The short life of a Chorlton Post Office ….. and the lost Fleming Hall

 It began life shortly after Chorlton’s main Post Office on Wilbraham Road was badly damaged during the Manchester Blitz in December 1940.

Chorlton Post Office,  Manchester Road, 1941-1961

That Post Office had opened in 1905 and did all things posty till the night of December 24th into the early morning of December 25th when enemy action destroyed many properties across the city including here in Chorlton where thirty people were killed.

Just how soon after that event the Post Office took over number 70 Manchester Road is unclear.

Back in 1929 the site had been home to "Meta Manufacturing Co Ltd" and in 1954 the “Sub Post Office and MO Office” shared the site with “Liner Concrete Machinery Co Ltd service depot”.

But in 1961 we had a brand-new Post Office very close to the original 1905 building, and I guess soon after the temporary Manchester Road premise was vacated.  Just when that will be down to trawling the street directories for the years after 1961.

Chorlton Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1905-1940

So, a short history but one that still plays a prominent part in some Chorlton people’s memories and perhaps this story will bring forth more accounts of the place.

And in conversations with friends I discovered more about the bomb-damaged Post Office.  For a short while in the 1950s into the 60s, it fronted the Fleming Hall, which was the centre of the local Conservative Party.  This was a bit of our recent past and I am indebted to my old friends and fellow historian Lawrence Beedle who told me it was named after Edward Fleming 1891 - 1950. He was the Tory MP for Withington Constituency 1945 - 1950. He then stood for Moss Side when the boundaries were redrawn and Chorlton was put in that Constituency.

Fleming Hall, Wilbraham Road, 1950?-1963?

It’s the 1950 General Election and sadly Mr.Fleming died on the 17th February during the campaign. I think he took a turn for the worse at his sister’s house on High Lane. Anyway, polling was immediately suspended by all the local parties. The Tories went on to win the General with Winston Churchill.

Moss Side Constituency voted two weeks later and elected Florence Horsborough. She’d lost in Midlothian and Peebles but got another crack at obtaining a seat. Manchester’s first woman MP, first woman in a Conservative cabinet".**

Chorlton Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1961

Other friends have also shared their recollections of the hall which I wrote about in a series of posts and are available by following the link.***

And that is it.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, East Side: Corner of Keppel Road and Manchester Road, looking southeast, showing Chorlton Post Office (No. 70) 1958, m11798, former Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1959, A.E.Landers, m18242, and in 1961, m18511, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Post Office in 1907 from the Lloyd Collection

*Kelly's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1929 & 1954

** Lawrence Beedle

***Fleming Hall, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=fleming+hall

Losing Fleming Hall in Chorlton

How easy it is to lose a building.  

1961

In this case it was Fleming Hall which in the 1950s and 1960s was used by various organizations but has long since all but passed out of living memory.

I say almost passed out of living memory but not quite, because my old friend Wendy emailed me yesterday with, “Fleming Hall was on Wilbraham Road and I thought it was where the Post Office now is but the Chorlton Townswomen's Guild held their last meeting in the Hall on the 15 October 1963 according to their Minutes,  but on page 159 of your book, "The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" there  is a photograph of ‘The New Post Office 1961’.  

1961

It could have been where Sue Ryder's charity shop is, but it would have covered more land”.

And that set me going, because this spot was the home of the old Chorlton Post Office which was damaged when neighbouring houses were destroyed during the Manchester Blitz in the December of 1940.

Looking at photographs from the period it is possible that Fleming Hall was located in what had been that bit of the Post Office that survived the bombing.

I asked Oliver Bailey for help and it remembered “Fleming Hall on Wilbraham Road, on the left hand side heading towards Barlow Moor Road junction maybe forty metres past where Corkland Rd comes in, almost opposite where Stevensons the hairdressers were, and H T Burt/ Brown Brothers, right next to where the parade of shops started that continues to the traffic lights.

My recollection is that it was used a lot by the Conservatives for various get- togethers, dances, young conservatives, whist drives and so on. 

1959

It might even have been owned by them as I remember on several occasions moving stuff, including chairs and tables from there to one of the fields off Wilbraham Road in the stretch past St Werburghs, beyond Morville Road. 

On one occasion we even had to move an upright piano down the steps of the Fleming Hall and get it into the back of my father's land rover as there was going to be some dancing at one of the Fetes and offload it. All done by muscle power. But young conservatives generally responded well to the whip.

Internal layout; at the end away from Wilbraham road there was a stage for jollifications and speechifying, then the body of the hall and nearest Wilbraham Road a kitchen of sorts, but only for brewing tea and coffee and cutting up cakes. I think there might have been offices above the kitchen and loos, but memory is hazy on that”.

1907

All of which chimes in with the two images from 1959 and 1961, which clearly show the sign announcing the Conservative Party Committee Rooms and an election poster on the side of the building.

And for those with a keen eye for detail, the front of the building matches that of the old post office.
But, and there always is a but, Oliver added, “I don't remember it looking like the old Post Office though clearly someone kept the entrance structure for a while”.

So, there is still more to find out, including who actually took over the bomb-damaged Post Office, converted it into the Fleming Hall, and who was Fleming? Wendy remembers a prominent Chorlton individual named Fleming and I think we can rule out Sir Alexander Fleming.

Finally, I don’t yet have a date for its demolition, although I know it will be before 1969, because in that year the site is listed as the Maypole Grocers, which later became Lipton’s and is now Sue Ryder.

And after 1963 when the Chorlton Townswomen Guild met there.

So that is that, ………… I now just await someone with a story or a picture of the place.

And not long after the post went live, Lawrence commented that "Saw your post on Fleming Hall and in case you didn’t know……

Named after Edward Fleming 1891 - 1950. He was the Tory MP for Withington Constituency 1945 - 1950. He then stood for Moss Side when the boundaries were redrawn and Chorlton was put in that Constituency.

It’s the 1950 General Election and sadly Mr.Fleming died on the 17th February during the campaign. I have got somemore details I can dig out. I think he took a turn for the worse at his sister’s house on High Lane. Anyway polling was immediately suspended by all the local parties. The Tories went on to win the General with Winston Churchill.

Moss Side Constituency voted two weeks later and elected Florence Horsborough. She’d lost in Midlothian and Peebles but got another crack at obtaining a seat. Manchester’s first woman MP, first woman in a Conservative cabinet".

And this I didn't know.

And Anne, responded almost immediately with "Fleming Hall used to be where the Sue Rider shop is, I remember going there for Christmas and Birthday parties in the 1960s" with Margaret adding, "I remember going to a dance there when I was at Whalley Range High School. Probably a barn dance as we had a club after school of country dancing to which boys from Chorlton Grammar attended. That would be about 1955/6/7".

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Former Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1959, A.E.Landers, m18242, and in 1961, m18511, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Post Office in 1907 from the Lloyd Collection

A story of a night of bombing, and of the casualties and the loss of our post office

On the night of December 24th and into the early morning of December 25th 1940 thirty people died in Chorlton.

They were all victims of the second night of the Manchester Blitz in which an estimated 644 people were killed and another 2,000 injured.

Of the 30 who died here many came from just two roads while the rest were spread out across the township.  Most of the bodies were taken to Withington Hospital, a few to Embden Street mortuary and a few to the Cavendish Road [now Corkland Road] mortuary.

And I suppose it was the fact that the mortuary on Cavendish Road was just round the corner explains why Mr and Mrs Carr were taken there.

They lived at 549a Wilbraham Road* which took a direct hit from a high explosive bomb.  Their home and two others which stood on the site of the modern post office were destroyed.

I would like to write more of Ernest and Gene Carr but so far I have only been able to turn up his death certificate which recorded his death on that December night and that he was just 44 years old.  It isn’t much but it is a start.

So in the meantime I shall concentrate on their home and what happened on the site before and after that night.

Earlier in the century 549a had been one  of three houses which were originally numbered, 3, 5 & 7 Wilbraham Road.

Yesterday I began the story of the three houses which stood on the site. Numbers, 3, 5 and 7 had been built sometime after 1885 and were typical of the new sort of properties that were being built to meet the influx of people to Chorlton.

Many of these were professionals; a few owned their own businesses and a lot more worked in the offices and big shops of Manchester.  They were attracted here by a train service which could whisk them into the heart of the city in under 15 minutes and the fields, farms and open country which for many was even closer.

So along with a surgeon and his family at number 1 the remaining three were the home at various times to a retired cotton merchant, a widow “living on her own means”, Edward Ireland who had  a number of photographic studios in Manchester, and a doctor, dentist and a oil trader.

And the size of the houses reflected the inhabitants.  Number 1 had twelve rooms, 3 and 5 eight rooms and number 7 9 rooms.

Each had cellars, a decent front garden and a longer one at the back stretching down across what is now the sorting office and yard.

But like other stretches of property in this new part of Chorlton they were soon developed with the addition of shop fronts and perhaps with an eye to even greater profits the owners sub divided the shops.

 In 1911 at number 3a there was Harvey Goodwin, confectioner, at number 3 Mrs Ethel May, cycle dealer, while at 5a Stuart Gray ran a tobacconist and in number 5 C. &W. Copping advertised themselves as china merchants.

The last of our three had become the post office in 1901 and remained so until the night of December 24th.

The Chorlton bomb maps show the impact of the high explosive bomb on the three properties and photographs from the late 1950s show the remnant which was the bit that jutted out still in use.

In 1959 it was being used as the Conservative Party Committee rooms.

But the keen eyed will spot that the building which would have been there is missing and eventually even this little left over bit of the old post office was demolished and the site became the forecourt for what has variously been Lipton’s and Ethel Austin.

Now those of you keen on a bit of modern archaeology will be able to see the clue to what had been number 7 and it is the cemented up side of what is now the gable end of the phone shop. Back in the 1950s this was Brighter Homes, the paint and wall paper shop.

Any one growing up in those post war years will remember the gaps in houses and the same raw cement walls where part of the terrace had been demolished.

And looking at the 1959 picture it is just possible to see the space where numbers 3 and 5 had been which in 1961 became our new post office.

It was an obvious place to build it close to the old one and utilising a bombsite.

I did wonder whether there might have been a plaque to record the event of that nights bombing, but then even here in Chorlton there would have been plenty of candidates for such a memorial.

And at the time there would have been plenty who remembered the event and maybe even knew Ernest and Gene Carr.

But what was once a common experience is fast passing out of living memory and soon I doubt that any one will even pass a thought to the odd space that runs from the Gable Nook Nursery to the row of shops by the bus stop.

Pictures; Numbers 1-7 Wilbrahan Road, circa 1891 from the Lloyd Collection, The old Post Office with its front extension circa 1910 from the collection of Philip Lloyd, the remnant of that same post office in 1959, A.E. Landers, m18242, and the modern Post Office and the old, A.E. Landers, 1961, m18511, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*493a has been number 5 Wilbraham Road in the early early of the last century