A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects number 9 ........... Goodbye teachers

The story of Didsbury in just twenty objects, chosen at random and delivered in a paragraph or more.

It was billed as “The People’s Farewell to Didsbury” and marked the end of over 200 years of teaching on the site that looked out on the village green.

Sometime around 1812, the fine house known as the Pump House, became a boarding school.

Later it was turned into a theological college and later still into teacher training college.

And before that was a private residence dating back to about 1744.

The stone cladding to what was originally a brick building was added by the Wesleyans when they took it over in 1841.They also added the wings at either side and that is what generations of people from Didsbury have seen as they pass by.

 And in 1965 Manchester Corporation added a set of teaching buildings and a gym to mark the expansion of the site into a teacher training college.  My brief contribution to its history was as a postgrad student between 1972 to 73.

All of which meant I was not going to miss the farewell Didsbury Picnic in the June of 2014, to mark the closure of the site and its move to Hulme.

Location; Didsbury

Picture; The People's Farewell to Didsbury, June 25th, 2014

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

Inside an 18th century house in Didsbury

Looking back to 2014 ...... before that development.

This is the Pump House.  It has served as an educational institution of sorts since it became a boarding school around 1812.

Later it was turned into a theological college and later still into teacher training college.

And before that was a private residence dating back to about 1744.

The stone cladding to what was originally a brick building was added by the Wesleyans when they took it over in 1841.

They also added the wings at either side and that is what generations of people from Didsbury have seen as they pass by.

I remember it as the admin block when it was the Didsbury College of Education and it was where I attended meetings with teaching staff.

But soon it will all change again as the M.M.U. relocates to Birley Fields.

So for all of those who like me have not been inside since they graduated and for all those who just pass by and wonder what the inside is like, here are a few images from my old friend Pierre who works there and never ceases to enjoy both the place and his role as a teacher.

Something of the grandeur of the building is still there from when it was a private residence and home to the Broome family during the 18th century.

So there you have it, a bit of the building's history and some fine photographs.

And now its time as a college is almost over and as the staff begin to pack up I guess all sorts of records and historical information will be unearthed.

Now as a historian I am fascinated by what might turn up.

After all almost 70 years will have gone past since the college became a teacher training establishment and there will be plenty of stories which might emerge from those records.

This I know because just fourteen years ago my old school merged with another and in the process of sifting and eliminating more than a half century of material many fascinating glimpses of the schools past came to light.

And if any one wants to know a little about the college and its place in the history of Didsbury I shall draw your attention to the book Didsbury Through Time which chronicles the changes to the area over the last century mixing old images of the place with new photographs and paintings and focusing on some of the people who lived behind the doors of the buildings featured in the book.

The book was published in December 2013, and is available at Chorlton Bookshop and in Didsbury from Morten’s Bookshop on Warburton Street, Didsbury, as well of course as other bookshops.



Pictures; of the Pump House courtesy of Pierre Grace, 2014.

One of the last photographs from the Wesleyan College in Didsbury ......... 1940

The year of 1940

Now this is one of those little bits of history which could so easily have been lost forever.

We are looking at a photograph of the students who attended the old Wesleyan College in Didsbury between 1939-40.

For almost a century it had been preparing men for the Methodist ministry and 1940 was a landmark in its history.

Students

During the last world war the college had become a hospital and in 1946 it was sold to Manchester Education Committee which means that this picture has real historical significance.

Added to this we know the names of all those who stare back at us including those who were leaving that year and the teaching staff.

In time it should be possible to track most of the men and in so doing build a profile of that year’s student body and of course go a little way to discovering what happened to  each of them.

Some no doubt went on to serve in the war while others took up posts in the church

Now such photographs are not rare but ones with such a local connection do not always surface.

And for this one I have David Harrop to thank.  David is a keen collector of memorabilia associated with both world wars and the history of the postal service.

The College, 1920

Many of these items have appeared in his permanent exhibitions at the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery, and we have discussed just what the chances are that some of these men will be buried in Southern.

It is a question as yet I have no answer to but I think it will well worth researching.

At present I have come across little material on the final period of the Methodist College which makes the photograph both unique and important.

And points to the importance of such material which by chance has survived three quarters of a century and was spotted by David on eBay.

So as they say watch this spot.

Picture; Students and staff Didsbury College, 1939-40 and the main building of the college 1920

Inside an 18th century house in Didsbury

It  served as an educational institution of sorts since it became a boarding school around 1812.  

Later it was turned into a theological college and later still into teacher training college.

And before that was a private residence dating back to about 1744.

The stone cladding to what was originally a brick building was added by the Wesleyans when they took it over in 1841.

They also added the wings at either side and that is what generations of people from Didsbury have seen as they pass by.

I remember it as the admin block when it was the Didsbury College of Education and it was where I attended meetings with teaching staff.

And now it has reverted to private use after  the M.M.U. relocated to Birley Fields.

So for all of those who like me have not been inside since they graduated and for all those who just pass by and wonder what the inside is like, here are a few images from my old friend Pierre who worked there and never ceased to enjoy both the place and his role as a teacher.

Something of the grandeur of the building is there still there from when it was a private residence and home to the Broome family during the 18th century.

So there you have it, a bit of the building's history and some fine photographs.









Pictures; of the Pump House courtesy of Pierre Grace.

Visions of a future ……. Didsbury ……. 1965

I arrived here just four years later, ready to do a post grad course and on to a career in teaching.

Location; Didsbury

Picture;Visions of a future,  "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection",

Back in Didsbury digging for the story of the Laurels .... another from 2015

Now I couldn’t stay away from Didsbury and that dig down in the College car park because now we have pictures of the two houses that once stood on the site.

One of the cellars, 2015

And with these photographs, and a plan from the land registry I think I can begin to make some sense of at least one of the houses revealed by the archaeologists.

This is the Laurels which according to the historian Ivor R Million was one of a group of houses near The Grove which “was built in the style of a previous age, leading many to think it was Georgian.  It was in fact built between 1843 and 1843 was demolished in 1968.”*

The Laurels in 1959

Of course I might still be wrong in making the connection between the Laurels and the one mentioned by Mr Ivor but Noel who I met walking his dog near the site thought that the house had been demolished in the 1960s.

All of which means that there will be a fair few people in Didsbury who will remember the property and if pushed some of the residents who lived there.

And perhaps even what the house was like inside.  I know from the 1911 census that it had eleven rooms and was the home of the Reverend Caleb Scott who was 79, a widower and shared the house with his three servants, who were Elizabeth Taylor aged 21; her sister Annie who was 16 and Florence Walker aged 17.

The Laurels in 1922

They were all from Yorkshire and in time I might go looking for their families but the real search will be to go back through the records looking for those who owned or rented the houses and by degree we should get back to when it was built.

The excavated site has revealed a fairly high status property which had marble fireplaces and its own well which is what you might expect from a house built in the 1840s.

Now what is odd is the lack of any household items.  It’s almost as if the place had been swept clean.  But there are a few interesting items including what appears to an electrical junction box which may date from the 1930s and a gas fitting with a name.

All of which is a start.  Of course the professionals engaged in digging the site will come up with much more but when you have stood in the cellars of the Laurels it is not easy to walk away without engaging in a bit of detective work.

So we shall see.

The Laurels in 2015

And I bet there will be people who know more and will in the fullness of time offer up their own insight into the Laurels and its neighbour.

Pictures; the Laurels in 1959, J.F. Harries, m42363,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,  http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, the cellars of the Laurels from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the plan of the Laurels, 1922 from the Land Registry, courtesy of  P.J. Livesey http://www.pjlivesey-group.co.uk/

Million, Ivor R., A History of Didsbury, 1969

That ghost house in Didsbury and the links to Mr Watts and his warehouse on Portland Street ....... the one from 2015

For nearly half a century the remains of the Laurels have been buried under a car park pretty much forgotten by everyone and I doubt would have ever have seen day light again but for the redevelopment of the site.

Pascal explains the dig, 2015

The car park was part of the old Didsbury College of Education and the Laurels was demolished around 1967 when the Assembly Hall was built.

Now I can’t be sure exactly when the fine old house went.

One source places its demolition a year later but it will be after the completion of the hall when that car park was laid out.

This was a period of expansion for the college and the Guardian reported on the plans to double the number of students to two thousand making it “the biggest training college in England and Wales.”*

Lookig across to the car park, 1974

And given those grand extension plans  I suppose it made sense to knock down the old house and make that car park but it seems more than a shame given its rich and long history some of which has been revealed by the team of archaeologists who uncovered not only the Laurels but a neighbouring house.

From the bits of marble fireplaces, some decorative plaster work and the extensive cellars the Laurels according to the team was “high status.”

It had eleven rooms and was set back from the road in its own grounds and dated from the mid 1840s.

I can’t be exactly sure when it was built but there is a suggestion it was constructed between  1843 and 1845** and it is there on the tithe map for 1845.

The Laurels in 1959

That said it may even be older because there are buildings on the same spot on both Hennet’s map of 1830 and Greenwoods’ a full twelve years earlier although their footprints differ a little from that of the building demolished in the 1960s.

Now I can be fairly certain of some of the people who lived there but of these  it is Mr Charles J Sloan who has offered up a  trail that led to the Watts family who built that vast and impressive warehouse on Portland Street in town.

Mr Sloan was an accountant who rented the house from 1895 till at least 1901 from James Watts, who also owned number 1 Millgate Lane all nine houses in the Grove, as well as Park House and three on Didsbury Park along with five on Wilmlsow Road one of which was the Laurels.

The Watts Warehouse, 1892

These twenty houses together in 1898 provided a combined rent of £783 a year and the rate books show that Mr Watt’s property portfolio was far more extensive.

The Laurels alone gave him a rent of £90 but that was not the only connection between the house and Mr Watts, for the Watts family had once lived there.

I don’t know when yet but James Watts senior had been born in Didsbury in 1801.

His father was a handloom weaver who had opened a warehouse on Deansgate in 1798, followed that up with a shop and the rest as they say was a mix of hard work and entrepreneurial flair which  led in 1858 to the construction of their show warehouse on Portland Street which pretty much cornered the market in both style and size.

It was 300 feet long, 100 high, stood detached and was fronted in polished Yorkshire stone and each of its five floors was decorated in a different style and finished off with huge Gothic wheel windows.

In a city which prided itself on being the first of the new industrial cities their warehouse proclaimed with confidence that the future was Manchester.

All perhaps a long way off from our house in Didsbury but perhaps not so.

It like plenty more on the south side of the city was home to that comfortably off section of society which prospered in the 19th century and who retreated to the peace and relative tranquillity of places like Didsbury.

Robert our fellow guide at the cellars of the Laurels, 2015

In time I will find out more about the residents of the Laurels and look to see if they left any records of how they passed their time away from the noise, smoke and grime of Manchester, and on the way something also of their servants who toiled bringing up the coal from the cellars, washed the clothes in the great coppers and drew water from the internal well.

Sadly by the time this is posted the archaeologists will have finished, the excavations will have been back filled and they will be preparing the report on what they have found.

I will look forward to that and perhaps it will inspire Peter to paint a few more pictures of the day we spent in the cellars of the Laurels, which until recently had just been a car park.

Paintings; down at the dig, Pascal and Andrew, Robert at the dig © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

Pictures; Didsbury College car park, 1974, m64187, the Watts warehouse 1892, J Rigby, m56850 the Laurels in 1959, J.F. Harries, m42363,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,  http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Plan to cater for over 4,000 student teachers, George Hawthorne, The Guardian, April 19 1967

**Million, Ivor R., A History of Didsbury, 1969

A little bit of my history and a lot more on the walls of the common room in the Faculty of Education in Didsbury

Now I know that somewhere in a dusty set of filing cabinets or in some long forgotten book on the history of Manchester’s education service there will be a record of the different colleges which over the last century and a bit have offered training to those who wanted to become teachers.

But there is a short cut and here it is in the form of a poster in the common room of MMU’s Faculty of Education in Didsbury.

My friend Pierre kindly sent me the image of the poster after a conversation yesterday about the imminent move of the faculty from Didsbury to Hulme.

Mindful of the rich history of teacher training at the former Methodist College there are moves to discover what priceless documents may lie at the bottom of a filing cabinet or at the back of a cupboard.

In the past institutions have been all too quick to discard their history in the interests of rationalization, saving space and just starting a new.

In some cases just because there was no one interested in collecting the material and once thrown into a skip of burnt it is lost forever.

So I am intrigued at the plaque, which was “placed for safekeeping in the former Manchester College of Higher Education and City of Manchester College of Higher Education” recording “the students of the former Manchester Municipal Day Training College (1910-24) who gave their lives in the First World War.”

All the more fitting given that soon we shall be marking the centenary of the outbreak of the Great  War.

And during this time when we focus on the sacrifice made I would like to dig deep into the records of the young men who went through the Municipal Day Training College and see what can be discovered of their lives.

But for me it is also that here is a little of my history covering my years at the old College of Commerce which merged to form Manchester Polytechnic, absorbed Didsbury Training College and became the M.M.U.

So  I suppose you could say a little bit of me has been preserved on the wall of the common room along with that long line of former colleges all the way back to 1857.

I just hope it makes the move safely to Birley.

Picture; courtesy of Pierre Grace, 2014

What was lost is found .........down in Didsbury with a forgotten house and a team of archaeologists

Another story from 2015.

I doubt that there are that many people today who will remember the two houses buried under the car park in the old Didsbury College. 

Down in Didsbury with cellars, archaeologists and lots more

They date from at least the 1840s, and were demolished sometime in the 1960s and have been brought out of the shadows by an exciting archaeological dig by a team from CgMs who are working on behalf of P.J. Livesey the company which will be developing the site now that the college has moved down to Birley.

When the dig began no one was quite expecting what was found.

It began as it always does with a trial trench, stretched to two and by degree an extensive set of stone flagged cellars, some bits of marble fireplace the odd bit of electrical equipment and a gas fitting have been revealed.

The site in 1844

All of which suggests that one of our two houses was fairly high status.

So now I am off on a bit of a hunt to find out more.

The archaeologists will be finished by the end of the week and their report on the site and the finds will follow in due course but I can’t wait and so have begun trawling the census returns and street directories looking at clues for who lived there.

And as so often happens it was a chance conversation with Noel who was walking his dog that offered up a tantalising first clue in the form of a picture which may exist of the house and his memory of its demolition sometime in the 1960s.

So in the fullness of time I shall go looking for the story behind the houses, and close with a thank you to Robert and Pascal who are two of the archaeologists who took us round and to P.J. Livesey who allowed us down there and supplied the pictures.

The site today

And today, two years on from 2017, there are new buildings where in the picture opposite, there were trenches, builder's spoil and heaps of mud.

Pictures; the dig down at Didsbury, courtesy of P.J. Livesey and detail of the area in 1853 from the 1841-53 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives, Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

* P.J. Livesey http://www.pjlivesey-group.co.uk/

**CgMs, http://www.cgms.co.uk/page/Home_1/1.html

Goodbye to that College in Didsbury part 11 ....... and to some of those buildings soon to vanish

I didn’t expect to return to stories of Didsbury College, written back in 2015.

The Drama Hall

After all it was eight months ago when the last farewell party on the green took place and since then the buildings have waited their fate.

Now the Admin Block along with the old chapel and the Gatehouse are listed and will receive some tender care and attention before their future is determined.

But that assortment of 1960s buildings along with the huts have no such future.

The Drama Hall, Assembly Hall and Simon Building still look respectable enough but many of the other additions on the site are tired and pretty much show their age.

So for all those who remember them all with a mix of fondness and other emotions here are two of Peter’s paintings of a little bit of the college which will soon be gone.

They were part of the big expansion in 1967 which the Guardian reported would double the number of students to two thousand making it “the biggest training college in England and Wales.”*

The Simon Building

It would be another five years before I walked through the door of the Assembly Hall, signed up to the NUT and began a post grad course which set me off on 35 years of teaching in Manchester schools.

Not that this was my first encounter with the college, two years earlier I can remember standing in the Drama Hall and listening to Duster Bennet singing amongst other songs the magic Bright Lights.

It was not the best attended of shows but his performance was all you needed, along of course with the bottle of Newky Brown.**

I can’t even say that I enjoyed drinking the stuff but it came in a bottle, was  easier to walk around with and was the chosen drink of all serious students.

What I didn’t know was Duster Bennet was just three years older than me had already had a fine musical career and sadly died in a car crash in 1976 aged just 29.

The Lodge

So standing in front of the Drama Hall brought back many memories.

I can’t claim that I ever spent much time in the grander buildings.

Miss Hargreaves my personal tutor had an office in that imposing 18th century building which was once a home, became a school and Wesleyan college before finishing  up as the admin block for the College.

We had the occasional seminar there and on a cold November day in the 1980s I went looking for an old colleague who was based in one of the small rooms off the main corridor, and later still my old friend Pierre showed me round the place just before its closure.

As for the other two listed buildings, the library which was the chapel was somewhere I rarely went and had no reason to call in at the Lodge.

So for me it was those 1960s buildings where I filled my time along with the huts whose floors creaked, and which were cold in winter and stuffy in summer.

The huts are still there and may be just maybe Peter will paint them as part of his collection of the college buildings; after all I guess some may even predate the Drama Hall and Simon Building.

And I rather suspect that for most of the students who passed through in the years after 1967 it will be the Drama Hall, Assembly Hall and Simon Building which will loom large in their memories.

Paintings; the Drama Hall, Simon Building and Lodge © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
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*Plan to cater for over 4,000 student teachers, George Hawthorne, The Guardian, April 19 1967

**Newcastle Brown

Goodbye to that College in Didsbury part 12 ....... passing the lodge without a second thought

Now the thing about lodge houses even those that belong to posh mansions is that most people just ignore them.

In the old days distinguished visitors would barely give the lodge and its occupant a second glance while for tradesmen, the curious passerby and those up to no good the chap at the gate was someone you were polite to or tried to avoid.

And in the year I walked past the lodge into Didsbury College I don’t think I even really noticed it but this grade II listed building is worth a second look.

I can’t be sure when it was built.  It is not there on the 1854 OS map but has made its appearance on the map for 1894.

The original building consisted of an entrance room, a small narrow staircase and two equally small rooms above.

Now I may be wrong but there is no evidence from the census returns that it was a residential property but that said there may be someone out there who can tell me different.

Certainly the security guard we talked to thought so but I am not so sure.

That said there is today very little of the original save a built in cupboard in the main room and that staircase.

All of which just leaves us with Peter’s painting of the building as it looked when the MMU still ran the site and students and lecturers passed on their way to work.

Paintings; the Lodge © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
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Goodbye to that College in Didsbury part 13 ....... the book by Andy Pickard

Now it’s not often you get into a book, although I have to say mine was just a walk on part.

But from 1972-73 I was at Didsbury College of Education and so count as someone who was a bit of the backdrop for Andy Pickard’s book on Teacher Education at Didsbury 1946-2014.*

It is a “valediction” for a college which for “70 years has been one of the country’s premier teacher training institutions ...... [and] this book celebrates the lives of the staff and students who worked and studied at Didsbury and the contribution they made to education.

It is a social history which through the voices of the staff and students captures something of the experience of lives as they were lived on the campus.  At the same time it firmly locates Didsbury in the teacher training policies of the period while arguing for a Didsbury inheritance which the Faculty of Education can take to its new home.”**

And I was there, along with my friends, Lois, Mike and John, Miss Hargreaves my English tutor and later Nigel Cordwell and Pierre, who before they ended up at the College both worked beside me in a school in Wythenshawe.

That said I missed Dr Pickard by just a year, but met him at the farewell party for the college held in June 2014.

Back then I reflected on the closing of the College and its relocation to Hulme and now we have the story of those 70 years.

It is available from the M.M.U., at £8.99 and will soon be in local bookshops.

I have to say the cover picture intrigued me and according to Dr Pickard “is from several hundred that turned up in the library when they were clearing stuff for the move. They are now in the special collection at the MMU library. They are mostly from field trips but there is more interesting material there too”

So who knows just possibly somewhere there will be one of me, lurking behind a history book or more likely crossing the road to the Old Cock.

But if I am honest I will just be happy being one of those who the book is about.

First posted April 2016

Location; Didsbury, Manchester

Picture; from the cover of Teacher Education at Didsbury 1946-2014

*Teacher Education at Didsbury 1946-2014, Andy Pickard, M.M.U., £8.99

**from the publishers notes

In Hulme at the Brook Building reflecting on Didsbury

Now there will be some who mourned the end of Didsbury’s association with teacher training which began in the 1940s and its even longer link with theology students which went back another full century.

I have to say I was one of them partly because I like tradition and because I was there for a year in the early 1970s.

But I have to concede that most of the buildings had run their course.

So the move to Hulme five years ago was bold and exciting and not that long ago I was given my own tour of the new building by my old friend Pierre.

It is truly a building for the 21st century with technology to keep it warm in winter, cool in summer and even withstand a once in a century storm.

More than that it offers both students and staff an amazing place to work and learn.

And of course it does seem to be giving a lift to the local economy, after all with so many students living in the surrounding properties there is a demand for everything bread and milk to fast food and places to liner over slow food.

I am well aware that some in Didsbury had long been uncomfortable at the presence of so many students amongst their midst in term time, and I also wonder if their wholesale passing has been missed.

But then Didsbury’s loss is Hulme’s gain.

Location; Hulme

Picture; looking out of the Brook Building and the Spanish Steps, 2017 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Didsbury College ............. eight months on and the strange tale of what was left

Revisiting an old story, four years old, ..... because I can.

I wonder if any of the staff and students have been back to Didsbury College since the move to Birley.

I was there in the summer at the farewell do on the lawn and wandered through the admin block, looked in at the old library and stood just inside the Assembly Hall where in 1972 I signed up to the NUT as I started a post grad course which set me off on a career in teaching which lasted 35 years.

So my memories of Didsbury College span a full 42 years and a bit and this week I was back again.

We were down visiting that archaeological dig in the car park and looked in at those now empty buildings.

I had expected to see nothing, but instead there was a whole range of abandoned stuff which no one had wanted or could see how it would fit in the new building down at Birley.

Amongst the discarded tables and chairs were piles of books and papers, the last big posters advertising the campus and a mix of smaller material from the campaign posters for student elections, to art work and what had once been a set of statues.

You had that over riding sense that the move had been interrupted and that the last of these things would be packed up moved out and found new homes in Hulme.

But I think not.  They will stay put slowly gathering dust and waiting to be shovelled off into skips and land fill.

Now I could of course slide into a flight of  historical fancy and bring forth images of Pompeii or the Mary Celeste but that would be to get silly, and yet I did feel that we were looking at a scene which remained unfinished.

And  one that seemed a tad sad, because these were the bits that no one wanted despite having once been cared for and each of which had a story to tell.

Like that piece of art work with its title "You can leave your hat on" or the piles of books and journals which once had so much significance to the teaching of students.

And finally that set of election posters seen through the window of the old library advertising the candidates in the elections for the Student Union.

I did wonder if I should go looking to see if Mr Palmer and Ms Adamson had been successful,  and briefly abandoned the idea as somehow spoiling what was a story of ghosts but in the end curiosity won out.

Mr Palrmer was elected as President with 62% of the total vote, and Jen Adamsom was reelected for a second term as VP-Education Officer.  "In total more than 4,200 students voted in the 2014 elections - a similar figure to 2013 but significantly higher than in previous years."

So a little of what we found down there goes on and makes me wonder if I should go looking for other bits of my academic career from the old Students Union in the Till Kennedy building to the Aytoun site which was the College of Commerce and where I spent three years in what was Manchester Polytechnic and is now the MMU, the very organisation which left Didsbury in the summer.  And sadly the Aytoun Building is now no more, and is in the process of being transformed into apartments.

But then perhaps some ghosts are best left alone.

Pictures; Didsbury College, 2015 eight months on, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Big turn out in student elections,Man Met Life,  http://www.staff.mmu.ac.uk/manmetlife/news/view/big-turn-out-in-student-elections

This item has now been taken down but it was there once, and has gone like the forgotten bits left behind in the move.

Down at Didsbury .............. from books, lectures and hymns to flats and houses

Well it has been a short time in coming, but one that was to be expected and here is the confirmation.

My friend Pierre has sent over a brochure from a local estate agents announcing the next stage in the story of the old Didsbury College site.

Now I say short but when you can count your interest in the spot back two and a bit centuries this is just a blink of the eye.

It was a teacher training college for over sixty years, before that a theological college and go back far enough and it was the home of a grand local family.

In between all of that it did a stint as a private girls school and a Red Cross hospital, and now according to the leaflet that fell though Pierre’s letterbox there will soon be a “unique collection of one, two and three bedroom conversion properties and a fine selection of substantial three, four and five bedroomed new houses.”

Now like Pierre I have more than an interest in the old place.  Pierre worked there and I did my post grad course at the college back in 1972.

More recently I was invited back first by Pierre for the closing party held by the staff of the MMU  and a little later was back at the invitation of the developers to tour the archaeological dig that was taking place.

All of which has appeared here on the blog, and so not one to repeat  myself I shall just leave you to follow the links to the story and announce that the book on the history of Didsbury Training College by Andy Pickard is now on sale.

Location Didsbury


Pictures, of MMU Admin Building 2012-13 from the collection of Pierre Grace

*Didsbury College of Education, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Didsbury%20College%20of%20Education

Back with those Spanish Steps in the Birley Building

Now I am back with those sweeping stairs at the Birley Building which earlier in the month became the home of the old Didsbury College of Education.

There will be some who mourn its move but the new place has a lot to offer, and as I joked to Pierre may well be so high tech that it talks to the students and staff.

The stairs have already become a place to meet, sit and talk so there you have it, no more to be said.

Pictures; of the interior of Birley Buildings, September 2014 from the collection of Pierre Grace

New beginnings, the day the Didsbury College of Education transferred to the Birley Building in Hulme

Now the entrance to the new MMU Birley Building which houses the Faculty of Education my not have the history of its former home in Didsbury.

The old building dated back to the 18th century and while it had undergone change over the centuries there were bits which were recognizably from the period when it was built.

I have to say I was saddened at the news of the relocation.
It has served as an educational institution of sorts since it became a boarding school around 1812.

Later it was turned into a theological college and later still into teacher training college.

And before that was a private residence dating back to about 1744.

The stone cladding to what was originally a brick building was added by the Wesleyans when they took it over in 1841.

They also added the wings at either side and that is what generations of people from Didsbury have seen as they pass by.

Now I am not sure what the future holds for the site I suspect the listed buildings will be converted in to residential use and the newer buildings dating from the 1960s will be demolished and replaced with more flats and houses.

The Birley Building will have a lot to offer and I suspect will be so high tech that it will all but talk to the staff and students.

And there is elegance about the interior which can be seen in Pierre’s picture of the Spanish Steps which is an open meeting place for students and staff and was attracting both during last week.

So I suspect three will be more stories about the new building.

After all during the last months of the College in Didsbury I posted a lot of stories about its history and so it seems fitting that the series should continue.

Pictures; of the interior of Birley Buildings, September 2014 and the Admin block of the old Didsbury College, 2013-4, from the collection of Pierre Grace

So how do you say goodbye to something that is more than two hundred years old?

Well that was what some of the staff, students, past students and friends did today at Didsbury.

The college of education has been there on this site for a long time and before that it was the site of the Methodist theological college and before that a school for young ladies.

All of which means that the place has had something to do with education since 1812 and its passing should be marked in a significant way.

Now I don’t know how the MMU will officially call time on the school of Education in Didsbury but today there was a gentle and very pleasant picnic which said goodbye in a very human way.

There were no pompous speeches from the great and good, just a few songs, a cake and presentations for those people who were leaving and not making the journey to the new building in Hulme.

It was quite a gathering including plenty who are still on the "books" and more than a few who walked through its doors almost a full half century ago.

I should know I rolled up in the September of 1972 and apart from one visit have not been back in 42 years.

But there were those who could claim to have been here in the 1960s and so the event was very much about memories, memories of being a student five decades ago and of the different theories of how to train teachers that have surfaced during that time.

For me and I have to confess I can’t remember a lot, mine were very specific.  They included a tutorial in the admin block, the odd visit to the library and the shame of almost failing the AV course.

I only did the year post grad and if I am honest did not invest the same time or emotion as friends who did the full three and four year courses but a bit of me still mourns the passing of the institution from Didsbury.

That said education is one of those areas where the past is easily lost in the present.

After all every year a cohort of students leaves to be replaced by another and staff move on, so I shall not over dwell on the passing over the college, instead I shall ponder on the sites future, and think about the schools new home in Hulme.

Listening to the conversations around the the picnic that was uppermost in people's minds.

So while there were the affectionate stories of past events and individuals there was also plenty about what it would be like to be on the new campus within a short bus ride of the city centre.

And one member of staff had set himself the task of recording the different sounds of the college grounds in Didsbury with those of Hulme.

Now that should be an interesting project and fascinating legacy for those who will never know the present site.

And I know that the Univeristy have asked a former member of staff to produce a history of the  the college which will be a must to read.

Pictures; the Goodbye Picnic June 25th 2014 from the collection of Andrew Simpson