A peacock, a plough and a very old picture ............. the photograph album from Hough End Hall

One of the peacocks, date unknown

Now I am back with a unique collection of photograpghs from a family picture album which I had thought lost.

It belonged to the Lomax family who had lived and farmed at Hough End Hall from the late 1840s till the death of Mrs Lomax in1940.

I say lost but to be strictly accurate I had no idea of its existence until recently and I wish I had come across it earlier when I was writing a book on the hall’s history.*

At the time I thought that there must be some family images of the Lomax family but all that had come down to us was one of the children dated at the turn of the last century and taken from some distance.

But now I have that album of pictures and as you would expect it is a mix of snaps, a few of the hall and gardens and a rare couple of the farm.

And what first caught my eye was the peacock which for a while at least was how the farm was known.

Ploughing on the farm, date unknown

There are still people who speak fondly of the peacocks but with the passage of time some have confused its location despite at least one painting carrying the name Peacock Farm.

I have to admit I never gave it much thought preferring instead to concentrate on the working side of the farm and the people who ran it.

And the album has offered up a wonderful image of the land being ploughed.  I don’t have a date but guess it will be from the early 20th century.

Mrs Lomax circa 1930s

By then the farm had shrunk from about 220 acres and by its end was just a little over three, but it was still a working business and in the 1930s Mrs Lomax was still advertising for farm hands.

She had been born in 1864 married Samuel Lomax in the March of 1888 and took up residence in the hall sometime in the early 20th century on the death of Mr Lomax’s uncle who had run the farm since the late 1840s.

And here is Mrs Lomax.

The picture dates from sometime after the late 1920s and was taken looking south.  Directly behind her is the recently cut Mauldeth Road West and the Corporation houses.

It is a picture I like very much for not only do we have a photograph of Mrs Lomax but also an indication of  just how much the farm has changed in a couple of decades.

As late as the 1890s looking south there were clear views across open land south to the Workhouse while a little to the west was Nell Farm, a nursery and the edge of the newly opened Southern Cemetery.

And that is what makes the family album so unique because the first pictures date from the last decade of the 19th century and span the years almost into the middle of the next century offering up a major contribution to the story of hall.**

The wonder is that they have survived and points up that simple observation that there is more out there than we ever suspect.







Pictures; the Lomax family album now in the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hough End Hall The Story, Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, 2015, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Hough%20End%20Hall

**Hough End Hall, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Hough%20End%20Hall

Has Hough Hall in Moston a future?

Now I have gone looking for news on the plight of Hough Hall in Moston.

It was not a building I knew much about and only briefly came across it while doing some research on another story.

It is a listed Grade II building and dates back to the 16th century beginning life as a farmhouse and more recently was used for commercial purposes.*

And judging by Andy Robinson’s pictures it has not fared well in the last few years.

Back in 2005 there was a flurry of interest when the then owners signalled they wanted to sell the property for £200,000, and there was a push by the Friends of the Hall to raise the cash.

But today it is still sitting forlorn and empty and I suspect even more in need of tender care and attention.

It had been according to the Manchester Evening News “scheduled for demolition in the late 60 or early 70s under a Compulsory Purchase Order but was saved.”**

So I went looking for news of the place.

The same article had reported that there had been a one off Hough Hall Festival held around 1972 and in 2005 there had been quite a bit of local activity focusing on raining awareness for the campaign to buy the Hall.

Since then I could only come across references in the Corporation’s online planning site for temporary car parks in 2009 and the erection of alley gates four years earlier.

All of which is a shame because as early as 1999 research posted on ancestry revealed a rich history

“It is thought it may have been built by George Halgh (sometimes spelt
Haugh). George lived there.

It was owned by several people over the years. Sometime in the early 1880s it was bought by Robert & John Ward who were two brothers who had both been born in a cottage off Kenyon Lane, Moston, Manchester. Robert & John had a successful textiles business in Manchester.

It was described as a black and white half timbered house.

In 1961 an article was written which stated that the house had been put to all kinds of use in recent years and had become run-down.

It had been a doctors surgery, used for the manufacture of lipsticks, and at the time the article was written in 1961 it was being used as a sanitary-ware storehouse and the gardens as a coal and builders yard
combined.

In 1968 another article states that the hall was in Hough Hall Road and in very bad repair. It also says that in front of it at that time stood the Moston Lane Infants School and behind the Hall was the recently
built Moston College of Technology."***

So Hough Hall has slowly been neglected for a more than a century and it is a wonder it is still with us.

Which just begs the question of for how much longer do we have this rare piece of Tudor history in Moston?

Pictures; Hough Hall 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson

* British Listed Buildings, http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/,  Hough Hall, Manchester, http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/

** Save Hough Hall MEN may 28 2005, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/save-hough-hall-1147451

***Hough Hall, Moston,  Delwyn McKenzie, rootswebb ancestry.co.uk, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/LANCSGEN/1999-01/0917753427