A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects ... number 15 ……. Parrs Wood Environmental Centre

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

The Parrs Wood Environmental Centre, which once went under the grand name of the Parrs Wood Rural Studies Centre has been delivering ‘countryside’ to the children of our inner city from the late 1940s.

It occupies land which was previously the kitchen garden and orchard of the small 18th century country estate centred on Parrs Wood House.

In 1922 Manchester Corporation bought the estate and following the outbreak of the Second World War, the gardens were cultivated as part of the Dig For Victory campaign.  Then in 1947, the Council opened the Rural Studies Centre with a remit to provide classes in gardening and natural history.

What followed was an exciting project funded by the City Council, which involved schoolchildren from all parts of the City, who were bused out to Parrs Wood for either weekly or fortnightly half-day sessions, during which the children cultivated their school's own plot.

There were 3 or 4 teachers dealing with 64 schools, which visited every fortnight, with an extra teacher dealing with other aspects of environmental work for single school visits. The grounds were tended by a team of four fulltime gardeners and three administrative staff.

In 1990 the Centre underwent a series of challenges with the threat of closure, but these were successfully seen off, and despite another period when it looked like the project would come to an end, in April of 2003 the first gardening groups were reestablished.

Location; Parrs Wood

Picture; School Children’s Produce, Anthony L Jones, pre 1990, courtesy of The Parrs Wood Environmental Centre

The full story can be read in Manchester Pubs-The Stories Behind the Doors,-Didsbury, Andrew Simpson, Peter Topping, 2018

A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects number 8 ........... catching the tram*

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

Now the caption gives a date of 1937, but the flats in the distance are Parrs Wood Court, which were built in 1939 and opened for sale in the following year.

That said it perfectly records a Parrs Wood in a more gentle and less busy time.

Location East Didsbury

Picture; Parrs Wood Terminus, circa 1939, from the collection of Allan Brown


*The history of Didsbury in 20 objects, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-history-of-didsbury-in-just-20_18.html

A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects number 3 ........... the advert ..... 1824

Now, in the November of 1824 Parrs Wood House was not the only fine residence in Didsbury, but it was the only one up for sale, which made it a talking point in the elegant dinning rooms of the township and the less elegant pubs and beer houses.

Parrs Wood House, 1970

Those with a heap of money might well have wondered if the property was for them, while the curious and less well off might just have wanted to know how many rooms there were in the house.

And how “extensive”  were “the offices, and out buildings” how productive, “the hot houses, gardens, orchard, plantations, and rich meadow and pasture land” along with just how pleasant was “the lawn and pleasure ground”.

Parrs Wood House, 1824

Parrs Wood House, 1980

According to the advert of sale, “Tickets maybe had for viewing the premises, on Fridays only, between the hours of ten and three”.

Not that I would have been vouched safe a passport into a viewing.

We come from a long line of agricultural labourers and I have no reason to think that had I lived in Didsbury in 1824, I would have been anything other than a lowly farm worker.

So, I would have had to content myself with reading this advert, providing of course that I could read.

But that is another story for another time.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; the Parrs Wood House notice of sale, Manchester Guardian, November 6th 1824, Parrs Wood House, 1970, m21314, and the interior, 1980, m0604, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Stepping back 65 years ………..Parrs Wood as most people will not have seen it.

Now, I know it’s a cheap bit of history, not to say very lazy, but here on a warm summer’s day is that bit of Parrs Wood beside the Gateway pub.

Today, the spot is dominated by that huge footbridge, which I am the first to concede is entirely appropriate in the interests of safely crossing the road, but how ugly it is.

And how it sets the scene for the surrounding area, which is dominated by entertainment complex, that plethora of road signs and of course the incessant whiz of traffic.

I have been trying to date the footbridge which was not there when I would wander down from Didsbury to sit in the small island of tranquility which was the small park.

But back then there was still a bus garage, the old high school was still new, and the Kingsway was less busy.

So, for all those that share my memory, and for everyone else who might yearn for a quieter Parrs Wood, here is what it was like a full 61 years ago ……. Nothing more nothing less.




Location Parrs Wood

Picture; road works at Parrs Wood, 1959, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection  
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

Down at Parrs Wood Parade in 1931........... pondering on that park and the litter

It is the detail in this 1930s postcard which I like. 

On a wet summer’s day the Corporation bus has just set down a group of passengers and above them the sign announces that the East Didsbury Station is still part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway.

It would be another eighteen years before the LMS became part of the new nationalized British Railways.

In the distance the small grassed park still retains its ornamental gates and underneath the glass and cast iron canopy of the Parrs Wood Arcade are adverts for Players Navy Cut and Wills Golden Flake tobacco and cigarettes, Hovis Bread and the Dispatch newspaper.

And I was drawn back to the postcard by a discussion with the artist Liz Scantlebury who like me was intrigued by those small ornamental gates

We were both intrigued by their date and I now know the park was laid our in 1928.

And finally for those who lament the passing of a cleaner and tidier Britain I suggest you ignore the discarded lamp shade left under the bridge.

All of which just leaves me to fall back on a piece of outrageous self promotion and mention the first book on the history of Didsbury, which I wrote with  Manchester artist Peter Topping which was published in 2013.

It should not of course be confused with our Didsbury book on the pubs of the area, also available and a jolly good read.

Location; Didsbury












Picture; Parrs Wood Parade, Didsbury, circa 1931

A different Parrs Wood …… 1959

Now I am not a great fan of what has happened to Parrs Wood.

The small recreational ground is surrounded by fast moving traffic and dominated by the entertainment complex along with all those road signs.

But I can remember a quieter Parrs Wood which still existed in the 1960s.

True there was the bus depot and the large Parrs Wood Court, but there was also open land, which was occupied by the High School and the Rural Studies Centre.

Back then the recreational area still felt it had a presence and coming across it, after going under the railway bridge was always a pleasure.

So, with that in mind, here are two pictures of that long gone Parrs Wood.

They date from 1959, just ten years before I washed up in the City and first discovered East Didsbury.

Location; Didsbury,

Pictures; Parrs Wood, 1959, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

Down at Parrs Wood Court with some bombs, a few stories and an electric lift

Now as landmarks go Parrs Wood Court is a pretty bold statement of design and until recently dominated the junction of Wilmslow Road and Kingsway.

Back in 1939 when it was built it offered all that you could want, with central heating, electric lifts and apartments spread over five floors.

Here, as the Manchester Guardian's advert said was a block of “modern apartments with one or two entertaining rooms [and] one to four bedrooms if required, [which was] conveniently situated on the Wilmslow Road end of the Kingsway with  bus and tram routes and adjoining East Didsbury Station.”*

The flats went on the market in the May of 1940 and I can see the attraction.

Those buses, trams and trains could whisk the residents of Parrs Wood Court in to the heart of the city while the newly built Kingsway offered the car owner a more direct route than the old congested and busy Wilmlsow Road.

Added to which the block looked out on to the 50 acre Parrs Wood Estate which offered more than a hint of a rural landscape.

And I suspect a location which for some might have seemed a safer place to live as German bombs began to fall from the skies.

But perhaps not that safe, given that during the December of 1940 four fire bombs landed just a little to the north and a high explosive bomb fell almost directly opposite in the grounds of Parrs Wood House.

Still the Court survived and Peter’s painting captures the grandeur of its design which has been lost in many of the photographs of the building.

This one taken from a picture postcard sent in 1951 does little to convey the full presence of the block but its value is the detail it offers up of the surrounding area.

There in the distance is the old bus depot which has long since gone while outside the flats is one of with those iconic concrete bus shelters some of which were still around in the 1970s.

Now it is a full seventy-five years since those flats went on sale and it would be an interesting project to track down some of the first and then subsequent residents who made Parrs Wood Court their home.

Painting; Parrs Wood Court, East Didsbury, © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

Picture; Parrs Wood Court circa 1950, from the collection of Paul O’Sullivan, Manchester Guardian advert,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

*Flats at Parrs Wood Court, Parrs Wood.  East Didsbury, Manchester, Manchester Guardian, May 11 1940

On East Didsbury Station wondering why there are few pictures of Parrs Wood

In that great sweep of photographs of Didsbury, Parrs Wood always seems the poor relation.

It is as if having done the village, the college, Fletcher Moss, the churches and the pubs most photographers pretty much picked up their cameras and went off to their dark rooms.

A few of the more enterprising commercial photographers did snap away at the larger houses and some of the more picturesque roads.

These they would revisit offering the images for sale to the residents and later those same images made their way into the catalogues of the picture post card companies.

But Parrs Wood and East Didsbury rarely got the same attention.  I suppose before the coming of the Kingsway there wasn’t that much to record and after it had been cut the area lost a little of its charm.

After all it would be a bold commercial photographer who would gamble on the attractions of the Kingsway Extension, and yet one did so, recording also the houses along its route, and the Gateway Hotel.

And these along with Parrs Wood Court and the bus garage now sit in the collection and back in the 1930s and 40s no doubt graced the mantelpieces of some of the homes in East Didsbury.

But for me it is this picture of the station which has caught my fancy.

Now as railway stations go it was quite late on the scene, having opened in 1909 a full 29 years after that other Didsbury station opened for business.

Somewhere I will be able to find details of the number of passengers it carried and I guess really came into its own with the development of the housing on both sides of the track.

For me it is all about nostalgia.  I can remember those locomotives and the distinctive smell of warm oil and steam along with the wooden platforms and all the bits that went with the station, including the simple slot machines which offered up Five Boys Chocolate.

I have to say I never learned and was always disappointed at the way the chocolate tended to have gone flaky and white at the edges and invariably tasted stale.

But there were compensations in the form of those evocative train posters for faraway seaside resorts, the big cast iron weighing machines and depending on the time of the day the rows of milk churns.

All of these provided distractions from what always seemed an age of waiting, broken only by the occasional goods train and fast express which swept past cutting the air in a blur of noise and steam with its passengers gazing at you always it seemed with that mix of disdain and pity no doubt reflecting how lucky they were to be moving with such purpose.

We on the other hand looked back glum and a little sad that our train ticket allowed us only the slow
stopping train and a host of suburban railway stops.



Picture; East Didsbury Station, date unknown 

The Garden Entrance to the City ……. At Parrs Wood in 1928

Now I have always been fascinated by that patch of land, where the Kingsway meets Wilmlsow Road.

The park in 2015

It is a small plot surrounded by fast flowing traffic and has always seemed a planner’s after thought, more so as the volume of cars, buses and lorries has increased over the last four decades, and the place is dwarfed by the cinema complex to the south and the supermarket to the east. *

Once, and we are talking the 1970s, I would sometimes take myself off and sit in the park, partly hidden by the dense bushes and trees along the Parrs Wood Lane side.

At the time I was particularly intrigued by the entrance pillars on the north side, and still wonder if they were once replicated at the other entrances.

The historian in me also speculated on when the park was built, and as you do, I occasionally made a note to go looking in the archive.

But then as so often happens I came across the story, which is not quite what I had expected, and was a sideways discovery, while researching the pubs of Didsbury. **

The park surrounded with clutter and traffic, 2015

The park dates from 1928, and was an attempt to challenge the growing presence of cars and lorries in what had once been a quiet bit of land, dominated by the 18th century estate of Parrs Wood.

All of that changed, with the construction of the Kingsway which was opened in 1923, and the Corporation bus garage which was ready for business just three years later.

And so, in 1928 “the Royal Manchester Institution after some months of preparation and consultation with the Parks Committee announced at its annual meeting, that its scheme for the development of the corner of land where Kingsway meets Wilmlsow Road will be effected.  

The scheme is to make out of the triangular plot of land a small garden which will be welcome to visitors of the city with some display of green”. ***

The plot of land, 1927

The design had been modified, and “the fountain will be replaced by glass and the low stone wall by posts.”

Aerial photographs from 1927 show the triangular plot beside the bus garage awaiting something to happen.

The Institute handed over £500 in the January of 1929 with work beginning at some point after that.

But, the park was nearly lost to a developer who wanted to erect a petrol station on the site in 1932, but that is best left to a chapter in the new Didsbury pubs book which tells the full story.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; the green at Parrs Wood, 2015, from the collection of Liz Scantlebury**** and  Didsbury, Manchester Corporation Parr's Wood Bus Garage, Manchester, N S Roberts, m67682 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass


*Parrs Wood .............. what was once and is now, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/01/parrs-wood-what-was-once-and-is-now.html

**Manchester Pubs- The Stories Behind the Doors – Didsbury, Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, to be published later in 2019

*** Garden Entrance to City Parrs Wood Development Scheme, the Preservation of Amenities, Manchester Guardian, October 9, 1928

 ****Liz Scantlebury,  http://www.lizscantlebury.com

The great East Didsbury dilemma ...... the train or the tram and a history lesson

Now if I lived in East Didsbury, let’s say in Parrs Wood Court or the new build beside it I think I would find it difficult to choose between the train or the tram to get me in to the city centre.

Given that I am a tad lazy I suspect it would be the train which would whizz me into Piccadilly in no time but if I worked by Central Ref I might on the other hand opt for the slower more picturesque journey on the Metro which would drop me right outside.

Of course there would have been a time when the only train available would have been that from Didsbury Station which opened for eager passengers in 1880 leaving me a full 29 years to wait to travel from East Didsbury and Parrs Wood on the line operated by the London and North Western Railway which started in 1909.

And those full of railway knowledge may point out that the Didsbury line from Central closed in 1967 leaving me no option but to fall back on the red Corporation bus or the that train from East Didsbury.

Having said that I have sat on that station and watched all those express trains from the airport slice the air as they hurtle nonstop through East Didsbury before arriving at Piccadilly.

It's pretty annoying given that there is a train which you can see and hear  but it ain’t going to stop, while just across the road there will always be a tram.

But then I live in Chorlton and if I choose to travel by tram in the rush hour I can be fairly certain that I will have to stand for the entire journey on a tram which began its journey at East Didsbury..

Painting; East Didsbury Station,  © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

“If you go into the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise”........... looking for that air raid shelter in Parrs Wood

Now I know there will be someone who will remember the air raid shelter on the Gateway Estate which was built “12 feet below Kingsway.  Accommodating 120 people the shelter cost £800 to build and had a concert room, whist and bridge parlour, and lounge.”*

According to the Manchester Evening News “the shelter club was the idea of Mr William Ponsford who was a builder [and] in the dugout which is fitted with steel doors there is a piano and a radio-gramophone.  

One room has accommodation for dancing.  Gas-proof ventilation is installed [and] the shelter has two dug-out entrances and back exit and many of the tenants are already using the shelter as a social club.”

On one level it strikes you as a jokey little piece which even today has a charm overlaid with hints of Dad’s Army, but of course that is to take away the very real danger of bombing raids.

For me it is there in the description of those steel doors and the gas proof ventilation, this was after all a time when we could not be sure that gas would not be used as a weapon.

It was so potent a concern that it had led to the issue of millions of gas masks and warnings about going out without one.

And given that fire bombs and one high explosive device did fall on Parrs Wood Mr Ponsford was right to make the effort more so given the devastation that fell from the skies the following December.

All of which leaves me to ponder on what happened to that shelter.  Sally who found the piece tells me that the Gateway Estate was behind the pub, so I await the memories and stories of the Parrs Wood shelter to bubble to the surface.

Pictures; from the Manchester Evening News, January 1940, courtesy of Sally Dervan


*THEY CAN DANCE IN A RAID, Manchester Evening News, January 1940

Didsbury Walks ..... part 1 Parrs Wood

A short series exploring a collection of walks  across Didsbury from east to west, starting at  Parrs Wood.

Parrs Wood House and estate, 1853

Now even the most avid supporter of Parrs Wood might well concede that the junction of Wilmslow Road and Kingsway is a bewildering mix of cluttered signs, busy traffic and a rather ugly box which is the entertainment centre.

But it was not always so. Until almost the beginning of the last century the area was still open land, dominated by an elegant 18^th century house set in a large estate.

This was Parrs Wood House and according to one source the estate changed little from the 1790s through to 1960.

Go back to say the 1820s, and this spot might have seemed very attractive to a casual visitor to Didsbury who took a fancy to stroll along Wilmslow Road from the direction of the parish church with the intention of crossing the river at the Cheadle Bridge.

As now, the road would have taken a sharp turn to the south as it passed Parrs Wood House, but even given the height of the estate wall, she would have had a view of the building and had she then ventured into the grounds, there was more than a few interesting features.

Parrs Wood House, 1970

These included the stables, the kitchen garden, the fruit wall, glass houses and the homes of some of the staff.  And for those fascinated with 18^th century gardens, there was a ha-ha, which consisted of a ditch and wall which acted as a barrier preventing livestock from entering the garden from the estate but gave anyone looking out from the garden the illusion of an unbroken, continuous rolling lawn.

Sadly, it disappeared in 1970, when the ditch was filled with the spoil from nearby building work which resulted in the loss of a colony of lizards who had made their home in the south facing wall.

Location; Parrs Wood

Picture; Parrs Wood, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/   Parrs Wood House, 1970, m21314, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Parrs Wood .............. what was once and is now

Parrs Wood is one of those places which looks cluttered.

Parrs Wood 2015

It starts as the bus pulls from under the railway bridge and you get that full on mix of traffic lights and road signs, the overpowering leisure complex and the sheer volume of traffic.

And yes this is one of those slow reflective and nostalgic outbursts.

I am too young to have known what the spot was like before the coming of the Kingsway but do have memories of  that little bit of green with its fascinating stone pillars and views beyond to the old high school.

Of course those much older than me will view my comments with some feint amusement given that their memories may just stretch to a time when the Kingsway was only just advancing south from town and Parrs Wood proper was still enclosed by a wall.

That wall is visible on many of the old images dating back to the early years of the last century, and I think it will be the arrival of the Kingsway that sliced through that bit of the estate.

Parrs Wood, 1909

And that may well give us the date for the creation of that green which today stands as an isolated little island surrounded by the flow of traffic.

Once I guess it might well have been a pleasant place to sit on a quiet Sunday morning watching the odd Corporation bus and noting the rumble of a train into the station.

Not so now, and I doubt that many will give it much thought as they thunder past on the Kingsway or arrive along Wilmslow Road heading for the supermarket or the cinema.

This may be progress and I may be seeing the spot through rose tinted glasses but I rather think not.

A wall and a railway bridge, 1909

At which point I will pause and wait for the onrush of comments from those who put me right on the history of the green to those who think I am just wallowing in so much nostalgic tosh.

That said I bet on a warm summers day sometime around 1900 this would have been a fine spot to stop and admire the view.

Sadly I rather think the same can not be said for the same spot today, but then I am as guilty as many, often preferring the short trip from Chorlton to the cinema rather than wandering off into town.

So I shall put my righteous indignation at what has befallen this bit of Didsbury along with that used cinema ticket in the bin.

Pictures; the green at Parrs Wood, 2015, from the collection of Liz Scantlebury* and Parrs Wood from Wilmslow Road, 1909, m 78644, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Liz Scantlebury,  http://www.lizscantlebury.com/

You wait for a tram at Parrs Wood …….. and three turn up at the same time.

Another Didsbury tram story.

Of course, that is not strictly accurate, because this is the terminus at Parrs Wood and beyond that brick wall were the grounds of Parrs Wood House.

Location; Parrs Wood



Picture; trams at Parrs Wood, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown

So who remembers a different Parrs Wood?

Now I bet, if I was clever enough, I could fashion a story which combined the history of Parrs Wood over the last forty years and that rainbow.

The picture was taken yesterday afternoon by Liz, who kindly took several photographs of the spot where Kingsway and Wilmlsow Road meet.

It all looks very different from when I first came across it as a student sometime around 1970.

Back then we walked pretty much everywhere, and on a bright sunny day in late Spring I wandered down from Withington, taking in the Red Lion, the village and the College of Education, before going under the railway bridge and coming across that little park.

There was plenty of traffic but nothing on the scale of what now rushes down the two main roads, making that island a bit of an oasis of calm.

Of course back then there was no entertainment complex, and standing by the old bus garage it was possible to think yourself back a century and more to when the area was dominated by Parrs Wood House.

This was a fine 18th century residence, sitting in an estate of  47 acres, complete with walled garden, a stable block and with commanding views down to the river.

All that changed with the sale of the house to Manchester Corporation, who cut the Kingsway through from Burnage, and built the bus garage, which were followed by modern estates, complete with grand modern pubs and a cinema.

At which point I shall say that this is not a nostalgic trip down a lost Parrs Wood, but more an appeal for pictures and memories of the area as it was changing, which will help Peter Topping and I, with the new book, which is about Didsbury pubs but like all our other ones contains a heap of stories about Didsbury.

The first chapter which covers East Didsbury is all but done, and will feature Parrs Wood House, the bus garage, and Parrs Wood Rural Centre, along with that iconic 1940s block of flats, and of course the Gateway and Parrs Wood Hotel, with room for stories on the Kingsway, the night the bombs fell, and a forgotten air raid shelter.

But we never turn down anything that helps with telling the story, from pictures, to recollections and memorabilia, which can be anything from a used Manchester Corporation tram ticket, a New Years Eve menu from the Gateway, to a faded picture of the old Parrs Wood High School.

You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog or leaving a message on social media.

Location; looking out over Parrs Wood, 2019, from the collection of Liz Sykes.

A big thank you to the Parrs Wood Environmental Centre

Now I shall start with the thank you to five of the volunteers at the Parrs Wood Environmental Centre, who gave up a morning to share their archives and tell us more about their work.

A thank you to the team, Jean, Jeff, Kate, Neil and Dorothy, 2019

The Centre is situated beside Parrs Wood School and "occupies land which was previously the kitchen garden and orchards of a small 18th Century country estate. 

The estate was bought by the City of Manchester in 1922.  During the Second World War the gardens had been cultivated as part of the Dig for Victory campaign. 

In 1947 the council opened the Rural Studies Centre with a remit to provide classes in gardening and natural history…… and from 1947 until 1990 schoolchildren from all parts of the City were bussed here (funded by the Education Committee), either weekly or fortnightly for half-day sessions, during which the children cultivated their school's own plot.

In July 1998, the Centre went into suspension because of the development of the site, [which] included a new school and the entertainment complex", and in 2004 the Centre returned and has been there ever since.”.*

Now there is a lot more to tell, but I would just point you to the link for the full story and say that the Centre features in our new book on Didsbury pubs which will be published later in the year.*

And for those who wonder how the Centre got into a pubs book, that and much more will be revealed in the chapter covering Parrs Wood.

Location; Parrs Wood

Picture; Jean, Jeff, Kate, Neil and Dorothy sharing the Centre’s archive, 2019, from the collection of Peter Topping

* Parrs Wood Environmental Centre,
https://www.parrswoodenvironmentalcentre.org.uk/history