A new history of Chorlton in just 20 objects no 3, the graph and the housing boom 1901

“Twenty years ago, when the railway station was opened, Chorlton was a struggling hamlet, or at least, a village.  Ten years later it had 4,741 inhabitants which number has by this time doubled, the April census showing a population of 9,026.”*

All of which is a fair explanation on how New Chorlton came into existence and the small rural community of Martledge disappeared under roads, bricks and small gardens.

Our housing boom was created by a demand to live close to the countryside but within easy reach of the city centre.  The arrival of mains water in 1864, a sewage works and gas in the 1870s followed by the railway in 1880 created the infra structure which allowed the two big landowners to sell land off in small units on favourable terms to speculative builders.  And the rest as they say is what made New Chorlton.

*March of the Builder, Manchester Evening News, September 20, 1901.  Thanks to Lawrence Beadle who supplied me with an original copy of the article.  Until he passed over this copy I had to rely on a typed version which had omitted the table showing the increase in houses.

Picture; graph taken from data in March of the Builder, Manchester Evening News, September 20, 1901

Old and New Chorlton

Now strictly speaking Old and New Chorlton, or its variant, the Old Village and the New Village came into being sometime around the 1880s to distinguish the historic centre of Chorlton-cum-Hardy situated around the village green and Beech Road, with the housing and retail developments centred around Barlow Moor Road, and the relatively recent Wilbraham Road which was cut in the late 1860s.

The terms were still in use in the 1970s, and some residents like my old friend Marjorie Holmes in the 2000s could still be mischievously scornful of New Chorlton which was “all silk knickers and fancy cakes”, a description which she would change to "no knickers and fancy cakes", when she was being particularly provocative.

But then Marjorie had lived her whole life in Old Chorlton.

So, the image of Old and New Chorlton is a bit misleading, given that it was taken on Manchester Road in the heart of what was New Chorlton.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Manchester Road, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Yesterday's walk in New Chorlton sometime at the end of the 19th century

Looking across Manchester Road towards the station, 1880 Aaron Booth

Now I have been writing about walks I would have liked to have taken in the Chorlton of the past, and so today I want to restage just such a walk.

At the start of Chorlton Arts Festival we walked down Beech Road in an effort to recreate a little of the township in 1847

And as the Festival drew to a close we staged a second walk exploring how  Chorlton had changed in just fifty or so years.

It was  a gentle stroll down past the Library and on via Longford and Oswald Road to the Lloyds. the sun shone and lots of people turned up.

Looking across the Isles, 1880, Aaron Booth

In the course of which we will take in Kemp’s Corner, Sedge Lynn, the Temperance Hall and Redgate Farm as well as the Carnegie Library an ice rink, brick works and our own Public Hall.

This was once Martledge but the housing boom of the last two decades of the 19^th century all but obliterated its rural character and as if to mark it off from what it had once been it became commonly called New Chorlton. It was a name which was still used as late as the 1970s.

Redgates Farm, 1900, now the site of the Library

This is part of the GLAD TO BE IN CHORLTON, contribution to Chorlton Arts Festival.

Chorlton-cum-Hardy past, present and touch of tassology is collaboration between me and local artist Peter Topping with photographs and stories of the past and paintings of the present and a hint of the future.

Now given that most attempts at predicting the future are usually wrong and that the best we can ever hope to do is guess the outcomes using the present as a template, Peter decided we might as well fall back on tassology which is the art of divination using tea leaves.

It is an old practice which some sources have traced back to medieval European fortune tellers who developed their readings from splatters of wax, lead, and other molten substances and evolved into tea-leaf reading in the seventeenth century.

And coincided with the introduction of tea by Dutch merchants in to Europe.  Not to be outdone my source also suggests that in the Middle East the practice is carried out using left-over coffee grounds.

This may work for Peter, but as a crusty old historian I rely on the past and present to suggest the things to come but tassology does have the added benefit that you get to drink a cup of tea.

The Lloyds Hotel, 2013, © Peter Topping

And as we finish at the Lloyds you can always go into the pub which is participating in our  tassology bit of fun, as are also The Post Office Cafe and the Horse and Jockey and look through the tea leaves.

Moreover at all three along with another nine venues you can read excerpts from our History Trail.*

Pictures; from the photographs of Aaron Booth are in the Lloyd Collection, Redgate Farm by courtesy of Carolyn Willitts and Glad to be in Chorlton poster and pianting of the Lloyds  ©Peter Topping

* The History Trail can be viewed at The Horse & Jockey, Franny & Filer, St Clements’s Church, The Lloyd's, The Library (occasions), Fosters Cycles, Unicorn, The Bar, Chorlton Eatery, Morrisons, Chorlton High School, The Post Box Cafe