Chorlton’s mysterious eight ………. and an insight into our past

Now the history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy just keeps giving.

“Bowling Green Inn and old Church C c H”

So I am back looking again at eight paintings which were loaned to me by Julie Gaskell.

Each is of a time before now and range across Chorlton, from the small hamlet of Hardy across to the southern end of the old village and back along what is now Beech Road and east toward Hough End Hall.

And they include wattle and daub cottages, the smithy, as well as the old Bowling Green pub, and Barlow Hall.

The artist is unnamed, but I think they are by J Montgomery who painted a huge number of Chorlton scenes from sometime in the 1940s through to the mid-1960s.  

He remains a bit of a mystery with no one owning up to have known him.  Manchester Libraries who hold a collection of his paintings have no biographical information on him.

“Cottage Beech Road C cum Hardy”

But with the help of Andy Robertson, I am fairly confident he lived in Chorlton, and pretty much only painted scenes of the township.

The quality of his work is erratic, but together they offer up images of what Chorlton was like in the 19th century.

Some look to be imaginative reconstruction loosely based on photographs while most seem to be a faithful reproduction taken from picture postcards.

So the painting “Ale House in 1618 at Hough End Hall before Hough End Hall was built” drifts into pure speculation and is historically inaccurate given that our Hough End Hall was built in the 1590s.

In the same way “Bowling Green Inn and old Church C c H” is quite clearly based on at least one photograph from the late 19th century. 

As is “Cottage Beech Road C cum Hardy” which is Sutton’s Cottages which stood on the present site of the Launderette bar and restaurant.  The cottage dates from sometime in the 18th century and was demolished in the early 1890s.

"Barlow Hall, view from the meadows"

Others “Hough End Hall Old Hall or Manor House of Manchester” resemble photographs I have seen to suggest they are fairly accurate.

An even “Pitts Brow Edge Lane where new church and Stockton Range now stand” for which there will be no photographic evidence might be a mix of the artist’s imagination and descriptions which appeared in T Ellwood’s History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy which appeared over 26 weeks in the South Manchester Gazette between the winter of 1885 and the spring of the following year.

So there you have it ….. eight mystery paintings most of which look to be based on old photographs, some of which have themselves been lost, and take us back to that rural Chorlton of the mid 19th century.

"Behind the Smithy, Beech Road C c H"

In some cases, it is difficult to guarantee their accuracy, but using maps, and written records I think we can be confident that we are almost back to the Chorlton cum Hardy of the 1850s.

Leaving me just to say the eight look to be reproductions of originals, have been laminated and framed.

So thank you Julie who spotted them in a shop and had to buy all eight.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures, eight paintings, by an unknown artist, courtesy of Julie Gaskell.

Who pinched a Chorlton pub?

Now when you have spent a decade and a half crawling over Chorlton’s past it is always nice to find something new, and something you didn’t know.

The mystery Holly Bush Inn, 1900

So yesterday while searching for an image of a lost pub on Market Street in town I came across two paintings of a Chorlton pub called the Holly Bush Inn.

Both were by painted our local artist J Montgomery and are dated 1900 and 1967.*

J. Montgomery is an an artist I know well and there are heaps of his paintings in Manchester Library’s Image Collectoion.  

Most were painted from picture postcards which have now been lost and so are themselves a unique record of Chorlton’s past.

Until that is this one, which does not appear in any historical record for the 19th into the 20th century.

I wondered if he had confused Chorlton cum Hardy with Chorlton on Medlock but a check of the pubs listed in The Old Pubs of Hulme and Chorlton on Medlock by Bob Potts drew a blank.**

The mystery Holly Bush Inn, 1967

And anyway Mr. Montgomery knew his Chorlton.  

It might however been mis catalogued, but I doubt that too.

So, it seems a mystery.  

It could have been one of those short lived beer shops which sprang up and vanished leaving little trace.   

One such doble fronted “superior” establishment was run by Mrs Leach which was the scene of a dreadful stabbing in 1847. 

The press coverage of the time never offered up a name for the beer shop but it was roughly on the site of the modern Cromar on Manchester Road.

But it had long gone when Montgomery painted his picture from a1900 picture postcard and certainly would have been long forgotten when he reprised the subject in 1967.

And here we do have to be careful because in labelling his paintings he sometimes wrote the date of the postcard and at other times the date of when he created the image.

That said I could be wrong and there may once have been a Holly Bush Inn, which may have been pinched or converted into any one of a number of different uses.

We shall see.

Location; sometime and place in Chorlton

Pictures; The Holly Bush Inn, 1900, m49891, and 1967, m80053, J Montgomery, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*J. Montgomery, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Montgomery

**The Old Pubs of Hulme and Chorlton on Medlock by Bob Potts, 1997

In search of the lost Chorlton artist … J Montgomery

Now, if you dig into Chorlton’s history, at some point you come across J Montgomery, who for two decades painted Chorlton.

Chorlton Ice Skating rink and Picturedrome, 1964 from a picture circa 1915

I first came across his work in the Local History Collection, where there is a huge collection of his work.

Most were painted from old photographs and record a Chorlton which was lost a long time ago.

In some cases, we do not have the original picture and so Mr. Montgomery’s paintings are the only evidence for old buildings and agricultural landscapes, which were once familiar.

Of the hundreds I have come across, one of my favorites in the old ice rink and Picturedrome which stood on the corner of Oswald and Longford roads.

Chapel on Albany Road, 1960

And until I came across his painting, I had no idea of its existence.

But despite all of these paintings, no one knew anything about him and all my attempts to piece together his story came to nothing.

All of which is remarkable given that his last painting was in 1968 and he must have been local, leading me to assume someone would remember him.

Despite appeals over the years on the blog and in talks and walks around Chorlton I could find nothing, and even the library which holds the digital collection could offer nothing about the man, leaving just one reference in Trafford local study Centre in a catalogue listing local artists.

It is one of those mysteries which has intrigued both me and my old friend Andy Robertson, and after a recent conversation Andy decided to go looking all over again.

Sally's Pond, 1958

This time he struck gold, commenting that “the John Montgomery I found died in 1970, and the last dated work of his on images was 1968, so that fits.

In 1966 his daughter's death in the Wills Index lists his occupation as commercial clerk. My guess is this our man”.

He was born in 1902 and his buried in Southern Cemetery with other family members and in 1939 was living on Brookbank Road

But here there is a hitch, because there is appears a mismatch between some of the names in the family grave and those on the 1939 register, so while it would appear Mr. Montgomery and his daughter, Laura are together, the names of the other two women do not conform to the person assumed to be his wife in 1939.

Lilly's Cottage, 1948

Of course that “hitch” is what fascinates both me and Andy, and I have no doubt with more digging the matter will be resolved as will the mismatch between the occupation given by his daughter which was "clerk" and that in 1939 which was “Property repairer and window cleaner”.

But then this was 1939, just a decade after the Wall Street Crash and eight since the Great Depression threw thousands out of work across the city.

So, a work in progress.

*Research by Andy Robertson

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; “Chorlton Skating Rink, later The Picturedrome”, 1964, m80132, Chapel on Albany Road, from a 1950 photograph,1960, m80123, Sally’s pond, 1958, copied from a 1922, photograph, m80104
Lilly Cottage from a 1948 photograph, Montgomery J 1952 m80050, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, https://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass