A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 8 ....... a railway ticket circa 1920

A short series featuring objects which tell a story of Chorlton in just a paragraph and  a challenge for people to suggest some that are personal to their stories.

The railway had come to Chorlton in 1880, and provided a quick service into the heart of the city. It took just seven minutes to travel from Chorlton into Manchester and was one of the factors which helped the development of new Chorlton allowing people to work in the commercial heart of the city but live within a few minute’s walk of the countryside. I can’t tell you when the ticket was issued but I think it must have been between 1892 and 1947. I can be fairly certain because the Fallowfield Loop line to Fallowfield and Guide Bridge was opened in 1892 and the Cheshire Lines Committee or CLC which ran the lines out of Central Station through Chorlton ceased in 1947 when the railways were nationalized. Had we travelled on that ticket it would have taken us just seven minutes to get to Fallowfield, passing through Wilbraham Road station. And had we elected to go all the way to Guide Bridge we would have been on the train for just 22 minutes having passed through Levenshulme, Hyde Road and Fairfield, but our ticket was only valid for Fallowfield so I suppose that was where we would alighted.

 Picture; from the Lloyd collection

By train from Chorlton into the Hope Valley in the April of 1957 for a day of rambling

Now it is Sunday April 7th 1957 and I am on Chorlton railway station waiting for the train from Central which left at 9.45 am and is due here just twelve minutes later.

The weather according to the forecast is promising, for “after frost at first, areas will have a fine, mainly sunny day, with normal or slightly higher temperature”* which will gives us about 8⁰C or a little bit more.

And that I reckon is just right for a ramble in the countryside which is what we would have been planning to do on that April morning back in 1957.

This I know from a delightful poster which British Railways published in that year**  advertising Special Excursions to Chinley, Edale, Hope, Bamford and Hathersage.

It is of course a journey that can no longer be made by rail, but back in 1957 our station still had another ten years before it was closed and there are quite a few people who remember making the trip into the Hope valley by train from Chorlton.

All of which makes the poster a valuable piece of history, for not only do we have the journey times for this long vanished service but also the cost.  So from Chorlton it cost 4/3d for a return ticket to Hope and took just 19 minutes.

These were “organised rambles, with leaders provided, details of the routes to be taken and walks for both individuals and parties.”

So having done the ramble the train back would have left Hope at two minutes past seven arriving back in Chorlton at about 8.10 in the evening.


It is a journey I would have loved to have made, not least because it was while in Hope recently that we decided to take up serious walking.  But sadly back in 1957 I was just eight years old and living in London.

Still this little poster gives a flavour to what was on offer back then and an insight into our own railway line.

*The Observer April 7th 1957

**Special Excursions to Chinley, Edale, Hope, Bamford and Hathersage, from Manchester Railway Termini, E.M.Johnson, Foxline Publishing,  1987

Picture; from Manchester Railway Termini, E.M.Johnson, Foxline Publishing,  1987

The unremarkable reveals its secrets ...... at Chorlton station in 1911

This is one of those pictures which don’t get included in the collections of Chorlton.

And you can see why of course.  There is nothing here at first glance which anyone would recognise so there is no point in trying to match it with the present.

Nor do we know who any of the four are and given that the photograph is over a hundred years old I doubt that we ever will.

So most of us would pass over the image and if pressed would label it “four men outside a brick hut, possibly industrial, date unknown.”

For me that is pretty much the attraction.  The date is given as circa 1909 and we are down at the Goods Office by Chorlton Station.

And with that small piece of detail the photograph begins to make sense and I think  starts being interesting.

Look closely and to the left there is a carriage no doubt waiting for someone off the train, while directly in front of the hut is the Public Weighing Machine and to the right the offices of the coal merchants.

In 1911 there were five of them working from the yard by the railway line along with J. Duckett & Sons, building merchants, and J. A. Bruce Alexander, nurseryman.

We may even be able to date more accurately when the picture was taken because according to the 1911 directory one of the firms working in the yard was a Frank Tinker and it is his name which appears above and on the office to our immediate right.

And so to the four. I still don’t know who they are, but one  is wearing a railwayman’s cap with the letters CLC, for the Cheshire Lines Committee which will take me down the route of searching out their staffing records.

The two in the doorway judging by their clothes may be clerical staff which I is confirmed by the sheaf of papers held by one of them.

So the brick hut will be connected to the Public Weighing machine, these are employees of the railway and we are down by the station in what is now the car park of the supermarket.

And looking back at the directories for the years before 1911 there is evidence that the number of coal merchants has grown reflecting I suspect how populous Chorlton was becoming and how successful had been the railway in the 20 or so years since it was opened.

And not long after this was posted I got one of those helpful comments from John Anthony Hewitt "Not really a public weighing machine Andrew Simpson, although it could have been used for that purpose as well as railway duties. 

It was most likely used for sale of coal and other materials, by weight, to local merchants. 

They would weigh-in empty wagons, weigh-out the same wagons laden with coal, etc., and calculate the bill. 

The person holding the papers could be one of the merchants judging by the non-railway style of hat being worn. 

He is also looking slightly bemused [at the bill], whereas the railway clerk has a broad smile on his face."

Location; Chorlton

Picture; from the Lloyd collection, 1911

On Chorlton-cum-Hardy Railway Station with Edwin Casson

Now it is rare that you can identify an individual on a picture like this.

But I know that the man sat down, fourth from left in the middle row is Edwin Casson, who continued to work for the railway company well into the 1920s.

And I know this because yesterday I bumped into Steve Casson who is the great grandson of Edwin and promised to send over a series of family photographs.

I don’t have a date for the picture but I do know that Black and White the photographers, were active in Manchester in the early 20th century.

In 1903, they had studios at 62 Oldham Street, 208 Oldham Road, and 93 Oxford Street.

I can’t be more precise, but they do not appear in either the 1895 directory or the 1909 one, so we have a limited time frame for our picture.

The railway station at Chorlton-cum-Hardy had opened in 1880 and proved very popular, particularly with those who lived in Chorlton and worked in town.

The journey took less than fifteen minutes and so for some it was possible to come home for dinner.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; Mr. Edwin Casson, on Chorlton-cum-Hardy Railway Station, circa 1903, from the collection of Steve Casson

Waiting for that fast service to Central ................ standing on the platform at Chorlton-cum-Hardy railway station

Now I am part of that generation that grew up with steam locomotives.

And I don’t mean those special heritage steam trains I mean the full on thing, when everything from the intercity express down to sedate suburban commuter links and the humble unromantic goods locos were all steam powered.

All of which makes this picture postcard of our station one to cherish particularly because there are very few of the inside of the station.

I don’t have a date for this one but it will be before 1926 when an aerial picture shows the station without the footbridge which the historian John Lloyd says was removed “to save the expense of maintaining it and the public had to use the road bridge.”**

So we have just 40 or so years to play with because the station was opened in 1880 and judging by  the quality of the picture postcard I am guessing we will be sometime in the early years of the last century.

And that quality allows you to focus in on the detail from the iron work under the bridge to the signs advising passengers to use the foot bridge to cross the tracks which proved particularly relevant after the death of Mary Jane Cockrill of Oswald Road in 1909 who was run down by "a fast train approaching the station."***

I don’t think you have to have an over vivid imagination to put yourself on that platform just over a century ago.

The place is empty save for the staff and the chap in the bowler hat who I suspect runs the kiosk, so we must be in one of those in between moments and given that there are no passenger either a train has just gone through or this is that long wait between the morning commuter rush and the evening return.

And for anyone who has ever been alone on a warm summer’s day waiting for a train the scene will be all too familiar.

There will be that silence punctuated by the odd noise from the road in the distance the clunck of a shunting engine and the sound of the platform clock.

And if you have timed it wrongly there could still be a hint of steam left from the departing train and the last solitary commuter making their way out up the approach path to Wilbraham Road.

Which means that you are left to idle the time away looking at the headlines from the newspaper posters, ponder on the promises being made by the adverts and perhaps spend a penny on that weighing machine.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, date unknown

Picture; Chorlton-cum-Hardy Railway Station, date unknown, courtesy of Mark Fynn***

*Looking Back At Chorlton-cum-Hardy, John Lloyd, 1985

**Woman Killed at Chorlton In front of a railway train, Manchester Guardian, January 11, 1909 although to be accurate her death was a suicide

***Manchester Postcards, http://www.manchesterpostcards.com/index.html, 

When no trains ran from Chorlton railway station

Now I featured the story before of when flooding stopped the trains at Chorlton Railway Station.

But Andy Robertson just passed over this picture from his collection in 1954 and so here is a little of that story with this picture.

After “a day of heavy rains in the North West, the red (flooding imminent) signal was given” in the early hours of January 21st 1954* from Salford along to Didsbury “the river was rolling into the densely populated area of Meadow Road” in Salford and shortly after 2 a.m. the Mersey was said to be pouring over its banks into large parts of the Didsbury and Northenden areas.”

And here we had “one of the most serious cases of flooding in the Manchester area,” as "Chorlton Brook overflowed in the late afternoon over the railway lines.  

The flood waters were thirty inches deep below the platforms and made the station impassable ....... an official at the station said  late last night that the water had started to rise shortly after the rush hour, until it became so deep that there was a danger of it reaching the fire boxes on the trains.”

So there you have, not I suspect the last flood story but enough for now.

*When flooding stopped the trains, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/when-flooding-stopped-trains.html

**Manchester Guardian January 21st 1954

Picture; Chorlton Railways Station 1954 from the collection of Andy Robertson

When flooding stopped the trains

It might seem a last exhausted stab at stories about Chorlton and flooding but this one is interesting and set me off on one of those little historical adventures.

The picture is undated and could be anytime in the 20th century.

There are newspaper reports of flooding on the line in 1926 and 1954 and I rather think it might be the latter, given the style of the clothes of people on the platform, but I might be wrong.

But after “a day of heavy rains in the North West, the red (flooding imminent) signal was given” in the early hours of January 21st 1954* and from Salford along to Didsbury “the river was rolling into the densely populated area of Meadow Road” in Salford and shortly after 2 a.m. the Mersey was said to be pouring over its banks into large parts of the Didsbury and Northenden areas.”

And here we had “one of the most serious cases of flooding in the Manchester area,” as "Chorlton Brook overflowed in the late afternoon over the railway lines.  

The flood waters were thirty inches deep below the platforms and made the station impassable ....... an official at the station said  late last night that the water had started to rise shortly after the rush hour, until it became so deep that there was a danger of it reaching the fire boxes on the trains.”

So there you have, not I suspect the last flood story but enough for now.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection, extract from the Manchester Guardian January 21st 1954

*Manchester Guardian January 21st 1954

Round Field Holt ….. Albany Road …… and a man called Enoch Royle

This is the story of a road.

Albany Road, circa 1920s

Not that there is much to distinguish it from all the other roads which from the 1880s into the next century transformed a place of fields and cottages into rows of shops and houses.

Along the way this place had lost its ancient name of Martledge and gained a new one.

The new one was less romantic and was just a statement.

 So, when people called the surrounding area New Chorlton, or the New Village it was only to distinguish it from the old centre of the township located around the former village green and the long twisty lane we now call Beech Road which was always known as Chorlton Row.

But New Chorlton had the railway station, which had opened to a flurry of interest in 1880 and was accompanied by a goods yard for the unloading and temporary storage of “things”.

Coal reciept, 1963

And because we were still a coal age part of the yard was given over to coal merchants, some of whom have yet to pass out of living memory, along with the Bailey family who regularly “walked” their newly arrived animals from the goods yard through Chorlton to their farm on St Werburgh’s Road.

As for Albany Road it was not cut until 1885, and then only extended to number 57, with the remaining seven houses coming along about nine years later.

To which will now be added a “4 storey building to form 40 residential apartments, together with cycle and car parking, bin store, landscaping, and boundary treatments” at 4B Albany Road.

Its a development which will replace a low-rise industrial building dating back to 1983.*

This plot has had a chequered past having once been railway land sitting at the end of the goods yard and briefly for a period in the 1920s into the 1930s was home to a tennis court.

Go back another century and it was farmed as arable land by William Knight and owned by the Egerton Estate.  Mr Knight counted 72 acres of arable, pasture and meadow land in his holding of which our spot had the delightful name of Round Field Holt.

Enoch Royle and assistant, undated

To date I have found no pictures of the field although there are a few of the goods yeard and the railway station.

But Albany Road was recorded, and amongst the images there iare two of Mr. Enoch Royle and his wagon.  

He was a carter, and the two images show him on the stretch of Albany Road just past the junction with Brantingham Road.

What makes the two pictures of special interest are the buildings behind the wagon, one of which is the semidetached houses which are still there today and the other is the garage.

The church and hall, J Montgomery, 1968 from a lost picture postcard

And it is the garage that has always intrigued me, because I think this is on the site of what was once a church and church hall. 

There is a reference to the St Andrew’s Protestant Episcopal Evangelical Church and the Davenport Mores Hall on the corner of Albany and Brantingham.

It was run by the Rev William R. Graham D.D. and it was built sometime between 1907 and 1909, and two years later had become St Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Evangelical Church.

By then in 1911 the hall was unlisted but beside it on Albany Road sandwiched between the church and the home of Mrs Annie Kennedy was Metcalf & Higginbotham Ltd, paper merchants, which later is recorded as a “Furniture depository” and by 1950 as a garage.

All decked out, undated

All of which takes me back to the second picture of Enoch Royle which shows his wagon decked with decorations

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.

Before Albany Road, 1881

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”. 

And beyond a field, a railway and a Rose Queen Festival, there will be more on just how Albany Road fitted in to the story of Chorlton-cum Hardy but that is it for now.

Location; Albany Road

Pictures; Albany Road, circa 1920s, Enoch Royle and his wagons, undated but circa 1930s, from the Lloyd Collection, Coal reciept, 1963, courtesy of Marjory Holmes, and the church and hall, J Montgomery, 1968, from a lost picture postcard, m80123, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Before Alabany Road, 1881, Withington Board of Health, courtesy of Trafford Local Studies Centre

*Application for the Erection of a 4 storey building to form 40  residential apartments, together with cycle and car parking, bin store, landscaping, and boundary treatments following demolition of existing buildings. 136878/FO/2023, Manchester City Council Planning Portal. 2023, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=RU36JOBCJDG00&activeTab=summary

Snaps of Chorlton No 5, a lost railway scene

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

I think we are sometime in the 1980s and we are looking  towards the Wilbraham Road bridge, beyond which was the station and off to our right Adastral House.  

Now someone out there will be much better informed than I about the loco and what it is pulling.  

My knowledge stops at being able to say it is a British Rail locomotive, when we still had a nationalized railway company.

Originally I thought it might be the 1960s but those in the know have helped me push the date forward.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; from the Lloyd Collection 

Mile By Mile, travelling our railways in 1947

“The object of this book is to encourage the passenger to anticipate his progress, and to enable him to know to a nicety, what he next will see from the window at any and every stage of the journey.  

It is such a pity to sacrifice this experience to idle slumber, or to concentration on a magazine that would be better enjoyed at home.”*

Now this seems a pretty neat idea to me, and I have to say it is one that I try to practice, whether I am on a train, tram or the bus.

But I rather think it is an ambitious project that few would undertake, especially when what is being described is nothing less than the routes of the main railway companies in 1947.

But this is what Mr Pike set out to do in a series of little books just as the railways became nationalized.

The publications covered the L.N.E.R, the LMS, and Southern Railways but for reasons which have never been established he failed to keep his promise of one on the G.W.R. **

Nevertheless for the other three here were details of “the gradients of the lines, speed tests and mileages,  viaducts, bridges and embankments, along with tunnels, cuttings, crossovers and streams, rivers and roads.  

For good measure there were also lists of towns, villages, churches and mines, factories and works and an account of features of interest and beauty to be seen from the trains.”

It was all of the information which made a train journey worthwhile.

And of course with the passage of time and the end of both steam locomotives as well as many of the branch lines his guides have become a piece of history.

As you would expect I looked for Chorlton-cum-Hardy and there it was in the L.M.S on a map which included Didsbury, Withington and Central Station, along with the gradients of the line, miles from London and rivers roads and much else.

The London Midland Scottish was a family favourite, with its maroon coloured locos, and maroon and cream painted coaches.

This I suspect had something to do with my dad and uncle’s Scottish roots and for me because LMS Duchess of Montrose was my chosen Hornby Dublo loco on the model railway my father built for me and lovingly maintained.

But I also had a real interest in the Southern Railway which became the Southern Region of British Railways.  It was the one I used from being a child till I left London.

And however unfashionable it is today I remain fascinated by our nationalised railway company which was making its first bold steps soon after Mr Pile began publishing.

All of which brings me back to those railway books and the fact that they are once again available in a single volume, MILE BY MILE ON BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS, S.N.PIKE, published by Aurum Press Ltd, 2011.

It is a book I regularly go back to and one that brings alive that lost age.

Pictures; from the cover of MILE BY MILE ON BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS, S.N.PIKE, published by Aurum Press Ltd, and original Mile by Mile on the L.M.S. 1947

With Reg and David on Chorlton station in 1925 and memories of a book stall in Varese

This is just one of those short little stories which feature some of the people and an unusual scene from the 1920s.

We are on Chorlton railway station beside the W.H.Smith’s bookstall and it is 1925.

On the right is David Ball who was the manager and on the left is Reg Croton who ran a taxi and lived on Sandy Lane.

By the time this picture was taken Reg was 36 and was running the family business.

His father would have made the move from horse drawn cab to motor car and was listed in the 1911 telephone book at Chorlton-c-H 481, CROTON, Chas, Coach Proprietor ...Sandy Lane.

And by another of those links with the past the family home had been a farmhouse and by the 1920s may have been a hundred years old.

But it is also the bookstall that fascinates me.  In their way these kiosks have changed little. To quote another famous retailer the simple approach was to “pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap.”  There is here everything the train traveller might want, need or just be seduced into buying.   So, there are piles of books, pencils, crayons, what look like paint brushes, and piles of books and magazines, including the latest issue of the Strand Magazine with a story by P.G.Woodhouse.

And as ever it is the adverts that draw you into the period.  Amateur Garden at 2d, with articles on "Bedding Plants, Dahlia Culture and Melons and Tomatoes" which underlines the growing leisure time that some of our new residents could enjoy.  But for me it is the WHS Pen in its smart case that intrigues me along with the ad “BOOKS WE’D LIKE TO BURN”

These old fashioned kiosks on stations have pretty much vanished as railway stations become just long empty and soulless platforms where even the waiting room is now a glass sided box.

But they live on in other places.

At the bottom of the road in Varese close by our usual bus stop is just such a kiosk where everything seems available, including English magazines and hard by the station is an even busier one which has the added bonus of a taxi rank next door.

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection and the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking our forgotten railway line

I continue to be a fan of “near history” which many traditionalists would rubbish as not history at all.  

After all so the argument goes how can you call any event which is only 20 years old history?

The passage of time is too short to call up all the many ways that the event has impacted on us and so no true perspective is possible.  All of which is true, but I shall proceed anyway.

Here is a selection of pictures taken by Andy Robertson who took a stroll down our disused railway line in February 1993. 

Chorlton-cum-Hardy station closed in 1969* after serving the community for 89 years and while freight trains continued to use the line for another twenty years, finally in 1989 the tracks were lifted and that pretty much was that.

A little of what it had once been are still visible from the signalling lights to the old platform.

And this again is why these pictures of our near history are so fascinating because I have never realized that the platforms were so far down the track.

Ah I hear you mumble get a life, but it is that little bit of detail that I like.  After all few of us will have used the old station, and it is 44 years since the last train set off for the city centre which means that anyone who travelled the line will have to pull out memories which are over 50 years in the past.

All of which is an appropriate moment to mention Disused Stations Site Record by Paul Wright & Bevan Price http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/chorlton_cum_hardy/index.shtml It is a wonderful record of the stations and railway lines around Manchester which have long since vanished.

Some, like our own line have been pressed back into service and now provide a quick and comfortable way of getting into the heart of the city.

I have to confess that every time I travel on the tram I get a little sense of history which may be romantic tosh but still brings me just a tad closer to the past that I often write about.

And also neatly returns me to Andy’s pictures which nicely span the time between the closure of the station in 1969 and the opening of the Metro link in 2011.

* http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20railways

Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson

The story waiting for the memories …….. Chorlton’s secret and forgotten places

There remain little pockets of land across Chorlton, devoid of houses and pretty much apparently forgotten.

Lost and forgotten Chorlton, Manchester Road, 2023

Some still show signs of past cultivation, along with the remnants of a hut or shed but most are hidden away, and long ago have been reclaimed by nature.

One such strip runs beside the Metro line from Manchester Road as far as the old Chorlton Junction east of St Werburghs Road where the Fallowfield Loop departed from the main railway line.

According to the historian John Lloyd, “It was intended that the section through Chorlton [of the railway line] should be four tracked and land on the east side was reserved for this purpose.  

Even when the St Werburgh’s Road Bridge was rebuilt in the 1920’s an arch for the additional tracks was provided but in the last few years much of this strip has been sold for housing”.*

And as late as 1952 the OS map shows this as open land, a section of which the Bailey family used to graze their bulls and horses, and which in the 1930s and 40s was reserved for the travelling circus who used it for their animals, including their two prize elephants, Salt and Sauce.*

A railway line and an aqueduct, 1955

All of which I was reminded of today when Peter showed me a series of pictures, he and Linda had taken during Chorlton’s Open Garden Project.***

Some were of the forgotten railway land, while others followed the line of the Thirlmere Aqueduct which runs through Chorlton, and having crossed Manchester Road follows a route which takes it along Cheltenham Road across Oswald and Grange Roads before leaving the township and proceeding into Stretford.****

I had often wondered why there was such a long thin strip of valuable building land snaking through the heart of the area, and now I know leaving me just to ponder on what memories these bits of land might hold for people.

I suspect that the elephants have long since faded from living memory, but there will be plenty who remember the bulls, as well as the grazing horses and so I look forward to accounts of daring dos along the overgrown land, and perhaps illicit cricket games on the strip between Grange Road and Oswald Road, and if we are very lucky perhaps a few pictures.

And just maybe there will be the odd person who has pictures of the old railings, along the former railway land.  

Looking along the Aqueduct, 2023

Much of the bits are rusty forlorn and in danger of being covered in ivy but they are a little bit of that old Chorlton.

So, someone might have caught them on camera.

They may even have stories of when the German air force came looking for the Aqueduct, and dropped a string of bombs across Chorlton in the December of 1940.  They failed to hit it but did serious damage to a heap of properties and killed several people. 

We shall see.

The invite to the Urban Forest, 2023

That said one section of the land  beside the old railway is being transformed into Chorlton's own Urban Forest.******

It can be accessed from Buckfast Close which is off Buckinham Road and in time will have all the promise of a mysterious spot.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; secret and overgrown bits of lost Chorlton, Manchester Road, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, the land and Thirlmere Aqueduct, 1955, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1952, Peter Topping's pictures, 2023 from Open Garden Week and Marsh Meadow, 1950 from the Lloyd Collection

Rewilding our city, 2023

To which my botanist friend David Bishop has responded with a series of comments which have given me pause for thought on our secret places and forests in Chorlton.  

At the entrance to the Urban Forest, 2023

He writes, "Trouble is, Andrew, they tend not to remain secret - and if they don't get built on, people now want to 'rewild' them - which often seems to mean planting things - especially bloody trees! 

I wish that people would learn what the word 'rewild' actually means. It means establishing high functioning ecosystems on a landscape scale by restoring as many trophic levels as possible. 

You can't do that in a city (wolves in Southern Cemetery anyone?). You can increase the biodiversity of such spaces by careful and ecologically sound management but planting stuff - especially bloody trees - usually reduces biodiversity".

It is an alternative view which challenged the mass planting of trees on the meadows three decades ago, and while I enjoy the landscape on Chorlton Ees, a bit of me wishes it could be returned to its 19th century state of meadow land.

The Marsh Meadow, 1950

And for those who wonder what the "Meadows" once looked like, the picture The Marsh Meadow shows a very different landscape and one that would have been familiar to anyone who lived in Chorlton a full 70 years ago.

And it may even inspire more memories.

 

Marsh Meadow was at the point on the modern meadows where Ivy Green Road suddenly twists north to join Cartwright Road and Hawthorn Lane.

 

*Lloyd John, The Township of Chorlton cum Hardy, 1972, page 91

**Chorlton and a circus, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20and%20a%20circus

***Chorlton Open Gardens, https://www.chorltonopengardens.org.uk/

**** Thirlmere Aqueduct, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirlmere_Aqueduct

*****Bricks, gas pipes and much more ...... memories of the Chorlton Blitz .... Christmas 1940, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/08/bricks-gas-pipes-and-much-more-memories.html

******Urban Forest, https://www.urbanforest.uk/

One camera…...two pictures ……two brothers .... and Chorlton as it was in 1961

This is the view into Chorlton in 1961, and it is one of those rare photographs from the middle decades of the last century of where we live.

I say rare because while we have heaps of images taken between the late 1880s into the 1940s, similar scenes in the post war period are much harder to come across.

There will be plenty of reasons for this.  Chief amongst these is the demise of the commercial photographers who recorded iconic local landmarks and sold them on to picture postcard companies, while also doing a nice trade in selling pictures of individual streets and houses to residents.

To this can be added the arrival of the cheap camera, designed to take snaps.  But the snaps don’t often make it out into the public domain, and most have now been lost.

In some cases, they have been consigned to a photo album which with the passage of half a century or more is forgotten, or worse become the contents of bin liners consigned to the tip.

And today the practice of photographing “the moment” with you phone means that moment never gets beyond the mobile and rarely makes it to the “cloud”.  Either they are dependent on the technology not being updated or the owner deleting it forever.

All of which takes me back to this 1961 picture which John Anthony tells me was taken “by my brother Keith from Brantingham Road bridge looking towards Manchester Road. 

The second was taken by me and in my picture and is also from Brantingham Road. In mine there is some camera shake, but I like the detail of the telephone exchange yard. 

The fence (right) which was several steel wires on concrete posts with intermediate braces. Chorlton Baths in on the left. The light patch was the telephone exchange yard”.

In 1961 Chorlton Railway Station was still open offering a quick train service into Central Railway Station or out into Derbyshire and beyond, via Didsbury.

It is a scene which has yet to fade from living memory, but it would be nice to have more pictures of Chorlton in the 1950s into the 21st century which could compliment those on Manchester Library’s Digital Local Collection.*

The Library's collection of Chorlton images is large, but they are regularly plundered and posted on social network, but sadly are not accompanied by a date, a credit or an explanation of their significance.

Leaving me just to thank Tony who regular comments on the Chorlton stories and on occasion corrects my mistakes as well adding details of places and events.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; the railway line in Chorlton, 1961, from the pictures of Keith and Tony Hewitt.

*Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

A Railwayman’s View ...… 40 years of railway history .... the unique collection

I am looking at a collection of one man’s photographs, made over four decades chronicling the remarkable variety of steam, diesel and electric locomotives that operated out of Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station.*

They are the work of Ronnie Gee, who began his railway career in Longsight in 1943, but quickly moved over to working in a variety of signal boxes across south Manchester.

And because of the unique position high up in a signal box and armed with his camera he took thousands of pictures of the passing traffic, many of which are stunning “action” shots.

When he died in 2016 his collection was bequeathed to Manchester-based enthusiast and author, Eddie Johnson. 

Working with Ronnie's negatives and transparencies, Eddie and fellow Manchester Locomotive Society member, Ian Simpson, have produced a magnificent album of Ronnie's Images..

The book, simply entitled A RAILWAYMAN's VIEW is a wonderful collection of some of the 2500 black & white negatives and colour slides which Ronnie took over those three decades.**

As well as a stunning set of pictures from the steam era, there are plenty of diesel and electric locomotives, along with many that record the changes that took place, including the electrification of the line from Manchester to Wilmslow that took place in the 1960s.

The majority of photos date from the steam era and are in black & white, but a selection of colour images from the 1960s and 1970s are also included.

You can get the book direct from Eddie Johnson, price £15.95 plus £2.95 postage.

Cheque or cash only.  Available direct from E. M Johnson, 10 Tirza Avenue, Burnage, Manchester, M19 2JY,  email; tirza10@btinternet.com

*London Road Railway Station.

** A RAILWAYMAN's VIEW: The Photographs of Ronnie Gee, 2020, by: E. M. Johnson & I. Simpson, ,  ISBN: 9781527272798

A forgotten river, an old railway track .... the Platt Brook, the Fallowfield Loop

By Withington Road Railway Bridge, 2009

Today I think we shall walk the Fallowfield Loop again

Now I first came across this disused railway line a few years ago and have been promising to take the route to Fallowfield with my botanist friend David Bishop, but in the way of these things our desire to start some serious walking has got there first.

We had been up in the Hope Valley and with the sun shining and the presence of plenty of ramblers we decided it was time to join them but more of that later.

In the meantime it is the Fallowfield Loop that has got me going on this bright sunny day at the end of April.

It is a cycle and walking track, which runs for six miles from St Werburghs in Chorlton to Debdale Park.

As you would expect there is much to see and I have already promised myself the Companion Book of Flowers, along with Trees to spot and enjoy and What was that bird?

Platt Brook and Ley Brook, 1841-53

But for me the exciting discovery of our first trip along the path was the Platt Brook which runs open along part of the track and is a constant reminder to me of the number of open water course which flowed through south Manchester.

Many now disappear in dark culverts lost to most of us but occasionally come out into the daylight.

So it is with the Platt Brook which is the Gore Brook earlier in its journey.  Like some of the other books it finally runs in to our own Chorlton Brook and on its course picks up even smaller ones like the Ley Brook which is almost hidden from view.

We missed it at first and I was only drawn to it by a small brick wall which stops the curious from falling down its banks.  But there it was running underneath the old track into the Platt Brook and visible as it snaked off southin the opposite direction  towards Fallowfield, Burnage and Withington.

Stretches of it had been put below ground by the 1840s.

Now I fight the romantic side of my character but I have to confess to a sheer bout of the emotion at finding these little water ways most of which are totally overlooked but are a powerful link to our rural past.

So a bit ironic really that it should be this old disused railway track that brings me back to south Manchester of the 1840s, where as many of you know I so often reside.

The line in 1905

The Fallowfield Loop Railway began in 1891 when the stretch between Chorlton and Fallowfield was opened, followed the next year with an extension up to Fairfield.

The line provided a new route for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway to run trains from Sheffield into Manchester, and local stopping services ran from Fairfield and Gorton on the Hope Valley line to Manchester Central via Hyde Road, Fallowfield and Chorlton-cum-Hardy before joining a section of line from Old Trafford into Manchester Central.

It had a chequered history and its demise was a slow decline marked by the closure of some of the stations in the 1930s and the rest in the 50s.   Its end as a passenger line came in 1969 with the closure of Central Station although it was still used for freight until 1988 when the line was finally closed.

The route remained an increasingly overgrown relic of our railway past until its reopening as a cycle and track way in 2001.

The Comet,  on the loop line in 1935

This brings me back to our resolve to do some serious walking and in turn leads me to a reflection on how you kit yourself out for a new hobby.

Like all new ventures we were in danger of going over the top and friends have gently smiled at the idea that we should use a compass, but it is all part of the fun.


So with that said I rather think it is time to make tracks.

Now I am always pleased to be corrected otherwise what ids the poinbt of trying to get thisngs right so Here are two corrections from Brian Roberston and Ed Allen.

Brian wrote, "I have to correct your blog on a couple of points, Andrew Simpson. Firstly, there were no station closures in the 1930s. All of the stations closed together on July 7th, 1958. Secondly, although some Hope Valley trains run through Gorton and Fairfield, these stations are very much on the Woodhead line. Incidentally, the building of this line necessitated the building of new stations at Gorton and Fairfield. The line's main claim to fame is that the blue Midland Pulman was a regular visitor as it rested at Reddish depot between turns."

And Ed Allen comented, "The first picture is not Withington Road but St.Werburghs looking South. The bridge was widened in 1929 to cater for widening the tracks...a scheme which never materialized. I grew up with the Loop at the end of the garden in Chelsfield Grove. I still live nearby, with the Metrolink now at the back of the house. Land was reserved for the widening, the long thin field behind our house, the cinema on the bridge had to be easy to demolish and the houses on the West side of Buckingham Road were built on reserved land. The Comet didn't run on the Loop but ran from Piccadilly/London Road to London Euston. It didn't run through Fallowfield and anyway, the station in the photo is somewhere else, Fallowfield' signal box was actually on the Westbound platform. The locomotive is an original Royal Scot class originally named Jenny Lind then The Rifle Brigade. Usually, steam locos running on the Loop were former Lner engines Long coal trains were run into manchester and the Manchester Central to Harwich boat train was a regular heading the other way. So many archive photos have been captioned wrongly in the past, I hop no-one minds a little correction now and then."

Pictures; on the Fallowfield Loop by Withington Bridge, August 2009, Phil Champion and  geograph.org.uk, map of the spot where the Platt Brook joins the Leigh [Ley Brook] from the OS of Lancashire 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ railway bridge close to Fallowfield Station, City Engineers, October 1905, m78399, the Comet  Manchester to London Express, pulled by Loco 6146, passing through Fallowfield at 5.30 pm 1935, m63467, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

Stories of Chorlton-cum-Hardy’s Railways ........ more from Tony Goulding

Last Thursday having just exercised my democratic right I came across this sculpture at the entrance to the Barlow Moor Road council estate. 

I asked two workers nearby about its significance and was informed that it was to celebrate the fact that it was the advent of the railway which led to the development of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

This art work, which includes additions from some of the local residents, has been “christened” Willy by them.

Coincidentally the name of the last station master at the old Chorlton station was, apparently, William.
   
Such a lovely piece of work and its contribution to the preservation of our area’s heritage is well worth applauding.

In doing so I thought I might also delve into the newspaper archives to seek out some stories of Chorlton-cum-Hardy’s railway past. What follows are the results of this search.

In common with stations nationwide Chorlton-cum-Hardy witnessed its fair share of tragic deaths either by accident or most commonly by suicide. I have discovered reports of three such incidents.
 
The first of these I’ve recorded on a previous occasion on this blog but as I am now able to add considerably to the story I will start with it.

On  Saturday 2nd September, 1899 James William Smith, a joiner of 20, Oxford Street , Old Trafford, stepped off the platform at Chorlton-cum-Hardy station into the path of an approaching train and was killed instantly.

At the inquiry into this event, held at the Lloyd’s Hotel on the following Monday, evidence was given by both his wife, Mary and a workmate, Thomas Holroyd, that a recent change in his working pattern had been affecting Mr. Smith’s mental state so much so that he had left his job site in Bolton at lunch time on the Friday prior to his death and had not returned to work. It was further stated that his problem was purely imaginary and Mr. Smith had indeed been a valued employee of Thomas Heywood and Company. A verdict of suicide while insane was reached.
 

The other two cases of suicides on the railways of Chorlton-cum-Hardy occurred within 20 months of each other in 1932-3. On Friday 29th April, 1932 Lilian Beatrice Ringrose’s decapitated body was discovered on the line close to the station.  Mirroring this tragedy on Thursday, 28th December, 1933, the body of James Harding, 21, of 52, Keppel Road was also found dead on the line.
   
 Miss Ringrose was the 21 year old daughter of Walter Ringrose (1) a master tailor of 113, Upper Chorlton Road, Whalley Range. Newspaper accounts of her inquest describe symptoms of severe mental illness viz. hallucinations, paranoia and delusions. It was also reported that she had previously received treatment in Cheadle Royal Hospital and had shown signs o recovery, however her illness had returned to tragic effect.

The coroner read out part of a long letter found on the body to illustrate the girl’s state of mind “I am doing this to save you and prove the innocence of us all”. At the request of the parents of the dead girl no further content of the letter were made public.
 
 His father also a James, a hotel waiter, having passed away, most likely in the West Derby district of Liverpool in the December quarter of 1918, Mr. James Harding lived with his widowed mother, Susan (née Mound) at 52, Keppel Road. (2)   He is buried in the same grave as his mother and her parents –H 2152 in the consecrated section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester.
   

A less traumatic recurring occurrence the Chorlton-cum-Hardy station staff were faced with was the flooding (3) which happened periodically following exceptionally heavy rainfall. Two spectacular examples of this took place on 25th July, 1901 and 17th July, 1947.

Both of these incidents were extensively recorded.

The Manchester Evening News, 1901 report was particularly detailed (and quite amusing!) while in 1947 the Illustrated London News printed a very revealing photograph with the by-line “The Permanent Way Becomes a Canal” showing a train ‘ploughing’ through the flood water at Chorlton-cum-Hardy Station.
   

Being unable, for copyright reasons, to use this photograph I went on a stroll along the “Fallowfield Loop” in search of more evidence of the area’s railway past and took these photographs of Bridge 29 – “Jacksons” bridge with its plaque.

The current plaque dates only from 2002 when it was placed there by “Sustrans”, the cycling promoting charity, after it had converted the derelict line, which had finally closed in 1988(4), to a traffic free cycle and waling route. It does record, however, that the bridge was built in 1891 by the evocatively named “Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway”

Tony Goulding © 2019

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Tony Goulding, 2019 


NOTES
1) Lilian Beatrice’s mother was Elizabeth Annie Elkington (née Horsfield) who had herself suffered some form of mental illness and spent time in an asylum as a young woman. Her first husband John Sidney Valentine Elkington had also taken his own life in June, 1898; apparently he had been so distressed by his young wife’s illness that he drowned himself in a local canal near his home in Bow in the East End of London.

2) James also had two sisters Doris born – June quarter 1916 died in infancy and Elizabeth, born 20th August, 1913. She married William Henry Flowers, a motor fitter at Saint Clements Church, Chorlton-cum-Hardy on the 8th June, 1935.

3) A significant problem area whenever one of these deluges occurred was the Old Trafford Tunnel which on these occasion was said to more resemble a conduit.

4) The line’s last passenger services ran in 1969 when it became freight only.

The 27 Steps a mystery no more

The Twenty-seven steps, 1959

Just when you think you have pretty much nailed knowing some of the history of Chorlton, up pops an obscure reference which sets you off.


So for about a year now I have been pondering on a caption on a photograph by the local historian John Lloyd where he referred to the 27 steps.

It crops up in a number of pictures and I thought it referred to somewhere along the bank of the Mersey.

I can’t say I had been over energetic in hunting down the spot, consoling myself with the thought that the location had been radically altered and that it had long since passed out of popular knowledge.

Not that I asked anyone.

And like so many other little mysteries it just dropped off the list of things to find out about.

But then Peter Blunn posted this picture on a facebook site which he had come across on the digital archive of Manchester Libraries.

According to the caption this was the “Twenty--seven steps, a noted local landmark on Mauldeth Road West, Manchester 21, railway bridge over BLM Region Main Line to London (St Pancras)”

The railway line and bridge, 1893

The photograph was taken by Mr R.E. Stanley in the September of 1959 and clearly back then the steps were well known.

So one bit of the mystery solved only to lead to another, because the obvious next question is when were the steps constructed?

The line was in place by 1880 and the bridge carrying what is now Mauldeth Road West is there on the OS map for 1893, so still some digging to go.

But I bet there is someone out there who knows.

Picture; Twenty--seven steps, a noted local landmark on Mauldeth Road West, 1959, R.E. Stanley, M18106 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and detail of railway line in 1893 from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1888-93, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/