Outside White City

For most people White City and those gates are just back the drop to the retail park which in recent years has undergone a makeover.

But it has a long history, starting with the site of the former Manchester Botanic Gardens which hosted the Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857.

After it which has also been the site of an amusement park and a sports stadium for athletics, greyhound and stock car racing.

For those who want to know there are plenty of good references online.
For now, I shall concentrate on the picture.

I have no idea of the date, but it must e after 1907 when part of the former Botanical Gardens was leased to a company who opened the “White City Amusement Park on the site.

And just to the left of the photograph looks to be part of the amusement park.

I like the picture, more for its record of the groups of people going about their business, some of whom may be waiting to go in.

All very different from a day back in 1970 when I along with thousands of others converged on the place to demonstrate against the South African Rugby tour when that country was still locked into Apartheid.

Location; White City

Picture; White City, date unknown, courtesy of Steve

Clyne House in the Royal Botanical Gardens ............. another forgotten hospital from the Great War

Patients and staff, Cyne House, 1917

Now there will be some who know of Clyne House and can instantly point to where it was, but I am not one of them.

All I had to go on was this picture postcard dated Christmas 1917 and the caption “Clyne House, Military Hospital.”

It appears in a list of wartime hospitals offering no address but somewhere along the way I picked up a reference to the Royal School for the Deaf and Dumb which had been relocated from Salford in 1825 to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Old Trafford.

The school in the Royal Botanical Gardens, 1893

The school remained on the site until 1956 and there are pictures of the building from 1900 and shortly before its demolition in 1962.*

And like many other large buildings it was offered up as a Red Cross Hospital caring for men recovering from wounds and diseases.

In time I think I will go looking for more information on the hospital but I fear it will be an uphill struggle.

Patients and staff, 1917

Despite being staffed and often funded by local contributions the historical foot print of these hospitals is all too vague.

Most were established in schools, church halls and other public buildings with quite a few converted from private residences.

Once the war was over, all the equipment was auctioned off and most of the buildings were returned to their pre war use.

All of which meant that with in a generation they were all but forgotten.

But the clues are there, sometimes in the form of a newspaper report or a letter from a grateful soldier and if you are really lucky there will be a detailed account.

The work of one Red Cross Hospital in Didsbury appeared regularly in the Manchester Guardian while another on Edge Lane in Chorlton was included in a detailed report by the Red Cross of their hospital in south Lancashire and another on Manchester Road in Chorlton was the subject of a letter to the local parish magazine.**

Patients and staff Clyne House, 1917

In time I know I will return to Clyne House and discover more.

But for now I will just finish with a special thank you to David Harrop who has a vast collection of memorabilia from both word wars.

They cover everything from letters and postcards home to medals and souvenirs, all of which bring a wonderful insight in to the lives of people caught up in these huge conflicts.

And some of them form part of a permanent exhibition at the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery.







Picture; of Clyne House, Military Hospital Xmas 1917 from the collection of David Harrop and detail of the Edge Lane Bowling and Tennis Club, from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1893, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Trafford Lifetimes, http://legacy.trafford.gov.uk/content/tca/search_results.asp?fTown=3&fDecade=*&fKeyword=Clyne+House

**Red Cross Hospitals, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Red%20Cross%20Hospitals

***David Harrop, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/David%20Harrop 

Always look beyond the old stone wall, out on Seymour Grove in the 1890s

Seymour Grove in 2014

Now here is a lesson in always looking at what you pass by.

Over the years I have passed this spot on Seymour Grove countless times and never clocked the stone wall and the gateposts.

And yet here is a little history and perhaps some stories.

It was Andy Robertson on one of his regular wanders around the city armed with just his camera and a  notebook that recorded what was once here and is now long gone.

Fairlawns in 2014

I say long gone but I don’t really have a clue when the block of flats went up on what had been Fairlawns and the Sycamores.

Nor for that matter when the original two houses were built.  Andy has dated Fairlawns and its northern neighbour which was Beech House to 1871 and within another 20 years the Sycamores had joined the other two.

There was still plenty of open land around the houses in the 1890s and all three properties were big houses.

The Beech and Sycamores had ten rooms a piece and Fairlawns weighed in with 8, and all three were set back from the road with largish gardens.

Seymour Grove in 1894

In 1911 all were occupied by those who could regard themselves as comfortably well off.

At the Sycamores was Mr Rueben Bennet who described himself as a former director of the Old Trafford company of Bennett’s which made church stained glass, while at Fairlawns was Richard Haig Brown who had been a railway manager, and at the Beech lived George Forbes who was listed variously as a nurseryman and Cut Flower Merchant.

Now in the fullness of time I think I shall go digging into the lives of all three but in the meantime will content myself with reflecting on just how easy it is to overlook even our most recent past.

Travel down Seymour Grove today and I doubt that many will give a second thought to what was here  or rather not here just over a century and a bit ago.

Back in the 1840s our spot was still farm land dissected by a culverted water course with views north east to woodland and Hullard Hall and west out across more farmland to Great Stone Farm and Chester Road.

The Sycamores in 2014

The Botanic Gardens had yet to get it’s Royal title and the railway was waiting for the funds to drive the plans into a working line.

That said just a little to the north on the opposite side were Lime Grove House, Broom House and Brainerd Terrace which with a additions and name changes were still there 50 years later.

Today only Broom House has survived.  I doubt that any of the original features are left inside but I bet Andy will be down there soon to photograph it, and  I shall go looking for Mrs Emily Lawton who was there in 1911 along with the other residents back as far as the 1840s when Fairlawns, the Sycamores and Beech House were still just a field.

Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson and the OS for South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/