Mrs Martha Thorpe, the slaughter house and a new row of shops on Beech Road

Now when Mrs Thorpe opened her “slaughter house” in 1879 on Beech Road I doubt she thought that she would still be there selling cuts of meat, mince and tripe at the dawn of the next century.

Looking down towards the "slaughter house" circa 1900

But that is just exactly what happened and in the process will have been visited by countless customers in what is now Elk, which given its name is an interesting turn of events for what was originally a shop dealing in dead animals.

Until recently I had no idea of the date of the building and it was only as I trawled the rate books that its age came to light.

The rate books will tell you who owned the property and if it was rented and the estimated annual rent along with its rateable value.

And by slowly tracking back year by year it will be possible to arrive at the date the building was completed and first assessed for rates.

In our case this was 1878, not long after Chorlton Row and been renamed Beech Road, and when there were still farms, and smithy within a few minute’s walk of Mrs Thorpe’s business.

Beech Road, circa 1900

The discovery of the “slaughter house” was not an accident and came out of the research on the bars of Chorlton for the book Chorlton pubs and bars.



Location; Chorlton

Picture; Beech Road circa 1900 from the Lloyd collection

Mrs Martha Thorpe, the slaughter house and a new row of shops on Beech Road

 Now when Mrs Thorpe opened her “slaughter house” in 1879 on Beech Road I doubt she thought that she would still be there selling cuts of meat, mince and tripe at the dawn of the next century or that her shop would have a passing connection with meat in the century to follow.

Looking down towards the "slaughter house" circa 1900

But that is just exactly what happened and in the process will have been visited by countless customers when it was Elk, which given its name is an interesting turn of events for what was originally a shop dealing in dead animals.

Until recently I had no idea of the date of the building and it was only as I trawled the rate books that its age came to light.

The rate books will tell you who owned the property and if it was rented and the estimated annual rent along with its rateable value.

And by slowly tracking back year by year it will be possible to arrive at the date the building was completed and first assessed for rates.

In our case this was 1878, not long after Chorlton Row and been renamed Beech Road, and when there were still farms, and smithy within a few minute’s walk of Mrs Thorpe’s business.

Beech Road, circa 1900

The row containing the "slaughterhouse" was part of the retail revolution which transformed how we shopped and a little over a century later  was the home of Primavera, which along with Cafe on the Green, the Italian Deli and the Lead Station heralded a second revolution which was the coming of the bars, cafes, and the shops selling "the interesting things". 

Location; Chorlton 

Picture; Beech Road, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

Looking out from Cross Lane ....... across the fields of Chorlton-cum-Hardy with Mr Samuel Walton

In the spring of 1877, Mr Samuel Walton would have had a fine view from his house on Cross Road out on to the fields which stretched down Beech Road.

Cross Road, 2018

He had moved in earlier that year and was the first occupant of the house built by a John Rhodes.

During that first year the annual rent for the property was £25 per year, which rose later in the next decade by three pounds.

By then Mr Walton had bought the house and moved out renting it to a succession of tenants.

I had always assumed that the houses on Cross Road dated from the early 1870s, but on being asked to do some research on one of them I discovered that they had been built in two phases.

The lower numbers were there by 1871 but the rest came along a little later.

They were some of the first new “posh” build in what was still a rural area.

Row Acre directly beside Cross Road, 1894

To the east of the long gardens of the houses on Cross Road was the large walled garden of Beech House which belonged to the Holt family along with a set of cottages which jutted out onto what we now called Beech Road.

The name Beech Road is relatively recent, before that and no doubt running back centuries it was called Chorlton Row, and by the 1840s, consisted of a few wattle and daub houses dating into the 18th century, two fine houses built in the early 1800s, a couple of farmhouses, a beer shop, the Wesleyan Chapel and the village smithy.

The Rate Books also show that Cross Road underwent a number of name changes, beginning with Cross Lane, then Cross Street and finally Cross Road.

Looking out from Cross Road, 1894, on all that was left of Row Acre

And for all those who never tire of telling the assembled crowd that Chorlton has no streets but only roads, this might seem a revelation, and one that I shall follow up with the fact that Acres Road was once Acres Street and the small stretch of road from the Chorlton Green past the Beech Inn to where there is a twist in the direction of the road was Lloyd Street.

And so back to Mr Walton and that house whose views out on Row Acre were changing.

By the late 19th century Row Acre was getting nibbled away till all that was left was a 2 acre patch bounded by Beech Road, High Lane, Cross Road and Wilton Road.

It was last ploughed in 1895 and was gifted to the people of Chorlton-cum-Hardy by the Egerton’s as a Recreational Ground.

And that is it.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Cross Road, 2018, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, ploughing Row Acre, courtesy of Mr Higginbotham from the Lloyd Collection, and Row Acre, 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Sources; Census Return , Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1871-91, Rate Books, 1877-1900

Mrs Cordingley at Jackson’s Boat up in front of the magistrates for “selling beer during prohibited hours” in June 1876

The old bridge and pub, 1881

Now I wonder how Mrs Cordingley felt after the magistrates threw out an alleged breach of the Licensing Act.

It was June 1876 and she had been called up in front of the bench for “selling beer during prohibited hours.”

For any publican this was a serious affair but I suspect a potentially devastating one for  Mrs Cordingley who had been running the pub across the river  with her husband Joseph since at least 1861 and maybe as early as 1857 and with his death would still be pulling pints until she died in 1902.

She had fallen victim to the Sunday Trade out from Manchester.

It was a popular enough event and involved a trip out from the city which on a pleasant summers day was just 3½ miles  out along country lanes with the reward of a pint or two  at the end.

The Manchester Courier, 1872

Some were families escaping for a few hours from those dismal narrow streets and closed courts hedged in by mills timber yards and iron works.

A few like Richard Buxton were out botanizing.**  These were self taught working class men who in the case of Richard Buxton were cataloguing the plant life and would in time produce the definitive book still referred to by many today.

But then there were those less interested in the pleasures of rural Chorlton and more simply for the opportunity to down as pints as possible.

They arrived in ones and twos and sometimes in gangs and could threaten our community with anti social behaviour, vandalism and petty crime.**

So I can understand Mrs Cordingley’s concerns, only a decade and a bit before she settled in the pub large gangs of men were known to assemble in the meadows up by Barlow Farm to watch illegal prize fighting.

The pub, 1881

The attractions were of course the remoteness of the site and this in itself put the Bridge Inn out on a limb which was made worse when Sam Wilton who ran the pub in 1818 built a bridge across the Mersey.

Mrs Cordingley had replaced it in the 1880s and like her predecessor charged a small fee to cross over.

Now the pub dates from the 18th century and for most its history went under the name of the Greyhound or the Bridge Inn.  In the 1840s it was run by Samuel Nixon who described himself as a farmer and whose son ran the Traveller’s Rest on Beech Road.

Old Sam Nixon died in 1857 and this may be when the Cordingley’s took over.

And the story has a happy ending for she was found not guilty and the two chaps who tried to falsely gain a drink were themselves fined 5shillings each.

Strictly speaking neither of them were part of the Sunday Trade, for one was from Chorlton and the other was from Stretford.

Of these James Harris of Chorlton is known to us.  He lived on Beech Road was a painter with a family and more on him later.

Pictures, newspaper account from The Manchester Courier, June 21 1876, courtesy of Brian Robertson, and picture of the pub and bridge  circa 1881 from the Lloyd Collection


*"over the Mersey at Jackson’s Boat and on to Baguley Moor and Hale Moss and after having botanized there ....returned to Manchester at dusk, all pleased with our day’s excursion” Richard Buxton in Chorlton, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/over-mersey-at-jacksons-boat-and-on-to.html


**A drunken jolly out from Manchester and stone throwing at Stretford........ petty crime in a rural community
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20and%20crime

Leaving your mark on that house in Chorlton …….. John Burns Storey

Now I can’t quite make my  mind up about leaving your name on a house.

The historian in me likes the idea that there is a permanent link with a previous owner, but that is shot through with a sense of the overwhelming arrogance and self pride in placing your initials on the side of a house.

It smacks of hubris and reminds me of that line “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”*

But then perhaps I am going over the top.

Yesterday Sarah from High Lane got in touch asking if I knew whether there was a connection between her house and St John’s because “Friends and neighbours from St John’s think that our house might originally have been the priests house for the church due in part to the insignia “IHS” on the roofs apex”.

So far I haven’t made a connection, but then having trawled the 19th century I stopped at 1911, leaving another hundred years to plod through.

What I do know is that the house dates from 1871 and was built by Mr. John Burns Storey, who was from Northumberland, which may explain how Sarah’s house came to be called Bamburgh.

He was a builder and was responsible for a number of the houses on High Lane all of which were built in the early 1870s, in advance of the big housing boom which started a decade later.

Nor was he alone in beginning the transformation of the township.  

There had been urban creep up Edge Lane and along Wilbraham Road, after it had been cut in the late 1860s, as well as High Lane.

Several of the builders and speculators engaged in building  these houses for the “middling people” are known and a few were local.

But despite his interest in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Mr. Storey may not have lived here for long, because while he and his family were on High Lane in 1871 they had moved to Barton Upon Irwell ten years later, and at death in 1897 he is recorded as living in Brooklands.

And his death presents a mystery, because he left just £44 8s. 4d.  Just why his effects are so small maybe a mystery we will never solve.

So, I shall leave Mr. Storey,  his wife, Emma, and four children along with their 13 years old servant on High Lane in 1871 in what I expect were happier times.

Despite emblazoning his initials on Sarah’s house the evidence so far is that the Storey’s never inhabited the property, which I suppose could be another mystery.

There will be more to discover about John Burns Storey which I have promised Sarah I will look for along with another search for that connection with St John’s.

Next; Mary Butcher ....domestic servant from Belper, aged 13 and working for the Storey family

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; the initials of J.B.S, 2021, courtesy of Sarah Hudson Jones, and the house in 1959, A. E. Landers, m17886, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Ozymandias, Percy Byshhe Shelley 

Hermann Ree ….. that Chorlton memorial ….. and several mysteries

Now this is the memorial in the parish graveyard to Hermann Philip Ree and it is surrounded with mystery.

Hermann Philip Ree, 2011

He was born in Denmark but was a British citizen, lived for most of his adult life in Manchester, but died in Devon and was buried here.

And so far, I cannot find how he was connected to St Clements, or to the Township of Chorlton.

He was born just two years before the close of the 18th century, was living and working in Manchester by 1836, describing himself as a merchant and occupying various offices around the city until he finally settled at 27 Faulkner Street in 1845 where he remained until 1873.

But looking through the various documents there is an apparent elasticity to his date of birth which ranges from 1778, to 1800 and even 1808.

Along with the puzzle of what his association was with Chorlton and exactly when he was born, there is the question of what took him to Cheltenham where he married Catherine German in 1838.  

The Home,  Whalley Range 1894 , residence of the Ree family

She was just 19 and if I am being generous, he might have been 30, and if I am less generous, he was a full decade older.

That said the newly weds had four children between 1839 and 1842 and were leaving on Oxford Street in a fine-looking semi-detached property just north of the junction with Grafton Street.

The two houses were set in a large garden and surrounded by even larger and more impressive homes.

All of which suggests that Mr. Ree was doing well, which is evidenced by the even grander house in Whalley Range which they moved into in 1855, and which was simply called The Home.

It occupied a plot which ran back from Whalley Road to Carlton Road and was bordered on the east by Russel Road, and as well as the large house there were several greenhouses a large number of trees, several formal gardens along with some outhouses.

The property was large enough to have become in 1905 the home of an order of  nuns.  They were the “Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition [who had been] exiled from their native France and set up a non-sectarian nursing home at Whalley Range, Manchester [which had by 1930] grown considerably till it could accommodate 150 people”.

The Home, 1961

All of which meant that the hospital added a “wing containing twenty-five room, for private patients, a chapel connected with the main building by a gallery along which inform or poorly residents can be wheeled to attend Services”. *

And as late as 1966 adverts appeared in the Irish Press for “pre Student nurses [who were] offered excellent opportunities to gain practical experience of nursing in our Private Hospital, board and residence provided”.** 

The premise was later acquired by the Spire as a private hospital who have demolished the old buildings, for a new one.

Happily, a few pictures have survived of the Home taken in the 1960s which offer an idea of what the house might have looked like when the Ree family lived there.

And that takes me back to Mr. Hermann Philip Ree.  I still can’t square the disparity over his date of birth but am confident about the other mysteries.

The Home, 1961

I now know that his wife Catherine was baptised in Wigan and that her father was a coal master, and with a bit more research I shall find out the family connection with Cheltenham.  Suffice to say Wigan is a lot closer to Manchester and the father and husband may well have had business links.

I also know that she was buried in the parish graveyard in Chorlton in 1855, making it logical that her husband would also be interred there on his death twenty-two years later.

But why they should have chosen St Clements’s when they lived in Whalley Range is a puzzle but it may be that the parish boundaries extended that far, leaving to make a note to check that out.

Original location of all graves, and Mr. Ree's marked in red 1975

As for the memorial, I know some will ponder on the broken pillar which has nothing to do with vandalism but was symbolic of a life cut short.

It remains roughly where it was erected in 1877, close to the Lych Gate, having survived the cull of many of gravestones.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; the memorial to Hermann Philip Ree, 2011, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The Home, Whalley Range, 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/, The Home St Joseph's Convent, 1961, A E Brown,m40903 and m40904, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Nursing Home at Whalley Range, Extensions Opened, Manchester Guardian March 20 1930

**Sligo Champion, 1965-66

Discovering more about our big houses on Beech Road .......... a set of deeds, a rate book and Mr Sutton's rent

Beech Road, Cross Road, 1959

Now I am never surprised at how another bit of Chorlton’s story comes out of the shadows.

And so it was this week when my friend Bronwen told me a little of the story of the houses that stand on Cross Road and round on to Beech Road.

Now I knew these had been built in the 1870s and were part of the very beginning of the second big housing boom in Chorlton but the details had always eluded me.

Before they were built this stretch of Beech Road up to Barlow Moor Road had consisted of a row of cottages and the big house and garden of the Holt family.

The Holt's had bought into Chorlton in the 1830s but retained their doubled fronted house on John Street in town.  This had been built in the late 18th century and the Holt's owned a substantial part of the houses in the area.

Their home in Chorlton was equally grand sitting in a garden which ran up Beech Road, along Barlow Moor Road and down High Lane almost as far as Cross Road.

High Lane, Cross Road, 1959

Sadly so far there is only one picture of that house although much of its history is slowly being discovered.

But as for those 1870s houses they were more of a mystery but now with Browen’s help their story is also coming out of the shadows,

“When we bought our house, we discovered that we had to collect the chief rent for two plots.

These being the oblong area from 22 Beech Road up to 28 and along the part of High Lane containing the house that was once owned by Dawson’s Estate Agents.  There is on the other side and old wall making up the fourth side of the oblong.

I found out that the land had been purchased from the Egerton family for the building of the houses.

The builder started constructing his own house facing onto High Lane and this was to become Dawsons.

Then in 1872 he built number 22 and carried on down to 28 but aafter putting down the footings from 21 Cross Street known as Knowle Lea he ran out of money.  

It said in the deeds that he became a gambler and ended up in debt leaving the other houses on Cross Road to be built by another builder.”

Cottages with the Holt's home behind, Beech Road, 1907

All of which points yet again to just how useful the deeds of a property can be because when combined with the rate books and census returns they can shed light on a tremendous amount of history.

But for now it was that odd looking set of cottages sticking out on to Beech Road that drew me in.

They were quite old by the time our builder constructed number 22-28 and the names of some of the residents are in the historical record.

In 1871 these were James Sutton Charles Ree, William Williamson and George Heath.

Mr Ree and Williamson were paying a rent of 11 shillings a week and Mr Heath five shillings to the Holt's whose extensive gardens abutted the cottages.

And for those of a curious nature the remains of entrance to those cottages is still there on Beech Road.

Pictures; corner of Beech and Cross Road, R E Stanley, November 1958m m17651, and cottages on Beech Road, J Jackson, 1907, m17651,Clarence House corner of High Lane and Cross Road, A E Landers, 1959, m17900,  courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The story of that Victorian pillar box on Edge Lane

Now I like these two pictures of that post-box on the corner of Edge Lane and Hampton Road.

They were taken by Robert Williamson a few years ago, who asked if it was the oldest pillar box in Chorlton and I rather think it is.

My old friend David Harrop thinks so suggesting that it dates from the 1870s and he should know given that he has a large collection of memorabilia from both world wars and more particularly from the history of the Post Office.

Nor is that quite all, because David has a special connection with this pillar box.

Back in the 1990s he was working in the Facilities Branch of the Post Office which was responsible for the siting and maintenance of post boxes in Greater Manchester.

By then our Victorian box had become redundant replaced by a new one attached to a lamp post nearby. 

And to add insult to injury it had lost its door.

On discovering the sad plight of Queen Victoria’s best he instigated a search and the door was found in a garden restored to its rightful place which in turn led to the reinstatement of the said oldest pillar box in Chorlton.

He tells me that people are very sensitive about the position of their local pillar boxes and when the branch moved the one from outside Salford Fire Station it caused quite a storm despite only being moved 30 or so yards.

All of which leaves me to say that ours was made by Smith and Hawkes of Birmingham and given David’s interest in all things posty you won’t be surprised to know that in his collection he has a door from a Victorian pillar box.

Now that door isn’t on display in his permanent exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery but there are lots of interesting things to see from post cards and medals from the Great War to a pillar box salvaged after the Coventry Blitz.

David was insistent I should go down to Edge Lane and take a picture but Robert has kindly let me use his.

So a winner all round, and for those wanting a bit more local history our box will have arrived on Edge Lane sometime in the 1870s reflecting that suburban creep which had seen fine new villas constructed by the well to do spreading up from the station at Stretford.

But that is another story.
Bit in the meantime I received a correction to the story, Ian has pointed out that, "technically the box at Edge Lane is not a pillar box, but a wall box, designed to be inserted in a wall. 

Pillar boxes are the tall round ones or the 6-sided Victorian ones known as "Penfolds" [after their designer]. 

Readers may be interested in the work of the Letter Box Study Group, the worlds leading experts on post boxes. Their website is at: www.LBSG.org".

Thank you Ian

Pictures the Edge Lane pillar box, 2014 from the collection of Robert Williamson

The Murder of Chorlton’s ‘Little Bobby’ ………… Who killed Constable Cock? by Angela Buckley*

Like many who live in Chorlton I knew something of the murder of PC Cock in 1876.

Cover of Who Killed Constable Cock? 2017

It was a crime that shook the township and was covered in some detail by the national newspapers.

But I always wanted to know more and in particular to dispel some of the myths about the event.

And so I was pleased when Angela  got in touch today to tell me that her new book on the crime was about to be published, and of course I couldn’t resist asking her to introduce the story for the blog.*

She kindly also allowed me to use two of the illustrations, and so that just leaves me to hand over to Angela.

“At midnight on Tuesday 1 August 1876, PC Nicholas Cock was on duty in Chorlton. It was a dry and cloudy evening, with little moonlight, and the police officer was approaching the junction of Manchester Road, Upper Chorlton Road and Seymour Grove, known as West Point.

As he walked along the wide footpath overhung with trees towards the ‘Jutting Stone’, which marked the limit of his beat, he was joined by two more men: PC James Beanland, and law student John Massey Simpson, who was on his way home after a night out.

The three men exchanged pleasantries before Simpson left. When he was 150 yards away, he heard two loud shots ring out in the night. The student turned around to see flashes of light behind him in the pitch dark. Hearing screams of, ‘Oh, murder, murder; I’m shot, I’m shot’, Simpson rushed back to the junction, to find PC Cock slumped on the pavement near the garden wall of the large house, also known as West Point (it later became The Seymour Hotel).

PC Cock, 1876

Even in the dim light, he could see the unmistakable stain of blood spreading across the police officer's chest: Nicholas Cock had been shot.

PC Beanland blew his whistle and soon more officers arrived on the scene. They quickly hailed two passing night soil men, who took Cock in their cart to a doctor’s surgery. By 1 am, Cock was settled on Dr Dill’s sofa, where the doctor tried to revive him with brandy and water.

Ten minutes later the semi-conscious police officer died - the bullet had passed through his ribs into his spinal column, causing a massive haemorrhage.

Shortly before PC Cock's death, Superintendent James Bent, of the Manchester Division of Lancashire Constabulary, had arrived, after receiving the news of the shooting just after midnight. The experienced officer knew instantly who had committed this terrible crime: ‘I suspected these men from the first.’

Bent's prime suspects were the Habron brothers, three Irish labourers who lived close to the spot where PC Cock had been shot.  John, 24, Frank, 22 and William aged 18, were all employed in the nursery gardens of Francis Deakin, at Firs Farm, where they lived in an outhouse in the grounds. The brothers had crossed the path of PC Cock many times and threatened him, especially when he interfered with their drinking in the Royal Oak and the Lloyds Hotel.

The murder scene, 1876

As soon as he heard about the incident, Superintendent Bent instructed his men to surround the small brick building, where the brothers were alleged to be. After the officer's death, Bent joined his colleagues at Deakin’s nursery and arrested all three Habron brothers.

A painstaking investigation led by Superintendent Bent followed. There were plenty of clues: sets of footprints that matched the suspects' muddy boots, percussion caps found in their clothing and a bullet discovered at the scene. Superintendent Bent would stop at nothing to bring PC Cock's killer to justice, despite the contradictory evidence of key eye witnesses, shifting alibis and a mystery man spotted at the crime scene. This led to an extraordinary case featuring a controversial detective, a startling revelation and a grave miscarriage of justice.

PC Nicholas Cock was just 21 years old when he was killed.

He was born in Cornwall, in 1856 and, like his father, he worked in a copper mine. When he lost his job, due to the widespread closure of the mines, he moved first to Durham, and then to Manchester.

He joined the Lancashire Constabulary at the end of 1875, and was stationed in Chorlton. After his murder, the local press described him as ‘a very active officer, punctual in the discharge of his duties.’ Locally he was known affectionately as the ‘Little Bobby’ and was buried in the churchyard on Chorlton Green.”

And the rest is as they all to be read in Who Killed Constable Cock? by Angela Buckley is now available for pre-order on Amazon

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; courtesy of Angela Buckley

*Angela Buckley, http://www.angelabuckleywriter.com/

** Who Killed Constable Cock? by Angela Buckley is now available for pre-order on Amazon