Looking for the story of Graeme House and that Chorlton Shopping Precinct

Graeme House and Safeway, 1971

We don’t do recent history very well.

I guess it is simply because we take it for granted and don’t even see it as history.

Added to which it is sometimes quite difficult to track down the story.

So when I washed up in Chorlton in the mid 1970s the shopping precinct, Graeme House and that car park were a done deal, but only just.

They had replaced a set of houses and cut Manchester Road in two leaving just two properties as witness to what had once been.

Shops to let, 1971

You can find a few people who remember those houses and one of my friends attended a private school on that lost stretch of Manchester Road, but the memories are fading.

And to date I have found just a handful of photographs recording the demolished houses which ran along Wilbraham Road, Manchester Road, and Barlow Moor Road.

Part of the problem is that such developments don’t warrant being recorded in history books, so Mr Lloyd’s two books skip over the building of the precinct and the book written by Cliff Hayes has just a picture.*

From the Guardian, 1973

Of course the planning applications along with the deliberations of the Planning Committee should still be available but having crawled over the documents relating to the development of Hough End Hall a little earlier this can be long tedious and sometimes unrewarding.

All of which just leaves the local newspapers which will have recorded the events.

Graeme House and car park, 1973

And that has so far thrown up an advert for the remaining offices to still to be let in 1971 and a few photographs of Graeme House and the precinct.

Sadly I am no nearer to knowing why it was called Graeme House.

Intriguingly I did come across Graeme Shankand who was a planning consultant and architect who worked on projects in the North West.

It is a tenuous link but in the process did introduce me to a very interesting architect, who played an important part in founding the William Morris Society.

The precinct, 1973

But that as they say is for another time.

So for now I shall close with the memory of shopping in Safeway not long after it had opened in the precinct.

It was bright, busy and at the time the biggest supermarket in Chorlton, and for a while continued to operate after its bigger store had opened by the old railway station.

Now that should have been the end but to reaffirm that simple observation that history is messy, only hours after I posted the story Ste Passant suggested that the office block may have been named after Henry John Greame Lloyd who cropped up on a legal document.

Now I rather think that he was part of the Lloyd family that owned a large part of Chorlton coming from the same area and leaving £151,021 10s on his death in 1919.

All of which just leaves me to go off and search the records.

Pictures; the Shopping Precinct and Graeme House, H.Milligan, 1971, m17408, m19763, m17832, m17405 and Graeme House, The Guardian, October 22, 1973, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1972,  Looking Back at Chorlton-cum-Hardy, John M Lloyd, 1985, CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, Cliff Hayes, 1999

** Graeme Shankand, John Kay, http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/W84-85.6.2.Kay.pdf

*** Buldoze and be damned, Terence Bendixson, the Guardian January 8 1969

Lament for that Chorlton coffee shop ………

So farewell Costa Coffee,

I knew you only a little

But this is how I remember you.

Full of coffee customers,

Drinking a bewildering range of beverages,

With the option of taking in the sun

And watching Chorlton pass by

At a table on the highway.

But now you are closed.

And gone as surely

As that dry cleaning place that preceded you.

The new gigantic plan which has eliminated 

Half a century of retail adventures

For a residential estate with just a few shops

Has met with mixed responses.

I wonder if you will return or cede your place to Café Nero

And all the small independent coffee emporiums

When that grand plan with its high rise

Offer of life in the sky is fulfilled?

I discovered your absence only today,

On a coolish grey day when the sun failed to arrive.

All of which seems appropriate 

With your empty premise

Occupied by just a mystery shovel

And the customer waiting for you to open.

P.S. Your detractors will no doubt

Revel in your demise.

But I wonder if their celebrations will

Extend to a double latte in Cafe Nero

Or a bacon butty in one of the independents? 

We shall see.

Location; Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; Costa Coffee, 2023-2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When a heap of Chorlton’s history arrives on the doorstep …. thank you Dave King

Now, I am always on the lookout for new stories about our past.

A bit of Manchester's heritage, 1974

Sometimes they come out of diligent research from dusty archives and sometimes through the generosity of people who like me collect stuff.

Over the years it has been everything from photographs, letters and diaries, as well as stories handed down through families.

And yesterday Dave King dropped off a wonderful portfolio of maps pictures and other things.

Dave like me loves maps and here in the portfolio were a selection of OS maps from the 1950s and 1970s with a few from the turn of the last century.

Most relate to Chorlton, with a sideways look at Whalley Range, Firswood, Stretford and Wythenshawe.

Along with these were presentation folders from the Manchester Evening News and the City Council on some of the historic landmarks in the city.  They date from 1974 and ’75 and include some fine line drawings of buildings, which in the case of the Shambles in its Arndale setting and Albert Square have themselves become history.

Beech Road before our house, 1908

But it is the maps that have drawn me in, particularly those dating to the 1970s which fill a gap in my collection.

And as you do, I first turned to Beech Road which confirmed what I thought that the bowling green on the Rec was still there in 1974, while I can now date the former police station in the old tram terminus on Barlow Moor Road to 1955.

From there it was just a skip and a hop to the site of the now doomed Chorlton Precinct and the row of semidetached properties which occupied the spot.

In 1955 those that ran along Manchester Road and Barlow Moor Road were set in large gardens, and three were designated as “surgeries”, while what is at present the service way into the rear of the precinct from the car park was originally a road running off Manchester Road and connecting with that passageway between Yara and Costa Coffee.

Before the Precinct, 1955

This last revelation my not be in the same league as the discovery of the lost resting place of King Richard III, or the Cabinet Papers for the Miner’s Strike, but they are a little bit of our history.

And if nothing else offer up an insight into how the developers back in the early 1970s used the existing road network in the creation of the Precinct.

Leaving me just to dig out the OS map for 1974 with its detail of the Precinct’s footprint ready for when it demolition and replacement makes it just another bit of our past.

Location; Chorlton and Manchester

Pictures; detail of the OS map for Manchester and Salford, 1908 and 1955 and the cover of Make the Most of Manchester’s Heritage, Manchester Evening News, 1974, from the collection of Dave King 

There are always opportunities ……

 So, avoiding the controversy of the merits of the now closed Precinct along with the plans for its replacement, there is that much used observation that out of an ending comes opportunities.

And now that the builder’s boards have gone up in preparation for the demolition of the site Chorlton Traders have adopted some of the panels to advertise the presence of our local retailers.

It isn’t a new idea.  A decade and more ago Simpson and Topping used the panels around The MCarthy Stone development to tell the story of Chorlton from the early 16th century to the present day.  

It spanned 80 meters of the site and used 16 large panels and was designed as a walk stating at the village green and ending at the corner of Albany and Brantingham Roads.

And like all good ideas it quickly became a popular venue which became known as the History Wall.

Simpson and Topping replicated the project again on High Lane and currently have an installation at the former Chorlton Swimming Baths.

Back at the Precinct site the developers have given over space to Chorlton Arts Festival to display a range of material for later in the year.

Not bad really.

Location: Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; Opportunities, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lost Chorlton ……..it’s all in the ground ……

You would have to have been born before the mid 60s to remember the stretch of houses on Barlow Moor Road which were demolished to build the eastern side of the now closed Chorlton Precinct.

Wilbraham Road, circa 1911

They date from 1896 and had gone by the early 1970s if not the late 60s.

In 1911 around the time the photograph was taken the street directory lists the occupants as “Shaw Chas. & Sons, motor enginrs”, at number 42, with “Webster Thomas Frederick, Webster Misses M. & B. dress mas, and Jones Charles E. photographer”, next door and “Fugistall Charles, confectioner” at 46.

Nothing much remarkable in that given that Chorlton had been growing a pace since the housing boom which had started in the 1880s.

But the entry relating to Charles Shaw is interesting because just eight years earlier he is listed as “Shaw Charles and sons cycle dealers and agents” and hints at a man who saw an opportunity with the coming of the motor car.

So much so that by 1912 he had opened a purpose-built garage on Barlow Moor Road with a petrol pump beside the road.

And equally innovative was the presence of Mr. Fugistall at 44 Wilbraham Road who was selling that other wonder of the age providing people with a “true likeness of themselves” in the form of a photograph.

A hole in the ground, 2024

It’s all a bit of our history that has long been forgotten, but on Saturday I was down by that very spot peering into a hole in the ground.

Odd bits, 2024

As ever there wasn’t much to see and what ever was being done extended into the old Precinct, but as ever it was the pile of stuff excavated from the said hole in the ground, including what looked like a bit of water main, a variety of bricks some older looking than others and a lump of stone.

And I rather think some of those buried bits will be all that are left of numbers 42 through to 46 Wilbraham Road.  They had a short existence, but long enough to be remembered by some.

I have set my friend Anthony the task of looking through his extensive collection of street directories to track the names of people who lived in the properties from the 1920s into the 1960s.

All of which will add to our knowledge of this short strip of Wilbraham Road.

"Is it really history?" I hear Eric mutter and yes it is …. just not the stuff of war, disasters or the tales of the good and the great.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures; Wilbraham Road circa 1911 from the Lloyd Collection and in 2024 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Endings ………

Just because the Precinct has closed and awaits its demolition doesn’t mean it can’t still make statement.

Today to be fair it cuts a sad picture ......... a tad more ghost than retail buzz, but there are plenty who remember it in its heyday.

And already pictures are circulating across social media which were taken in the decade after it opened.

Most are “snaps” but they capture the place and each photograph will have a wealth of stories sitting behind them.

Leaving me to hope that over the next month people will come forward with their own tales of the place, which will include working there, or shopping there.

My memories include the wall paper and paint shop, Safeways, Iceland and Tony Adam's whose fruit and veg shop supplied us with fine Christmas trees for nearly forty years.

These will blend with those stories which arose from the project earlier this year which asked people what they remembered about the Precinct.

It is after all a bit of our history that occupied the space for half a century.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; the Precinct, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Chorlton land marks ….. catch 'em while you can

So, this is the story which is light on detail but does have the pictures.

The side of the cinema no one looked at, 2024

The cinema opened in 1920, had several names and was arguably the biggest and most impressive of the five Chorlton cinemas which have offered a heap of film experiences from Tom Mix to Towering Inferno.

All closed up and nothing left to sell, 2024

If you can remember saying you were going to the “flicks”, faced the dilemma of whether to go for a Kiora or a choc ice and on occasion opened the fire doors for your friends, then the golden age of the cinema was yours.

The Precinct came along fifty or so years later, and in its hey day provided a selection of retail possibilities from a coffee to a roll of wood chip, lots of frozen food, suntan lotion and a copy of the Stretford Journal.

Sadly some landmarks have gone, and those sipping their lattes outside the former Woolworths can only mourn its passing with its Ladybird clothes, Pick and Mix selections and from the 1950s those distinctive round vanilla ice cream in the their tub shaped wafer cones.

Location; Chorlton

At least the car park has survived .... for a while, 2024

Waiting for customers, 2024

Closure, 2024

Pictures; Chorlton landmarks, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

That bit of art down by our Precinct ......

It may yet be saved but I doubt it, and so this murial on the outside wall of the doomed shopping centre will soon be gone.

There will be some who judged it and found it not to their taste, but I liked it, and often wondered who the artist was and who commissioned it.

And I recently reflected that someone should record it before it becomes broken rubble destined for hardcore on some motorway development.

All of which is a lead into Peter Topping’s photos. He took up the invitation and snapped the murial earlier in the week, along with the closed and shuttered former retail outlets.

I suppose it is the way of things that street art has a short life.  I remember two pieces by the artist David Vaughan.*  

One was on the side of the railway viaduct behind the replica Roman fort in Castlefield, and the other was on the gable end of what was once a butcher’s shop on Egerton Street in Ashton Under Lyne.

The first was of a group of Roman soldiers on the march and fitted with the Roman fort, while the Egerton Street painting was of a smiling image of the old Queen and painted for a street party held in the Jubilee year of 1977.

Sadly, both are gone, the first after a slow flaky decline was obliterated sometime in the early 2000s, and the Queen just vanished.

So that just leaves me with Peter’s paintings of the happy murial and yes I used the word murial …… which of course only makes sense if you knew Hilda Ogden.

And raises the question of what has happened to the wooden sculptures in memory of Harry Goodwin the Celebrity photographer who was born in from Chorlton.

He died in 2013 and the two pieces were installed in his memory on the corner of the Precinct close to the car park entrance.

Answers to the blog on the Chorlton history site.

Location; Chorlton Precinct

Pictures; art and the doomed Precinct, 2024, from the collection of Peter Topping and Roman soldiers, Beaufort Street in Castlefield from David Vaughan, undated

*David Vaughan, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=david+Vaughan

**Celebrity photographer Harry Goodwin dies aged 89, Chorlton-born Harry was well-known as the resident photographer on the BBC's Top Of The Pops, Paul Britton Reporter. MEN, September 24th 2013,  https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/celebrity-photographer-harry-goodwin-chorlton-6085656

Goodbye and thanks for all the shopping …….

There will continue to be pictures of the former Chorlton Precinct, long after Doris’s demolition team have cleared away half a century of shopping units, and that slab of an office building.

All of which will be followed by images of holes in the ground and the eventual rise of the paradise of houses, apartments, and retail opportunities.

And being a bit of lad with an eye to the moment, Peter Topping, painter, and author popped down to the Precinct and chose to photograph what is the end game of that place.

My favourite is the shot from the car park with its message of "all closed up and over".

Like him I was puzzled by the tall battery-operated floodlit lamps, but I suppose they will illuminate the place at night long after the electricity has been turned off and the canopy lights are extinguished.

The last reminds me of the street art which adorned the Barlow Moor Road side, which deserve to be properly recorded before they end up broken in bits and deposited as building spoil in a landfill site or as hardcore on a future motorway.

And I stand corrected because Maria Bernadette has posted "That’s not a light system it’s an alarm system anyone goes in there it’ll go off. 

We found that out while stripping the shop you can’t go on the roof until you’ve rang the security to turn it off". 

Location; Precinct

Pictures; Goodbye, 2024, courtesy of Peter Topping

Knocking down Chorlton Precinct ….. when the men come

I have seen some fine pictures of the Precinct since the developers called time.

All so far have concentrated on the main avenue, once home to Frosty’s, Boots, Tony Adam’s and heaps more shops.

Those who have been around longer will have fond memories of the newsagents, Safeways, and Iceland along with various coffee shops.

And my own favourite, the DIY store which provided me with endless rolls of woodchip, tins of emulsion, three pasting boards, and shedloads of paint brushes, ….. enough to have seen me decorate two houses across five years. 

Phil Portus was down last month recording the near empty place, and this week Peter Topping followed suit.

But today I caught a different part of the Precinct’s demise which was the men dismantling the electrical fans and other essential shop kit at the rear of Frosty’s the Butchers.

There were two of them and armed with a ladder they appeared to be salvaging some of the machinery.

Less elegant than the images than the ghostly forlorn main avenue, but none the less part of the story.

Location; Chorlton Precinct

Pictures; when the men came, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

So .... soon ...... no more Chorlton Precinct ……

I don’t share that jaundiced view of our Precinct which soon will be no more.

No more Quality Save, 2023

True, the design was not the best, in that it created an enclosed space locking out that stretch of Barlow Moor Road while Graeme House always seemed an ugly addition which was too tall and too slab like to be pleasing to the eye.

And over the last few decades it had become shabbier and a bit sad as some of its shops had short lives.

But I liked it.  

So, while I am vegetarian, I recognised that Frosty’s was the place to go for meat, Boot’s never disappointed, and above all Tony’s green grocery shop was where we shopped for the odd potato, two carrots and a bunch of grapes and was where we got our Christmas trees for nearly 4 decades.

The last Tony tree, 2023

Long ago I gave up choosing our own trees and instead handed the job to Tony who got us two trees for the price of one, and always delivered fine ones.

And now as the last traders are packing up I feel more than a little sad, not least at the loss of so many wonderful shops but also at what I think will replace it.  

Despite the suggestions of what might be to come and the rounds of consultations the replacement lacks something …. Not least I think in the number of retail outlets and the sheer height of the building fronting Barlow Moor Road.

So there you are the story has been occasioned by a picture of the now closed Quality Save much loved by our Saul, and one of Tony’s Christmas trees delivered in December 20th which will not come down till after the last traders have left the building.

Leaving me just to remind people of the exhibition charting the history of the Precinct and its last year in pictures and paintings by Phil Portus and Peter Topping which is on show until February in Chorlton Library, when it too closes for a makeover.

Location; Chorlton Precinct

Pictures; Quality Save and poster design, 2023, courtesy of Peter topping and “The last Christmas Tree” from Tony Adams, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

  

Fifty years of our story ……. history … paintings ….. photographs .... the exhibition about the Precinct in Chorlton Library …. one to do

The highly acclaimed exhibition celebrating five decades of Chorlton Precinct has moved to Chorlton Library.

It will be there till February.

Don’t miss the opportunity to see it and to contribute your memories.

Location; Chorlton Library

Pictures; poster design and photographs of the exhibition by Peter Topping 

So goodbye Chorlton Precinct and and thanks for the memories ……….the exhibition soon to open at Chorlton Library

There will be plenty of people who visited the Precinct during November into December to express an opinion on the plans for the Precinct site.

The bonus was a superb exhibition by a writer, an artist and a photographer who recorded the Precinct over the last year.  

Peter Topping's panting's of the shops compliment Phil Portus's photographs of some of the shop keepers, customers, and the busy day to day life of the place.

To these were added a brief account of the history of the place and an invitation for people to record their memories.

All of which made the exhbition a living tribute to a shopping centre which many of us have loved and used for half a century.

And the good news is that it will all be transferred to Chorlton Library where it can be seen until February

Chorlton Precint, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Precinct

Faces at an exhibition ……. Chorlton Precinct ..... past .... present .... and future

There is still time to visit the collection of photographs and paintings on display in the Precinct as part of the consultation process linked to the redevelopment of the place.

The collections are the work of Phil Portus and Peter Topping, include a short history of shopping in the Precinct over the last half century, and present an opportunity  to offer up your vision of the future site.

The exhibition was put together by Cath Fernley and can be seen in Unit 16-18 on Thursday November 30^th and Friday December 1^st between 10am and 4 pm.

Location; Chorlton Precinct

Picture;  Faces at an Exhibition, 2023, and the Precinct in 1979from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A photographer, artist and historian

Phil Portus, https://www.flickr.com/photos/philportusphotography?fbclid=IwAR3QMHU4RqHkuVfE4OAL7Benp7d-mQMgvwJZBTEoP3vbJfECHbTl96lQitA

Peter Topping Pictures from Paintings, https://www.facebook.com/search/photos/?q=Paintings%20from%20Pictures&sde=AbpTEHgyhzxBzgSw_TYYHB5qszd_9gcMtPiB0gIzkfuQkPU21e7Wf-6a2aVwZIuNTC3bYDGPJbUZq_rGnaNb5RuM

Andrew Simpson, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/

The Consultation Team

One Chorlton, P J Livesey, www.onechorlton.co.uk.