One clock tower ….. a pub ….. and 4 funny looking cars ….. 47 years ago

The picture may not win any prizes for top quality image of the year.

But then it was 1979 and I was just starting out on taking photographs and developing them using smelly photography.

Still, it is sort of a record of the Town Hall, and the Town Hall Tavern taken from King Street a very long time ago

Location; King Street

Picture; One clock tower ….. a pub ….. and 4 funny looking cars, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On King Street, dodging the cars

Most of the images we see of Manchester in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the work of professional photographers. 

They focused on the popular bits and sold them on to the postcard companies.

Then there were the serious amateurs who were often as good as the professionals.

King Street in the 1930s

But there are also the snappers, who captured whatever took their fancy.

Often the images are a little blurred and in many cases have a significance lost in time.

And so with this in mind here is the new series.

Snaps of Manchester is an occasional rummage through pictures most of which were never meant to be shared beyond the family.

Of course the advent of the camera phone has given this a new lease of life.

But for now I am concentrating on old fashioned images and I have my  new facebook chum Sandra to thank for many of these pictures.

Here is King Street before the city planners got rid of the traffic.  Now I don’t have a date for this one but judging from the cars I suspect it will during the 1920s or 30s.

To our right is the old bank which has undergone many conversions and was at one time a music store.

What I like is the way the image captures a quiet day, and while I alluded to dodging cars there is of course little danger of that.

There are few of them and the noise they made would have alerted most people to their passing.

Once we have a date it should be possible to identify some of the shops, particularly those on the left of our photograph.

And with the way these things work there will be someone who can supply a possible date, and others who will remember the shops.

All of which makes for great history.

Now I think I can just remember King Street with cars but like so much of our recent history it is easy to forget the detail.

And that is what makes such snaps all the more useful because they wander off the beaten well trod path and provide us with scenes which the professional did not think as interesting.

So over the next few weeks with Sandra’s permission I shall bring that Manchester back for all to see.

Picture; King Street from the collection of Sandra Hapgood.

The twisty story of that bank on King Street

It started this morning when I posted a picture of the old National Westminster Bank on King Street which I took in 1978.

1974

It is a building that has always intrigued me.

I always reckoned it must be 18th century but have never made an effort to find its history.

But prompted by the interest in my 1978 picture I dug deep into what was at times a confusing story.

My Pevsner, that guide to all things architecture says  “Nos 35-37 is a five bay brick house, originally with wings, built in 1736 for Dr. Peter Waring, which became a bank in the later 18th century. Its interior has gone and the wings replaced by 1990s glass shop fronts”.*

1978

And tracking back through maps, directories and the Rate Books I can confirm that it has been engaged in the exchange of money for a very long time.

It appears as the bank of James Lloyd in 1843 and later as Lloyd, Entwhistle, Bury, and Jervis Bankers into the 1860s.  As Lloyd Entwhistle it can be traced back to the firm of  John Jones "bankers and tea dealers", which had been established in the 1770s and occupied our building in King Street.

1930s

In 1863 Lloyd, Entwhistle, Bury and Jervis, were bought out by the Manchester & Liverpool District Bank which in turn was purchased by the National Westminster Bank in 1962.**

All of which seemed easy to follow but what had thrown me for a while was the presence of a grand stone entrance beside our house which confusingly carried the street number, 37, and according to Pevsner, “Beside it Nos. 37 & 39 is an ambitious 1990s design …. Incorporating the arched entrance to the bank”.

Which is all very well but clearly was once part of our building.

Just when it was added is yet to be discovered.  

It is there on Goad’s Fire insurance maps which date from the 1880s to the early 1900s, but is not on the 1851 Adshead map.

So there you are.

Pictures; Banks, National Westminster Bank, King Street, Manchester, H. Milligan, 1974, m56518, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass King Street, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, King Street circa 1930s, from the collection of Sandra Hapgood, the bank, circa 1880s, from Goad's Fire Insurance maps 1880s-1900, courtesy of  https://digitalarchives.co.uk/

1880s

*Manchester, Clare Hartwell, Pevsner Arhitectural Guides, 2001

**District Bank, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Bank

Additional information from Slater's Directories, Manchester Rate Books, OS maps of Manchester and Salford, 1849, 1894, Adshead's map of Manchester 1851 and Goad's Fire Insurance maps 1880s-1900

Looking for that building on King Street …………

Now if I have got this right, this is number 52 King Street.

Today it is a tapas bar, but back in the late 1970s it was a soclicitors, and to my great pleasure those delicate iron window frames are still thre.

Location; King Street



Pictures; Looking into Barton Street, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson