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

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