A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects ... number 12 …….Didsbury gets a big new road ….

The story of Didsbury in just twenty objects, chosen at random and delivered in a paragraph or more.

The Manchester and Wilmslow Turnpike Road opened to much celebrations on December 26th 1862, and thereafter became Palatine Road.

That said some in Didsbury may question its appearance here in the story of our township, given that it ran from Withington to Northenden, and “upwards of twenty of the road trustees, with several friends living in the neighbourhood, met at the Red Lion Inn, Withington and went thence in a procession of carriages along the road, [with] a merry peal from the village bells ringing on the occasion, and many of the inhabitants of Withington turned out to watch the proceedings”.

But Didsbury did alright by this new road.  Back in the 1850s apart from Lumn Farm and a few cottages there would have been little to see save fields.

Soon after the new highway had been cut the value of land began to climb and the area to the east of Barlow Moor Road was developed as Albert Park.

To the west hidden by high walls and set back in their own grounds were a selection of grand houses with names like Woodstock, Oakdene and the Headlands.

“The road which is about two miles long, leaves Withington near the White Lion Inn, and, crossing the Mersey on an elegant girder bridge – the only bridge between Cheadle and Stretford, reaches Northern at appoint near the parish church.  It is from ten to fourteen yards wide, is provided with a footpath and will prove of considerable advantage to the traffic between Manchester and Northern, and the places in the neighbourhood”.*

Location; Didsbury

Picture; finger post, minus its fingers, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Manchester and Wilmslow Turnpike Road, The Manchester Guardian, December 27th, 1862

So goodbye and thanks for those Art Nouveau church windows* …… or a little bit of Didsbury’s finest

I have never visited St. Aidan’s Presbyterian Church on Palatine Road and now I doubt I ever will.

It closes for good in late June after a decision by the congregation to merge with Christ Church South Manchester on Parrs Wood Road. **

And that means I will never get to see its stunning Art Nouveau windows which my friend Phil Portus tells me were by Walter Pearce who once lived on Lansdown Road in West Didsbury.

His is a fascinating story which involved the death of his parents when he was just ten, followed by a succession of institutions where he grew up, culminating with an apprenticeship as a painter and decorator.

After a spell working for different firms, he set up on his own and by 1899 described himself as a Stained Glass Artist.  

The year before he had begun teaching painting and decorating at the Manchester Municipal School of Technology and published “’Painting and Decorating’ which became the standard text book, running to seven editions”.*** 

At this point if you want more follow the link to the article in Architects of Greater Manchester.

And never one to steal other’s research rather than describe the windows which he created in 1901 for the church I suggest you go to the Didsbury United Reformed Churches site and read the history along with some pictures of those windows.

For now, I will thank Phil for alerting me to both the windows and the closure as well as his own fine pictures of Mr. Pearce’s work.

And perhaps all is not lost as the congregation comments, "The  church building is Grade 2 listed having some beautiful stained glass windows so when the church is able to re-open we hope you will come to see them".

I hope so.

Location; Palatine Road, Didsbury

Pictures; courtesy of Phil Portus, 2023

*With apologies to Douglas Adams and his wonderful book So long, thanks for all the fish, 1984

**Didsbury United Reform Church,  https://didsburyurc.org.uk/

***Walter John Pearce, Architects of Greater Manchester, https://manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/index.php/architects/walter-j-pearce

****Didsbury United Reform Church, About Us, https://didsburyurc.org.uk/about-2/

In Didsbury ……. with the fingerless finger post

I have to confess that until recently I never knew that those old fashioned road signs with their outstretched arms, bearing destinations and distances, were called Finger posts.

2020

2020

It makes perfect sense, but then I lived a sheltered life.

Not so Andy Robertson who in a quite moment from recoding our industrial history, ventured along Barlow Moor Road to its junction with Palatine Road and photogtaphed the pole with the circle inscribed City of Manchester.

I have passed it countless times, and never noticed the remains of the bots which supported the  three boards carrying the names Cheadle 2½ miles, underneath were the words The South, and on the second The Docks, Bolton, Warrington Liverpool and on the third, Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Manchester.

At some point each of the three fingers were given an added bit which recorded the names of the roads. 

So, the white destination sign for Cheadle and The South were joined with B5217, as were The Docks, Bolton, Warrington Liverpool.

1959

I can be forgiven for missing the fingers, as they were taken down sometime in 1960.

And that is about it, other than to thank Andy for the pictures and the reference back to the older pictures, which are in the Local History Collection.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; the fingerless finger post, Didsbury, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and with fingers, 1959, D. Oakes, m21393, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Adventures with a book ……….. 86 Palatine Road

Now, I doubt when Peter set off to deliver a copy of our book to an address on Palatine Road he was quite prepared for what he discovered.

The book is our Manchester - city centre pubs book, containing the history of 78 iconic city centre public houses, divided in to fifteen walks it tells the stories of each of the 78, with descriptions of where they are situated, along with some fine photographs and original paintings by Peter.*

So, armed with the book, and the address, he arrived at the property and immediately clocked the blue plaque, which records that it was here that Factory Records was founded in 1978.

And that for many of us, is in itself a discovery.  

Factory Records was the Manchester-based independent record label established by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, and featured several important acts, including Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, the Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, Northside, and (briefly) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and James. 

Factory also ran The Haçienda nightclub, in partnership with New Order.

And its offices were at 86 Palatine Road, in Erasmus' home on the first floor.

All of which is easy to research, and so having talked to Peter who was inspired “to do”, one of his paintings of the house as well as the plaque, I went looking for its history.

This too was an easy enough task, involving tracking back through a series of historical records, staring with looking for the name of a resident.

This turned out to be a Thomas A Collier who was living there in 1911 with his wife Isabel and two servants.  The Collier's  had been married for 31 years, had two children and had moved into the house in 1893.

With a name it was possible to search the Rate Books and discover that the Collier’s had bought the house from a William A. Arnold, who in turn had purchased it from Mr. John Daniel Robinson.

The earliest entry in the Rate Books was 1885, which pretty much gives us the date it was built.

In time I will go back and see what I can find about Mr. Arnold and Mr. Robinson, but for now I shall close with Mr. and Mrs. Collier who provided the key to the research.

In 1911 he described himself as a clerk in a drapery warehouse and was the only one of his immediate neighbours who was in paid employment.  The others listed themselves as employers.

He and Isabel were from Whitby, his children had left home, and the two of them rattled around in the 12 roomed property, looked after by Susan Davies who was the cook and Lilly Talbot the housemaid.

So that is it, other than to offer up an outrageous advert and announce you  can order the book, along with our Chorlton and Didsbury pub books,  at www.pubbooks.co.uk or the old fashioned way on 07521 557888 or from Chorlton Bookshop

Location; Withington

Pictures; 86 Palatine Road and the blue plaque, 2020, © Peter Topping, 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*Manchester Pubs The Stories Behind the Doors City Centre,Peter Topping & Andrew Simpson, 2016

That pub on Palatine Road ……… with a bit of its history

Now, the Greenfinch pub rather dominates the corner of Palatine Road and Lapwing Lane.

It was  once a school for ladies, whose Principle was Miss Aurelia Hahnel.

She was busy expanding the minds of her students from 1878 to sometime between 1909 and 1911, by which time she was in her mid-sixties and may have decided that that was enough teaching for anyone.

The property was owned by the Midland Railway Company who seem to have bought it from a William Eastwood Green and looks to have been built in 1870.  Mr. had an extensive portfolio of property in the area including the White Lion.

Aurelia Hahnel’s father was Austrian, and he is listed variously as a merchant, chemist, and baker.  He died in 1900 in Boston in the USA and appears from the records to have been absent from the family from at least 1881.

It may just be that he was away during the years of the census, but that said, as yet Miss Aurelia is also absent from the 1861, 1871 and 1891 census records.

And for those who like a bit more history, one source records that it was once built as consulting rooms or small hospital by a doctor, for two of his daughters who failed to qualify”. *

I suspect this may refer to Mr. Thomas Ashton Goodfellow who as a GP, was living with his family in the property in 1911, but somewhere the story has lost something, because Mr. and Mrs. Goodfellow had three sons the eldest of which was just 8 in 1911.

The family appear still to be in the property when our doctor died in 1937.



Picture; the Greenfinch, from Manchester Pubs The Stories Behind the Doors Didsbury, Peter Topping & Andrew Simpson, 2019.  Available from www.pubbooks.co.uk and local bookshops.


*WHAT?UB, https://whatpub.com/pubs/MAS/4207/greenfinch-west-didsbury

Wartime stories from Didsbury ……… following up on yesterday

Now there is a fine line when researching other’s people’s lives between telling the story and being mindful of picking over the personal history of an individual and revealing stuff that is sensitive and private.

And so it has been today, when I followed up on a story from yesterday, which was about a block of flats on the corner of Palatine Road and Queens Court Road.

The buildings looked to have been built in the 1930s, and in a trawl of the Manchester Guardian found a series of articles, which named the flats.  The earliest was 1939, which fitted with what I wanted to believe, and so I gave short shrift to the other references, which included the case of a woman found innocent of stealing a £1 in 1945, and the trial of an “Aircraft Examiner, under two charges of the Official Secrets Act which was heard in camera”.  *

“He was also charged with aiding and abetting a German Refugee from Nazi oppression to commit an offence under the Aliens Order.”

I promised myself that I would return if only to see what happened to him, and having done just that I was confronted with that dilemma of describing what happened, and in the process naming names.

It was 1940, he was living at Queens Court and he accused of making drawings of sensitive items in his care, and keeping them in a locked briefcase, along with possessing a key to a room he had no official permission to access.

All of which in wartime was very serious, and despite pleading that he was merely wanting keep a record of his work, he was found guilty and sentenced to six year had labour.

And as so often happens his actions had been discovered by chance when the police searched  his home in relation to another matter, involving a young German woman, who had been granted the status of “refugee from Nazi oppression".

She was twenty, and was working as a domestic servant in one of the flats in Queens Court, and was employed by the  “aircraft examiner” and his wife.

He had fallen in love with her, left his wife and the couple moved into a house in Old Trafford, but on his advice she had failed to disclose to the Police the change of address.

Now I know both their names, but have chosen not to reveal them.  That said I haven’t been able to find out anything more.

Were they reunited after the war and his release?  Did they go their separate ways, and carve out new lives?  As far the historical records are silent.

So it’s just one of those stories of little people caught up in big events, who just happened to live at Queens Court.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Walking Palatine Road, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento

*Manchester Guardian, March-September 1940

A breath of the 1930s on Palatine Road ……………doing the essential walk and making it historic .... no. 17

Now I have always been intrigued by Queens Court, on Palatine Road, which looks out of place amongst the grand old Victorian and Edwardian houses, and the more modern blocks of flats, which stretch down from Lapwing Lane and on towards Wilmlsow Road.

They have a stylish presence, with their arched exterior staircases which marks them off as different and very bold when they were built sometime in the 1930s.

I say 1930s, because I have always thought they reflected that period.

And now I know that they were at least there by 1939, and possibly earlier.

They are on the site of St Mary’s Church which ran along Queens Court Road and Palatine Road.

The church closed in 1929, and I suspect sometime in the next decade our flats went up.

The search for a date for the flats was one of those little detective exercises which involved trawling past copies of the Manchester Guardian looking for any reference to the buildings.*

In 1945 in the local magistrates courts a resident of one of the flats who was described as a married woman in an “extremely good financial position” was cleared of an accusation of theft, while in 1940, an “Aircraft Examiner” was “Charged under two charges of the Official Secrets Act [in a case] heard in camera”.  

“He was also charged with aiding and abetting a German Refugee from Nazi oppression to commit an offence under the Aliens Order.”

And a year earlier the newspaper carried an advert "Queens’ Court, Palatine Road, West Didsbury 2 only Entirely Self Contained   4 roomed Maisonettes”

Now I have Barbarella to thank for the pictures, because she tailored her essential walk of the day to include Queens Court following a request by me.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Walking Palatine Road, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento

*Manchester Guardian, July 15th 1939, Jul 6th 1940, March 28, 1945