When there was only Egerton Road

This is Egerton Road sometime in the early 20th century.

We now know it as Egerton Road North and there by hangs the clue to its date.

Now I am not sure at present when Egerton Road South was cut but it was not before 1911 and judging by the look of the houses sometime after the Great War.  There will of course be people who know when it was made and all suggestions will be eagerly awaited.

So we are going back to Egerton Road.  The photograph is one from the collection which I always tend to pass over, but that is unfair to both the image and Egerton Road.  It is a fine example of a sunny summer’s day, at the post box end of Chorlton and looking at  the shadows perhaps late in the morning.

I don’t pretend to be an expert of the fashion of the period but I would date the clothes to sometime during the very early 20th century.

Like all the pictures of the period it is the total absence of cars that strike you first, followed by the almost uniform use of blinds at all the windows.  And then for me it is the balcony on the first floor at number two Egerton Road.  I have always thought that such balconies were a late 20th century thing added to town houses and flats but the Edwardians had got there first.

To which Ed Jury has added, "On the 1915 OS map of Whalley Range, Egerton Rd only had 18 dwelling on the right hand side from Wilbraham Road. At the top of the road there was a track leading to Hobson Hall Farm house. There was just farmland on the southside of Wilbraham Rd. By the 1933 map today's Egerton Rd North & South had been completed and the cricket ground had placed Hobson Hall Farm".

Picture; from the Lloyd collection circa early 20th century

On Egerton Road again

It’s another picture of Egerton Road, this time looking east towards Wilbraham Road, and dates from the beginning of the 20th century.

In its way it is typical of the new build which was beginning to transform the township.

These are solid houses and the people who lived behind the doors were the new people of Chorlton.

They worked in the professions and in the offices and warehouses of the city, and they were the “middling people.”  Most described themselves as workers but few I suspect ever got their hands dirty.

And they had servants.  Looking along the row and fixing the houses with the 1901 census you can track them. There was Annie Isherwood at number 26, aged 21 and from Manchester, and next door at 24, Mary Connolly just a year older and from Ireland and the list just rolls on.

That same 1901 census reveals that it wasn’t just our servants who were born outside the township., many of their employers were likewise from all over the place.

So there you have it a little slice of New Chorlton on what looks like an early spring day with of course the tradesman’s horse and cart.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

When there was only Egerton Road

This is Egerton Road sometime in the early 20th century.

We now know it as Egerton Road North and there by hangs the clue to its date.

Now I am not sure at present when Egerton Road South was cut but it was not before 1911 and judging by the look of the houses sometime after the Great War.

There will of course be people who know when it was made and all suggestions will be eagerly awaited.

So we are going back to Egerton Road.

The photograph is one from the collection which I always tend to pass over, but that is unfair to both the image and Egerton Road.

It is a fine example of a sunny summer’s day, at the post end of Chorlton and looking at  the shadows perhaps late in the morning.

I don’t pretend to be an expert of the fashion of the period but I would date the clothes to sometime during the very early 20th century.

Like all the pictures of the period it is the total absence of cars that strike you first, followed by the almost uniform use of blinds at all the windows.

And then for me it is the balcony on the first floor at number two Egerton Road.  I have always thought that such balconies were a late 20th century thing added to town houses and flats but the Edwardians had got there first.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection