Sidney Street …… little valued …….and now forgotten

This is Sidney Street or what is left of it.

Sidney Street, 2025

Once upon a time it ran off Hardman Street, taking a sharp right and becoming Thompson Street before joining Joddrel Street.

Sidney Street, 1974

Later Thompson Street was renamed Tivoli Street and just a decade ago you could still trace the route from Sidney Street following the old street plan.I did it regularly but by then it was pretty much all open land with just the road surface and a remnant of a building to bear witness that this had been a busy place.

I say busy but you would have to go back to the 1850s to find much stirring on Thompson Street which consisted of sixteen back to back houses on the northern side facing nine larger properties which backed on to Ashely’s Silk Mill, Hampson’s Hat Factory and Thompson’s Chemical Works.

Those railings, Sidney Street, 2025

A century later these had all vanished under large warehouses, which in turn were demolished to make way for a car park and a grassed verge.

Sidney Street, 1851

And now they in turn have gone and the site is occupied by a large 21st century building.

Sidney Street, and Thompson/Tivoli Street, 2012

But compare the image of Sidney Street today with that of 1974 and tiny vestiges of it most recent past is there from the iron railings of what is now a restaurant to the tiled rear of Invicata House.

Not so of course 25 dwellings that in 1851 ran along Thompson Street.

They were home to 113 people who made their livelihood in a mix of unskilled occupations, many of whom had been born in Ireland.

Typical were the families at number at 32 which was inhabited by Mr and Mrs Howarth, Michael and Mary Byrnes their son and stepson and Mary Baxter and her son. 

James Howarth was a porter, Michael Byrnes a bricklayer’s labourer, Mary a shoe binder and their sons worked as cotton piecers, while Mary Baxter was a washerwoman and her son a brick layer.

Tvivoli Street, 1968

In time I will explore Thompson Street in 1851and its varied occupants and try to fix when the properties vanished.  They were still there in 1893, but I guess will have been swept away soon after.

Alas nether Sidney Street or Thompson Street were deemed interesting enough to have been included in the street directories for the 19th and early 20th centuries, leaving their only trace in the Raye Books and census returns.

We shall see.

Location; Spinneyfields

Pictures; Sidney Street, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1974 m5022, and Tivoli Street formerley Thompson Street, M05716, 1968, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Sidney Street, Tivoli Street, 2012 courtesy of Google Maps, and Sidney Street in 1851, from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

Looking for the lost and hidden bits of Spinningfields

I have been reflecting on how that place between Deansgate and the River remade itself as Spinningfields.

Hardman Street 2025

To be fair it has had many remakes.  I knew it in the 1970s and 80s as an area waiting for something to happen with tired looking buildings.  Go back another twenty years and the scars of the last war were all too visible from what the 1951 OS map recorded as “Ruins” and open spaces.

Hardman Street and Byrom Streets, 1951

Slide back a century and a walk down Hardman Street from Deansgate would have offered up a busy densely populated network of streets, closed courts and small industrial units.  

On the corner of Byrom Street and Hardman Street stood William Murray’s livery stables which described itself as the “Horse Bazaar” while close by were Ashley’s Silk Mill, Hampson’s Hat Factory and Thompson’s Soda Water Works.

In between were heaps of houses occupied by families who worked in a wide range of trades, plenty of unskilled labourers as well as washerwomen and street hawkers.

To these we can add a significant number of “beer sellers”, brewing and selling the stuff from their own front rooms.  So, on Byrom Street there were three listed amongst a total of 23 properties, while Hardman Street boasted two beer houses nestling between the Golden Eagle, Victoria, and Hope Pole Taverns which together made up just twenty-five households.

Hardman Street and Byrom Streets, 1851

And to gain some perspective you just need to walk down those two streets today which are narrow and short to get an idea of how close all these drinking establishments were and how many people they served, because each of these streets led off into back streets, alleys and closed courts.

All of which is a direct contrast to how the area has turned out, with its tall glass and steel towers its bars, offices, and restaurants.

Each time I go there I have to think hard to recall the place I knew, and once again I am forced back on the collection of pictures, I took over four decades ago.

Hardman Street and Byrom Streets, 2025

Google maps shows the bright new Spinningfields while in 1981 the same spot was dominated by what had been “The Hospital for Consumption and Disease of the Throat” which still had inscribed above one door “Tuberculosis Office”.

It is reminder of a grim time when infectious diseases like TB were rife, and treatment was pretty much reliant on segregation, rest and fresh air.

To this day I am still horrified by the practice of spitting in the street which seems to be on the increase and which for my generation and earlier generations ran counter to public health campaigns still evidenced in old signs which can be found on some public places and vintage trains, buses and trams.

I had quite forgotten that hospital but a series of pictures I took in 1981 jogged my memory and took me back to that corner of Hardman and Byrom Street before today.

Hardman Street from Crown Square

It was a protest march which terminated like so many in Crown Square and had taken us from All Saints up Oxford Road to Quay Street and Byrom Street.

That said it took a bit of time to match the 1981 picture with the present spot.

But I did and along the way thought again about how places change.

Location; Spinneyfields

Pictures; Hardman and Byrom Street, 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and again in 2025, courtesy of Google maps, and the area in 1951 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1851 and in 1849 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

Hardman and Byrom Streets, 1981

Lost in Spinningfields …….. with just the past as a guide

I must admit I do get confused in Spinningfields, or more accurately I get disorientated.

Looking down Hardman Street to Hardman Square, 2025

Even now almost two decades after the development began and following heaps of visits, I still lose my way and get a bit surprised at what I come across.

Looking up from Crown Square, 2025

But then most of the rebuilding happened while I was less focused on coming into town with the result that the place took off while I had my eyes elsewhere.

Added to which I remember it from the 1970s and early 80s when the area was best described as a place waiting for something to happen.

And that according to my Wikipedia began in 1997 when a property company purchased several buildings around the Rylands Library.  

The plan was to create a new business quarter and retail area which it dubbed a “Knightsbridge of the North”. *

Inevitably the business area was described as our equivalent of London’s Canary Wharf and by 2010 a report byLooking up  Manchester City Council noted that 16,000 people were employed in Spinningfields which accounted for over 35% of the City’s prime office space.**

And along with the offices, and a mix of restaurants has come residential towers and that footbridge across the river linking Spinningfields to New Bailey in Salford.

Hardman and Byrom Street, 1981

There will I guess be detractors, but I like the place, even given my ability to get confused.  It has a buzz and offers up plenty of photo opportunities but which do present challenges in matching my collection of old pictures with today.

Hardman and Byrom Street, 2024

So I looked out an image from the early 1980s of the end of anti-cruise missile demonstration.  It had begun in All Saints and snaked its way through the city before ending in Crown Square.  

The picture caught the last leg of the march as it made its way via Byrom Street, passing Hardman Street before terminating in the Square.

Standing at the corner of Hardman and Byrom Street recently it was hard to match that picture with the present.

Which I suppose explains my confusion.  It is a bit like staring through a very dirty window.  You can make out something but it is difficult to make sense of what you see.

That said the Spinningfields development has been so comprehensive that there is little left to remember, and you have to fasten on the remaining bits of the old street pattern. 

But that has a bonus because it always takes me back to explore the area in the past and that in particular in the 1840s and 50s when the area was a mix of back-to-back housing, as well as factories and markets.  Much of this was subsequently swept away with the development of warehouses, and offices which in its way was almost as comprehensive as its 21st century equivalent. ***

Hardman Street and surrounding streets, 1951

Which is where I came in, leaving me to ponder how as a resident of the area in 1851 I would have coped with wandering the streets a century later or today.

All I guess would be confusion.

Location; Spinningfields

Pictures; Hardman Street, 2025, and Hardman Street/Byrom Street in 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Hardman Street/Byrom Street, 2024, courtesy of Google Maps and Hardman Street and surrounding streets, 1951, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1951

 *Spinningfields, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinningfields

**Manchester City Council Report for Resolution, March 2010, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/egov_downloads/Spinningfields.pdf

***Spinningfields, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Spinningfields

The day Mr Jackson captured the kerfuffle on Hardman Street in 1913

We are in Didsbury in 1913 and Mr Jackson has been recording the ebb and flow of people and traffic up and down Hardman Street.

At first glance I thought we were dealing with a sequence of potographs taken on the same day and despite the presence of two carts and what might be the same people they are more likely to have been taken on different days.

That said the two together capture perfectly a morning in Didsbury in 1913.

Hardman Street connected Wilmslow Road with William Street, and both  pictures are looking east down towards William Street away in the distance.

The butcher’s shop cannot have long been open when the pictures were taken because the shutters are still down and some of the people look as if they are on their way to work.

In the second something is amiss, and whatever it is has brought the customers and the shop keeper out of the shop.

The obvious answer may be something to do with the coal wagon and the handcart as they passed each other.

The attention of the delivery boy to our left and the man on our right are both drawn to that coal man who has stopped and looks directly at the camera.

There were coal yards at the bottom of Hardman Street and at the top opposite our shop so I guess street congestion was a fairly common event.

I am tempted to suggest a chain of events but that would be to drift into idle speculation and nothing good comes of that.

Pictures; Hardman Street in 1913 by J. Jackson, m21852 & m21851 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Back on Hardman Street looking at Sailor Salmon in 1923

Now I couldn’t resist revisiting Hardman Street which ran from Wilmslow Road down to William Street.

It is now part of School Lane and looks nothing like it did back at the beginning of the 20th century.

The best you can do to get a sense of what this street was like is to walk round into Warburton Street which is equally narrow but has a set of cottages which have more appeal than these run of the mill 19th century properties.

Added to this Hardman Street had a coal yard at both ends and some lock up workshops.

So, not the sort of place to attract the people of plenty and the 1911 street directory lists quite a humble set of people ranging from a painter, a boot maker, two carters and a pawn broker.

Looking down the street from William Street the only thing which could be said to the lighten the place are the advertising hoardings which on this day in 1923 are dominated by the week’s showing at the Scala Cinema just up the road in Withington and Sailor Salmon Slices.

And as you do I went looking for Sailor Salmon and found the company advertisng in the early 20th century, but have yet to find them on the shelves today.

But there will be someone who can tell me all about them.

That said our Sailor has suffered a bit from someone attempting to rip his poster from the wall, a fate which looks soon to be replicated by the advert for the cinema which may have been someone with a total dislike of salmon who just saw a bad

Picture; Hardman Street looking west towards Wilmslow Road, 1923, m21212,  courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

On Hardman Street, in Didsbury on March 12th 1924 reading the adverts

Hardman Street, March 12th 1924

We are on Hardman Street in the March of 1924 and for the discerning reader of adverts it has got the lot, including the announcement of the films Reef of Stars and Within the Law, both made in that year and showing at the cinema in Elm Grove round the corner.

Reef of Stars was set in South Africa and included panoramic views of the countryside, while Within the Law followed the trail of a young woman wrongfully sent to prison seeking revenge on her release.

But for those who didn’t fancy steamy melodrama and vivid scenes from the other side of the world, there was always the Halle Orchestra, performing Bach, Beethoven and Brahms and advertised as the Last Halle Concert.  Or for those in need of advice there was Mrs R. Ray at the Houldsworth Hall giving a talk and “Free Demonstration” on "How to Dress Well.”

Posters and adverts

That said my own favourite amongst the rest has to be the announcement of a “Public Meeting and Concert” organised by the Fellowship of Freedom and Reform held at the Public Hall to be held on March 14th.

The local speaker was Dr T Watts and the subject was Against Prohibition.  Now this is interesting because the Fellowship of Freedom and Reform was itself a temperance organisation.

But one that campaigned for more responsible trading arguing for family orientated pubs which offered food, skittle-alleys, billiard-tables, gardens, and concerts.

They published their own magazine called Sobriety along with pamphlets like “The Improved Public House, [which can be] obtained at the price of one shilling from the Fellowship, at St. Stephen's House, Westminster; and it contains some excellent photographs and much encouraging information of the progress being made in the provision of places where food and other amenities are obtainable as well as drink.”*

Badge of the Fellowship, circa 1924

Now there is more to find out about the Fellowship not least its links to the drink trade and their general political position of the rights and freedoms of the individual.

And maybe with more research s it might just be possible to discover who attended that Friday evening meeting and just what the mood of the audience was.

Looking towards Wilmslow Road

In the meantime I shall return to the picture of Hardman Street on what looks to be a bright sunny morning.

Our photographer has captured just three people on street that day along with the parked bike.

In the distance is Wilmlsow Road and the junction with Barlow Moor Road.

It is of course a scene that has long since gone.

The cottages were I am told demolished for a road widening scheme which never happened although it did also lead to the end of Hardman Street which became the extension of School Lane.

*The Spectator, October 26th 1929

Picture; courtesy of Didsbury Civic Society, and the badge of the Fellowship of Freedom and Reform  courtesy of Andrew Whitehad from his blog, http://www.andrewwhitehead.net/1/post/2011/10/fellowship-freedom-reform.html