Discovering a little bit of Whalley Range’s history

Now here is a bit of history that I bet lots of people know but has passed me by and it concerns St Margaret’s playing fields in Whalley Range.

The land is on Brantingham Road and was gifted by the wife of one of the vicars of St Margaret’s and in in 1937 it was the destination of that years Chorlton carnival.

Back in the 1930s there were a number of carnivals across the city but Chorlton’s seemed to be the biggest according to the Manchester Guardian which reported that “the gala held in St Margaret’s playing fields, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, on Saturday [June 19th] may be said to mark the opening of the charity carnival season.“*

Now I recently wrote about the carnival but pretty much ignored the playing fields but after a few people asked where they were I went looking.**

The obvious place was beside St Margaret’s Church in Whalley Range and while I was close I wasn’t in quite the right place.

The church had been built in 1849 on land given by Samuel Brooks but the playing fields date from sometime later.

I have yet to establish when but I do know that in 1894 the land was still part of Whalley Farm and as late as 1911 Brantingham Road had yet to be developed fully.

That said I hope to talk to Mr Boulter the vicar at  St Margaret’s and perhaps even before then someone will come forward a bit more of the story.

And within minutes of posting this story,  Pawel Lech Michalczyk who pointed out that  "St Werburgh's Church owned playing fields.

These were opposite Parkgaye Farm, accessible via the short cul-de-sac off St Werburgh's Road.

It was the whole triangle between the railway line and Chorlton Brook, almost up to Mauldeth Road West.

Its now part of the Chorlton High School campus."

Location; Whalley Range

Picture; horses being paraded along Oswald Road sometime in the 1930s, courtesy of Mrs Kay, from the Lloyd collection

*Manchester Guardian June 21 1937

Of Chorlton carnivals, Enoch Royle's decorated cart and a missing church on Albany Road

Now there is a lot in this picture.

The caption says “Decorated float in Albany Road, for Chorlton Carnival in the 1930s? Enoch Royle at the horses head, permission William Jackson.”

And I suppose that decorated float is where we will start.

According to the local historian John Lloyd, Chorlton staged a number of these carnivals during the mid 1930s which seemed usually to be centred on the Oswald Road part of new Chorlton and were part of the Rose Queen festivals which raised money for the Manchester and Salford Hospitals.

The Manchester Guardian in 1937 reported that carnival season had opened with “the gala held in St Margaret’s playing fields, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, on Saturday may be said to mark the opening of the charity carnival season.  

It has a history of five or six years only, but already it has become perhaps the most considerable effort of its kind undertaken in the city on behalf of the Manchester and Salford Medical Charities Fund.  

It has all the customary carnival, features a queen to be crowned with picturesque ceremony, morris dancers and processions of characters in comic and fancy dresss on horseback, cycle or on foot.”

The last recorded was the 1937 one although others like the Stretford one lasted much longer.
Now Enoch Royle crops up in a number of pictures in the collection always with his wagon and always at the bottom of Albany Road.

Now I had assumed he was a coal man and said so in earlier posts,  but in 1929 when he was living at 26 Fielden Avenue he gave his occupation as carter which is important because I had gone looking for his coal yard on the corner of Albany and Brantingham Roads and instead found a church and a hall.

Both appear to have had a short life.  They were there by 1909 but had vanished by the 1940s and tantalizingly there are those who remember a business run from the corner which went under the name of Mores which means that I will have to go into the Ref and trawl the directories.

So that just leaves the house behind the cart which is still, there today and has in its time been both a private residence and a retail outlet.

My earlier story on Mr Royle prompted Andy Robertson to send me a picture of the property from a few years ago but sadly neither of us has a memory of what was beside the property before the garage.

So while I go searching for that bit of the story I shall close with the observation that back them you could see across to Manchester Road.

Picture; of Mr Royle circa 1930s, from the Lloyd collection, Albany Road in September 20102 , with 
Flynn's Electricals, courtesy of Andy Robertson 

*Manchester Guardian, June 21 1937

The Chorlton Carnival "the most considerable effort of its kind undertaken in the city"

Now there is a story to tell about the Chorlton Carnival which ran through the 1930s and echoed the village celebrations of a century before.

Walking through Chorlton, date unknown

These earlier ones I have researched and written about in my book but those from the 1930s are still as yet only a vague promise of things to come.

This is all the more important given that they will soon pass out of living memory and I doubt that there are many accounts of what went on.

It was it seems linked to the Alexandra Rose Day which was the prime fund raising activity for medical charities in the Manchester and Salford area and dated back to the first held in London in 1912.

There were a number of carnivals across the city during the 1930s but ours seemed to be the biggest, according the Manchester Guardian in the June of 1937, “The gala held in St Margaret’s playing fields, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, on Saturday [June 19th] may be said to mark the opening of the charity carnival season. 

 

The parade

It has a history of five or six years, but already it has become perhaps the most considerable effort of its kind undertaken in the city on behalf of the Manchester and Salford Charities’ Fund.”*

The format was much the same with the crowning of a Rose Queen a procession through Chorlton “of characters in comic and fancy dress, on horseback, cycle or on foot.” and the gala which included Morris dancing, a horse show and a brass band competition. The 1937 show had excelled itself with five bands taking part but so far there is no record of whether our own band won a prize.

I must confess a little pride in knowing that the procession set off from the Rec after the crowning of the Queen and have often speculated whether Joe and Mary Ann Scott who lived opposite in the house we now occupy were in the crowd.

Oswald Road

A generation earlier and most of the horses competing for prizes at the show at St Margret’s playing fields would have been from the local farms but by the time the carnival was staged the contest was between the tradesmen. Men like Enoch Royle and Bill Mellor who were coal merchant or the many shop keepers who still delivered in the years before the last world war.

And it may have been the war that contributed to it coming to an end. The last seems to have been in 1938 and the break of ten years and changing attitudes made it less likely that it would come back.

In 1948 the Labour Government had introduced a national health service which made the penny finding activities of hospitals and medical charities less necessary.

And for those with a keen sens of the past here is Andy Robertson's picture of the same spot taken a few years ago.

Oswald Road, 2016

He says, "re picture in today's blog. I think this must be on the corner of Ransfield (Richmond Road). 

It is not the ones on the corner of Claridge or Kensington and I know of no others. 

Also if you check out that old Lloyd photo you posted of Oswald Road a while back there is that big Tree!"

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; Horses being paraded along Oswald Road sometime in the 1930s, courtesy of Mrs Kay, from the Lloyd collection and the shop on Oswald Road, courtesy of Andy Robertson

*Manchester Guardian June 21 1937