Ashton Market gives up its past …….

 It will be sometime after 1978, and I was back in Ashton wandering the market and snapping away with my new camera.

Now I know it was 1978 because that was when I bought the new camera and this was the first visit back after I had left for south Manchester two years earlier.

Of course it might have been a tad later, and there will be someone who can pinpoint exactly when by the stage of the building development which appears in some of the pictures.

I won’t be the only one who has a fascination for markets …. And not the twee ones that pop up every month in the well-heeled suburbs, where you can buy “interesting hand-crafted gin”, perfume using natural herbs and fragrances, and outrageously priced cakes, sausage rolls and speciality bread.

Nope, I mean the old fashioned, happy with no frills markets, dealing in everything from household products, shoes, dresses, and kid’s toys.

Along with heaps of fruit, veg and all sorts for the fridge and larder.

When we lived in Ashton, off Penny Meadow it was just part of what we did on a Saturday, followed by a trawl of the indoor market buying the cheese, fancy cakes and much much more.

And of course, the market was the place for those three screws and a wing nut which now come in packs of twenty at eye watering prices.

A few years earlier we had lived opposite Grey Mare Lane Market and it too provided everything we needed and while almost everything we bought there has gone I do still have a series of LPs which are still in the collection.

Nor have I exhausted my market memories, because growing up in Eltham there was the market in Woolwich, where stalls spilled out onto the highway forcing buses to creep gingerly along between tables piled high with underwear, heaps of different fish and shell fish and of course cheap versions of all sorts of stuff.

But while I did take a few of Woolwich, most were taken wandering the stalls in Ashton in the late 70s, early 80s and again at the turn of the century.

And that is about it other than to remember the vibrancy, fun and characters you encountered from the stall holders shouting out their wares to the customers.

Now there are fewer of those traditional markets and the stalls you can find in them have shrunk to a sad few.

Still, I have the memories.

Location; the open air market in Ashton Under Lyne, 

Pictures; busy day at the market, circa 1978, early 1980s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

It’s that mulled wine ……. caciocavallo and blue glass time all over again

Now in our family Caciocavallo is a favourite cheese.

Caciocavallo and lots more on King Street, 2022

It comes from the south of Italy is shaped like a teardrop and is quickly consumed.

My mother-in-law is from Naples, and she will buy it when she knows we are in Varese.

All of which is a roundabout way of an introduction to the Christmas Markets which are an essential part of the run up to the festival. *

That said we choose our visit with great care, having long ago decided that at its’s busiest the markets can be a tad oppressive with too many people often trying to go in different directions making it an uncomfortable experience.  

But then at 73 I don’t like crowds.

Food and stuff, Exchange Square, 2022

For those that do wander down King Street, across St Ann’s Square, and Exchange Square the stalls can be fun, with their mix of different foods, odd gifts, and the seasonal drinks.

Baked Potato Man, London 1851

I fell across them on King Street and immediately encountered the Italian cheese stall, briefly swapping stories with the three running the place, one of whom was from Sicily, another from Milan and the boss from Naples.

The markets have been a regular feature of the city since 1998 and look back to an earlier time when markets were an essential part of our towns and cities, with many staying open late to catch those who also worked late and were looking for bargains.

And with the stalls came the food traders reminding us that there was a time when many people didn’t have access to a kitchen and street food was the primary source for breakfast lunch and tea.

Much of what was sold I suspect had been adulterated and its quality lacked freshness but as Mayhew’s accounts of mid-19th century London show the food was varied, cheap and popular.**

Here could be found the Baked Potato Man, and the London Coffee Stall and heap of stories of how the labouring and poor of London lived.***

Street Food, Manchester, 1894

And their counterparts could be found on street corners across our city.

So, if I do make it back to the markets before Christmas, I might go looking for a Tunisian baked potato, and interesting plate of German garlic mushrooms or a plate of assorted cheeses from southern Italy.

Pictures; the Manchester Christmas Markets, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and The Baked Potato Man, and the London Coffee Stall, 1851 from London Labour & the London Poor and Manchester street sellers by H.E. Tidmarsh from Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw, 1894

The London Coffee Stall, London, 1851

*Manchester’s Christmas Markets, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500357/christmas/7845/manchesters_christmas_markets

**Henry Mayhew, Introduction, London Labour & the London Poor 1851

***London Labour and the London Poor, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/London%20Labour%20and%20the%20the%20London%20Poor

Looking for a bargain ...... Ashton Market ...... 1980

I have to say I can no longer remember just what the stall owner was selling or what he had said to make the lady laugh.

I do know that the photograph was taken in the summer of 1980 when I had wandered back to Ashton where I had once lived.

Like all markets there was a lot going on.

Location; Ashton Market

Picture; Market day, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The new Chorlton ........Faces from market day ...... Saturday

Saturday was not the most pleasant of days.

True there was a bit of sun and it wasn’t that cold, but the threat of rain or worse hung over the city.

And on a whim after a morning in the Northern Quarter we came home and wandered the local market.

There was the usual range of interesting things to buy, from artisan bread, home cooked pies, to clothes and bespoke, gin, rum and vodka.

And amongst them all was the stall selling tea.*

Tina bought a pot, while I took the pictures.

In the busy afternoon I forgot to ask permission to use the images but I am sure no one will mind.

And after the tea there was the scarf, the lemon drizzle cake and an assortment of crafted pies

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; market day, Chorlton, 2018











*My Tea, www.myteauk.uk

A market, a bottle of gin and of course a story ..... Chorlton last week

Now to miss quote Samuel Johnson, when you are tired of the markets, you are tired of life, for there is at a market all that life can afford.*

Ashton Under Lyne, 1979

It’s a bit contrived, but the alternative was from Mr Wordsworth, originally written in 1802, “Dull would they be of soul who could pass by”** a Manchester market and not marvel at the full majesty of all the stuff.

Those of us who grew up or lived beside an open air market will remember with fondness, the fun, bustle and the variety of offers.

In my case it was Woolwich and later still Grey Mare Lane and Ashton markets.

Down at Beresford Square in Woolwich the buses gingerly manoeuvred a path through the stalls and you were always in awe of the skill of the London Transport drivers.

But enough of such nostalgic tosh, and instead here is a tale of Chorlton and our own market.

Selling Hunters Gin, Chorlton, 2018

Just a week or so ago Peter was out and about sampling the produce on the stall outside the library when he came across Hunter’s Gin, was offered a small glass, took the pictures and challenged me to come up with a story with a bit of history.

As far as I know we never had a market but the idea of selling gin from a small family concern is as old as they go.

So much so that it became a national scandal leading to drunkenness, terrible abuse and at least one riot in London, where of course they always do things to extremes.

The Gin, 2018

To combat such excesses, the Government passed the Beer Act in 1830 which allowed anyone who could afford price of the two guinea license to brew and sell beer from their own homes.

The result was an explosion of beer houses across the city which was replicated here in Chorlton.

Most had a short life, and were really just a means to get over a temporary bout of unemployment or other financial hiccup.

Most vanished as quickly as they were established and were soon forgotten, like the one run on Chorlton Green, while others became notorious, like that of Mrs Leach’s superior beer house where Francis Deakin was murdered, and a few like the Travellers Rest, and the Trevor transformed themselves in to pubs.

The Traveller’s Rest on Beech Road was up and running by the 1830s and only closed in the early 20th century, while the Trevor had opened on its present site as an unmanned beer shop in the 1870s.

Selling spirits required a separate license, and many pubs including some of ours found it hard to get permission, which nicely brings me back to Hunter’s Gin.***

They have a website, with a blog and this intriguing description from one of their labels, “Hunter’s Cheshire 
Gin is a high quality, export strength London Dry Gin full of character with its heart in Cheshire.  Subtle citrus overtones with a spicy fruit edge – using Cheshire apples from historic Norton Priory garden’s orchard, a single batch distillation from a 300 year old recipe, including Balkan juniper berries and coriander lemon and sweet orange peel, Florentine orris root, French angelica and Madagascon cinnamon bark, a unique and sublime fusion of the highest quality botanicals and alcohol. .....”***

Washing the prawns in Woolwich, 1979

And that is it.

Except to ponder on whether Peter came across a similar scene to this one from Woolwich market which I took back in 1979.

Location; Chorlton & Cheshire

Pictures; at the Chorlton Markets from the collection of Peter Topping and Ashton and Woolwich markets from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Samuel Johnson in conversation, 1770, "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford"

** William Wordsworth Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
***Hunters Gin, http://www.huntersgin.com/