Out to East Didsbury from Albert Square ……. on the new tram

I say the new tram, because quite clearly this wasn’t the old fashioned tall stately tram which rattled its way around the city at the start of the last century.

This was the new tram car.

The first  of which was completed in the March of 1930.  By the end of the year another eleven were in service.

In all 38 were built during the next two years, with the last of them appearing in October 1932.*

They were the Pullman, or more commonly called Pilcher, after Mr. Robert Stuart Pilcher, who took over as General Manager of Manchester Corporation Tramways in 1929.

Location; Manchester







Picture; Albert Square to East Didsbury, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown

*The Manchester Tramways, Yearsley, Ian & Groves Peter, 1988

A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects ... number 15 ……. Parrs Wood Environmental Centre

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

The Parrs Wood Environmental Centre, which once went under the grand name of the Parrs Wood Rural Studies Centre has been delivering ‘countryside’ to the children of our inner city from the late 1940s.

It occupies land which was previously the kitchen garden and orchard of the small 18th century country estate centred on Parrs Wood House.

In 1922 Manchester Corporation bought the estate and following the outbreak of the Second World War, the gardens were cultivated as part of the Dig For Victory campaign.  Then in 1947, the Council opened the Rural Studies Centre with a remit to provide classes in gardening and natural history.

What followed was an exciting project funded by the City Council, which involved schoolchildren from all parts of the City, who were bused out to Parrs Wood for either weekly or fortnightly half-day sessions, during which the children cultivated their school's own plot.

There were 3 or 4 teachers dealing with 64 schools, which visited every fortnight, with an extra teacher dealing with other aspects of environmental work for single school visits. The grounds were tended by a team of four fulltime gardeners and three administrative staff.

In 1990 the Centre underwent a series of challenges with the threat of closure, but these were successfully seen off, and despite another period when it looked like the project would come to an end, in April of 2003 the first gardening groups were reestablished.

Location; Parrs Wood

Picture; School Children’s Produce, Anthony L Jones, pre 1990, courtesy of The Parrs Wood Environmental Centre

The full story can be read in Manchester Pubs-The Stories Behind the Doors,-Didsbury, Andrew Simpson, Peter Topping, 2018

A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects number 8 ........... catching the tram*

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

Now the caption gives a date of 1937, but the flats in the distance are Parrs Wood Court, which were built in 1939 and opened for sale in the following year.

That said it perfectly records a Parrs Wood in a more gentle and less busy time.

Location East Didsbury

Picture; Parrs Wood Terminus, circa 1939, from the collection of Allan Brown


*The history of Didsbury in 20 objects, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-history-of-didsbury-in-just-20_18.html

Stepping back 65 years ………..Parrs Wood as most people will not have seen it.

Now, I know it’s a cheap bit of history, not to say very lazy, but here on a warm summer’s day is that bit of Parrs Wood beside the Gateway pub.

Today, the spot is dominated by that huge footbridge, which I am the first to concede is entirely appropriate in the interests of safely crossing the road, but how ugly it is.

And how it sets the scene for the surrounding area, which is dominated by entertainment complex, that plethora of road signs and of course the incessant whiz of traffic.

I have been trying to date the footbridge which was not there when I would wander down from Didsbury to sit in the small island of tranquility which was the small park.

But back then there was still a bus garage, the old high school was still new, and the Kingsway was less busy.

So, for all those that share my memory, and for everyone else who might yearn for a quieter Parrs Wood, here is what it was like a full 61 years ago ……. Nothing more nothing less.




Location Parrs Wood

Picture; road works at Parrs Wood, 1959, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection  
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

A different Parrs Wood …… 1959

Now I am not a great fan of what has happened to Parrs Wood.

The small recreational ground is surrounded by fast moving traffic and dominated by the entertainment complex along with all those road signs.

But I can remember a quieter Parrs Wood which still existed in the 1960s.

True there was the bus depot and the large Parrs Wood Court, but there was also open land, which was occupied by the High School and the Rural Studies Centre.

Back then the recreational area still felt it had a presence and coming across it, after going under the railway bridge was always a pleasure.

So, with that in mind, here are two pictures of that long gone Parrs Wood.

They date from 1959, just ten years before I washed up in the City and first discovered East Didsbury.

Location; Didsbury,

Pictures; Parrs Wood, 1959, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

Down at Parrs Wood Court with some bombs, a few stories and an electric lift

Now as landmarks go Parrs Wood Court is a pretty bold statement of design and until recently dominated the junction of Wilmslow Road and Kingsway.

Back in 1939 when it was built it offered all that you could want, with central heating, electric lifts and apartments spread over five floors.

Here, as the Manchester Guardian's advert said was a block of “modern apartments with one or two entertaining rooms [and] one to four bedrooms if required, [which was] conveniently situated on the Wilmslow Road end of the Kingsway with  bus and tram routes and adjoining East Didsbury Station.”*

The flats went on the market in the May of 1940 and I can see the attraction.

Those buses, trams and trains could whisk the residents of Parrs Wood Court in to the heart of the city while the newly built Kingsway offered the car owner a more direct route than the old congested and busy Wilmlsow Road.

Added to which the block looked out on to the 50 acre Parrs Wood Estate which offered more than a hint of a rural landscape.

And I suspect a location which for some might have seemed a safer place to live as German bombs began to fall from the skies.

But perhaps not that safe, given that during the December of 1940 four fire bombs landed just a little to the north and a high explosive bomb fell almost directly opposite in the grounds of Parrs Wood House.

Still the Court survived and Peter’s painting captures the grandeur of its design which has been lost in many of the photographs of the building.

This one taken from a picture postcard sent in 1951 does little to convey the full presence of the block but its value is the detail it offers up of the surrounding area.

There in the distance is the old bus depot which has long since gone while outside the flats is one of with those iconic concrete bus shelters some of which were still around in the 1970s.

Now it is a full seventy-five years since those flats went on sale and it would be an interesting project to track down some of the first and then subsequent residents who made Parrs Wood Court their home.

Painting; Parrs Wood Court, East Didsbury, © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

Picture; Parrs Wood Court circa 1950, from the collection of Paul O’Sullivan, Manchester Guardian advert,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

*Flats at Parrs Wood Court, Parrs Wood.  East Didsbury, Manchester, Manchester Guardian, May 11 1940

On East Didsbury Station wondering why there are few pictures of Parrs Wood

In that great sweep of photographs of Didsbury, Parrs Wood always seems the poor relation.

It is as if having done the village, the college, Fletcher Moss, the churches and the pubs most photographers pretty much picked up their cameras and went off to their dark rooms.

A few of the more enterprising commercial photographers did snap away at the larger houses and some of the more picturesque roads.

These they would revisit offering the images for sale to the residents and later those same images made their way into the catalogues of the picture post card companies.

But Parrs Wood and East Didsbury rarely got the same attention.  I suppose before the coming of the Kingsway there wasn’t that much to record and after it had been cut the area lost a little of its charm.

After all it would be a bold commercial photographer who would gamble on the attractions of the Kingsway Extension, and yet one did so, recording also the houses along its route, and the Gateway Hotel.

And these along with Parrs Wood Court and the bus garage now sit in the collection and back in the 1930s and 40s no doubt graced the mantelpieces of some of the homes in East Didsbury.

But for me it is this picture of the station which has caught my fancy.

Now as railway stations go it was quite late on the scene, having opened in 1909 a full 29 years after that other Didsbury station opened for business.

Somewhere I will be able to find details of the number of passengers it carried and I guess really came into its own with the development of the housing on both sides of the track.

For me it is all about nostalgia.  I can remember those locomotives and the distinctive smell of warm oil and steam along with the wooden platforms and all the bits that went with the station, including the simple slot machines which offered up Five Boys Chocolate.

I have to say I never learned and was always disappointed at the way the chocolate tended to have gone flaky and white at the edges and invariably tasted stale.

But there were compensations in the form of those evocative train posters for faraway seaside resorts, the big cast iron weighing machines and depending on the time of the day the rows of milk churns.

All of these provided distractions from what always seemed an age of waiting, broken only by the occasional goods train and fast express which swept past cutting the air in a blur of noise and steam with its passengers gazing at you always it seemed with that mix of disdain and pity no doubt reflecting how lucky they were to be moving with such purpose.

We on the other hand looked back glum and a little sad that our train ticket allowed us only the slow
stopping train and a host of suburban railway stops.



Picture; East Didsbury Station, date unknown 

Didsbury Walks ..... part 1 Parrs Wood

A short series exploring a collection of walks  across Didsbury from east to west, starting at  Parrs Wood.

Parrs Wood House and estate, 1853

Now even the most avid supporter of Parrs Wood might well concede that the junction of Wilmslow Road and Kingsway is a bewildering mix of cluttered signs, busy traffic and a rather ugly box which is the entertainment centre.

But it was not always so. Until almost the beginning of the last century the area was still open land, dominated by an elegant 18^th century house set in a large estate.

This was Parrs Wood House and according to one source the estate changed little from the 1790s through to 1960.

Go back to say the 1820s, and this spot might have seemed very attractive to a casual visitor to Didsbury who took a fancy to stroll along Wilmslow Road from the direction of the parish church with the intention of crossing the river at the Cheadle Bridge.

As now, the road would have taken a sharp turn to the south as it passed Parrs Wood House, but even given the height of the estate wall, she would have had a view of the building and had she then ventured into the grounds, there was more than a few interesting features.

Parrs Wood House, 1970

These included the stables, the kitchen garden, the fruit wall, glass houses and the homes of some of the staff.  And for those fascinated with 18^th century gardens, there was a ha-ha, which consisted of a ditch and wall which acted as a barrier preventing livestock from entering the garden from the estate but gave anyone looking out from the garden the illusion of an unbroken, continuous rolling lawn.

Sadly, it disappeared in 1970, when the ditch was filled with the spoil from nearby building work which resulted in the loss of a colony of lizards who had made their home in the south facing wall.

Location; Parrs Wood

Picture; Parrs Wood, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/   Parrs Wood House, 1970, m21314, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The Prince Albert …….. one of the lost Didsbury pubs

The discovery of the Prince Albert was and remains a big surprise.  

Prince Albert, 2020

It stood on the northern side of Wilmslow Road, facing that modern block of flats located between Millgate and Kingston Road, and seems to have had a short life.

Like many beer shops it may have been a response to a period of unemployment or hardship or was run as a sideline to another business.

In the late 1840s and into the next decade, the Prince Albert was managed by a John Arnold who was a blacksmith and worked the smithy alongside the beer shop.

In the great pecking order of alcoholic establishments, the Prince Albert was pretty low down.  Its ratable value in the 1850s, was just £14 compared to the Didsbury Hotel and Old Cock which were both rated at £73.

It will have in all probability been just a room, and the beer may have been dispensed from the kitchen through a hatch.

For those who remember the Collier’s Arms by Hartshead Pike on the Ashton and Oldham border, just such a practice was how the landlady offered up her beer.*

Didsbury, 1853

Given its size and location I suspect it will have been frequented by agricultural labourers and passing itinerant traders, for who the Didsbury and Old Cock were too grand.

And, for perhaps a decade it was for those in the know, the first drinking place along the main road from Parrs Wood into the village.

Location; Wilmslow Road

Picture; Prince Albert…. That other Albert, in Albert Square, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  Didsbury , 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Colliers Arms, https://ashton-under-lyne.blogspot.com/2008/01/colliers-arms.html

Parrs Wood .............. what was once and is now

Parrs Wood is one of those places which looks cluttered.

Parrs Wood 2015

It starts as the bus pulls from under the railway bridge and you get that full on mix of traffic lights and road signs, the overpowering leisure complex and the sheer volume of traffic.

And yes this is one of those slow reflective and nostalgic outbursts.

I am too young to have known what the spot was like before the coming of the Kingsway but do have memories of  that little bit of green with its fascinating stone pillars and views beyond to the old high school.

Of course those much older than me will view my comments with some feint amusement given that their memories may just stretch to a time when the Kingsway was only just advancing south from town and Parrs Wood proper was still enclosed by a wall.

That wall is visible on many of the old images dating back to the early years of the last century, and I think it will be the arrival of the Kingsway that sliced through that bit of the estate.

Parrs Wood, 1909

And that may well give us the date for the creation of that green which today stands as an isolated little island surrounded by the flow of traffic.

Once I guess it might well have been a pleasant place to sit on a quiet Sunday morning watching the odd Corporation bus and noting the rumble of a train into the station.

Not so now, and I doubt that many will give it much thought as they thunder past on the Kingsway or arrive along Wilmslow Road heading for the supermarket or the cinema.

This may be progress and I may be seeing the spot through rose tinted glasses but I rather think not.

A wall and a railway bridge, 1909

At which point I will pause and wait for the onrush of comments from those who put me right on the history of the green to those who think I am just wallowing in so much nostalgic tosh.

That said I bet on a warm summers day sometime around 1900 this would have been a fine spot to stop and admire the view.

Sadly I rather think the same can not be said for the same spot today, but then I am as guilty as many, often preferring the short trip from Chorlton to the cinema rather than wandering off into town.

So I shall put my righteous indignation at what has befallen this bit of Didsbury along with that used cinema ticket in the bin.

Pictures; the green at Parrs Wood, 2015, from the collection of Liz Scantlebury* and Parrs Wood from Wilmslow Road, 1909, m 78644, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Liz Scantlebury,  http://www.lizscantlebury.com/

Looking for the not so famous on Wilmslow Road ….. doing the essential walk and making it historic .... no. 9

Anyone who has passed the entrance to the Shirley Institute on Wilmlsow Road, will have clocked the picturesque Lodge.

The Lodge, 2020

It was the first thing most visitors would have seen before passing up the long drive to the Shirley Institute which was once the very impressive home of John Edward Taylor, the editor and proprietor of the Manchester Guardian.

The Towers, 2020

Back then it was simply called The Towers, and its magnificence and contribution to the history of Manchester and Salford have been extensively written about.

Suffice to say that according to one account , “it was referred to by locals as the Calendar House since they believed it to have 12 towers, 52 rooms and 365 windows” which the author views with some sceptism.

But it was also the location for that important meeting which floated the idea of the Manchester Ship Canal.

All well and good but what is lacking from the histories, is any reference to the people who made the Towers work ….. who cleaned the rooms, washed the bedding, and cooked and maintained the extensive gardens.

And that brings me back to Barbarella’s picture of the Lodge, because in 1911, this was the home of Ernest and Ada Fildes.  He was employed as a “Gardener (Domestic)”, and they had been married for thirteen years.

A decade earlier and they were living in one of the two cottages in the grounds of Burnage Hall, and Ernest working as the gardener which was an occupation he shared with his father.

In time I will go looking at the other servants of the Towers, but for now I shall close with the tenants of that other lodge belonging to the Towers.

It is listed as “The Lodge Kingston Road”, and was still there back in 2019, although it is easy to miss it, given that it is hidden by a large fence, obscured for most of the year behind foilage and has been empty for years.

But in 1911, it was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Butterworth and their two sons.  Robert James Butterworth was employed as a “Coachman (Domestic)” and came from Urmston.

His wife, Julia was born in Staffordshire and the couple had been married for fifteen years.

They appear to have moved around a bit, because one of their sons was born in Urmston, another
in Heaton Mersey, and in 1901 he was employed as a groom and living in Handforth.

The home of Mr. & Mrs. Fildes, 2020

And that just leaves me pondering on how the Butterworth’s with their two children lived in Lodge with just four rooms, while Mr. & Mrs. Fildes occupied the grander lodge on Wilmlsow Road which contained five rooms.

It might have been down to what was available when the two couples began their employ, or perhaps there was a pecking order which put a gardener above a coachman.

Someone will know.

And that sees a good point to close.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Along Wilmslow Road, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento,

*Guide to the Towers, Paul F Hamlyn, http://fungus.org.uk/cv/towers.htm

Posh places ….. doing the essential walk and making it historic .... no. 8

Now there is nothing better than a bit of historical curiosity, and set back amongst the trees along the East Didsbury stretch of Wilmlsow Road there are more than a few places which might offer up some secrets.

And so in no particular order I shall start with the Cedars, which was the first of the new collection of pictures taken by Barbarella on her latest “essential walk”.

The house  appears on a number of sites dedicated to listed buildings, and was the subject of an open night back in April 2019 when a developer threw open the doors and invited “respected local historian Diana Leitch [to] share stories of the property, and describing how Didsbury would have been when the property was first built in 1857”.*

So, with that in mind and never wanting to steal other people’s work, I went off to trawl the historical records for myself.

I knew from the various posted articles that its first resident was a John Williams, who was a wool merchant, and armed with this bit of information I discovered his offices were at 34 Charlotte Street in town and that from at least 1848 he had been in Fallowfield.

In 1861, he, and his wife and seven children inhabited the 15 rooms of Cedar House and were looked after by five staff, one of whom was a Governess.

His neigbhour at the equally grand Didsbury Lodge was also a merchant who came from Hamburg, and also employed five students, one of whom and been born in Frankfort, and another in Wales.

To which can be added Edward Dean the coachman and his wife who lived in the lodge, and John Eastward the gardener and his family who lived in a cottage in the grounds.

Sadly the number of rooms in Didsbury Lodge and the size of the very modest cottage of Mr. Eastwood is lost to me, but I do know that Edward Dean’s house consisted of four rooms, which was ample for him, his wife and one daughter, but less so a full half century later when it was occupied the Woodbridge family who consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Woodbridge and their four children.

Location; Didsbury








Pictures; Along Wilmlsow Road, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento,

In East Didsbury with a clock tower, memories of a bus garage and an old history book

Now in the great sweep of history the opening and closure of the bus garage at Parrs Wood is but a blink and I guess not the most significant of events, and yet for over 45 years it was a place of work for many and a landmark for countless more.

It was opened in 1926 and could hold fifty motor buses and with hindsight was one of those markers which pointed to the end of the old Corporation trams.

Not that I suspect any would have seen that coming.  In 1928 at its peak there were 953 trams running 46 routes along 292 miles of track.

During the previous decade there had been a huge expansion in tram services with new tracks still being laid as late as 1929, but already the Corporation had increased its fleet of buses from 16 in 1923 to 53 three years later.

And from the late twenties onwards buses and trolley buses began to replace trams on routes across the city.

And when I washed up in Manchester the bus garage at Parrs Wood was still going strong, but the amalgamation of the county’s bus services and the inevitable rationalization of depots meant that it closed in 1971.

I have to admit that its closure passed me by and for years afterwards I continued to suppose it was still in operation which is not unsurprising given that the buildings and the clock tower were still there to see.

And while the garage has gone at least the clock tower remains which offers up one of those small bits of continuity.

Of course those looking for more in the way of history might well pause in the Tesco store and pick up a copy of Didsbury Through Time which was on sale there and which I am the first to admit is outrageous self promotion.

I wrote the text and Peter Topping sourced a series of old photographs matching these with some modern pictures and a selection of his own paintings which together tell the story of how Didsbury has changed over the last century and a bit.

Now in time I think we will revisit East Didsbury’s past and look more closely at some of the events, the people and the buildings surrounding the old clock tower.

And for want of a better title it will simply be called East Didsbury.
Peter has already begun a collection of paintings of the area and I will come up with the stories.

They will appear in the blog over the next few weeks and in the fullness of time become another of our history trails culminating in a set of Didsbury Walks.

Painting; Clock Tower at Tesco’s Didsbury and Tesco Didsbury from the series East Didsbury, © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Down at Parrs Wood, deciding on a film, a meal or a game of bowling just a tad different from a half century before

The Parrs Wood entertainment complex slipped in while I wasn’t looking.

The Parrs Wood complex, 2014

Now given its size and the fact that it has been there since 2001 that I agree is pretty staggering.

But in my defence I didn’t often travel down to east Didsbury or if I did it tended to be only as far as the old college opposite the two pubs.

So the first time I saw the huge complex was around 2004 on one of those buses taking the scenic route from Chorlton to Stockport.

Not that I am sniffy about the place, we use it a lot given that it is just down the road and offers free parking.

Parrs Wood Court, circa 1939

But it is big making me wonder what the people in the houses opposite think about the complex and the huge car park area directly in front of their homes.

And that got me reflecting on the reversals of entertainment history.

Originally the two Didsbury cinemas were in the centre of the village and off towards Burnage and both like so many other picture houses closed as fewer people wanted to sit in the dark with a shed load of strangers.

But the new cinema complexes offer more both in the variety of films they show and the degree of comfort.

That popular description of many old picture houses as flea pits was not so far off the mark.  Some of the very earliest might well have smelt of disinfectant and the one just behind Chorlton Road a little up from the old Imperial was indeed a home for fleas given that it was beside the old tramways horse stables.

All of which makes the modern cinemas a cut above their predecessors.

But I do miss the Odeon, the Regal and the Gaumont built in the 1930s and marking in their time a new era in cinema going.

Some like the one on Chester Road in Stretford was built with air conditioning and others could boast a bar and all were magical places with their lush carpet, grand hall ways and thick velvet curtains.

These were places a world away from the often cold and drab homes that many left to escape into a world of Busby Berkley, Fred Astaire and Gone with the Wind.

All of which I was reminded of when I was at the Plaza recently in Stockport.  This was the grand design of entertainment and maybe Peter will compliment his painting of Parrs Wood with one of the Plaza.

Until then I suggest you go looking at our new new book on Didsbury's pubs and bars or our earlier, Didsbury Through Time, which together  tell the story of the area over the last few centuries.*

Painting; Parrs Wood Cinema complex, from the series East Didsbury, © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

*Manchester Pubs- The Stories Behind the Doors,-Didsbury, 2019 & Didsbury Through Time, Peter Topping and Andrew Simpson, 2013

Both are available from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk  and from E J Morton, 6 Warburton Street, Didsbury, Manchester M20 6WA,  0161 445 7629,  morten.booksellers@lineone.net