What we have lost ....... inside the Corn Exchange

I really liked this metal and glass structure.

It was in the Corn Exchange beside Exchange Square, and I always thought it was an innovative way to fill a space.

Added to that I rather enjoyed sitting in there sipping an espresso and waiting for the shopping expedition to finish.

But it has gone since then the space around it was transformed from a retail centre to a series of themed restaurants from Italian, to Thai, and many more.

The Corn Exchange is a listed grade II building and was originally the Corn and Produce Exchange built in 1897 and opened in 1903.

Its role as an important centre for business suffered during the 1920 and 30s and and by the time I arrived in Manchester in 1969 its role as a trading floor were over.

But I remember it as a place full of independent traders ranging from second records and comics to clothes and jewellery.

You could spend hours wandering the stalls on the trading floor and in the surrounding rooms, but that IRA bomb did for all this.

The building was severely damaged and many of the traders relocated to what has become the Northern Quarter, and the building was redeveloped as the Triangle specialising in swish retailing, but it never seemed as busy in later years, and despite a re branding in 2012 seemed to miss a trick.

And then it closed reopening as an interesting place to eat.


Location; Manchester









Pictures; interior of the Triangle, July 2013

*Corn Exchange, Manchester, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Exchange,_Manchester

Scholes Square ….. fifty-one of its residents …. and a bit of Manchester’s past

 You won’t find Scholes Square today.

Scholes Square, 1908

I only came across it by accident when looking for pictures of London Road on Manchester’s digital archive.

It was a tiny court off Scholes Street which in turn was off Store Street.

The square survived into the last century, but only just and now the site is covered by a modern warehouse which itself is empty and looking for an occupant.

And added to the difficulty of locating it comes the name change which saw Scholes Street become Stand Street.

All a tad confusing.

To which I can add that as, yet I am unclear when it was built.

It doesn’t appear on Johnson’s map of Manchester for 1818 but is shown on the OS for 1844, and judging by the maps and the picture it didn’t have much going for it.

It backed on to a smithy and was totally enclosed on three sides.

You entered from Store Street by a flight of stairs and were confronted by eight one up one down properties, which just seven years later had been reduced to six.

Scholes Square, 1851

In 1851 the court was home to fifty-one people with most of the residents working for the railways or in the cotton factories. 

And the textile jobs ranged from piecers, to power loom weavers and interestingly one who gave her occupation as “Silk weaver by hand”.

This left a blacksmith, a joiner a servant and charwoman.

All of which made sense for this part of Manchester which was dominated by London Road Railway Station, accompanying railway warehouses and a series of cotton mills.

Nor am I surprised that in 1851 of the fifty-one inhabitants, 37% had been born in Ireland, 47 % from Manchester and the rest from Salford, Wigan and other parts of the northwest.

And there is evidence of serious over crowding with two families living at no. 2 and two at no.6.  

At no. 2 Mr. and Mrs Dowling shared with Hannah Wild who sublet her space to two lodgers, while Daniel and Sarah Finn and there two children shared with the Cass family which consisted of two adults and five children.

In time I will go looking for how the lives of some of these residents panned out, but for now it is enough to know that the picture I found by chance opens up a bit of Manchester’s story.

Location; Scholes Square

Pictures; Stand Street, off Store Street, 1908, m04569, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, and Scholes Square in 1851, 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Travels through the 1970’s …… via Grey Mare Lane ..... Bradford Colliery and some fireman's flats

 This is where we lived for one carefree year when we were very young.

Home, Butterworth Street, 1986

It was the January of 1972, and we had been married for a month. We were just 23 and 21 years old and starting out on an adventure.

And where better to do that, than in a block of former fireman’s flats on Butterworth Street which was one side of the Mill Street Police Station in Bradford Manchester.

There were six flats, and they comprised the entire stock of student accommodation at that time owned by Manchester Polytechnic, and we were the first six families to occupy them.

It was a complete contrast to south Manchester and student land where we had both lived for two years but we loved it.  The winding gear of Bradford Colliery was just down the road, there were still heaps of small iron works and on certain days the sky could be a different colour depending on the stuff coming from the chimneys of Clyton Aniline.

The city centre was just a short train or bus ride away and directly outside our door was Grey Mare Lane Market which offered up all we wanted including a wonderful record stall from which I bought and still have the LP, Easy by Marvin Gaye and Tammy Tyrell.

Flats and a police station from Rhyl Street, 1991

The summer of 1973 I spent working in the scaffolding yard of SGB on Pottery Lane and at weekends we explored what was left of area, from Philips Park and out along Ashton Old Road.

But the place was already undergoing redevelopment.  Across from us was the new Grey Mare Lane deck access complex which at night resembled an ocean liner.

And all around there were open grassed spaces which was all that was left of the rows of terraced houses which had once been home to hundreds of families.

The colliery had closed just five years before we arrived, but the head gear was still there, until one day when we were out it was demolished.

Butterworth Street, 1948

It is easy to become nostalgic about our time there, but even then you couldn’t escape the industrial side of the area with its noise and smoke.

We lasted just a year which had less to do with the factories but simply that at the end of the year we had graduated, and while the Polytechnic allowed us to say for a while eventually were given our marching orders.

As it was we just moved up Ashton Old Road to Ashton Under Lyne which meant for a few years we passed Grey Mare Lane most days on the 218 into town.

And then I moved again and that was it apart from occasional forays out towards Philips Park, until this week when I washed up at the Etihad Stadium and on an impulse went looking for Butterworth Street and Mill Street.

I already knew that the complex had gone and worked out that our flats were now under Alan Turing Way.

All that remains of Rhyl Street, 2012

That said nothing quite prepares you for the moment when you locate the precise point where you lived.

Mill Street still exists and so does the remains of a short stretch of what was Rhyl Street which ran along side the Police Station and led into Butterworth Street.

It is just a few yards of tarmac, which in places has worn away to reveal the original stone setts.

Not much but all there is left.

And I guess it won’t be long before it too vanishes.

Already much of the original street plan from the early 20th century has been swept away by a new network of roads which run in different directions.

I wasn’t surprised and certainly not upset, it is only to be expected in an area which is being redeveloped, but I am glad I got close to the old flat.

And it will give me a topic of conversation the next time I meet up with a former policeman who walked the beat from Mill Street Police Station.

Which just leaves me to quoute from that excellet site Architects of Greater Manchester who posted three newspaper articles about the Police Station's opening on October 2nd, 1903.

Inside the police station, 1991

This was one is from the Manchester Guardian from October 2nd, 1903 reporting that "A new police station which has been erected in Mill-Street, Bradford, Manchester, was opened yesterday by Mr. W. Trevor, chairman of the Watch Committee of the Corporation. 

The station has cost £25,000, and will take the place of the old headquarters of the C Division in Fairfield-Street, as well as of several sub-stations. The building contains separate departments for police and firemen, together with housing accommodation for several men of both forces. In the police department there are thirteen cells, and these, like the rest of the building, are lighted by electricity. 

The fire department, at. the corner of Mill-street and Rhyl Street, has been arranged on most modern lines. with open stalls for the horses on either side of the engine-house, and sliding poles from the men's quarters on the floor above. The new station contains a section of the Horse Ambulance Corps".*

 And that is it, other than to say the sky could be different colours. I had begun to doubt that, but my friend Chris who had grown up off Grey Mare Lane confirmed it.

And from David Bullock came this "Great article Andrew. You’ve got the location spot on in the modern photo, opposite the doctors. What colour was the sky, yellow, orange or a bit of each? Walking the quiet streets at night you could hear the low hum of machinery that never stopped and the sporadic blasts of steam being vented. There was also the ever present chemical smell in the air. I’m sure you were kept awake at night by the stray dogs in the kennel in the station yard barking. It was uncanny how the dogs who wouldn’t stop barking always managed to escape.

Location; Mill Street, Butterworth Street, and Rhyl Street

Pictures; Butterworth Street, 1986,m 15551, and Rhyl Street, 1991, m55776, Inside the staion, 1991m55773, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Mill Street and Rhyl Street, 2012, courtesy of Google Maps, and the area in 1948, from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1922

*Architects of Greater Manchester 1800-1940

https://manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/buildings/new-police-station-mill-street-bradford-manchester

Looking for the invisibles .................. life in a Manchester Court in 1896

Now it is pretty much one of those dismal observations that “the poor are always with us” by which I simply mean that poverty today is still very much an issue.

Sale Court, 1896

Some will of course argue all things are relative, but for many their share of the economic cake remains slim and with that comes a shedload of blighted life chances.
But what is also apparent from this picture of Sale Court in Hulme in 1896 is that the poor were also invisible.

Try as I may I have not found a listing in the street directories on either side of 1896 for either Sale Court or its companion across the way which was called Rose Court.

And so in the fullness of time I guess I will have to comb the Rate Books, and it will have to be the old fashioned way of going down to Central Ref, and going through the microfilms.

The books are online but the search engine of the particular genealogical platform does not allow you to go looking by location only by name.

And of course a name is something I do not have.

If I did I would then be able to locate the place and turn up the rent that was paid, as well as the rates and the names of both the tenant and the landlord.

And with the name of landlord we could begin to assemble his or her whole portfolio of properties.

The "amenities", 1896

Nor is that all because once we had located Sale Court it would be possible to find it on a map and back track that map to earlier maps and along with the hard copies of the Rate Books begin to work out when it was built.
Finally a location would help in finding out just what the place was like inside because the 1911 census also offers up the number of rooms.

Like Bill Sumner who found the image and posted it I think we are looking at some one up one down cottages.

Manchester had banned their construction by the mid 19th century but there were still plenty around and some authorities elsewhere in the country had continued permitting their construction for another few decades.

Now I have a link with Sale Court which I grant you is slightly tenuous but my great grandmother grew up in one just like this.  It was slightly bigger, was called Whiteman’s Yard after the entrepreneur who built it and it was in Derby, but it was a court just like this one.

The sunlight rarely penetrated down, there was a total lack of privacy and the properties would have been equally long past their shelf life.

Oh and for those not quite sure the three little structures at the end are the privies, which would have emptied by the night soil man and the contents sold on to farmers.

This I know because in the collection I have a receipt dated 1857 for pile of the stuff sold to Mr Bailey the farmer and spread on the field directly opposite our house.

For those wanting more these houses were built as back to backs, the ground floor rested directly on the soil and the internal walls were just half a brick thick.

Such were the homes of the invisibles although perhaps not quite invisible because there with just a little of her skirt and shoes is one of our residents, but not enough to count.

And then as so often happens John Anthony Hewitt picked up the story and after some diligent research offered up the location of Sale Court, reporting back, "I have managed to locate a Town Plan on the NLS Website that shows Sale Court and Rose Court, although the latter was more of a thoroughfare than a cul-de-sac.

First, a pair of landmarks, St George's Church and the Cavalry Barracks; Lloyd Street from St George's intersects with Queen Street from the Barracks. 

Just below and SW of the junction is Cross Street, which runs parallel to Queen Street between Hargreaves Street and Lloyd Street. Sale Court branches off the north side of Cross Street with Rose Court branching off South side. Wish you good luck with the search. Link to Town Plan". https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

Sale Court, 1846

And with that and the OS Map of Manchester and Salford for 1846 I found the place.

Needless to say it has now vanished.

Location; Hulme

Picture; Sale Court from Rose Court in Hulme, H. Entwistle, 1896, m26773, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Sale Court, 1846 from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-46, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

What now for the premises of Waterfoot, The Slipper Co?

 Now I wonder how long this building has left? 

It stands on the corner of Dantzic Street and Throrniley Brow in the shadow of the Print Works. In 1911 the Torniley Brow part of the building was listed as “Waterfoot, The Slipper Co. slipper manufacturers”, while the Dantzic side of the property was home to four companies, ranging from a leather goods manufacturer, a plumber, sign writer and mantel makers. 

A little earlier it shows up on Goads Fire Insurance map as Leather Warehouse Clothing Factory and was surrounded by other show and garment factories and warehouses. 

In time I will track it back using the Rate books and earlier maps, and dip into the City’s planning portal to see if there is already an application for a change of use or more drastically a plan to demolish and redevelop the site. 

All of which will give a date for its construction, its original owner and perhaps its chequered history during the last century and a bit. We shall see. 

Location; Manchester 

Picture; The end of the line? 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A short but busy life .............. Broadcasting House 1975-2011

Another in the occasional series of Lost Manchester.

Planning permission had been granted in 1968 and after a hiccup building began in 1971 was finished in 1975 and the place was home to the BBC until 2011.

And for those wanting to impress a companion, about 800 staff worked there and with the opening of the second studio in 1981 the BBC closed Broadcasting House in Piccadilly which had been there for 52 years

Location; Manchester 2011

Picture; Broadcasting House, 2011 from the collection of Andy Robertson

“Manchester as it really is”

For as long as I have lived in Manchester I have had to cope with jokes about Manchester and the rain.

Even now after over forty years when ever any of the family come up from London they express surprise at seeing dry pavements.

And I am not alone in defending the city from these gentle swipes.

Here from David Harrop’s collection is a picture postcard which seeks to portray a dry Manchester.

There is no hint from the comment on the back as to the weather and we don’t know when it was sent.

It was produced by the Valentine Company who usually supply a code which can help date the card, but sadly it is missing.

But as they often did they were keen to point out that this was “a real photograph.”

Location; Manchester

Picture; Manchester as it really is, date unknown from the collection of David Harrop

A city landmark already fading from the memory ............ Elisabeth House

It is remarkable how quickly you can forget a building.

Not that I suspect many will mourn the passing of Elisabeth House which was all glass and concrete walls and which was so misunderstood and disliked that no one can quite agree on when it went up.

Various sources suggest a date in the 1960s which does not quite fit with my memories of gazing across at its Victorian predecessor in the 1970s.

But recollections of events, places and buildings can so easily be wrong and I was prepared to accept that this was just one of those times when I was mistaken.

But not so. According to A Manchester View run by David Boardman,* Elisabeth House was built in 1971, which I am pleased to say means that my long term memory is fine, even if I can forget to put the wash on, turn off the lights.

And emboldened by having my memories confirmed I am sure the Ceylon Tea Centre inhabited what became the Dutch Pancake House.

The Tea Centre was  a commercial showcase for Ceylon’s products and it was there that I first discovered a salad could be more than a soft tomato, some limp lettuce and a bit of curly cucumber smothered in salad cream.

Here were rice dishes, some of which were curried and others which contained fruit, nuts and other exotic things.

It was a place I took for granted and then suddenly it had gone and now has been joined by Elisabeth House and soon the cinema just a little down Oxford Road, where I saw West Side Story, Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid and revisited with our young children in the 1980s and early 90s.

I can’t say I miss Elisabeth House but when I ever I do feel a tad nostalgic for the place I turn to that excellent series Blue Murder with Caroline Quentin  which ran for five series from 2003 through to 2009.

Look carefully and there are plenty of shots of the building and as a bonus from inside outwards Central Ref and the Town Hall Extension.

And in time these may well be some of the only images of the building to survive.

Location; Elisabeth House, 2011

Pictures;  Elisabeth House, 2011, from the collection of Ian Robertson

* Elisabeth House - St. Peter's Square http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/tours/tour6/area6page61.html

Lost Manchester pubs .......... no 2 the Victoria Hotel Rochdale Road

Now I don’t venture up on to Rochdale Road very often but even on the few occasions I have I never clocked this building as a pub.

Well I say pub, I should of course say lost pub because this was the Victoria Hotel and the name I guess will give a clue to its date.

Or so you would think, after all with a name like Victoria it must have been opened sometime between 1837 and 1901, but not so because in 1911 on this site was a pawnbrokers.

And that at present is as far as I can go.

At which point I usually speculate that someone will have drunk in there and have a pretty good idea about its history, but I suspect not.

So in the fullness of time it will be down to Central Ref to wander over the directories for this bit of Rochdale Road looking for the first entry.

On the other hand I might just mark it down as one of our lost pubs.

Of course there is just an outside possibility that Andy who took the modern picture might have drunk in there, after all whenever we discuss the pubs of the area he has invariably been in them, knew someone who did or better still both and it was Andy who located L Kaye’s 1958 photograph.

All of which points to  a man with a keen interest in history.

Who I might add pointed out that despite the Victoria having long ago offered up its last pint, as the Shop it still provides beer for anyone wanting a carry out.

Pictures; the Victoria Hotel, Rochdale Road, 2015 and back in 1958, by L Kaye, m50724, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass