When Withington pinched a bit of Chorlton ……..

It’s a silly story really but none the less interesting, and that is enough for me.

Houghend, 2023

Back in the winter of November 1885, our own local historian Thomas Ellwood wrote that “The township [of Chorlton] in its early history consisted of four hamlets, viz., Chollerton, Mansleache, Hardie, and Houghend, but the later hamlet, after the Protestation of 1641, was added to the township of Withington.  Within the memory of the oldest inhabitants, the township has only been divided into three hamlets, viz, Hardy, Chorleton, Martledge”. *

To which a later historian added that Houghend “lay to the east of the present St. Werburghs Road, south of Chorlton Brook to Barlow Moor Road and then east of that road.” **

Chorlton Brook running through Houghend, 2023

Hardy was a tiny hamlet on what we call the Meadows, close to Jackson’s Boat bridge and was finally abandoned after the last two families left in the 1850s due to the unpredictable Mersey which could flood with little warning.  Chollerton, or Chorlton was the area around the village green and and along what is now Beech Road. 

While Mansleache or Martledge was the area beyond the former Four Banks and extended up to the Library, and out towards Longford Park in one direction and to the present metro stop in the other.  

It disappeared in the last twenty years of the 19th century when the building boom covered the fields with housing, and so complete was the transformation that the very name Martledge was lost and became known as the “New Village" or “New Chorlton” to distinguish it from community that lived around the village green.

All of which begs the question of why Houghend moved into Withington.

At present I don’t have an answer.

That source of all things to do with the history of south Manchester is silent on the matter.  This is John Booker who published the histories of Chorlton, Didsbury, and Withington in 1857.***

It remains a very scholarly work and draws on a vast number of documents dating back to the Middle Ages.

According to Mr. Booker “Withington possessed the style and title of manor and had its corresponding privileges; the limits of the manor greatly exceeding those of the township [of Withington] embracing the hamlets of Withington, Didsbury, Burnage, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Moss Side , Rusholme , Denton, Haughton and Levenshulme.” **** 

Houghend, 1854

And unless I am contradicted by some medieval expert on land holdings, I suspect it was purely an administrative stroke to shift it from one part of the manor to another. 

Such decisions may explain why according to the tithe maps, a small section of land south of Hardy Lane is marked not as Chorlton but “Withington Detached” while a small patch south of the bend in the Mersey is described as “Chorlton Township”.

But it may just be as simple as two townships sharing good quality grazing lands or a bequeath to a church or monastery in the middle ages.*****

I suspect the search for the explanation is not over.

Of course in one of those little twists, what was the hamlet of Houghend is now back in Chorlton, and a big chunk of it is in Chorlton Park residing in the municipal ward of Chorlton Park.

Location; Hough end, Chorlton, Withington

Pictures; Houghend, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1854 from the OS map of Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*A History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Chapter 1, November 7th, 1885, Thomas Ellwood

**The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, John Lloyd, 1972, page 4

***The History of the Chapels of Didsbury and Chorlton, Rev. John Booker, 1857

****ibid Booker, page 107

*****The Phenomena of Detached Enclaves of Local Townships. The Case of the Fishlake and Skyehouse, Rob Downing, 2020, Fishlake History Society, http://www.fishlakehistorysociety.uk/index.php/rob-downing-s-research/the-phenomena-of-detached-enclaves-of-townships-the-case-of-fishlake-and-sykehouse

Two Halls …. one story and the Young Pretender ... Chorlton meets Ancoats

History is littered with “myths, half-truths and howlers” and in their way they can be as interesting as the real thing.

Hough End Hall, 1849

At which stage it would be easy to become sniffy and pompous about stories of Hough End Hall , which is that Elizabeth mansion much knocked about in its 428 years.

It was built by Sir Nicholas Mosley in 1596, suffered uncertain times during the English Civil War when the family chose the wrong side to support, saw its fortunes recover after the Restoration and was finally sold to settle gambling debts in 1756.

After which it appeared to enjoy a quiet time as a farmhouse until it was sold to a developer who commissioned a very unsympathetic restoration in the 1960s, and passed its time as a restaurant and night club, then briefly flirted with being a suite of offices before eventually becoming an Islamic Centre. 

And for the last half century stood in the shadow of two office blocks which are best described as an “abomination of desolation”. 

With such a long history it is easy to find heaps of stories about the place and the people who lived there, and like a rolling stone has picked up more than a few strange tales.

"Gentlemen" he cried, drawing his sword, "I have thrown away the scabbard"

Like the one shared recently on social media that Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender stayed the night on his way to the battle of Marston Moor.

Sadly the story confuses a battle that took place a century before the Highland army crossed through the area looking for places to ford the Mersey in 1745.

But like all stories there is a hint of something because according to the biography of the Mosley family, James Stuart may have stayed at a local Hall owned by the Mosley’s but this was Ancoats Hall and not Hough End Hall.

“Sir Oswald Mosley was then about seventy-one … but there is no reason to doubt that a secret correspondence had been carried out between him and some of the leaders of the rebellious attempt, in which Ancoats Hall was offered as a temporary asylum to the grandson of King James II.*

Ancoats Hall, 1849

More intriguing is the suggestion that the said James Stuart had been in Manchester the year before in 1744, stayed at Ancoats Hall and frequented “the principle inn at Manchester [which] occupied the site of a house lately known by the sign of the Swan in Market Street and at that time was the only place where a post-chaise was kept, or the London newspapers regularly received, which were brought by the post only three times during the week”.**

And so the story goes “a handsome young gentleman came every post day for several weeks in succession from Ancoats Hall, the seat of Sir Oswald Mosley, where he was on a visit, to [the inn] to read the newspapers.  He appeared to hold no communication with anyone else but took great interest in the perusal of the London newspapers”.***

Market Street, Manchester in the 18th century, 1894

The account was vouchsafed by an elderly woman in 1815 who had been the daughter of the inn keeper and remembered the “handsome young man” who she served on a number of occasions, and remembers recognising him at the head of the Highland army as it marched through Manchester.

Do I believe it?  I don’t know.  

I suspect those who have studied the movements of the Young Pretender in the year before he landed on the west coast of Scotland will have a clear understanding of where and what he was doing.

I know he had been born in Rome spent much of his early and later life in Italy and in 1744 travelled to France from where he left for Scotland.

That said despite the stories that he spoke English with a foreign accent which would have made his presence in Manchester very noticeable, it appears he had no such accent.

"For Charlie" the Highland army at Culloden, 1746

Still it does rather seem a clandestine mission too far to have hidden himself away in Manchester to read newspapers which his spies could have obtained for him.

So, I am left with perhaps another fanciful tale to match the night before he rode out from Hough End Hall to fight a battle which was already a century old.

Of course history  can be messy with plenty of twists and turns, and more than a few surprises.

I bet someone will correct me.

But at least I am confident in writing that the Highland army was defeated at Culloden and  the Young Pretender ran from the battlefield and escaped back to Rome, leaving his supporters to face the wrath of the Hanoverian Government.

An end which was less romantic tosh and more brutal repression.

Location, the 18th century

Pictures; Hough End Hall and Ancoats Hall from Mosley, Sir Oswald, Family Memoirs, 1849, "Gentlemen he cried, drawing his sword, I have thrown away the scabbard", from Scotland's story: a history of Scotland for boys and girls, Marshall, H. E. 1907, Market Street, Manchester in the 18th century, from Shaw William, Manchester Old and New, 1894, and The Battle of Culloden, David Morier, 1746

*Mosley, Sir Oswald, Family Memoirs, 1849

**ibid Mosley

***ibid Mosley