That vanished road in Chorlton ……… 1907 - 1937 RIP

I won’t be the only one in Chorlton who is fascinated by the lost roads of Chorlton.

Some just changed their name, but others have vanished completely.

And one of those is Cardiff Road which was off Longford Road. 

Cardiff Road, 1937

It consisted of 12 two up two down properties and dates from sometime after 1901 and had but a short life.

So, while it doesn’t appear on the 1901 census, it is on a street directory two years later and crops up on various historical records until 1939.

It is a place I have written about but never really dug deep into its story.

But today I have redressed that omission, mainly because of a press cutting sent over by Chris Geliher who added "Hi Andrew. Came upon this clipping from the M/c City News 16/7/37. Thought you might be interested on the off chance that you haven't already seen it”.

Cardiff Road, 1907

And of course, I was very interested because it offered up the first clue as to why Cardiff Road had been expunged from the record.

According to the Manchester City News the Corporation had approved the “recommendation to demolish nos. 2-18 , inclusive Cardiff-road, Chorlton, as being unfit for human habitation”, adding that Dr Veitch Clarke, the Medical Officer of Health for the City Council had pointed out that the houses were “not capable at a reasonable expense of being rendered fit” to live in.*

Now I would dearly like to know who had built the properties and who rented them out, if only to search for similar “rundown” houses that the landlord was responsible for in Chorlton.  Alas the Rate Books that can be accessed online stop in 1900, and there appears at present no other reference to ownership in the historic records.

But looking at the census return for 1911 there is much to shudder at, not least because some of the properties were incredibly overcrowded.

At number 20 Annie Elizabeth Wilson shared the house with her eight children ranging in age from 20 down to 5, while at 24, Mr. Devine and his wife lived with four children, a nephew, a sister in law and two lodgers.

Cardiff Road, 2015

Nor are these two houses the exception.   At number 2, Jane Fitzgerald lived with her two children and a lodger, and at 12 there were a total of seven people.

Perhaps most shocking is the census return for number 8 which revealed two families inhabiting the one house, consisting of one family of six and another of 4.

At present there is no way of knowing just how poorly built the properties were, but their very short life suggests that they were not the best in the housing stock of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Indeed, they back onto our own brick works which might offer up a possible landlord.

A decade on in 1921 there was still evidence of overcrowding in almost all of the four roomed houses and severe overcrowding in two.  

Cardiff Road, 1911

What is in interesting from both the 1911 and 1921 census returns is that few of the inhabitants were linked to the brick trade, and only one man in 1921 was directly employed at the brick works and he described himself as unemployed.  

Others worked for the grocery chain Twfords in Chorlton, two were employed by Manchester Corporation, one was a carter, and another was a warehouseman for J. R. Smith on Ducie Street in town.

All of which leaves me with that opening sentence from the newspaper report which proclaimed “Chorlton often described as Manchester’s most select residential suburb has come under the slum clearance activities for the authorities”.

So despite the detractors who shout that Chorlton has become a “twee place” to live, there were those who thought it so over eighty years ago.  Didsbury please take note.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; A Chorlton “Slum” 9 Dwelling Houses to be Demolished, Manchester City News, July 16th, 1937, courtesy of Chris Geliher, Cardiff Road, 1907 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1907, and in 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson

*A Chorlton “Slum” 9 Dwelling Houses to be Demolished, Manchester City News, July 16th, 1937

The brick works, a forbidden place and a man called Duffy

It was one of those perfect summer days out beyond Hardy Farm.

The sun was hot and the sky a brilliant blue with just a few light clouds high up and overhead. And we were on a mission.

I forget now what had prompted us to be there and very quickly whatever it was had been  lost in the sheer pleasure of wandering through the long grass with absolutely no one else around.  There was that intense smell of the warm grass, the sound of a bird and away over the Mersey the faint noise of traffic.

We have all done it, and it’s like being seven again and on one of those carefree adventures with nothing to worry about and everything to discover.

Now I have done my own share.  I remember long solitary walks along Derbyshire country lanes and endless treks looking for new strange parks to play in or just taking my 2/6d pocket money to the local railway station and seeing where it would take us.  Sometimes you struck gold and were rewarded with open fields at the end of the line and at others a dingy industrial wasteland hard by a smelly canal.

The best was the walk to Blackheath which led on to the park and the river.  But there were also the bomb sites those lingering ugly reminders of the war we had been lucky enough to miss.  There was no danger there any more although just occasionally you might come across some hidden treasure which had somehow worked its way back to the surface.

David O’Reilly who grew up on Chorlton has similar fond memories.  In his case it was “the Clay Pits” which was
“situated to the immediate east of Longford Park, just the other side of the interrupted Rye Bank Road - it was a series of mounds and gulleys, the left over from previous workings of the old brick works factory with its tall chimney.  

It was a forbidden play place and it was guarded by an almost mythical man named "Duffy"! With another 9 year old boy, I recall daring ourselves to go into this derelict building one day and even crawling under the tunnel - through rubble to a place where I could look up inside the chimney and see the small hole of daylight at the top. 

On re emerging we continued to play until - that knowledge of being watched - made its presence felt - and we looked around to see a man who I think was called Duffy staring at us, stood on a small wall about 12 yards away. Scared witless we fled the scene, and although not chased, the memory of Duffy, the clay pits, and the old building, has played a part in several nightmares since that day!”

I have to say that when I first came across the brick works I was surprised.

But the clay and marl around the Longford Road area has been used for centuries.

The marl was used for spreading on the land while the clay became the bricks of some of our older houses .*

The pits are there on the OS map of the area for 1841 and carry names like Marl Pits and Brick Kiln Pits.  And as late the 1920s and 30’s the water filled pits proved a fatal place for some of our children.

But I want to end on a lighter note.  David and I may have been aware of the dangers in where we played but it didn’t stop us. In those long ago days parental supervision was perhaps  lighter and there may have been far more open spaces to while away the long hot summers.

Location; Chorlton, Manchester

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Chorlton’s own brick works Part Two ......... a lost road and several tragedies

The development of a brick works in Chorlton by The Chorlton Land and Building Company is an interesting insight in to the way the township developed.

 It made sense to develop the clay pits for the growing building boom in the area and I guess many of the internal walls of our houses are made from their brick. The Egerton and Lloyd estates who owned most of the land in Chorlton were keen to prevent industrial development. Chorlton was too valuable as a residential area to be having the smoke stacks of factories dominate the landscape.

The brick works had a short life but there is still some evidence of its presence. I am told that it is still possible to dig up the odd brick on the site and the tall chimney of the works was still standing in 1959.

On a more tragic note, throughout the 1920s and 30’s newspapers reported the deaths of young children who had fallen into to the water filled pits and drowned.

The works attracted labour from outside the township. Ernest Stubbs was born in 1879 in Kendal. Sometime around 1901 aged just 22 he had made his way here to Chorlton and was living with the Hartington family. 

 There was also Joseph Hartley who had been born in Wakefield across the Pennines in 1844 and his wife in Rochdale.

Ernest later moved in to a tiny row of terraced houses off Longford Road in Cardiff Road. In 1909 there were eleven houses on the road and four of the householders were connected with bricks. Two were brick makers and two brick layers. Cardiff Road had a short life. It was built sometime after 1903 and may have been demolished by the 1940s. There is however a tantalising clue to its exact location. At the top of Longford Road there is the entrance to St John’s playing fields. The slight curve of the road matches that from the OS Map of 1907. More research will need to be done to date the demolition of Cardiff Road and there may still be people who either remember it or may even have lived there.

And Tony Heslop has added, "I remember the clay pits being filled in around 1961.at that time we lived on Newport Road, my brother and I went to watch the bulldozers in operation, and both lost our whit week shoes in the deep mud. The factory chimney was still standing then".

Location; Chorlton, London

Map; Longford Road, the brickworks, and the lost Cardiff Road, from the 1907 OS map of Chorlton

Chorlton's own brick works Part One

Not a lot of people know about the Chorlton brick works.

 After all it had a short life less than 40 years.

It was concentrated around the Oswald Road and Longford Road axis and was a continuation of the practice of extracting marl for farming and clay for brick making which went back to at least the early 17th century.

At the turn of the 19th century The Chorlton Land & Building Company Ltd was given permission to use the land. No doubt a reflection of the need to bricks for the new housing boom here in Chorlton which had been in full swing since the 1880s.

The Chorlton Land & Building Company reserved the rights to “Mines & Minerals” which was an important consideration because the clay pits for brick making were on Oswald Road. There were marl pits just behind where the library is now in 1841 and Brick Kiln Pits roughly where Longford runs into Oswald Road. In 1907 this had developed into a largest brick works behind the houses on Longford and Chepstow. St John’s School sits on what looks like the works buildings, while the clay pits seem to be where the playing fields are now.

It remains the only industrial development in the township and was given only a limited period to exploit the land. Neither of the two large landowners who had controlled the area since the late 18th century wanted to see industrial development preferring to maintain the old township as a place for residential settlement.

Location; Chorlton, Manchester

Picture; Brick works, corner of Longford Road and Manchester Road, A H Downes, 1958, m18034 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council. http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

When did our brick works close?

I am on another of my quests and this time it is to gather up memories of the Chorlton Brick Works.*

It was here from the beginning of the last century and was supposed to have just a short life.

The Egerton’s who owned most of the land in the township had been keen to prevent any industrial development harming the prospects of selling off their estate for surburban housing.  After all most of the new people who settled here from the 1880s were attracted by the fact that we were just 10 minutes by train from the city centre but on the edge of the countryside and were not over keen to have huge brick works blotting the landscape.

But given that the Egerton’s would have got a good deal from the Chorlton Land & Building Company Ltd I suspect that they were happy to see the blot on the landscape for a short time.  The question is just how long did that blot exist for?

It was certainly still there in 1922 when the owner Joseph Jackson went into partnership with another brick manufacturer but may not have survived into the 1930s.

There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that it had closed before the last world war but Philip Lloyd remembers “seeing the line of aerial buckets moving across, when I was at the library end of Longford Road”  and its opening may have been connected with the war.

German air raids damaged many properties and while in most cases the bricks could be salvaged this was not the case with many of the roof tiles, so it seems logical that  the works reopened.

All of which has set me off on that new quest to find out more about the brick works in the 1940s and hence the appeal to anyone who remembers like Philip seeing the buckets swaying across the sky line.

Those memories must be out there because as the photograph above shows, the chimney of the works was still standing in 1958.  And my old chum David has already posted his wonderful stories of playing amongst the disused bricks as a lad.

And no sooner had I posted the story than Peter Thompson added that
"Just had a coversation with my friend Bill Goodehall (84) who was born on Nicolas Road. He remembers the brickworks as being fully intact on Coronation day 1953. Although he can't remember if it was still operational."

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20Brick%20Works

Pictures; detail from the 1907 OS map, Brick works, corner of Longford Road and Manchester Road, A H Downes, 1958, m18034 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council.

The mystery of Cardiff Road in Chorlton

I wonder if there is any one left who lived in Cardiff Road in Chorlton.

In 1907

It was a small road of just eleven houses and I guess it owed its existence to our brick works which stretched along Longford Road.

The brick works opened at the beginning of the 20th century and Cardiff Road with its 11 houses  dates from just sometime between 1903 and 1907.

Four of the householders were connected with bricks. Two were brick makers and two brick layers.

In 2015

Today all that is left marking the road and its houses are these gates which Andy Robertson photographed this week.

Now I have never bothered to find out when they were demolished.

They were still there in the 1930s and probably went when the brick works were demolished which was sometime in the 1970s.

Already a decade earlier the works had been closed and attracted local lads drawn by the  opportunities to explore the derelict buildings and of course because they were a place of secrets.

In time I will track down the directories and work my through the pages from 1933 year by year until I discover when they were demolished.

Although the directories only go up to 1969 and I have a feeling the houses might have gone in the 70s, so we shall have to wait for someone to come forward.

And today a day after I reposted the story it has taken a turn with Stephen writing in to say that, "talking to a neighbour who lives opposite there and she says the photograph isn't where the road was. There's another curb a little further along where Cardiff Road actually started."

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, entrance to Cardiff Road, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and detail of Cardiff and Longford Roads from the 1907 OS for Manchester

Looking for lost pictures of Chorlton and memories of Cardiff Road

Longford Road,, and that lost Cardiff Road, 2015

Now as pictures go it is not the most promising of images, but it offers a story.

That said if you want to know about the lost road which once stood beyond the gates you will have to follow the link.*

Instead I want  to ask for photographs of Longford Road including the field currently owned by the MMU.

And before any resident worries that this is part of a development bid rest assured it is just the start I hope of a series of stories about this end of Chorlton, and in particular the brick works which has featured on the blog and which still stirs the memory of those now in their 60s. who once played amongst the old kiln and ran at the first sight of  "Duffy."

Picture, entrance to Cardiff Road, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Chorlton's industrial history, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%27s%20industrial%20history