the opposition to widening the franchise was because they believed “the mass of the people to be dangerously ignorant .... I would say educate liberally and universally. There is no middle course; either give schools and votes, or barrack yards and bullets.  I am for schools and votes.”

Now I may be airing a prejudice when I think that class interests might have been the hidden factor in the opposition to extending the vote, but as a principle I am right behind Alexander.

So not perhaps a Chartist who passed through Chorlton but a radical none the less.

*Somerville, Alexander, The Autobiography of a Working Man, 1848, page 509 Google edition page 521

Picture; The Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common, April 10 1848, by William Kilburn

On discovering Woolwich

I have very fond memories of Woolwich.

Washing prawns, 1979

It was a place that I was quite late in visiting  which is a bit daft since we had moved to Well Hall in the spring of 1964 and the 122 and 161 ran by our house.

But during the week I was going back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern and the weekends were full with exploring Eltham.

So it will have been sometime in the summer of 1966 that I started going there.  At first it was to meetings in the evenings in the back room of a small pub at the bottom of the Woolwich New Road.  All very earnest political stuff, and then I just took in Woolwich on a regular basis, starting with the market, the Arsenal, and of course the river.

And later it was where I got the bus to to work at the bus stop facing the ferry.  I can't say it was always a comfortable place to stand at 6 in the morning but even on wet grey days the vew was one I liked.

But the busy sprawling market was always a draw.

And so here from 1978 or maybe 78 is the market on a busy day.  Sadly this is the only image to have survived umpteen moves and the odd disaster.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 1979

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago …… walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

But as rundown as the canal was, and perhaps because it was so messy, and out of sight,  it was from time to time part of the urban playground.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

Walking the River ......... the scenic route

A short series taken from one day when I walked along the River.

Back then the Thames was still a place to to earn a wage and watch as ships, and barges plied the way on the water.*

Location; the Thames, Greenwich





Picture; the River in 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson



*The lost Eltham and Woolwich pictures, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20lost%20Eltham%20and%20Woolwich%20pictures

A Chorlton Chartist, Alexander Somerville, well almost

I think I am close to finding my Chorlton Chartist.

Or in fact two, although having said that neither was born here or lived here, but one passed through in 1847 and the other one was born in Didsbury and lived just over the Mersey in Northenden.

Perhaps a little tenuous but a link and makes the point that we were not an isolated community but just four miles from the city and would have been alive to all that was going on. Our farmers and market gardeners visited Manchester to sell their farm produce, and in return we got the carriers who transported goods in and out of the township, the itinerant traders and plenty of Sunday visitors.

So all the news, the great debates and issues of the day that occupied the nation would work their way into the village and surrounding hamlets.

The fall of the Bastille, the cry of Liberty Fraternity and Equality, and the great surge of radical demands as well as the agitation for the protection of living standards as time got harder during the 19th century would have been heard here.  And it was a soldier from Manchester walking into the township with friends who brought the message of Methodism.  Added to there was the Duke’s Canal and the railway built in 1849 both of which made us even closer to all that was being done and said in Manchester.

The wealthy businessman Thomas Walker was just one such powerful voice.  He lived at Barlow Hall and later Longford House was buried in the parish church and embraced the ideas of the French Revolution and the abolition of the slave trade.  His life was threatened his home in Manchester attacked by a mob and he was put on trial for sedition*

All of which I have written about but today I want to introduce Alexander Somerville.  He had been persuaded by Richard Cobden to join the Anti Corn Law League in August 1842 and travelled through the countryside arguing the case for free trade and an end to the Corn Laws.

In the June of 1847 he was here in Chorlton and recorded his conversations with local farmers, James Higginbotham, Thomas Holland, and Lydia Brown. He even came across a potato which went by the name “Radical” because it had been introduced by Joseph Johnson who had been active in radical politics.

Alexander Somerville while in the army had been flogged for his support of the Reform Bill in the May of 1832, was quoted by Frederick Engels in the Condition of the Working Classes and his accounts of his travels through rural England were published in three volumes under the title Whistler at the Plough between 1852-53.

And there is much more.  His autobiography published in 1848 gives a detailed account of the passing of the Reform Bill and life in the British army during that period.  In one chilling passage set against the popular agitation against Parliament’s reluctance to pass the Bill he reported that

“It was rumoured that the Birmingham political union was to march to London that night; and that we were to stop it on the road.  We had been daily and nightly booted and saddled, with ball and cartridge in each man’s possession, for three days, ready to mount and turn out at a moment’s notice..  But until this day we had rough sharpened no swords.  The purpose of so roughening their edges was to make them inflict a ragged wound.  Not since before the battle of Waterloo had the swords of the Greys undergone the same process.”**

In this very charged atmosphere Alexander and some of his compatriots debated the possibility that like the Yeomanry at Peterloo in the August of 1819 they would be ordered to “draw swords or triggers on a deliberate public meeting.”

I cannot begin to appreciate the difficulty they were in or the momentums choices that were before them, and in a shining example of courage they stood out against a repeat of the massacre in St Peter’s Field, choosing to write letters “to various parties in Birmingham and London... Some were addressed to the Duke of Wellington, some to the King, some to the War Office, and some were dropped in the streets ... [saying] that while the Greys would do their duty if riots and outrages upon property were committed, they would not draw swords or triggers upon a deliberate public meeting or kill the people of Birmingham for attempting to leave their town with a petition to London.”

It is a powerful insight into a period which many history books pass over as  “popular unrest during the passing of the Reform Bill.” and leads on to Chartism

I rather think Alexander deserves more.  He was after all flogged for his brave stand and went on to record much that was going on during the period, including a firsthand account of a British mercenary army unit that fought in the Spanish Civil War of 1839, and conditions in rural Ireland.

His is a story I knew so little about.  I had read his History of the British Legion, and War in Spain but until Lawrence sent me a copy of the Manchester Examiner for June 1847 I did not know he had been in Chorlton or that he recorded so much of  the story of radical politics.

So he was here, passing through I grant you, but if we have found him I travel in the full expectation that there will indeed be a home grown Chorlton Chartist just waiting to be discovered.

Tomorrow, Joseph Johnson who had been active in radical politics. was on the platform in St Peter’s Field, during the Peterloo Massacre was imprisoned for “assembling with unlawful banners at an unlawful meeting for the purpose of inciting discontent”  and ended his days just across the Mersey.

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/longford-hall-and-our-own-chorlton.html and http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alternative%20histories
** Somerville Alexander, The Autobiography of a Working Man, 1850  page244 Google ed page 253

Pictures; The Autobiography of a Working Man, Peterloo, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, m01563, The Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common, April 10 1848, by William Kilburn

See also The Day I lost a Chorlton Chartist http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-day-i-lost-chorlton-chartist.html

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago …… walking the Rochdale in 1979

 A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago .......... walking the Rochdale in 1979

 A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.*

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

Once you had walked underneath St James’s Building and Oxford Road you had a clear waljk down the canal as far as the bridge which carried Albion Street into town.

Today this section is flanked with modern buildings but in 1979, the walk took you past a heap of warehouses and factories dating from the 19th century and offered up fine views of the Refuge Building.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

 

When we made cider and perry here in Chorlton in 1847

Back in 1847, the journalist Alexander Somerville had walked the lanes of Chorlton looking for evidence of potato blight, that disease which had destroyed the crops in Ireland, and was already in parts of northern Derbyshire.

He didn’t find any but recorded his conversations with some of our local farmers, one of which was James Higginbotham whose land included a strip along what is now the Rec on the corner of Beech Road and Cross Road.

The conversation turned away from potatoes to fruit which made up a significant part of the crops we grew for the Manchester markets and included raspberries, rhubarb, currants and gooseberries and above all apples and pears and in particular the Newbridge pear, and Rose of Sharon apple.

Look at any old maps from the mid 19th century and you are struck by the number of orchards across the township.  Most would have gone to the markets, but some would have been turned into cider and perry and drunk at home.

So it was of particular concern to James Higginbotham that in the June of 1847 his apples and pears were doing well.  As he said to Somerville who dutifully reported the conversations,

“The insects had made great havoc among the fruit in the adjoining orchard during the hot sunny days of May and the first week of June but the cold of last week and the rain of this had come in time to save still a good quantity.  He pointed to his Rose of Sharon apple trees which had bloomed so profusely as to be wonderful; they had been invaded by a terrible army of insects, and had hardly been able to maintain the conflict; but the myriads of diseased invaders wrapped in their winding sheets of cobwebs and laying upon the ground, where the rain had carried them, showed how beneficial the cold and rain had been.  There was still a goodly show of apples left, and the Rose of Sharon branches were again fresh, beautiful and healthy.  The Newbridge pears clustered upon the trees as if the invaders of the orchard had never been.”*

It is a priceless piece of reporting and not just because here are the voices of the people who lived in Chorlton over 160 years ago but because it provides us with the actual names of what types of apples and pears were grown here.

And I am indebted to Mary Pennell of the National Fruit Collection** who kindly dug out some information about both crops. “Newbridge – is in fact a ‘perry pear’. It is also known as ‘White Moorcroft’. Rose of Sharon – an apple variety that was exhibited from Cheshire in 1934. Unfortunately this is the only record for this apple but at least we know that it did at least exist at some stage.”  All of which is very exciting, well to me anyway.

Our Newbridge pears are harvested from the first to the third week in October about the same time as the Rose of Sharon apples.  Now what for me is revealing is that here we have the first evidence that along with cider our farmers were growing perry pears and must have been making perry.  And for anyone unsure, perry is made in much the same way as cider.

So there you have it, and tomorrow I think I shall pursue the story but in the meantime you can look again at the Newbridge pear and pear tree.  And reflect that some of the fruit trees which are there in our gardens may be have links to those seen by Somerville and farmed by Higginbotham.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Newbridge pears and pear tree from the National Fruit Collection

*Manchester Examiner, Saturday June 19th 1847

**http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/

Crossing the Thames at Woolwich on the Will Crooks

This is one of the old ferries which plied the crossing taking thousands to work and not a few just to see north Woolwich.

The crossing is still one of those things I like to do although it is usually just for the pleasure of travelling across the water.

This was the Will Crooks built in 1933 and replaced thirty years later by the current fleet.

Now this is not going to be the story of the ferry, that is easily available, instead it will just be a short reflection on how much I enjoy using it.

At one time it was something you did just because it was free, and offered up the opportunity to watch a busy river at work.

No one seemed to mind that I went backwards and forwards often not even bothering to get off.

It didn’t matter that the rain might drive in across the water and that the wind could cut through even the warmest of clothes.

But I grew up, had more important things to do and only rarely even bothered to clock its existence as I waited for buses at the stop almost opposite the terminal.

And then one disastrous day travelling back from Kent and missing the M25 I realized were heading for Eltham, past our old house at Well Hall and it just made perfect sense to carry on over Shooters Hill and fall down into Woolwich and make the river crossing by the ferry.

I had forgotten the long queues but the short journey with its views across the Thames were well worth it.

I rather wish I could have done the trip on the old Will Crooks if only to have experienced crossing under steam.

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford from her book Woolwich Through Time, 2014 and from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago ..... walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the fist time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.*

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and I since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

The first stretch from Princess Street took in the power station, which had supplied steam to the neighbouring offices and warehouses, through pipes which ran the length of the canal.

Passing these pipes could be a tad unnerving as in places steam would escape from the joints, leaving you wondering if you would suddenly encounter a burst of scalding water. 

The pipes have gone, the overgrown towpath has been cleaned up, and sections of the canal have been transformed, which rather makes the 18 pictures something special.

Although I am the first to admit the quality of some are iffy.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal ….. 24 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

The lost orchards of Chorlton

Today I went looking for the Newbridge pear and the Rose of Sharon apple.

They had been grown here in the 1840’s and had caught the eye of the journalist Alexander Somerville who reported that both pear and apple were “fresh, beautiful and healthy.”

I wrote about them recently and it occurred to me that I should go on an adventure with my old botanist chum and see if we could locate any last vestiges of them.  David reckoned that there were still orchards on the other side of the Mersey not far from Jackson’s Boat, but the weather was against us and never being one for getting wet the quest has been postponed.

But in the meantime I set out for find the ones that Alexander Somerville described.  Now these belonged to the farmer James Higginbotham and they took in the land either side of what is now Crossland Road up as far as Higson Avenue.

But there were others dotted across the township.  Now the productive life of an apple tree is about 30-40 years although some can go for 80 to a 100 years,* so with this in mind I doubt that any we find today will date from 1847, but you never know.

So I travel in hope, but even if we don’t find any Newbridge pears or Rose of Sharon apples what fascinates me is that they confirm the possibility that were making cider and perry here in the township.  Of course most of our apples were sent to the Manchester markets but some will have been retained for home use.  And because the Newbridge pear is a perry pear it follows that either we were making perry or we were sending it on to be turned into perry.

All of which also means there is now the hunt for an old press, and if that could be found I would really be very pleased.

*And there are examples which were planted at the beginning of the 19th century

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; Higson’s orchard from a detail of the OS map of Lancashire, 1841, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Walking the Woolwich markets …….. 1914

Now I don’t usually just lift someone else’s work directly off the page, but today I am breaking that rule.

And I am breaking it because the description of the Woolwich markets back in 1914, from The Woolwich Story is so good it deserves to appear just as E.F.E. Jefferson presented it.

The book is a wonderful account of all things Woolwich, while chapter XV, vividly recreates a walk through the market on the eve of the Great War.

The account runs across 19 pages and is fascinating, both because of its description of the market but also as an insight into how we lived just over a century and a bit ago.

Location; Woolwich in 1914

Pictures; Woolwich market in the early, 20th century, from Woolwich Through Time is at Woolwich, Kristina Bedford, 2014

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 pages 156-7

Half a century of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre ….. the exhibition

Yesterday I dropped into the major new exhibition celebrating fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

It’s a sobering thought that I have pretty much lived almost all those 50 years at the place.

It’s a place I have proudly shown off to family and friends, as well as dining in its restaurants and of course watched a heap of performances ranging from Shakespeare to musicals and on one wonderful occasion saw our Josh perform in a youth production.

And over the years has been the backdrop to meet ups and quite solitary moments so I had to slide along and enjoy this new exhibition which is entitled “Mythic Reinvention celebrating fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

Responding to the unique architecture of our Victorian Great Hall, the exhibition transforms the art of storytelling into an immersive space where the mythic and modern collide.

 Curated from our extensive costume archive that is home to over 25,000 individual pieces, past productions will echo into the present and reveal how stories continue to reflect societal change and deeper human truths through a new lens.

Explore up close the craft of designing and making theatre costumes, where threads of character and stories connect across five decades, through different genres and generations. 

Step inside the inner workings of the theatre’s costume department and hear from the artists who created some of the Exchange’s most iconic productions. Each costume reveals a story of imagination, skill and collaboration, offering a rare glimpse into the artistry that has shaped the Royal Exchange Theatre.

Part exhibition, part installation, Mythic Reinvention invites audiences to immerse themselves in the evolving mythology of storytelling, exploring how costume reimagines stories across time and how those stories continue to define, reflect and shape who we are today.

Mythic Reinvention: An exhibition celebrating 50 Years of Costume and Craft is open from 16 September until 15 November 2026”.

But be careful as “opening hours will vary throughout the exhibition due to other performances and events taking place in the theatre".

I turned up just a little before the doors opened at midday, but the bonus was a conversation with two people from north Manchester also waiting to go in and that is always a bonus.

Location; Mythic Reinvention, Royal Exchange, St Ann’s Square

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026

*Mythic Reinvention, Royal Exchange https://www.royalexchange.co.uk/event/mythic-reinvention-exhibition/

When your life comes packaged in just eight pages…….

 It’s a silly title really but it sprang to mind after seeing Michael Kay’s post featuring the brochure for Manchester Polytechnic.

It is dated 1970 and must have been produced just a few months after I washed up in the city to do an Arts degree at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street.*

I had arrived in the September of the previous year, with a suitcase, an address for a bed sit and no idea what was ahead of me.

Indeed, as a lad from southeast London Manchester was only the second city I had ever experienced.

And pretty much soon after I arrived, I embraced the place spending the hours when I should have been in the library wandering the city centre, which gave me a fascination for the buildings, and the history. 

Along the way I made some lasting friendships and many more which have dropped away over the years.

As for the degree, well I learned a few things, but like others not as much as I had done during A levels.

But the three years also introduced me to the other two faculties that made up the Poly, and while I did visit John Dalton the science place, it was the Art College, All Saints and the old Till Kennedy Building which were a second home.

The three faculties of Art, Commerce and Science had been separate educational institutions and mine betrayed its origin with the title of Commerce which offered many vocational courses, making it an odd mix of students.

Till Kennedy, Student's Union, 2015

Over the years I have written about the famous Saturday nights which hosted a pile of groups which straddled the late 60s and early 70s, along with equally memorable times at the Students Union which to many of us will always just be the Till Kennedy Building.*

It was built in 1905 for William Righton whose name appears above the main entrance.

He was a draper and the building offers up plenty of clues to its origins as a drapers shop.

The spacious ground floor was perfect for accommodating a vast range of fabrics while the large windows allowed the maximum amount of daylight into the building, a feature complimented by the top-lit gallery with the cutaway floor providing extra light to penetrate down into the main shop.

The Art College, 2024

Now this had always puzzled me as had the benching around the gallery and only now have I discovered that these benches were where “the cloth was measured.”***

The College of Knowledge, 1969

Over the years I have explored the history not only of the College of Commerce but also the Art College with its links to many of the artist I admire, as well as Mr. Dalton.

Much of which came flooding back with the brochure with its images of the city and its optimistic take on Manchester in the 1970s.

And what is remarkable is that a full fifty-six years after it was published many of the buildings and places it featured are still there.

Sadly, my own College was found wanting and now is at the centre of a residential complex, while On the Eight Day has moved slightly further up Oxford Road and now inhabits a new build, while Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station was transformed by a make over at the start of this century.

Still the eight pages make for an interesting read, but not a nostalgic one, after all I never left the city and so took the changes in my stride.

That said I do remember that two years after the Poly came into existence, its entire collection of student accommodation comprised six flats for six married couples in the former Fireman’s block of the Mill Street Police Station off Grey Mare Lane.

We had married in the December of 1972 and moved in a few months later as one of the first six couples.  

For all of us living in east Manchester was a tad different from the south of the city but perfectly fitted with how we saw ourselves.

Leaving me just to thank for posting and giving me permission to use the pictures.

Location; Manchester in 1970

Pictures; Manchester Poly brochure, courtesy of Michael Kay, The College of Commerce, 1969, Butterworth Street, Luft M 1991, m55776, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, The Art College, 2024, and the former College of Commerce, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the former Till Kennedy Building, 2015 courtesy of Andy Robertson

The College of knowledge in 2023

*The College of Commerce.

The entire student accomodation in 1972

**Manchester Polytechnic, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Manchester%20Polytechnic

****Manchester An architectural history, John K Parkinson-Bailey, 2000, Page 317

The Kickety Brook, Stretford, once a vital part of our flood defences

I first walked the Kickety Brook with my old botanist friend, David Bishop.

It doesn’t look much but it was vital in its day for protecting the Duke’s Canal at Stretford.

The Canal dates from the 1760s and was cut to bring coal into the heart of the city and also was used by our farmers and market gardeners to ship their produce into the Manchester markets.

But the canal was close to the Mersey which could flood with little warning. In July 1828 flood water transported hay ricks from the farm behind Barlow Hall down to Stretford only later to take them back, while later floods proved to be even more destructive with one destroying the bridge across Chorlton Brook.

It was, wrote Thomas Ellwood the local historian
“no uncommon thing to see the great level of green fields completely covered with water presenting the appearance of a large lake , several miles in circuit,” and he recorded six major floods between  December 1880 and October  1881

By then the stone weir had been in place for nearly a century.  It had been built after a heavy flood in August 1799 had broken the banks where Chorlton Brook joined the Mersey.  This had led to fears that the Bridgewater Aqueduct across the flood plain could be damaged in a subsequent flood.

The weir was designed to divert flood water from the Mersey down channels harmlessly out to Stretford and the Kicketty Brook.  Not that it always worked.  Soon after it had been built flood water swept it away and during the nineteenth century neither the weir nor the river banks prevented the Mersey bursting out across the plain.

This happened in 1840 and in the following year it was rebuilt by the engineer William Cubitt. After litigation the cost of repair was borne by the Bridgewater Trust who paid out £1,500, the Turnpike Commissioners £500, Thomas de Trafford £1,000 and Wilbraham Egerton £1,000.

Today, standing beside the weir you get little sense of the force of the river in full flood. In the winter there can be a pool of water at its base stretching out across the plain but on many occasion in the past on warm summer’s days even this bit of land can be bone dry.

And likewise the Kickety Brook seems just an overgrown and quite forgotten bit of water. The last time the weir took an overflow of flood water was 1915 when these two pictures were taken.

Pictures; Higgibotham's field in flood, 1946, from a painting by J Montgomery, 1963, m80092, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and 1915 pictures from the Lloyd collection