Looking at the familiar ………… Barlow Moor Road

Now I like the way that what looks a familiar picture of a place quickly offers up a host of period detail.

So here we are, almost at the junction of Barlow Moor Road, and Mauldeth Road West with just a hint of Hardy Lane.

It comes from the collection of Andrew Holland and will date from the 1960s, although the more observant may be able to find clues to push that date back into the 50s.

Until recently this spot didn’t look that different.  To the right is the school and beyond it is the park and the tall elegant streetlamps resemble the present one.

But look more closely and there is much that places this I the past.

Today in front of the school is the modern admin block, and even more recently has come the metro stop and the tram lines.

All of which is obvious, but because I remember them well, there on both sides of the road are the Belisha Beacons, introduced in the 1930s, and way off in the distance is the cinema.

Someone I am sure will remember the telephone kiosk on the left of the picture and may even remember when it was taken away.

Location; Chorlton;

Picture; Barlow Moor Road, circa 1960s, from the collection of Andrew Holland

Just what Sir Nicholas would have seen in 1596 ………

Now, since September I have been reflecting on what has been going on down at Hough End Hall that much knocked about Elizabethan home of the Mosley family for nearly 200 years and a succession of Withington farmers till 1940.*

During the 1920s it was in danger of being demolished for a new superhighway, and after failed attempts to turn into a cultural centre it was acquired by a series of property developers who created the two big glass and concrete slabs which pretty much hid the place.

And now one of those abominations of desolation has gone, cleared away to be replaced by a low-rise supermarket.

All of which I have written about over the last couple of months as I charted the demise of the unloved office block.

And today Peter Topping was back and recorded the site minus the said abomination of desolation, allowing us to get a glance of the hall as it might have looked to Sir Nicholas Mosley in 1596, and to generations of people from Chorlton and Withington until the 1960s.

At which point I won’t rehearse the supermarket story, but just leave it at that, leaving you to visit all the past stories by following the link.

Although Picky Edna of Peverel Crescent is bound to make the observation that I am being a tad economical with history, as Sir Nicholas would not have owned a car or van or ever agreed to a school being sited behind his magnificent hall. 

Location; Mauldeth Road West

Pictures; looking at Hough End Hall, 2023, from the collection of Peter Topping

*Hough End Hall, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Hough%20End%20Hall

The Southern Hotel and the fields to the south of Mauldeth Road West from the air, 1933

An occasional series dedicated to looking down at Chorlton from the air. Here is the Southern Hotel in 1933.

Despite the presence of fields and barns, the development of Corporation housing hints at the urban spread to come.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; aerial view of the fields around the Southern Hotel on Mauldeth Road West, by N. S. Robert, 1933 m72051, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

It's taken over 400 years

 So with a bit of imagination this is how Sir Nicholas Mosley would have seen his fine new Hall sometime after it was completed in 1596.

We are standing at the end of the processional way which led from Barlow Moor Lane to the Hall.

And it would have been how up till the mid 1960s it would have still been seen without of course that hill of rubble.

Until those two blots on the landscape went up in the middle decades of the last century.

And now one has gone.

So l will never tire of showing off pictures of the Hall before that abomination of desolation rose from the garden of Sir Nicholas Mosley's home.

All of that said I am just a tad economical with the truth, because had you looked across along the processional way from what is now the park,at the edge on the right of the pictures would have been part of a long barn which extended up to Mauldeth Road West and along what was that demolished office block.

So not quite the view Sir Nicholas would have encountered. 

Location; Hough End Hall

Pictures; Hough End Hall, 2023, courtesy of Peter Topping

Hough End Hall ….. as most of us haven’t seen you for over half a century

So, it’s been a long time but at last you have come out of the shadows after being hidden behind an indifferent and some would say ugly 60s office block.

2023

Andy Robertson has been down to your site recording the demolition of one of those two blots on the landscape, and now we can all gaze across Mauldeth Road West and see you revealed in something of your Elizabethan splendour.

And to those who will make sniffy comments about the arrival of the Lidl supermarket which might obscure parts of you again, I will just say many will welcome a shop on the spot.

As for those who mumble that you are just a poor imitation of what you once were that is true.

2023

Your fine rooms have been gutted, your top floor closed and much of your exterior damaged in a botched restoration job in the 1960s.

But you are part of Chorlton's history stretching back 426 years, and I can see you as you sort of looked over half a century ago.

All of that said I am just a tad economical with the truth, because had you looked across along the processional way from what is now the park,at the edge on the right of the pictures would have been part of a long barn which extended up to Mauldeth Road West and along what was that demolished office block.

So not quite the view Sir Nicholas would have encountered. 

Location; Hough End Hall

2019

2023

Pictures; Hough End Hall revealed, 2023, and in 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Almost the end ……..

But in my rush to ofer up the story I have just been a tad economical with the truth, because had you looked across along the processional way from what is now the park,at the edge on the right of the pictures would have been part of a long barn which extended up to Mauldeth Road West and along what was that demolished office block.

So not quite the view Sir Nicholas would have encountered. Location; Hough End Hall

Pictures; Almost the end …….. 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

“Tuesday ….. a bit more gone”…… revealing the hall last seen half a century ago

Now you will have to have been born in the early 1960s to remember looking at Hough End Hall from this angle.

By the middle of that decade plans were hatched for a new office development with 25,000 square feet of office space spread over four storeys.

For many it and its neighbour Mauldeth House have been blots on the landscape, but now no longer, for the first of those mid 20th century blocks is coming down.

Last week Andy Robertson recorded the first stage of its demolition and yesterday he was back taking more pictures and carefully chronicling the building’s demise.

I wrote about it on Saturday, and today here is the progress.*

Andy will keep going back building up a collection of images documenting its final demolition, the clearing of the site, and then back again as the builders break the ground for the new supermarket and finishing as the building is finished.

There was some confusion after the first story on the Lidl supermarket was posted, with some people telling me that the application had been turned down.

But not so.  

The plans were approved in June of this year.**

ll of that said I am just a tad economical with the truth, because had you looked across along the processional way from what is now the park,at the edge on the right of the pictures would have been part of a long barn which extended up to Mauldeth Road West and along what was that demolished office block.

So not quite the view Sir Nicholas would have encountered. 

Location; Mauldeth Road West

Pictures; demolishing the eyesore, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*See it while you can ……. the sudden appearance of Hough End Hall https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/09/see-it-while-you-can-sudden-appearance.html

**Planning – Planning Application Documents 135647/FO/2022, Erection of a new Lidl foodstore (Use Class E) with associated car parking and landscaping, 550 Mauldeth Road West Manchester M21 7A, Approved, Manchester City Council Planning Portal,  https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=RM9TZ5BCFV300

See it while you can ……. the sudden appearance of Hough End Hall

Now for half a century or so Hough End Hall that Elizabethan family home has been hidden.

2015

But not for long, because as I write one of those huge slabs of a building is being demolished and for a while at least there will be views from Mauldeth Road West across to Nicholas Mosley’s grand old house.

At which point the more sniffy will sneer “but not for long because soon there will be a supermarket on the spot” following up with arguments against the siting of a Lidell on the site.

And that is true, there will be a supermarket where once a monument to 20th century office development once stood.

2023

To which I have to say, so what?  The estate opposite it has not been best served for shops for years.  There is the Co-op which I have always championed and some smaller retail outlets, but otherwise if you live off Mauldeth Road West it is a journey into Chorlton to Morrisons or further afield to Hulme or Didsbury.

Added to which there is plenty of false thinking about Hough End Hall, not least about what is left.

The interior was gutted, false ceilings added, and the upper floor was closed off, meaning that very little of the original features are there.

2023

And the restoration work undertaken to the exterior in the 1960s was according to the secretary of the Ancient Monuments Society “botched and included reconstituted stone for the mullions, sills and heads”. *

That is not to diminish a building which has been at the centre of Chorlton’s story since 1596, was the hub a of 250 acre farm for 250 years and more latterly was a restaurant and venue which is fondly remembered by lots of people. 

It was even in the 1950s and 60s the place where heaps of children gravitated to looking for sinister goings on amongst the decaying building.

2023

And I have to say it is a building I have a lot of time for and for which I wrote the book of its story with Peter Topping.**

Leaving me just to thank Andy Robertson who over the last few days was down there among the digger trucks, and piles of rubble recording the demolition.

ll of that said I am just a tad economical with the truth, because had you looked across along the processional way from what is now the park,at the edge on the right of the pictures would have been part of a long barn which extended up to Mauldeth Road West and along what was that demolished office block.

So not quite the view Sir Nicholas would have encountered. 

Location; Mauldeth Road West, Chorlton

Pictures; that office block in 2015 and now, from the collection of Andy Robertson 

*Bulmer-Thomas, Ivor, letter to the Manchester Evening News, January 1969

**Simpson, Andrew, & Toping, Peter, Hough End Hall the Story, 2015

All you ever wanted to know about the history of Chorlton Park …….

Perhaps it is time for a history of Chorlton Park.

A magical place, 2019

After all, it has been a place to play, relax and meet up with friends for almost a century.

In 1933-34

There will be plenty who remember the paddling pool, and the pets’ corner, but few who now know that beside the paddling pool there was a large open air swimming bath, a band stand with a covered seating area, and that during the last world war the park had its own air raid shelters.

Added to that the historic records suggest there was a race course and an observatory, which fit nicely with stories of Brookfield House, which dates back into the 18th century, and was once home to the son of Francis Deakin who had been brutally murdered in a beer house on Manchester Road in 1847.

In 1854

And if you had strolled along Barlow Moor Road back in the 1840s, and looked out across what is now the park you might have been able to make out the ponds close to Brookfield House and perhaps even had conversations with the agricultural labourers working on the fields which had names like Rent Meadow, Second and Third Moorfields and which were a mix of arable and meadow land.

Brookfield House, circa 1900

Walk a little further along that road and you would have encountered the fine processional way that ran off from what was then called Barlow Moor Lane east towards Hough End Hall.

The path is still there although the full majesty of the hall is somewhat at present obscured by a modern office block.

Bits of the park’s story have appeared over the years in the blog*, and one very good account was published in 2017.**

And now Peter and I have decided that it is time to include this jewel of a place in our series of books entitled nothing to do in chorlton.

Each book is predicated on the idea of doing nothing in chorlton, and offers six sites where the reader can sit and uncover the stories of the surrounding area while doing nothing.***

Julie and the goat, circa 1970s

The first three have been a roaring success, and the fourth on our old parish church and graveyard by the village green will be published next month.  

The books are slim and small enough to fit in the back pocket or in a handbag and are designed to be carried with you on the walk and each costs £5.  They are available from Chorlton Bookshop or us at  www.pubbooks.co.uk.

All of which leads me back to Chorlton Park and an appeal for anyone with memories or pictures to get in touch with us at www.pubbooks.co.uk.

Location; Chorlton Park

Pictures; The park in 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1933 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1933-34, and in 1854 from the OS map of Lancashire, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Brookfield House circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection, the goat and Julie in Chorlton Park circa early 1970s, from the collection of Julie Thomas

*Chorlton Park, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Park

**The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, & Pester Topping, 2017

****nothing to do in chorlton, Book 1, Chorlton Green and the Ees, Book Two, Martledge Lost and Found, Book Three Down Beech Road Looking for Chorlton Row, and Book Four, to be published in April, The Lych Gate and Grave Situations Beyond 

Watching the trams ...... for the Friends of Hardy Lane and maybe also Mauldeth Road West

Now for no other reason than I can, here are trams 3067 and 3068 on route to and from the Airport.

It was a Friday afternoon and I was sitting on that bench beside the car park of the Co-op.

There will be a few who mutter why two pictures of trams?

And the answer is that they will please the Friends of Hardy Lane, which in turn and set me off thinking about setting up a Friends of Mauldeth Road West.

On that we shall see.

For now, I will leave you with the two pictures, secure in the knowledge that Michael and Andy and others will weigh in with their on tram photos, well I hope so.

Location; Manchester


Pictures; trams 3067 and 3068 passing at Barlow Moor Road, 2018 from the collection of Andrew Simpson