Of books…… endless hours of study ….. and 93 new homes*

 This is the third in the series on the changes to Didsbury over the last two decades.

Homes from the former chapel and library, 2022

Now this may seem a blink in the eye for a Dinosaur or anyone born in the 1940s but will be news to some who spent their growing up as the 21st century dawned or arrived in the township after 2014.

So, for some of the residents of St James Park off Wilmslow Road and many more who pass it each day, those 93 homes grouped around Sir John Bland Way, Bloomesbury Avenue, The Grove, and Skylark Close could have always been there but are almost brand new.

Planning permission had been granted in the July of 2015 and work began the following February.*

The centre piece of the new development for me at least is the Pump House and the Methodist chapel.  

The Pump House dates from the 18th century and was added to in the 1840s by the Methodists who had bought the property and established a theological college to which they added the chapel.

I only knew them as the Admin block and the library of Didsbury Teacher Training College where I spent part of 1972 into 1973 doing a Post Grad course on how to teach history to secondary school students.

The Admin block was the former 18th century home which became a private school before being taken over by the Methodists and ending up as offices at the end of the last war, while the chapel had been converted into the library having served as a Red Cross  hospital during the Great War.

Drama Studios, and Assembly Hall, 2015

I can count the number of times I visited both.  Two of my tutors were based in the Admin block and the library was less a place to study and just somewhere you went to acquire precious materials to use in the classroom.

The college campus closed in 2014 transferring to what was then called Birley Fields and an uncertain wait settled on the place.  But its 17acres set in much sought-after Didsbury meant it would fall to the developers at some point.  

What followed was the demolition of the 1960s build and the slightly up market huts which were home to a series of lectures on the philosophy and politics of education, made only remarkable by one lecturer who asked that simple question  “What would you do if all the Year 7 students got up and walked out” and that quote “It could all be marble Sir but it would still be bloody school”**.

The former chapel and library, 2015

All of that has now vanished leaving just the former Admin block and library, and it is the library that Peter painted last week handing it over with the challenge, “What about writing something that deals with changes in Didsbury over the last twenty years”.

Adding “you could focus on two neighbouring buildings, parks or places and explore how one has stayed the same and its neighbour which has undergone sweeping change”.

It is a template that has worked well for the first two stories in the series but has come a little unstuck with this one, because the two historic buildings have both changed their use on several occasions and are now both residential.

Still why let that get in the way of a story and a challenge.

Location; Didsbury, 

Painting; the former chapel and library, 2022, Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures

Picture; The Drama Studio and Assembly Hall, 2015 and The former chapel and library, 2015, from the collection of Peter Topping

*New Didsbury housing development to be named St James Park after village’s first building, Beth Abbit, January 11th 2016, Manchester Evening News, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/st-james-park-didsbury-houses-10717332

**Half Our Future, The Newsome Report, 1963, Part 1, page 2

Changing Didsbury …….. the bits we miss

 Now, we are all familiar with those old images of Didsbury stretching back into the last century and beyond, and the fun is comparing them with the same spot today.

Pub and restaurant, 2022,

It is something that publishers and historians go in for in a big way with titles like Then and Now, Old and New, and Times Go By.

All of which is fine but doesn’t always capture the last few decades.

After all when you have lived through those times it is easy to become blasé about what has changed around you.

And that is the subject of a short series predicated on the idea that we quickly forget the name of the bar or restaurant which occupied the site of that new Italian and which played a big part in our lives only a few years before.

It was Peter’s idea who on passing the Ye Old Cock reflected on the small restaurant next door.

I can remember it as an up market steak restaurant, and ate there when it was an off shoot of Dimitri’s around 2012.

But never really worked out why it changed its name to Olive and Vine but still advertised itself as Dimitri’s.

And last time I passed it was Jajoo, Indian Street Food.

Leaving me just to remember that back in 2008 it had been The Didsbury Village Restaurant.

Of course you can indulge yourself and slip ever backward, peeling away the decades.

But 20 or so years is perhaps enough.

The pub, 1954

And that makes a nice contrast to the Old Cock which has been a pub for a long time and I mean a long time.

It was already quite ancient when it hosted the Wakes events back in 1825.

So back to Peter who thought the series might not just focus on changes across the last few decades to two buildings, but also point out how one had stayed the same and the other had changed a lot.

Which is true of the Old Cock and its small neighbour. 

The pub has always had that name, and always offered up "beer and cheer" while its friend has had different names, and served different cuisines..... and the really oldies will remember when it wasn't a restaurant.

Olive & Vine in the summer

All of which is fine but does rather ignore that annoying little fact that the pub underwent a massive interior transformation, which saw all the intimate little rooms vanish to be replaced by a large open space.

But I shall ignore that development.  After all why let a bit of reality get in the way of a story, and just conclude that according to Peter  "The pub has always had that name, except for a brief moment in the early 1900s, when the ‘e’ in ‘Olde’ was dropped, while its neighbour  was the Welcome Cafe in 1928"

And then as sometimes happens, just after the story went live, Dimitri Griliopoulos, the owner of Dimitri's in town and Olive and Vine, replied with "Very sad to have given up Dimitris in Didsbury. 

8 months closed due to Covid was a big nail in a coffin, after 8 years hoping to make a financial success. 

The name Olive and Vine was to show that it was a slightly different style to Dimitris in town. 

Last time I passed it looked like the new owners also had trouble keeping going. 

Appeared closed ,

PS I worked at the Steak & Kebab restaurant there in the 1980s."

Along with the comment came some fine pictures which I just had to use.

Olive & Vine in the snow

So the postscript takes us full circle to Peter's original idea of presenting and informing the residents of Didsbury with a bit of the townships recent past

Location; Didsbury

Painting; Ye Olde Cock Inn and Jajoo @ 2022, Paintings from Pictures*

Picture; The Old Cock, 1954, from Didsbury Through Time, Peter Toping, & Andrew Simpson, 2013, and Olive and Vine, undated courtesy of  Dimitri Griliopoulos

*Dimitri's, https://www.dimitris.co.uk/