Stories of clearance ………… Beswick in 1967

Now, anyone who has grown up in an area zoned for house clearance will instantly recognize this picture.

I can’t be exactly sure where it was taken, but as most of the others around it were from Beswick I think we can be confident that is where we are.

It would be easy enough just to let the picture say it all, but then where would the fun be in that?

I am drawn first to the lamp post and bicycle tyres, which remind me that I also played that game of trying to get tyres on to and over the lamp post.

I never find it that easy, but  both Johnny Cox and Jimmy O’Donnell were experts and judging by these two tyres, who ever played the game back in 1967 was pretty good at it.

After which there was always bag of chips from Dodson’s, which according to the sign was still open, offering tea, fish, chips peas and puddings.

It is remarkable it is still standing particularly as from my experience, the last man standing was either the pub or the betting shop.

I doubt it had long to last, but despite the boarded upstairs windows, there is a car outside and a TV aerial on the roof.

But the writing is on the wall, or to be more accurate in the letter from the Council announcing the date of its demolition.

And if anyone wanted proof, it is there just around the corner, where the gap in the row of terraced houses has exposed the neighbouring property.

Indeed, closer to home, the house next to the chippy has already gone.

But amongst the clearances there were treasures to be found, and found by the most unexpected people.

Just seven years later I met up with a primary school teacher on a course given over to the use of Victorian art in the classroom, and in a break in the programme, she gleefully shared her own experiences of bringing the Victorian in to the school.

This consisted of marching a group of young students out of the school to buildings close by which were being demolished, and armed with hammers and chisels they set about “rescuing” fireplace and bathroom tiles, which went on display.

It was of course a different time and I doubt any such rescue mission would get past the idea stage.

That said I also remember just a decade or so later people in Chorlton were restoring their homes with Victorian and Edwardian fire places and bathrooms which had been  ripped out in the 1950s and 60s, with tiles and cast iron surrounds from clearance areas in the north and east of the city.

Leaving me to reflect on the odd side of those clearance programmes.

Location; Beswick

Picture; Dodson’s lonely chip shop, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

That corner shop in 1969 ……………

Now, leaving aside any poor jokes about that virus and the soft drinks company, there is much in this picture that tells a story of how we lived.

It starts of course with the corner shop, although this one I freely admit is not on a corner.

But these general shops which sold everything from Cornflakes to plasters, heaps of tinned food and toilet roll were once where most of us shopped.

Look closely at the windows and there are plenty of the products we still buy today.

I  can’t be exactly sure where we are, but the poster in the window advertises a Gala at Barmouth Street Baths and Washhouse, which anchors us in the Bradford Beswick area, just a short walk from Grey Mare Lane.

And during the year we lived on Butterworth Street, facing Grey Mare Lane Market, I took myself off one day and took some very poor pictures of the area including the baths, which gives the picture and the story a bit of a personal touch.

More so because I also remember those doors like the one beside the shop which gave access to a common yard.

Nana and Grandad, living in Hope Street in Derby had just such an access door to what had been a common yard with a set of outside lavatories , shared by several houses.

So that is it.  I doubt that by 1972, when we lived on Butterworth Street this row of terraced properties still existed.

But looking at a map today of the area I worked out a rough route from our flat to where the baths had been, which makes for a little bit more personal history.

Location; Bradford, Beswick 

Picture; the shop1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,

https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?

Clearing the lot .............. Manchester .... 1967

We are in east Manchester, with two pictures that perfectly sum up the extent of the house clearance programmes of  the middle decades of the last century.

Windcroft Street, 1967

It is easy to take a hard line against the policy that swept away whole communities, along with their streets, homes and identities.

Friends point to the destruction of properties which with a bit of tender care might have lasted for another fifty or sixty years, pointing out that in many cases what replaced the rows of terraced houses were themselves poorly built and badly planned, with the result that they too have vanished.

But there is no doubting that large numbers of the city’s housing stock was past saving, and what we forget is that the policy of clearance and rebuild had been going since the beginning of the 20th century, with the creation of places like Wythenshawe which  pre-dated the last world war.

Ashford Street, 1967

What I never fully understood was the extent to which the rebuilding plans totally obliterated not only the houses, but patterns of streets which had in many cases existed from the early years of the 19th century.

And for a historian that can be frustrating, because having found a location in the historic record it can prove difficult to even come close to finding it, added to which some of the remaining streets had their names changed.

Still it is a small niggle, when set against the destruction of old and tired housing stock, much of which sat in the shadow of factories, iron works, and circumvented by dirty rivers and neglected canals.

And here I have to own up  to getting confused about the location of some of streets, which Paul Forrest kindly pointed out, "Actually it was Bradford/Lower Openshaw and not Beswick although part of the Beswick Electoral Ward. 

When the planners cleared the area in the mid 60s and later built the concrete monstrosity nicknamed Fort Beswick (now also demolished) the planners mistakenly extended the borders of Beswick as far as Grey Mare Lane. I grew up amongst those same streets shown in the photos".

In my defence they wouldn't let me do Geography O level and as a result I fell back on old street directories.  So thank you Paul.  And I shall close with more from Paul.

Windcroft Street, 1967, well a bit of it

"The districts were all quite close together in this part of Manchester; hence I think the reason for the confusion. Beswick extended from Ancoats (Every St) up Ashton New Road as far as Rowsley St and Ardwick extended up Ashton Old Road as far as Blackthorn St where I was born although even my father recorded my place of birth as Beswick! 

I was baptised at St Jerome Ardwick near Rylance Street which was three streets away. Bradford began after Blackthorn St on Blackrock St and from Rowsley St and went up to the border of Clayton on Ashton New Road, and Lower Openshaw on Wellington St off Ashton Old Road where I remember there was a boundary marker sign between the two districts. 

People probably will think I am a bit of a pedant on this matter but I think it important from a historical perspective and old maps show the districts quite clearly. Ashford St may have been in Beswick as I don’t recognise the name after 50+ years, but Windcroft St was in Bradford.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Clearing the lot, 1967,  "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

In celebration of the Co-op …… Beswick Co-operative Society ….. and its store in Longsight

Now, the Beswick Co-operative Society knew how to build shops.

This is their Longsight store, which was opened in 1912, with later alterations.  

It is according to Historic England “Red brick with liberal dressings of green and buff glazed terracotta, red tiled roof with geometrical patterned band and cockscomb ridge tiles. Rectangular plan. 

Edwardian Baroque style. 

Two storeys and attic, 11 bays; projected ground floor with dark green Ionic pilasters between the shops and a central recessed porch with dark green surround, light green Ionic columns and segmental open pediment”.*

There is more, but it gets quite technical and anyway Andy’s pictures say it all.

So I shall say that the society was registered “on 4 June 1892. Its central premises were at 30 Aston New Road, Manchester. Its first president was Arthur Cuss and its manager was a John Dobson. Its first branch was opened on 25 January 1894 at the corner of Mill Street and Carruthers Street in Ancoats, Manchester.

By 1905 its central premises were listed as Rowsley Street, Manchester and it had 5,700 members. It had branches in Manchester, Ancoats, Ardwick, Bradford, Openshaw and a bakery, warehouse and stables Beswick. It traded in grocery, drapery, hardware, shoes and boots, butchering, furnishing, tailoring, coal, flour, baking and dressmaking.

By 1951 the society had 36,047 members and had its central premises at Grey Mare Lane, Manchester. 

It had added branches in Burnage, Clayton, Denton, Didsbury, Gorton, Levenshulme, Longsight, Rusholme and Withington. 

It had expanded trade into millinery, jewellery, ironmongery and tobacco. It also produced dairy goods, offered shoe repairing services and had business in meat preparation.

The society became a part of the Co-operative Retail Services in 1959.

Sources: The Co-operative Union directories, and the published history by AE Worswick, "History of the Beswick Co-operative Society Limited from 1892-1907.

Many of the records of the society, can be viewed by previous arrangement, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm. Contact the Archivist at: National Co-operative Archive, Co-operative College, Holyoake House, Hanover Street, Manchester, M60 0AS,archive@co-op.ac.uk www.archive.coop”**

And that pretty much is that.

Other than to say in an age when supermarkets are pretty much just steel and glass boxes which could be anything from a warehouse to a modern railway station, the Longsight store is distinctive and is a celebration of the principle of co-operation which did much to improve the lives of working people in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Location; Longsight

Pictures; the Beswick Co-operative Society, Longsight, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

* NORTH ROAD, Longsight 698-1/5/733 (East side), Historic England, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1271454

**Beswick Co-operative Society Jisc Archive Hub, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/f2e8292a-178b-3996-b98b-07fd82464939