Andrew Simpson

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 Som...

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, bu...

Back in 1847, the journalist Alexander Somerville had walked the lanes of Chorlton looking for evidence of potato blight, that disease whi...

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...

In the summer of 1847 Alexander Somerville had come looking for potato blight, that disease which had ravaged the crops of Ireland and had ...

Holland Wood, by the Cliffs along Chorlton Brook, circa 1907 We are in Holland Wood, sometime at the beginning of the 20th cent...

We are looking out on John Holland’s Wood which stretched west along Chorlton Brook towards the Bowling Green Inn. John Holland's Wood, ...

Now I can be as adventurous as the next chap and have been known to venture out of the township as far as Didsbury. It was after all w...

I am back with Alexander Somerville, radical, journalist and by his own admission at one time a police spy. That earlier campaign in St...

It was one of those serendipity moments which brought together my old friend Alexander Somerville, his contribution to the campaign against...