Beech Road on Jubilee day May 6 1935

What I like about this picture of Beech Road in May 1935 is that it wasn’t taken by a professional but by someone I know.

 Marjorie Holmes captured the day of the old King’s Jubilee on what looks like a bright spring day.




Picture; from the collection of Marjorie Holmes, 1935

Beech Road in the summer of 1932

We are on Beech Road in the summer of 1932.  

Judging by the shadows and the activity it must be sometime in the

morning.

The manager of John Williams and Sons looks on as his assistant sweeps the pavement in front of the shop and beyond him other shop keepers are laying out their produce.

As yet there are few people about and most of those are on bikes are more than likely out on their first delivery rounds.

Most seem oblivious to the camera, except that is for the two by the lampspost who have stopped their conversation to gaze back at the photographer.

The picture perfectly captures Beech Road in the early years of the 1930s.  The stone setts on Wilton Road have yet to be covered and the old railings around the Rec are still in place, otherwise it is not so different from today.

Of course the absence of cars is quite striking as are the shop fronts with their tall windows,  and painted signs.

What is all the more remarkable is that it is a scene which is more familiar to us than to those who walked the road before 1930.

I had always assumed that the row of shops which included John Williams & Sons had been built sometime soon after the beginning of the 20th century.

The site had originally been occupied by Sutton’s Cottage which was a wattle and daub dwelling and may well have been built in the early 1800s and was demolished in 1891.*

So it was reasonable enough to assume that the plot was built over soon afterwards but not so.

The other surprise was that John Williams and Sons were not local traders but in fact owned a chain of grocer shops across the city and beyond which in 1931 accounted for 41 shops of which there were three in Chorlton**, six in Didsbury and

another four in Rusholme.

Now I rather think there is a story here.  Back in 1895 they are listed as John & Sons with five shops in Didsbury abd Fallowfield which by 1911 had become 11 with John Williams described as managing director and the head office at 400 Dickinson Road.

Later still although I can’t date it is a wonderful advert for the company which advertises their ‘“Dainty, Delightful Delicious Tea, [from] John Williams & Sons limited, “The Suburban Grocers”, [at] 28 Victoria Street Manchester Stockport & Branches’.

And looking at the interior of one of their shops sometime in the early 20th century there is more than an element of “class” about the place.

So while the shelves groan with tinned produce and between the potted plants are the familiar posters advertising Californian Apricots at 6½d, and Coffee and other things, it is less cluttered, less in your face and far more discreet.

All of which makes me wonder at what our own shop on Beech Road would have been like, but that like the full story of John Williams and Sons will just have to wait.

Location; Beech Road, Chorlton


Picture; from the Lloyd Collection, 1932

*Sarah Sutton http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/sarah-sutton-life-lived-out-on-row.html

**32 Beech Road, Wilbraham Road, 211 Upper Chorlton Road.

Outside Beech Road Police Station ........ revealing a little of the life of PC Frederick George Ross

This is Police Constable Frederick George Ross standing with his colleagues outside the police station on Beech Road.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when the picture was taken but one source has suggested 1925.*

And that would have made PC Ross forty-seven years old.

He had joined the city force in 1904 and by  1910 was living on Priory Avenue before moving to Whalley Avenue.

Of the named officers he is the one we know most about and that is as much a bit of luck as it is research.

After all if he had not been recognised and his name added to the picture we would not have been able to discover his story.

But with a name a search of the police employment records and the census returns not only located him but provided me with the name of his wife and daughter and his own place of birth.

PC Ross had married Rebecca Jane Lawson in 1909 in Bolton and their daughter Nora was born the following year.

Like all such stories the detail is even more fascinating for while Nora had been born in Bolton she was registered at the Chorlton office and baptised at St Clements in the May of 1910 which is how we know the family were living at Priory Avenue.

Almost a year later they were on Whalley Avenue and a search of the directories will reveal when they moved from that address.

But that is not quite the end of the story because in the course of doing the research I came across a relative who had posted a series of pictures, one of Frederick and Rebecca and two showing PC Ross during police inspections one of which is dated to 1921.

And according to this source Mrs Ross was in Ireland by 1925 where she died in 1949 followed by her husband fifteen years later.

In time there will be more but for now that is all but it is a lesson in how it is possible to discover a family story.

Nor is that all, because looking at the police records what is interesting is the number of officers who were born in Ireland and Scotland, a trend which goes back beyond 1904 when Chorlton voted to join the city.

Before that date we had been policed by the Lancashire Constabulary who were responsible for building the station in 1885.

Just six years later the officer in charge was a Sergeant Milne from Ireland assisted by two PCs from Scotland and a decade on with  Sergeant Milne there were officers from Ireland and Gloucestershire as well as Lancashire.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; PC Ross, 1875-1963 from Police officers outside Beech Road Police Station circa 1925 from the Lloyd Collection

Fair sits the day for a walk through Chorlton's past at 2pm today*

There is still time to get your tickets for this history walk through our collective past.

The Narnia Lampost, 2024

It's a stroll down Beech Road which will reveal what life was like in a small rural community on the edge of Manchester during the early 19th century, and on the way we will  discover that essential piece of advice of just who did you have to be polite too?

Meet at the top of Beech Road at the junction with Barlow Moor Road at 2pm and join us for the walk via the Rec, the old village green and on to the Edge Theatre.

Chorlton Book Festival, 2026

And in between there will be the stories of the people, and the interesting, the bizarre, and more than a few silly events, and of course plenty of sound history.

Tickets are still available from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/walking-down-beech-road-in-the-summer-of-1848-tickets-1996447382865?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

And for just £11 not only will all this local history be revealed but at the Edge there will be a bevy of light refreshments in that historic building.

So today at 2 pm, from Beech Road at the junction with Barlow Moor Road, for an hour and a bit.

This event is part of Chorlton Book Festival**

Pictures; The Narnia Lamp post, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*And for the curious the title is nicked from "Fair sits the wind for France"  which is the opening line from the 1606 poem "The Battle of Agincourt" by Michael Drayton and a nod to H.E.Bates and his 1944 novel "Fair Stood the Wind for France". 

 ** Chorlton Book Festival, September 17th to September 26th   https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/chorlton-book-festival-2026-4861494/

Walking Chorlton's past .... that popular history talk with Andrew Simpson .... tomorrow

 This Sunday you can walk our past with Andrew Simpson and discover just who you might have to be polite to.

Ploughing beside Beech Road, circa 1892

Now that is not so daft a question if you lived in a small rural community on the edge of Manchester in the summer of 1848.

For a start, most people earned their living from the land, and many of these would be agricultural labourers, who worked for local farmers and in some cases rented their homes from those same farmers.

Along with these there was a sizable group of small market gardeners, growing cash crops for the Manchester markets on one to nine acres of land which they rented from a handful of landowners.

Charles Clarke blacksmith, 1913

Added to these were the tradesmen ranging from the blacksmith and wheelwright to shopkeepers, carpenters and dressmakers all of whom were dependent on both the farmers and the “people of plenty”.

And even some of the more prosperous, who after 1832 commanded a vote in General Elections, might think carefully about voting for an election candidate who was not the preferred and stated choice of the wealthy and powerful Egerton family who owned something like 67% of all the land in Chorlton.

So, the question of who you should be polite to in 1848 was a serious one which might cost your livelihood and your home.

And that will be the theme of this walk through Chorlton’s past which is part of Chorlton Book Festival, . *

Along the way there will be some tales of dark deeds, mixed with the everyday life of farmers, agricultural workers and their families, and a nod to the posh residents who must be treated with upmost politeness.

We were a small rural community of just 761 people, spread out in a number of hamlets. 

On the northern boundary was Martledge, south of Chorlton Brook was Hardy and at the centre was Chorlton itself.

St Clements by the green circa 1870s

Smaller communities in some cases just a few houses were scattered in between.  And as if to underline a dependence on the land, each of these small communities were separated by fields and orchards.

And so today we will take a walk down Chorlton Row, from Barlow Moore Lane, stopping to look at the big house, several cottages, some interesting fields and of course the smithy, the Wesleyan chapel and a beer house.

Along the way we may encounter a few people it would be prudent to be polite too, and plenty who are too busy to pass the time of day.

Having reached Chorlton Green there will be a brief stop to survey the old church, the two pubs, and three farmhouses, along with assorted wattle and daub cottages, and the village school.

Mr. Higginbotham bringing in  the harvest from the Meadows, undated

After which we will head north, visiting another 18th century farm cottage before crossing the Rough Leech Gutter at High Lane, hard by Scotch Corner and that local beauty point known as Pits Brow,  finishing at the site of the ancient Ash Tree “at the foot of which a certain man engaged in prayer each day".**

So, there will be plenty to see, and much that will tell us about what it was like to live in a small rural community, just 3½ miles from the smoke, noise and enterprise of Manchester.

Assemble at the corner of Beech Road and Barlow Moor Road at 2pm on Sunday September 20th.***

The walk will conclude after much history and a degree of fun at the Edge for refreshments.

Pictures; ploughing on Beech Road, circa 1890, and harvesting on the meadows, courtesy of Mr. Higginbotham, from the Lloyd collection, and detail from the 1854 OS map for Lancashire by kind permission of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ old St Clement’s Church circa 1870s from the collection of Tony Walker

*Chorlton Book Festival, September 17th to September 26th   https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/chorlton-book-festival-2026-4861494/

**Ellwood, Thomas Chapter 4, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, November 28, 1885

*** Walking Chorlton’s Past, Sunday September 20th. 

Tickets are £11  include refreshments at the Edge Theatre cafe afterwards.

Tickets available from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/walking-down-beech-road-in-the-summer-of-1848-tickets-1996447382865?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton …. part 162 …. endings

The continuing story  of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Long before a distinguished historian chose to tell the story of a house and made it into a popular TV show, I embarked on the same historical journey.

Mine was located on Beech Road and what started in the December of 2011 was joined by two spin offs based on the houses I lived in London and a municipal flat in the Italian city of Varese.

And in time sat beside the story of a garage which began as Chorlton’s first cinema, another building which over three centuries had many different stories and even morphed into a series on the Nokia 3310 and our own Citroën 2CV bought brand new and the last to roll off a production line in Portugal.

What each had in common was that the house, the garage, and the car were just vehicles to tell the bigger story, which showed the transformation of Chorlton and Britain over time.

But was always the house opposite the Rec which I kept coming back to.  It was built by Joe Scott in 1915 who built many of the smaller houses and semis in Chorlton.  And it was here that he and his wife Mary Ann lived for the next 58 years.  In all it has had four owners of which we are the only ones to have had children born here.

I first washed up in the house for a brief stay in 1976 when it was owned by my dear friends, John, Mike and Lois, returning just a few years later when I bought it.

I can’t beat Joe and Mary Ann’s tenure, but I have called it home for fifty years, and even during my short break away it was always home.

To which there are many others over the years who can also have a claim to have passed through, from friends, and family to the childhood mates of my sons some of whom still speak fondly of their time here.

I opened the series in reflective mood asking "Why is it that only the rich and more especially the old, landed rich can talk of holding a great house or estate for posterity?

They tell us as if we should be grateful that they are custodians, not owners and it is their duty to maintain it and hand it on to the next generation. All of which is fine, but theirs is always the family that holds onto it and raises the question of what about the rest of us? Do we not also do the same?

Some might argue that there is no comparison between Blenheim Palace, and a 1930 semi built on the outer reaches of Manchester. Or that a post war council house has anything in common with one of the country’s national treasures. 

Such a grand place with its Adam furniture, Capability Brown landscaped gardens, priceless paintings, steeped in history is unique and therefore ranks well beyond the mass produced, often ugly and in some cases poorly maintained social housing.

But both have histories, both were built for someone to live in, and both were cherished by their inhabitants.

This is a roundabout way of writing about our house. It was built a hundred years ago, has had only four custodians, of which we are the only ones to have had children here. 

More than that this is the only home our eldest three have known and it was where one of them was born. It is also a place where countless friends have come and stayed before moving on, seen Christmas parties, a boat turning event in the back garden, and a succession of decorating fashions.

So, over the next few months I want to tell the story of this one house set against the bigger picture of what was going on here in Chorlton and the national backdrop".

The stories were meant to only last a few months but have run to over 160 stories, and far out ran the one hundred years of the title.

They often picked up on bits found in the house, from fuse boxes, the old copper in the cellar and the mystery of why the Scott’s never installed a kitchen range.  

Most then became an exploration of the changes in our social, economic and political life set against two world wars and that post-war affluence.

During that time, I came close to Joe and Mary Ann and some of the objects.

These included a broken clay pipe found in the garden and maybe dating from the 1840s, and remanets of electrical fixtures.

But things come to an end and my family’s stewardship is no different and so to mangle that wonderful final message from the dolphins in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker series of books “So Long and Thanks for all the stories ….. and the memories …. and all the friends”. 

Bettered perhaps only by "There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story." — Frank Herbert

Location, Beech Road

Pictures; random pictures from the collection of Andrew Simpson and friends

*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=the+story+of+a+house

*So long and Thanks for all the Fish, the fourth book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, Douglas Adams, 1984

Autumn on the Rec ……. and a memory of Mr. Higginbotham from 1894

 

Now, sometimes you just go with two pictures, separated by a century and a bit.

 This is Row Acre being ploughed for possibly the last time by Mr. Higginbotham who farmed the strip of this big field running alongside Cross Road, stretching from Beech Road down to what was the bowling green of the Masonic Hall.

 It is a favourite picture of mine, and one I often repost, and yesterday almost as an echo of Mr. Higginbotham’s ploughing, the Corporation was cutting the grass on the Rec, and in the process left a trail of leaves.

I think it may well have been the last time he ploughed his strip, because within a few years  Row Acre had become the Recreational Ground.

 By which time Row Acre had shrunk from a field which ran from Cross Road down to Acres Road to a parcel of land defined by Cross Road in the east and Wilton Road in the west.

And for the eagled eyed, yes the direction that the two pictures was taken is different.  I took mine from Beech Road, with the Irish Centre in the distance, and Mr. Higgibotham was photographed from somewhere on Cross Road looking towards Beech Road.

 Location; Chorlton

 Pictures; Mr. Higginbotham ploughing Row Acre, 1892, courtesy of Mr. Higginbotham, the Lloyd Collection, and the Rec in 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

 

That mystery house on Beech Road ........

Now number 121 Beech Road vanished a long time ago.

Hunts Croft, circa, 1960s

It was one of our more elegant early 19th century properties which was set back from Beech Road, and went sometime in the 1970s.

For a long time after its demolition the land was left an open space, with the occasional suggestion that it could be a car park, a project which came to nought when the Corporation and the local traders couldn’t agree on a funding package.

There will be a few people who remember it, but sadly I am not one of them, which means it had gone before I arrived in 1976 or like so many things I was just not that observant back then.

Either way, there is little to mark its presence, save an entry in the tithe schedule for 1845, the Rate books and official maps.

If I have this right, it was Hunt Croft House and in 1845 was the residence of Thomas White who rented it from the Lloyd Estate.

With a lot of digging it will be possible to track its history through the 19th century till its demolition. I know that in 1969 it was occupied by a Frances. J Casse, and in 1911 by Mr and Mrs Chester, their five children, and a boarder.

Looking into the garden, circa 1970s

The house had nine rooms with a biggish garden at the front, ending in a tallish stone wall which ran along Beech Road.

Back in the mid 19th century it looked at on fields.  From the rear Mr White could look out on a field and orchard, while from his front windows he could gaze across to Row Acre, which stretched up to High Lane.

But by the 20th century the fields had all gone, and on either side of this fine old house were shops.

Beech Road, circa 1970s

And here I must admit my mistake, because for years I had mistaken Croft House for Joel View which stood a little further down the road and had been built in 1859.

Many will remember Joel View as the property owned by J Johnny, which I assumed had been built much later.

I even compounded the mistake by arguing that the stone tablet which carried the  name of Joel View had been salvaged from Mr White’s former home and been added to J. Johnny’s.

Dating the picture

Now, even then I knew that this was pushing it, because our own historian Thomas Ellwood had written that Joel View was one of the new developments in the township at the end of the 1850s.

All of which goes to show that sometimes when it is easy to ignore the obvious and create an elaborate theory which is built on sand and that is really just a lead in to two pictures of Hunt’s Croft sent to me by Roger Shelley who took them sometime in the 1970s and which had lain in his negative box until yesterday.

The two images compliment an earlier one taken by N. Fife for which I don’t have a date for, but maybe from the 1960s.

That said it might be possible to date Roger’s pictures, from the shop which is up for sale.  This had been Mr Westwell’s fruit and greengrocer shop in 1969, but sometime in the next decade became The Village Wholefood Shop.

Hunt's Croft demolished, circa 1979-early 1980s

It was still trading when I took a picture around 1979, showing the shop and the site which had once been Hunts Croft.

So that is it for now, although I am hoping Roger has more pictures.

Location; Chorlton



Pictures; Hunts Croft circa 1960s, courtesy of N Fife, the Lloyd Collection and again circa 1970s from the collection of Roger Shelley, and after it had been demolished circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

It happened here in Chorlton and also in Didsbury .............. National Baby Week .... July 1917

Just a century ago a crowd assembled on the Rec opposite our house on Beech Road and listened to Mrs Jane Redford, Mr Peach and Miss Place of the Manchester & Salford Day Nurseries speak in support of National Baby Week.

The week long campaign aimed to rouse “a universal determination to prevent the unnecessary wastage of infant life, [focusing on] all the causes which make for the high rate of infant mortality. 

According to statistics 80,000 babies under a year old die every year in the United Kingdom of which 50,000 might have been saved.”*

Now this is all the more remarkable when you consider that we were by that summer in to year three of the Great War.

A war which had already caused thousands of causalities and although the organisers did not know it was about to deliver even more as the British army launched the Third Battle of Ypres, commonly known as Passchendaele which would in its three months result in the deaths of 244,897 British and Commonwealth  soldiers.

The celebration began with processions through Chorlton and Didsbury both led by “a band and numbers of green and white banners.”

The Didsbury procession which was "followed by a meeting addressed by Miss Margaret Ashton and Mr C T Needham M P and others included Red Cross nurses and munition workers."

By contrast the Chorlton march was made up entirely of  “small children with a few mothers and big sisters to look after the babies and large crowds turned out to watch.”

Sadly no photographs have come to light and I have no idea what Mrs Jane Redford or the others said in the Rec on that Saturday afternoon.

But Mrs Redford was an important figure both in Chorlton and the City and her personal papers may still be available.

She had been active for over 30 years serving on various public bodies including the Board of Henshaw’s Blind Asylum and as a Poor Law Guardian for the Chorlton Union where she had campaigned for the provision of trained nurses for workhouse hospitals.

And in 1910 after winning a municipal election here in Chorlton, she became not only our first woman councillor but also the second woman elected to Manchester City Council.

And she spoke on the Rec opposite our house which really was a bit of history which happened here.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Pictures; the Rec circa 1910 from the Lloyd Collection and Mrs Redford, date unknown courtesy of Lawrence Beedle

*Baby Week Opening of the Campaign in Manchester, Manchester Guardian July 2 1917

A shop before its time and a family search abandoned

It was one of those shops which with its quirky concept and interesting objects should have done well on Beech Road.

Take an everyday object past its sell by date and no use to any one and turn it into something different, but I guess it was an idea ahead of the retail trend which now dominates the place.

Now I just assumed that number 19 Beech Road had always had a shop, but not so. Back in 1911 it it was a domestic property the home of Mrs Edith Elizabeth Edwards and her three step sons and Amelia Seel their domestic servant.

I rather think there is a story here which in time with dogged patience I might uncover. Edith was a widow and her husband had died sometime between 1909 and 1911. They were in the house by 1903.

The 1911 census was signed and so I guess filled in by her eldest step son William Pettitt Barrie. And here the mystery begins. The census return declares that Edith had no children.

And yet go back just ten years and there is Edith E Barrie living with her three sons, unmarried sister niece, nephew, a boarder and servant on Stretford Road. She describes herself as a 32 year old widow who was a “Shopkeeper Confectioner Dealer” and her sister as “living on own means.” 

And back another ten and Edith is living with her husband William daughter Elsie and the 36 year old companion Mary A Biggins at 2 Wharf Road, Sale.

It is at this point that you begin to question whether there is something not quite right about crawling over someone’s life and beginning to draw conclusions. And so I won’t.

Perhaps it is enough to draw the more general conclusion that the period was still one where many could die young and be left a widow. Not only did it happen to Edith twice but also to their domestic servant Amelia Seel who at 51 had also lost her husband.

Picture; from the collection of Lawrence Beedle

Summer days in south Manchester No 3 the Chorlton Peace Festival 1984

It is an event I have visited before, but it is well worth another outing.*

It was at the height of the second Cold War when there was a growing feeling that the world was a less safe place.

Relationships between the two super powers had entered a more hostile phase. This was only in part due to the election of hard line politicians in the west and the elevation of equally conservative leaders in the Soviet Union but also to events across the world where the USA and USSR were engaged in a new round of support for proxy governments.

What made it all the more dangerous was that a new generation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems had come on stream just as the Cold War deepened and hardened.

The US cruise missile which was being deployed in Britain and West Germany took just 15 minutes to reach its targets in the USSR while American Pershing missiles and the Russian equivalent took just 4 minutes from launch to detonation over the cities of Europe.

So there we were in the Rec on a hot day listening to music, engaged in some politics but above all just relaxing with friends and family.

And having posted the story someone left a comment who helped organise the event and reminded me that there had been a badge designed for the event, which I have, and decided to update the piece with a picture.

It was a designed by Jim De Santos.

Location; The Rec

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker, and Andrew Simpson

*Dangerous times and peaceful protests, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/03/dangerous-times-and-peaceful-protests.html

Silly things to do on Beech Road ….. greeting the morning

It’s not an original idea, and it’s something I have done before, but when you sit at the same spot every morning, you should always record the scene.

And so, as the mornings have rolled on through August, I have sat with my morning coffee and watched the changing skyline.

They were all taken between 5 and 7 am and I suppose hint at how slow my mornings can be.

From exciting to drab ….  to beautiful and stunning they are the backdrop of another day.

Most have made their way onwards to my kids, sisters and friends with that simple “Morning X”.

Those with long memories may want to suggest I am merely copying that practice of posting a cup of coffee on Facebook which was so prevelent in the early years of that social media platform. 

To which I can only respond ... at least it ain't a cat.

And that is all I have to say.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; morning coffee in August 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

When Marilyn Monroe came to Chorlton

 It's the silly story that unites an actress, a gift shop and our house here in Chorlton.

The actress was Marilyn Monroe, the gift shop was the Flying Machine on Wilbraham Road and the house was on Beech Road.

To be more accurate Marilyn was a cardboard folding cut out of the American actress which l bought on impulse sometime around 1979.

It moved around the house having briefly spent a while on Reeves Road.

The Flying Machine was a wonderful cornucopia of odd things none of which were too expensive but most of them the sort of silly items which made you feel good.

I remember it being very crowded and always smelt of incense.

Ms. Munroe got to know the house, having once sat on an armchair in the front room and then by degree occupied the dinning room and the study before the ravages of time and the family dog consigned her to the cellar and eventually the bin.

Location; Beech Road,

Picture; Ms. Munroe visits Chorlton, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Snaps of Chorlton nu 16 .............. on Beech Road with Mrs England just 52 years ago

Now I can’t be exactly sure of when Mrs England posed on Beech Road for this photograph but it will be sometime before 1974.

And it is a scene I will have missed by just a few years, because while I remember Threshers, the old frontage of Ettchel's and Richardson’s it is the absence of Ivy Court opposite the Rec which fastens the date to sometime before 1974.

Look closely and just beyond the car on the right is the outline of the farmhouse which was demolished to make way for Ivy Court.

There will be plenty of people who still remember Mr and Mrs Riley who lived there in the 1960s and there will even be some who remember being sent for milk from the dairy.

My old friend Marjorie had the regular job of going across the road from the family home on Provis and had more than a few stories of the place.

But the farm stretched back into the 18th century and was farmed from the 1760s by the Renshaw family and later the Bailey’s who were still there at the beginning of the last century.

By the time they left for Park Brow Farm at the bottom of Sandy Lane Beech Road was pretty much as it was in this picture and there was a degree of continuity.

There has always been a news agents on the corner of what is now Beech Road and Chequers, and its companion premises has always been a fish and chip shop.

That said the rest of the parade of shops up to Wilton dates from later in the century while the Thresher frontage was changed sometime after Mason and Burrows departed the building.

So there you have it a little of the history of Beech Road at a time before now, and yes I will conclude with that obvious observation that there ain’t many cars to be seen.

And there I will leave it with just a big thank you to Paul England who allowed me to share another of his family photographs.

Picture; Beech Road sometime before 1974, from the collection of Paul England

When we had a piano shop on Beech Road

Sometimes a picture captures a moment which with hindsight allows you to see that things were just about to change.

 Here is another of those photographs taken by Tom McGrath in the middle 1980s.

I don’t suppose any of us could have realized that as we walked past the old closed up off license that within a couple of years two out of these three shops would be part of the transformation of Beech Road.

For as long as I can remember Muriel and Richard had run the green grocers in the centre of the parade.  On one side had been the off license which had sold bottled beer since the early years of the 20th century, while on the other the shop had been many things, including in the 50s a grocery store and by the time I washed up here was selling pianos.

But all of that was about to change and Tom’s pictures captures that point of change.

The off license which had struggled on into the 1980s became the Italian deli while the piano shop became a cafe before becoming a series of wine bars and growing its extension.

Only Richard and Muriel’s stayed the course, but were about to have a new and very impressive sign put above the door announcing that they were the Purveyors of fine fruit and vegetables, which they were.

But back in the mid 80s such things just didn’t seem to be done in the same way.  If you wanted fruit and veg, then that is where on Beech Road you went.  Just like if you needed paraffin or the odd nail or screw you went to the ironmongers next to Wilkinson’s the butchers.  Everyone knew them and knew what they sold.

Of course within a few years the old council offices had become the Lead Station, the grocers' beside the barbers' had become Primavera and the Wool Shop was to become Truth.

All of which makes Tom’s picture such a wonderful record of the old Beech Road some of us still remember.  And as if on cue as I was standing outside one of the new shops a couple went past telling their friend about “trendy Beech Road.”

What a lot has changed.

Picture, from the collection of Tom McGrath

Looking out on one of our farms from our house on Beech Road

I have always been fascinated by the Bowling Green Farm which stood on what is now the junction of Beech Road and Beaumont Road.

The Bowling Green Farm, date unknown

Part of the reason is simply that we live opposite in the house Joe Scott built who was also responsible for demolishing the farm house sometime in the 1940s.

There is strong evidence that it was there by the 1750s and had a mixed existence.

In the 1840s it was the home of Samuel and Mary Gratrix, who were in their early 70s.  They employed a farm labourer who lived with them.

Mr Gratrix's home and land on the right of the map, 1844

Now that is a little surprising given that they only farmed an acre of land which was located to the south and east of the farm, and consisted of parts of five fields which were a mix of arable, pasture and part of an orchard.

By 1852 the farm had passed into the tenancy of Peter Langford, who a year before had farmed an acre of land by Oswald Field.  The family appear to prosper because just nine years later they have 16 acres and employed two labourers.

And the family remained on the farm until 1909.

With a bit more digging it should be possible to firm up the final date because just two years later the house was home the Mylett family and the connection with the land seems severed.  He was a coal merchant.

Chorlton Row, 1854

I know that Mr and Mrs Mylett had three young children and that their home had six rooms.

And it is that small detail about the house which as ever draws me into the property.

There will be lots more to finds out, but the romantic in me has wandered back into the 1840s, when the Gratrix family had clear views north across the fields to High Lane, south towards Chorlton Brook, and no doubt passed the time of day with whoever was walking down Chorlton Row from Barlow Moor Lane to the village green.

Plan of the farm house, circa 1930s

And there would have been plenty of them, from the itinerant traders in from Manchester with everything you might want, to those wanting to use the blacksmith down by the Wesleyan chapel and of course those wishing to call in at one of the beer shop and pubs.

Samuel Gratrix might well have supplied some of the food eaten by the Holt family who lived just east of his farm in the impressive Beech House which was set in a walled garden.

And I guess will have sold much of his crops at the Manchester markets.

All of which just leaves me to puzzle over the foot print of the house on the old maps which doesn't quite match the plan in the 1930s.

But that is for another time.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; the Bowling Green Farm, date unknown from the collection of Tony Walker, the plan of the farm circa 1930 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Mr Gratrix's fields, 1844, from the OS Lancashire, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/