The Iron School Room …… a nod to the Manchester Exposition ……. and a lost bit of Whalley Range

 I am looking at a book from 1907, celebrating 50 years of the Chorlton Road Sunday School and I am as fascinated by it as is my neighbour who lent it to me yesterday. *

The Iron Room 1857

Now I don’t know his name, but in the fulness of time he will get back to me, because he is a fan of the blog and then I can include him in the story which is just as it should be.

Front piece, 1908

There will be some who seeing the title of the book will quickly move on, either because of a lack of interest in all things Sunday School, or they are unfamiliar with  Chorlton Road.

And that would be a mistake, because there is a lot here that says much about this bit of south Manchester, and the people who lived here when this stretch of land was still quite rural.

The book is of its time and can be dense in places and is full of religious references, but put that aside, here is a detailed account of a Sunday School and its church from 1857 through to 1907.

Some will still be remember the church which stood a little off Chorlton Road and down Ayres Road, bits of it were still there in 2013 but it has now gone.

As has its Sunday School which the book describes as “the Iron School Room” and has its own claim to fame.  

For 142 days it was the refreshment room for the Manchester Art Exhibition of 1857.

My Wikipedia tells me that “The Art Treasures of Great Britain was an exhibition of fine art held in Manchester, England, from 5 May to 17 October 1857.

It remains the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK, possibly in the world, with over 16,000 works on display. 

It attracted over 1.3 million visitors in the 142 days it was open, about four times the population of Manchester at that time, many of whom visited on organised railway excursions. 

Its selection and display of artworks had a formative influence on the public art collections that were then being established in the UK, such as the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Iron School, 1857

After the exhibition ended, the exhibited works were returned to their owners, and the temporary building and its contents were auctioned. Glass display cases were bought by the new museums under construction in South Kensington. The building was entirely demolished by November 1858. 

Having cost over £37,000 in all, the materials comprising the building sold for little more than £7,000; internal fittings and decorations that cost £18,581 sold for £2,836.”.**

Which leads me neatly to the Iron School Room which was purchased by the Congregational Church for "the sum of £600, and in the month of October was promptly removed to the site awaiting its reception”. ***

The building was later replaced by a stone one, and I think in the fullness of time I will return to write about this later building.

But for now, I shall just reflect on what the book says about the surrounding area which included Brook’s Bar in the year the “Iron Room” appeared.  

The spot “was more than semi-rural [with] nearly the whole of the west side was open country, pastures, corn, and meadow land, almost as far as the eye could reach, interspersed with clumps and rows of tall trees. 

 

The area, 1854

One remembers that opposite the iron edifice itself there flourished a cabbage field, where in the red and green sorts  grew in abundance.  

Moss Lane was a winding way flanked on the south with high turfy banks and lofty poplars, and in its course trended by Flint’s farm, a white secluded homestead nestling on the spot, approximately where Alexandra Road now commences.

The new Sunday School, 1907

Behind, westwards was Whalley Range somewhat pristine, and the fashionable quarter of the city’s merchant princes.  Attached to ‘Banker Brooks’ house was a considerable park where in antlered deer disported themselves.

Brook’s Bar or Bars, for there were two gates, one barring Chorlton Road and another Upper Chorlton Road, swung in a very different neighbourhood from what we find today.  

Where now stands the hotel [the Whalley Hotel] there formally rested, embosomed among trees, a white gabled farm.  The building now used as ‘Tram Office’ was then the toll house, the keeper thereof being a Mrs. Dennerley, a personage who combined the office of toll keeper with vendor of snuff and tobacco”.****

All that was left in 2013

There is more but for now that is it.

Pictures; The Iron School Room and front piece from Chorlton Road Sunday School , 1908 the Chorlton Road Congregational Church in 2013  from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the area in 1854 from the OS for Lancashire, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

* Chorlton Road Sunday School, Manchester, Burgess, W.V., BA, 1908

**Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester 1857, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Treasures_Exhibition,_Manchester_1857

***ibid, Chorlton Road Sunday School, page 16

****, Chorlton Road Sunday School, page 20-21

Of bugs and builders and a little more about number 84 Chorlton Road

Number 84 Chorlton Road in 2014

I am always drawn to how old buildings reveal their secrets just by looking at their physical appearance.

And number 84 Chorlton Road is one of these.

I have passed it over the years and began writing about it when Andy Robertson shared some of his pictures of the place.*

It is and has been the builder’s yard of Thomas Griffiths from the 1870s.

Briefly between 1871 and 1876 it was the home of Joseph Griffiths whose father had founded the firm in 1843.  The Griffiths were originally from Cheshire but for a few decades during the middle of the 19th century they were living in Manchester.

In 1871 84 Chorlton Road was the family home of Joseph and Jane Griffiths and their five children.  Ten years later they have moved.

Numbers 84 & 86 in 1894

In 1894 the site was occupied by two semi detached properties beside the Manchester Tramways Company Depot which sat beside and behind the yard.

But the site remained theirs as it still is today.

Looking at the building reveals much that has changed.

There is still what looks like the front door and front room window of one of the houses but at some point the additional bits including the entrance were built along with newer build which may once have been a showroom.

Nor are the street directories of much help.

Back in 1876, the Griffiths seem to have moved out for while the firm is still registered at the address so is Thomas Quick who described himself as a clerk and may have been an employee who lived three and also at 84a was Henry Green photographer which would suggest the house has been sublet.

At 86 was Jane Smith “householder” which I rather think must be the other semi detached property. Beyond that heading down Chorlton Road to Brook’s Bar was still open land which by 1911 had been developed with a row of residential properties.

Now the extent to which these may have been pleasant places to live is conditional on how far the houses were affected by the Carriage Company’s yard which well in the early 20th century had a reputation as the origin of the bugs which seemed to invade the cinema close by.

It is one of those fascinating stories recounted in the Golden Years of Manchester’s Picture Houses.**

But more on that another time.

Revealing the story of the building from the yard, 2014

Number 84 Chorlton Road still has lots to reveal, and I guess it will be one of those projects which involve crawling over the directories for the period after 1876, and matching them with the Rate Books census returns and maps.

And looking at the rear of the building from the yard does offer up clues to how the house was transformed.

The entrance looks to be a later addition but the brickwork seems to be the same as the house and I guess may have come from the semi detached property which was demolished.

Later still showrooms to the left were added, a window bricked up and new window frames installed.

Of course I could be hopelessly wrong but tat only adds to to the story.

Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson, and detail of Chorlton Road in 1894 from the OS for South Lancashire, 1893, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Sometimes things don’t change that much, nu 84 Chorlton Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/sometimes-things-dont-change-that-much.html

** *The Golden Years of Manchester's Picture Houses, Derek J Southall, http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/the-golden-years-of-manchesters-picture-houses.html#sthash.K4JJYJv9.dpuf

Sometimes things don't change that much, nu 84 Chorlton Road

Now usually we end up looking at how things have changed, so here is the reverse.

We are on Chorlton Road and this is the building yard of Thomas Griffiths who have been trading from this spot from at least 1876.

I dare say with a bit of research I could push that date back even further.

The firm was established in 1845 and it should be possible to track them across the city.

But in the meantime here is Andy Robertson’s photograph of the premises on a Sunday in early April which compares with the picture taken by A H Downes in 1961.

Like Andy the building has long fascinated me but I have never bothered to follow up the interest and now I rather think it is time to see just what the place will reveal.

The surrounding area in the two decades after 1876 was a densely packed mix of residential properties, a brewery almost opposite the yard and the Tramways Company Depot next door.

And as you do I wandered off following up on things.  Our brewery was owned by Charles Robinson and Sons and the brewery was called Carlton.

Now here the link may well be with the Unicorn Brewery which was owned by the Robinson family which started up in Stockport in 1838 and are still going strong.

That said I have yet to come across a Charles in the family so it’s off to do some more research and turn back again to Mr Griffiths.

And as these things go just as I finished the story Andy sent me some more pictures of the yard and these will feature later.

After all both of us were intrigued by a mortar mill which the firm proudly displayed on the singage back in 1961.

It is a machine for making mortar and this one was still in use until 20 years ago when it was offered to the museum at Castlfield.

The chap Andy spoke to thought the buildings dated from 1845 when the firm was established.

Now they don't appear on the 1853 map but are there by 1876 so there is indeed more to do.

Not least will be a bit more investigation on the building itself which hints at many changes and additions and leads me to wonder if back in the 1890s this was actually not yet their yard but belonged to the carriage company but here I am getting ahead of myself.

Pictures;, 84 Chorlton Road, April 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the same place in 1961, taken by A H Downes, m25762, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass