Hardy, lonely outpost on the edge of the township

Hardy is that bit of Chorlton-cum-Hardy that most people are vague about.  

It stretches east from the village and follows the river up past Hardy Lane and was a lonely outpost on the edge of the township.

Across its land were two farms a small hamlet and a little beyond the grand old house of Barlow Hall and the very large and impressive Barlow Farm.

A large part of Hardy was buried under tons of rubbish and the farm disappeared with the development of UMIST playing fields.

Back in the 1840s Charles Wood farmed 60 acres of meadow and arable land and employed three farm servants.


His home at Hardy Farm was on the edge of the flood plain and while he was safe enough the same was not so of the small collection of cottages which were situated a little further south.

In 1841 there were only two of these cottages left which were owned by Samuel Dean who farmed Barlow Farm and they were occupied by John Marsland John Burgess.

Both men were agricultural labourers and probably worked for Dean on his 300 acres.  John Marsland lived with his wife Mary and three grown up sons, Thomas, James and Charley who were also farm workers and John Burgess lived in the other cottage with his wife and son.

I doubt that they were little more than one up one down properties made of wattle and daub with a thatched roof.  A few of these survived into the late 19th century.  Our two had a garden and either relied on their own well for water or used the one up at Hardy Farm.

Sometime in the early 1850s the cottages were abandoned after the Mersey had flooded, but even before then both families had moved on and out of the township, although Charles Marsland had continued working for the Dean family and now lived at Barlow Farm.

It must have been a pleasant enough spot when the sun shone but remained a lonely remote place much favoured by those indulged in illegal prize fighting, but that as they say is another story.

Pictures; Hardy Farm and the land to the east and south from the 1841 OS map of Lancashire, courtesy of

Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the meadows before the metro link from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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/

Higginbotham's farm and the parish church from the air

This is one of those pictures taken by Tony Walker from one of his own model planes sometime in the 1980s. 

To the right at the bottom are the farm buildings and house of the Higginbotham family who lived here on the green from the 1840s and farmed land across the meadows and what is now the Rec.

By the time the picture was taken the working part of the old farm was used as a building yard by the Walker family.

But it is still possible to get a clear idea of the lay out and the of the farm yard.  It was here in one of the barns that the Methodists held services before the first chapel on the Row was built.

In the same way it is possible to make sense of both the geography of the old parish church and the its graveyard.  The original chapel was built in 1512 and its replacement at the beginning of the 19th century.

There is evidence that the graveyard was extended and the shape of the plot may be the clue to this.

Picture; Higginbotham's farm house and the parish church from the air circa 1982, from the collection of Tony Walker

Red Gates Farm, .......... and one of the lost farm houses

I know more about the farms here in the township during the first 60 years of the 19th century than I do about them in the second half of the last century. True there are far more photographs of the buildings but what really tells you the story of these places are the family documents, the census records and the countless bits of paper which never get kept.

And even photographs rarely capture the feel of a working farm, which is why I like this one of Red Gates Farm. It is another of the pictures kindly lent to me by Carolyn Willits and what makes it all more exciting is that one of the men staring back at us is her Uncle John who worked on the farm for the Wood family.

I guess we are looking at the farm on a Sunday in late summer. It is a quiet enough moment on a working farm. 
John and the other chap are out of their everyday working clothes into something smarter as befitting a day off. To the right of the picture are the farm’s chickens pecking away and even further to the right some farm equipment has been left propped up against the tree.

The picture is actually a postcard and reminds us that travelling photographers would record scenes like this to sell back to the residents as well to commercial postcard companies. In this case Uncle John used the past card to send to

And we can date the picture to sometime before 1906 when the postcard was sent to James and Florence Wood at 78 Manchester Road. James was the son of Thomas Wood who had been farming Red Gates since 1881.

Now it might seem bizarre that Uncle John would send a postcard from Red Gates which was just a few minutes walk from number 78 but that was how they did it then. With frequent collections and deliveries in a day people did really send a card in the morning to arrange to meet in the afternoon.

Ours was sent at 8.30 in the evening to arrive at breakfast time and the message was simple enough “ Another view for your collection taken while harvesting.” And it was to be one of the last.

Thomas Wood the farmer had died in 1902 and sometime in 1913 or ’14 the farm house was demolished to make way for the new library. It says much for the way that Chorlton had changed since Thomas Wood had taken over Red Gates. It had been one of the larger operations at this end of the township and had still employed three farm workers in 1901. But Thomas Wood was the last to farm Red Gates. Already two of his sons had chosen not to follow him. James had become a commercial clerk and John a music teacher.

Their farm house with its seven rooms went the way of many of our farm houses, so it is good that Carolyn’s picture has survived.

Location; Manchester Road at the Library

Picture; Red Gates Farm circa first decade of the 20th century from the collection of Carolyn Willits.

Hardy Farm ............ the picture I have never seen before

Now there are not that many pictures of Hardy Farm and that is a shame.

I included one of the most well known in the book on Chorlton but always cast around for more.*

During the writing of the book I became familiar with some of the farmers who lived there in the 19th century and collected stories from some who knew it from their child hood in the 1940’s and 50’s.

But the memories are fading and it will soon be a full half century since it was swept away for the ill fated UMIST sports scheme.

That said this picture brought back memories for  my friend Marion Jackson who remembers Hardy Farm.

“In my childhood the shed where the cows were milked was to the right. In front was a yard and further back to the right the orchard where the pigs were.

The track went down in front and then through the hawthorn hedges to Jacksons Boat.

I so loved my Sunday visits here with my father in the 40s. This was on his route to work in Sale from Withington by bike. Everything that my beloved father found interesting he showed to me.

This was a special favourite; I guess it reminded him of home in Cork. I used to look at the posh houses in South Drive as we cycled....guess where I lived for a happy 30 years? What a lovely life I have had.”

And that is all I have to say other than a thank you to Marion for sharing her recollections .

Picture; Hardy Farm, 1966, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 9 ....... a legal agreement 1767

A short series featuring objects which tell a story of Chorlton in just a paragrah and a challenge for people to suggest some that are personal to their stories. 

It is one of the most revealing documents in the Bailey family collection and sets out the tenancy agreement between James Renshaw and Samuel Egerton who owned much of Chorlton.   By the contract James Renshaw was to rent “several fields, Closes or Parcels of land, ..... containing four acres,” as well “All that Messuage or Cottages and tenement.”  It laid out the timetable for paying the rent and the Egerton’s rights to any minerals found under the ground as well as all “Timber Trees Woods and Underwoods.”   It was an agreement which lasted into the 20th century with the family continuing to farm the land and live in the same farm house into the first decade of the 20th century. And at the centre of it all was the home which was only demolished in the 1970s.

Picture; from the Bailey family collection

Lydia Brown ……… Chorlton farmer and businesswoman comes out of the shadows ...... after 176 years

I wish there was more to know about Lydia Brown, because back in the middle decades of the 19th century she was a busy woman, here in Chorlton.

Brook Farm, undated

She lived at Brook Farm, and farmed 70 acres of pasture and arable land, stretching along the Brook from the Bowling Green pub almost as far as Barlow Moor Road, and south across the meadows.

She also had portfolio of properties, which included the smithy worked by William Davies on what is now Beech Road, the house and workshop of William Brownhill the wheelwright on Sandy Lane and a number cottages, one of which was occupied by John Axon who had been one of the founder members of our own brass band.

And she was a formidable woman, strong enough in her own knowledge of farming to call down her landlord who was George Lloyd who she spoke of contemptuously as “Squire Lloyd” .

Brook Farm, no. 314 and fields, 1847

This I know because in the summer of 1847 she told the journalist Alexander Somerville that Mr. Lloyd was damaging the land she farmed by his refusal to allow her to cut down a line of ash trees.

These, Alexander Somerville commented were “not only objectionable as all other kinds are in and around cultivated fields but positively poisonous to other vegetation, …… causing much waste of land, waste of fertility, and doing no good whatever.  Squire Lloyd is the landlord.  

Mrs. Brown, a widow, is the tenant.  She keeps the farm in excellent order so far as the landlord’s restrictions will allow.  

But neither herself nor her workmen must 'crop or lop top' a single branch from the deleterious ash trees”.

Now, there is something quite exciting at being able to hear the words of someone who lived in the heart of the township a full 173 years ago,

But there isn’t much else.

Despite trawling the census returns for Chorlton I can not find any reference to her, although tantalizingly there is a Mary Brown, in 1841, who despite the different name fits the profile.
Mary like Lydia was 50 in 1841, both had a son of the same name and both were married to a Johnathan.

Jonathan and Lydia Brown appear in the baptismal records for 1823, 1825, 1828 and ’31.
Jonathan described himself as a publican and according to Ellwood in his History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, he was the tenant at the Horse & Jockey.  Jonathan is in the electoral register for 1832, 1835 and 1840 with freehold buildings at Lane End and on Chorlton Row, which fits with the properties listed as belonging to Lydia from 1844 onwards.***

The gravestone, 2011

And that is about it.  Brook Farm where she lived was on the site of the old dairy, which in turn was redeveloped into a  collection of des res properties on Brookburn Road opposite the school. I do have one picture of the house and know that it had nine rooms.

But we do have her gravestone which is still in the parish churchyard and is in itself a link to Mrs. Brown.

I just wish there was more.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Brook Farm, undated, from the Lloyd Collection, the tithe map showing Brook Farm and some of the land farmed by Mrs. Brown, 1847, and the gravestone of Mrs. Brown, 2011, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Somerville, Alexander, A Pilgrimage in Search of the Potato Blight, Manchester Examiner, June 19th, 1847

**Ellwood, T, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Chapter 23, Inns April 17th 1886, South Manchester Gazette

***Chorlton Row, is now Beech Road

Chorlton farmers ............. Mr and Mrs Bancroft farming at Park Brow from 1841

Now I don’t have a picture of James Bancroft, but given that he was born in 1802 and spent his life at the plough I doubt he would have had the time or the inclination “to sit and be done in oils.”

The gravestone of James and Betty Bancroft

But I know a bit about him and it is enough to take the story of Park Brow Farm into another chapter.

In 1851 he was farming 60 acres of land and living with his wife Elizabeth and their six children in the eight roomed farmhouse on the corner of what is now Sandy Lane and St Werburgh’s Road.

I can’t be sure but I think the family will have moved into the tenancy sometime between 1838 and 1841.

They were originally from Stretford and their last child was born in Stretford in 1838 but three years later they appear on the census return at Park Brow.

And there the family stayed well into the 1880s, by which time James and Elizabeth were dead and the farm was run by their two unmarried daughters.

As Chorlton farms go Park Brow was at the top end of the middling farms.  The very big ones like Barlow Hall Farm at 300 acres and Hough End Hall and Dog House Farm at 240 were big, but there were plenty more that were much smaller and the majority of land holdings were between just 1 to nine acres.

At which point it is worth saying that Hough End Hal and Dog House were actually in Withington not Chorlton.

60 acres  would have made Mr and Mrs Bancroft respectable farmers whose land was split between arable and meadow land.

In 1851 they employed four agricultural labourers of which three lived with them and like the family had all been born in Stretford.

“Living in” was still a common practice in the middle decades of the 19th century and while the labourers got paid less their board, and lodging came free and usually they could expect their clothes to be washed and mended.

Park Brow Farm in 1845

In most cases the agreement lasted for a full year and it was a system which suited both farmer and worker and tended to apply particularly to young employees.

The farmer got the guarantee of a labourer for the year and the farm worker was assured somewhere to stay which was especially important when as was often the case they were still quite young.

So of our three living in labourers in 1851 one was 20, the second 17, and the third just 15 and a decade later the carter Edward Cook and the cowman Isaac Evans were both 17.

Like most of the farms in the township the land belonging to the farm was spread out and so while the Bancroft’s rented land along the north side of what is now Sandy Lane it was interspersed with fields farmed by Thomas Cookson and George Lunt and the rest of the Park Bow fields were off to the south beyond Chorlton Brook.

In time I will go looking for the rest of the family but for now I shall just leave you with that sombre fact that James and Elizabeth’s gravestone in the old parish churchyard survived the developers and can still be seen today.

Location; Park Brow Farm, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, gravestone of James and Elizabeth Bancroft, Chorlton parish church Yard, 2009, and Park Brow 1845 from the Tithe Map from the collections of Andrew Simpson and Philip Lloyd

Working the fields of Chorlton

We have very few working pictures of when we were still a rural community.

And so it is always exciting when one turns up and I get permission to write about it.

This one is in the collection of Carolyn Willitts who has kindly allowed me to use it.

There is no date but looking at the clothes of the chap on the left it might date from the early years of the last century. Now I am researching the machinery in the picture and this might fix the date. We shall see.

One of the men is a relative of Carolyn’s and he worked on Red Gate Farm which was close to the site of the library. There had been a farm here from the 1780s* and I guess much earlier.

By the 1840s the tenant farmer was William Whitelegg who farmed 68 acres of land which stretched out on either side of Manchester Road.

 It was mix of meadow, arable and pasture with an orchard.

He grew wheat and oats, along with potatoes, swedes, turnips, and mangle wurzuls, and raspberries and currants.**

But back to the picture. It is almost impossible to locate but it is just possible that it was between Ryebank Road and Longford Brook. Maps from the 1840s show a line of trees stretching out from Edge Lane.

 By the early years of the 20th century some of these beyond Ryebank Road were still standing and even today there are a few left roughly in the same place. So these may be the line which appear the photograph.

For me it is the detail that is fascinating. The man to the left holds one of those ceramic jars which might have been full of anything from water to beer and even cider. 

And there is no reason to suppose it wasn’t cider. Chorlton had plenty of orchards and there is anecdotal evidence of old cider presses turning up in the township. Most of the apples would have destined for the markets of Manchester but some at least would have been retained for home use.

It is one of only five pictures I have come across of men working the fields here in Chorlton and takes us back to a time now almost out of living memory. And it is all the more remarkable because we know one of the people in the picture.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; working the land, date unknown from the collection of Carolyn Willitts


*Yates map of 1786 shows the farm

** From an advert for the sale of the farm contents of Red Gate Farm, Manchester Examiner & Times, November 3rd 1855, Issue 711, British Library of newspapers

A farm on the green

No matter how many times I look at this picture it always has the power to draw me back in.

The date is uncertain but my old friend Tony Walker suggested sometime in the 1860s but I cannot be sure.

The bowler hats worn by two of the men began appearing in the 1850s so a date just a little later might fix the photograph.

What I do know is that it cannot be any older than the mid 1880s because the familiar lychgate at the entrance to the parish church is missing.

 Now this was erected to celebrate  Queen Victoria's golden jubilee so we are dealing with a scene from sometime in the decades after the mid century.

It is Higginbotham’s farm yard. The family had lived on the green and farmed out towards the Mersey since the 1840s and were still there in the 1960s. It takes me directly back to the period of Chorlton’s history that I am most interested in and has featured in my book.

Here are those usual objects associated with a busy farm and like any working place not as tidy as perhaps it should have been.

To the left is the farm cottage with its distinctive rear porch. To the right the barn which in the early years of the 19th century was one of the sites where the Methodists held their services before building their chapel on the Row.*

Later still it became the work shop for the Walker Brothers who ran a building firm from the site.

There was for many years a stone inscription in the barn recording its part in the history of Methodism in the township but sadly it has been lost.

My second picture dates from the 1970s when the Walker’s still had the yard.

Pictures; Higginbotham’s farm circa 1860 from the collection of Marjorie Holmes, & the same spot circa 1979 from the collection of Tony Walker.


*The Row was later renamed Beech Road

Walking into Stretford along Edge Lane in 1847

Now if I wanted to walk to Stretford from the village in the late spring of 1847 I would have used the old road.

It started at Hardy Lane as a foot path twisted and turned its way following the course of the Brook at one point before skirting the church and green and going off across Turn Moss, under the Duke’s Canal and coming out at the pump opposite the Cock Inn.

It is a road I have written about before* so instead I think I will take Edge Lane which if you were at all of an inquisitive nature would be a better choice, for it offered you a chance of gazing over some fine houses.

So Edge Lane it is, starting at the green with its farmhouses and pubs and then out along the road which took you to the junction with High Lane.

Now I said it gave you a chance to gaze on some fine house but most of these are set back in their own gardens.  This is particularly true of Longford house the home of the Walker family from the early 19th century.

They too are a family who I have written about, Thomas Walker was a Manchester politician, radical and businessman who is buried in the parish church yard, and his son Charles was a noted author.  But there home like its successor Longford Hall was some distance away from the road and not therefore easily visible.

Nor so Edge House home of George and Mary Bannister who farmed 150 acres of land and employed eight men.  Their home was up a long winding lane set in an orchard.

There were of course more humble homes, along the way which were lived in by James Cain, carpenter,James Hodcroft, market gardener and William Barlow florist.

And then there was Peel House, the last before the canal.  I think it dates from after the 1830s, had its own lodge house, orchard and gardens and was the home of Norbury family who included an inspector of houses, a retired cotton merchant and a solicitor’s clerk.

I would have liked to have seen Peel House, and there are photographs but these are the property of Trafford Libraries who guard their copyright.  Had I arrived just a few years earlier in Manchester and I might have seen the building for myself, but it was demolished in 1967.

Like all such walks what you saw depended on when you walked the walk.

So a little earlier in the decade and there would a have been a few meaner cottages, while  just into the next decade and beyond Peel House the home of Thomas Massey who lived by the new railway station and was employed as a railway porter.

Fast forward just another 30 years and this end of Edge Lane would have been dominated by a series of large houses with impressive sounding names like Standish House, Fern Bank, Wansbeck House and Beech House.

But the 1880s and 90s are out of my comfort zone, I as many know prefer to walk the fields and lanes of the township in the years before 1850.

So I shall close with a place that would have been easily accessible both from the old road and Edge Lane and this was Turn Moss Farm. It is mentioned in some of the histories of Stretford, was the subject of plenty of photographs and is remembered by my old friend Alan Brown who worked for the farmer during the last war.  Bu that is a story for another time.

Location; Chorlton, Manchester

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Old%20Road
**http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/childhood-memories-of-war-service-farm.html

Pictures; detail of Edge Lane from the OS map of Lancashire 1841-53, and Hennet’s map of Lancashire 1830 courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and looking across Turn Moss circa 1950s, from the collection of David Bishop

The lost woods of Chorlton …… and a mystery concerning Mrs Lydia Brown and John Holland

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

John Holland's Wood, circa 1900, looking towards Brook Farm

Today the footpath to our left is Brookburn Road which once ran east to Barlow Moor Road and west into the village and then out again to eventually cross Turn Moss to Stretford.

John Holland's Wood, formerly the Cliffs, circa 1900

I can’t be sure exactly when it became known as John Holland’s Wood, but John Holland had taken over the family farm in 1865 on the death of his father. 

The Holland family were farming 54 acres around Chorlton from at least 1841 and their holdings were dotted about the township.

These included a strip of land on Row Acre which was the large field running along Beech Road, a stretch on the northern border beyond the Longford Brook and the delightfully named Back of the World which was located where Chorlton Brook joins the Mersey to the south of the stone bridge.

The Cliffs and Brookburn Farm, 1854

Back then, according to the 1854 OS map the stretch we can see in the picture was more heavily wooded, and was known as the Cliffs, which was rented by Lydia Brown who lived at Brook Farm, and farmed across the township, on land which she owned and land she rented from the Lloyd Estate.  

Added to which she owned the smithy on what is now Beech Road, the property used by the wheelwright, Mr. Brownhill on Sandy Lane and a portfolio of cottages.

We even have a snatch of a conversation she had with the journalist Alexander Somerville who came  to Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the summer of 1847 looking for potato blight, the disease which had ravaged Ireland, and was that summer causing concern in Derbyshire.

He stopped at Brook Farm, and reported his conversation with Mrs. Brown who complained about the ash trees which grew around the fields  “which are not only objectionable as all other kinds are in and around cultivated fields but positively poisonous to other vegetation, and ran through the ground causing much waste of land, waste of fertility, and doing no good whatever.  Squire Lloyd is the landlord.  

Brookburn Farm, circa 1900

Mrs. Brown a widow, is the tenant.  She keeps the farm in excellent order so far as the landlord’s restrictions will allow.  But neither herself nor her workmen must ‘crop or lop top’ a single branch from the deleterious ash trees."

And what is exciting is that we know just which fields she was referring to.  These were Rye Field and New Hey which were plots 317 and 318, and ran beside the woods and today form part of Chorltonville.

Despite not yet finding her on the census record I can track her and her husband across the Rate Books from the 1840s through to the mid 1870s.

The woods and Rye Field, 1845

And here is the mystery, because while Lydia Brown lived at Brook Farm which was roughly on the site of Brookburn School, the Holland family are also recorded at a Brook Farm which was according to the tithe record on the bit of Manchester Road which  for a century and a bit was the Conservative Club.

All of which is compounded by the census records which in 1861 place the Holland farm house  on Brookburn Road.

I will leave it to Eric, and who else cares to attempt an explanation, suggesting only that perhaps Lydia had given up farming by 1861, and was happy to live off the rents from her properties, leaving the Holland family to move closer to the woods which took their name.

Sadly, it is no longer possible to recreate the scene and reproduce an image from roughly the same spot.

The trees have vanished under what is part of Chorltonville and a new residential development which was built on the old dairy.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; John Holland’s Wood, and Brook farm from the Lloyd collection and the Cliffs in 1854 from the 1854 OS map of Lancashire showing a section of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and theTithe map of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1845

Watching the Meadows change ......... June 1965

I wonder just how many people remember this scene?

We are on the Meadows, and according to the caption this was “June 16, 1965, Clearing Water Street Cleansing Department, View of Hardy Depot”.

It is one of the photographs generated by Neil Simpson who “ worked on the Town Hall Photographer's Collection Digitisation Project, in the Central Library, which currently is Volunteer led and Volunteer staffed.

The negatives in the collection are dated from 1956 to 2007 and there are approximately 200,000 negatives to be digitised at three minutes a scan.

This is an image I have never seen before and I am guessing the building must be Hardy Farm.

That said I am puzzled by the bit of the caption referring to Water Street and am not too arrogant to admit to being stumped by it.

I have never come across the name during all my years in Chorlton, or in the research I have done.

So this is one to turn over to anyone who remembers the scene, walked that bit of Hardy Lane or can offer an explanation to the name.

Of course there might be a clue in the buildings in the distance which don't suggest we are looking at where Hardy Lane runs out on to the Meadows.

I wonder whether were instead on Turn Moss with Stretford in the distance.

And that just leaves me to open up the debate, which no sooner had I posted the story and Bill Sumner replied, with,

"I think the view above is taken from the bottom of Bradley Lane next to the water treatment/sewage works. the line of electric pylons is correct and is still there today, but the gas holder is not the one at Gorse Hill Stretford but the one at Dane Road Sale. 

Looking on Old Maps I cannot find a Water St either. The Dane Roadd Gas Holder was built in 1935 on the old sewage works site and was built as an extension to Stretford Gas Co that also supplied Sale and Ashton on Mersey. 

The gas holder in Stretford would have been out of sight to the left of photo. The old cottage would have disappeared because the Stretford Works was enlarged and a row of staff houses built here in the 1960's, probably the reason this photo was taken. Thanks for the new view"

And quick as a flash Neil also responded with "I can answer some of your questions Andrew. 

This image was in a set taken for Manchester Corporation's Cleansing Department, who were based at a huge site on Water Street near MOSI in Manchester. 

They had a Destructor on that site (is an incinerator) and roughly sorted the refuse collected into 'for burning' or 'tipping'.

Some of the refuse for tipping was taken to Hardy Lane Farm as they were using it to 'reclaim' land.

Bill Sumner was quite right in saying that the Gasholder was the one at Dane Road as I worked that out earlier."

And the final word goes to Ann who spotted the obvious, "have just read your comment, think the quotation should read ' Cleaning water, Street Cleansing Dept' Comma missing. Explains why there isn't a Water Street in Chorlton."

Not much more to say than thank you,  Bill, Neil.and Ann

Location; the Meadows

Picture; June 16, 1965, Clearing Water Street Cleansing Department, View of Hardy Depot, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Remembering a lost Chorlton farm from over 88 years ago

Now I am looking at two pictures of Park Brow Farm which was doing the business of growing food from before the start of the 19th century.

And what makes the two pictures all the more remarkable is that I know one of the sons of the last farmer.

He is Oliver Bailey and his family ran the farm from sometime after 1911 and before that had been on Chorlton Row from the 1760s.*

Over the years Oliver has made available a whole heap of family documents from the contract his ancestor signed with the Egerton’s back in the middle of the 18th century to receipts for night soil from the 1850s, house and farm inventories and lots more.

Added to which he was able to describe in some detail the inside of Hough End Hall before it was much knocked about by a succession of developers in the late 1960s.

And his memories have also opened up the story of Park Brow Farm before it too was developed with that small group of houses to the west of the farm house and the barn conversion.

So I shall start with the farm yard and this photograph from 1938.

Oliver tells me that one of the young lads is his brother and the building behind them with the tall chimney was “used for boiling up p food bought from the UCP,” while the two elephants Mr Bailey hosted when the travelling circus arrived were watered from the wooden pump directly in front of the building.

And given that this was the farm yard, the two downstairs rooms of the building to our left were the kitchen and office, with the living room and dining room facing south onto the garden which backed on to Sandy Lane.

Now I could go on but think I will save the rest for another day, which will include more pictures of the front of the farm house, something on the certificates the farm won and a piece of garden furniture which links the farm to the old Assize Courts in town.

Those intrigued by the idea of hosting two elephants can read the story on blog which will also offer up some fine pictures of the Bailey bulls on the land where Adastral House now stands and can summon up in their imagination an image of the young Oliver driving live stock through Chorlton back to Park Brow from the railway station.

All of which just leaves me to ponder on how rural is the scene of the farm house when this picture was taken in the summer of 1940.

Location; Park Brow Farm, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures, the farm yard, 1938, m17381, and the farmhouse looking north, 1940, m17388, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Chorlton Row is now Beech Road

Looking for cows, farm buildings and a milkman on Brookburn Road in 1927

Now I am the first to admit that you would be hard put to fit this wooden door into the history of a farm in Chorlton.

Outside the stables circa 1920s

But this is the stables of Brook Farm which dates back to at least the late 18th century and was still a farm of sorts in the 1920s.

The farm stood on Brookburn Road opposite the school, and the stables was sited on what is now the playground beside the new bit of the school.

I can’t be sure exactly when it was demolished but it may have lingered on into the very early 1970s finally being knocked down to make way for the school which of course means there will be people who remember it.

I missed it by just a handful of years but Peter Mcloughlin has vivid memories of the stables and the farm which for a big chunk of the last two centuries was also a dairy.

Peter’s father worked there for twenty or so years from the early 1920s and as you would expect amassed some fascinating pictures of the place.

I had already been interested in the farm and have begun to track the tenants who ran it from Mrs Lydia Brown who was there in the 1840s, through to the Holland family and Mr and Mrs Cookson who were still there in 1911.

After that the chronology gets a bit hazy but by the 1920s the diary belonged to Mr Charles Boden and later became Dobson’s  before becoming Express Dairies.

At which point we have reached that moment in time when my own sons will be able to talk confidently of the milk yard across from their school.

Letterhead from the 1920s

During its time under the Boden’s the business expanded to include branches in Eccles and Stockport and after the last world war Peter’s father became manager at the Daisy Bank Dairy on Brinnington Road successfully expanded the number of rounds.

This is a bit of the history of the farm I knew nothing about which is all the more remarkable given that it is recent history.

Bits of the farm’s story from the 19th century are fairly easily accessible, so I know how much land Mrs Brown was farming in the 1840s, where it was located and its usage.

Added to that I can track the families who ran the farm for the rest of that century using the census records and street directories and it will be possible to crawl over the old rate books and get an idea of the value of the farm.

I even know that in the October of 1865 Mr Holland reported a case of cattle disease on his farm which
turned out to be “the only case in this division of the county.”*

And we do have the odd photograph of the farmhouse which had nine rooms making it a substantial building.

At Brook Farm, 1920s

But the evidence trail for the period after 1911 is more difficult to find and so Peter’s pictures and memories are important.

At which point I could become pompous and slide into a series of observations of how much of our collective past we let slip away.

But I won’t, instead I shall just thank Peter, promise more stories from his collection and just make the appeal for any more photographs or stories of the farm.

Which just leaves me to offer up a hostage to fortune and ponder on the building in the background of this picture of Peter's dad and Mr Boden at the farm.

I think it is the rear of the Bowling Green which when our photograph was taken was still relatively new having replaced the old one which dated back to the 18th century.

So there I have said it and await the comments.

Pictures; from the collection of Peter McLoughlin

*Manchester Times Saturday October 28, 1865

The story of one family in Chorlton ........... part 4 working at Brook Farm in the summer of 1927

It is easy to forget that just two generations ago we still had a number of independent dairies here in Chorlton and stories of being sent for milk at the farmer’s door is only now passing out of living memory.

Mr McLoughlin outside Brook Farm, 1927

The Bailey’s down at Park Brow Farm, Mr and Mrs Riley on Beech Road in the 1960s and Mrs Lomax at Hough End Hall two decades earlier were part of a local industry which stretched back into our rural past.

By the 20th century the dairies had lost most of their land but go back fifty or so years and most of them were part of bigger operations centered on cereals and market gardens.

And that brings me to Brook Farm which in the 1870s had been the home of the Holland family who farmed 54 acres and employed three men.

It stood on the north side of what is now Brookburn Road opposite the school and dates  from at least the late 18th century.

Brook Farm circa 1900

Back in 1847 the radical journalist Alexander Somerville stopped at Brook Farm and reported his conversation with Lydia Brown the tenant farmer who complained about the ash trees which grew around the fields  “which are not only objectionable as all other kinds are in and around cultivated fields but positively poisonous to other vegetation, and ran through the ground causing much waste of land, waste of fertility, and doing no good whatever.  Squire Lloyd is the landlord.  

Mrs Brown a widow, is the tenant.  She keeps the farm in excellent order so far as the landlord’s restrictions will allow.  But neither herself nor her workmen must ‘crop or lop top’ a single branch from the deleterious ash trees."

It was my old friend Lawrence who came across the orginal newspaper story and set me off researching the farm and more recently I have Peter McLoughlin to thank for offering up a wonderful collection of photographs of his father who worked at the dairy during the 1920s.

The Farm and dairy in 1927

Most of the pictures show Mr McLoughlin at work delivering milk and that makes them unique, because so far there are very few pictures of people at work here in the township and those we have tend to be by professional photographers who included workmen more by accident than design.

Now I can say that because they do not tend to be the subject of the photograph, rarely are caught up close and are never referred to.
But Peter’s pictures are different and they also record those working places which were unlikely to sell as postcards.

So I return to this one which includes part of the farm and dairy in 1927 and in the fullness of time will return with another showing the stables opposite the farm which is now part of Brookburn School.

Pictures; Mr Jim McLoughlin outside Brook Dairy in 1927, courtesy of Peter  McLoughlin  and the farm house circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

A prize for Park Brow Farm in Chorlton

Here is a little bit of our history which often gets over looked.

In 1916 Park Brow Farm was awarded a certificate of Merit at the Manchester Show “in the Competition for supplying Milk daily from Lancashire and Cheshire to Manchester and Salford or anywhere within a mile radius of Manchester Town Hall.”

In an age when a milk float is a rarity it is easy to forget that until very recently milk on the door step before eight in the morning along with a daily paper just how it was.

Of course on very hot days that milk had to be collected quickly and I do remember on occasion how the seal had been pecked by a bird.

And if like me you were born in the first half of the last century the chances are that your milk will have been delivered by horse and cart.

I know full well Mr Bailey who ran Park Brow delivered his by horse and cart as did Mrs Lomax who lived opposite and ran her milk round from Hough End Hall.

And back then the milk arrived in churns and was decanted into a jug. Sadly the stories of being sent to collect the milk direct from the farm are fading from living memory, but my old friend Marjory was full of the tales of being sent. and there were still plenty to choose from when she was young but given that she lived on Provis Road it was just a short trip across to the frm yard opposite

And that is all I am going to say having already in the past explored the demands for municipal milk and the milk boy of Edge Lane.

Location; Park Brow Farm, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures, 1916 certificate, from the collection of Oliver Bailey

Hay making in Chorlton ............ or almost

Now here is an image which could have been so easily taken in Chorlton.

Hay Making in Furness Vale, date unknown

The picture is labelled on the reverse "Haymaking, Furness Vale" but the date and location are not recorded although the buildings in the background look familiar.

Now it is a scene which could so easily have been taken here in Chorlton,.

And given that 56% of the land here was pasture and meadowland and that some of the 40% of arable land was used for growing barley I rather think these men and boys could have so equally stepped off one of our own fields.

Man with pipe and rake

What I like about this picture is the way that George Tomlinson has isolated sections of the image  and  explains the sorts of detail most of us would pass over.

So  "the man in the centre carries a large wooden handled rake. Behind him can be seen the ownership plate on the cart. The name is Charles Saxby of Disley.  Saxby was owner of Furness Vale Printworks".

All of which puts the picture into a context and demonstrates the power of local knowledge to unlock a photograph

But as I often say it is not for me to lift another’s research so to see all of George’s comments you will have to visit the site at http://furnesshistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/haymaking.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+FurnessValeLocalHistorySociety+(FURNESS+VALE+LOCAL+HISTORY+SOCIETY)

And for those in Chorlton who wondered where we are in Furness Vale, David Easton who kindly gave me permission to use the image, says, "The location is probably Lodge Farm in Furness Vale which was owned at the time by Mr. Saxby".

Location; Furnes Vale

Picture; courtesy of the Furness Vale Local History Society

A little bit of the old Assize Courts in a farm house garden in Chorlton

Now this story appeared at the beginning of the year but given the interest in Park Brow Farm it just has to come out again.

Now I have to confess that this picture of Manchester Assize Courts interests me because of  the story behind one of the figures that adorned the roof.

And this is the stone figure which sat in the garden of Park Brow Farm at the bottom of Sandy Lane where it joins St Werburghs Road.

My friend Tony Walker maintained that it came from the old Manchester Assize Courts on Great Ducie Street in Strangeways and looking at pictures of the building the figures do look the same.

It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and finished in 1864.

Sadly this magnificent building did not last a century and after being hit during the blitz of December 1940 and again in ’41 it was demolished in 1957.

Some of the exterior sculptures were designed by Thomas Woolner who was one of the founding members of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, but I rather think our figure was the work of the Irish stonemason firm of O’Shea and Whelan.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy



Picture; The Assize Courts,   from the series Manchester United Kingdom, marketed by Tuck & Sons, 1903, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/ and stone figure from the collection of Tony Walker

The Didsbury mystery …… and “a right pong”

Now I say mystery, but I suspect there will be an avalanche of answers to the simple question, what is it?

The mystery object, 2025

The blog regularly gets requests to search out people, places, and events, as well as being offered pictures and stories, and so I welcomed the message from Dominic Parker who wrote in “Hi Andrew, big fan of your work!  Wondered if you could enlighten as to what this is?

Craigmore Avenue and the Mersey, 2025

It’s in a garden I maintain on Craigmore Avenue West Didsbury.  My own theory is its some sort of ventilation for an old tip or something like that, it kicks off a right pong every now and then”.

Craigmore Avenue is off Princess Road close to where the Mersey does one of its loops and is sited on what was Redbank Farm.

I can’t be exactly sure when the avenue was cut but it will be sometime after 1936.  The OS map for that year shows the farm still there but the 1938-46 version records the presence of the avenue with its houses.

Looking at all the maps going back to 1818 there is no indication of a water course feeding into the Mersey at this spot.

But the City Council conducted widespread controlled tipping which at the time lauded as the new and scientific way was “'controlled tipping'.  Here the rubbish is dumped on low lying land and is spread carefully out and ‘sealed’ by covering with a thick layer of soil. 

Redbank Farm and the Mersey, 1894

Then another layer of waste is put on top, ‘sealed’ and so the land is built up into what becomes in a year or two solid land.  

Just as the clinker obtained from the incineration method is put to good use in road making, the controlled tipping method is usefully applied to filling up waste land, and as you will find on the Mersey Bank at Wythenshawe that a large area of waste land previously liable to floods has been built up by this method into high solid land, grass-grown and suitable for all sorts of purposes, such as playing fields and parks...”

Now just exactly where around Craigmore Avenue the City Council may have undertaken tipping is as yet unclear but with a bit more research and perhaps some anecdotal memories, we may be able to establish if this were so.

I don't think that the Corporation would build on tipped land, and there is no evidence on the maps from the 1930s that the area by Redbank Farm was tipped on, especially given that the farm had existed on that spot from the early 19th if not the late 18th century.

The Mersey and Redbank Farm to the left, 1915

Despite the Mersey’s unpredictable flood record, generations of farmers would bot choose to build and live in a farm so close to the River.

So, it is over to the experts. …. Sorry Dominic.

And just an hour after the story went live we had the suggestion that it was a "Septic tank vent" which has form, but I think all the houses will have been connected to the sewage system, but it will be interesting to hear from local residents.

Location; Close to the Mersey in West Didsbury

Pictures; the mystery object, Dominic Parker, 2025, Craigmore Avenue, 2025, courtesy of Google Maps, Redbank Farm 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archive Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ The Mersey at Red Bank 1915 from the Lloyd collection

*Our City, Manchester 1838-1938, the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild, 1938