Rediscovering our rural past, Thomas Ellwood and Mrs W C Williamson

We owe a great debt to the historians of the late 19th century who captured the memories of the people who lived in south Manchester when most of it was still countryside.

Thomas Ellwood and Mrs Williamson were working at a time when the rural communities of Chorlton, Burnage, Fallowfield and Rusholme were on the cusp of disappearing.

Within a generation they had all but gone and with it was went a rich storehouse of stories and popular culture.

Today what was left is fast fading from living memory, so with in another decade I doubt that there will be any left who remember the blacksmith on Beech Road or being sent to one of the local farms to collect fresh milk and butter.

This makes it exciting when there comes along an opportunity to give a wider audience the chance to read about that rural past.

Thomas Ellwood lived here in Chorlton and during the winter of 1885 into the spring of ’86 he collected and wrote accounts of Chorlton dating back into the 17th century.

These were published in the South Manchester Gazette and are available in Central Library, but they are on microfilm which makes them a tad more difficult to read.  Some of the articles reappeared in various church magazines but I have yet to find a complete set outside the Gazette.

In the case of Mrs Williamson her work appeared in a slender edition in 1888 and I have only been able to put my hands on one copy again from Central Library.

However Bruce Anderson whose local history site I have mentioned from time to time has digitized his own copy along with a number of other histories of Burnage, Fallowfield and Rusholme and they appear on Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive at  http://rusholmearchive.org/

‘Sketches of Fallowfield and the surrounding Manors, Past & Present’ By Mrs Williamson, “gives a very interesting account of how Fallowfield developed from fields between Rusholme & Withington in the 14th century, gradually becoming a desirable neighbourhood with church, chapel & schools in the third quarter of the 19th century. 

There are three maps, 1818, 1843 and 1885 that illustrate the changes during these years.”

She lived in Fallowfield with her husband, Professor William Crawford Williamson FRS. He was an eminent Victorian scientist who was appointed as the first Professor of Natural History (Geology, Zoology and Botany) at Manchester in 1851. 

Williamson was one of the great Victorian naturalists who knew and actively corresponded with Charles Darwin, Louis Agassiz, T.H. Huxley and other great scientists of the day. 

He also knew John Dalton and famously tended the great man during his final days, feeding him broth and other liquid sustenance. Williamson trained as a doctor and practised as an eye surgeon as well as pursuing his studies in the natural sciences.”

It is a wonderful book because it draws on the memories of those who experienced that rural life, and was a great help to me when writing my own account of Chorlton in the first half of the 19th century.*

And so for anyone wanting a vivid firsthand account of the handloom weavers of Burnage or the rush cart ceremony of Rusholme, Mrs Williamson and Bruce’s site have got to be worth a visit.

*THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy-new.html

Pictures; Chorlton from the collection of Tony Walker, cover of Mrs Williamson's book from the collection of Bruce Anderson

CURRY MILE A Changing Neighbourhood .... last week of this not to be missed exhibition

 I am a great fan of Phil Portus's photography.

I have known him for nearly three decades and so I was pleased when he told me about his latest exhibition.“An exhibition encompassing perception, recollection & transition”

It is in CENTRAL REFERENCE LIBRARY Manchester on the Upper Gallery July 10th – September 30th 2023

"Covering over 7 years of documentary photography along this iconic stretch of Wilmslow Road in Rusholme, Manchester, photographers Michael Baker & Phil Portus have captured significant moments in time. Commencing in 2016 following a chance meeting with a local charity worker, Hanif Bobat, of Ethnic Health Forum, they set out to capture the ever-changing landscape and cultural diversity of the ‘Curry Mile’ before it changed beyond all recognition. 

What was traditionally a predominantly Indian & Pakistani influenced neighbourhood, the area has evolved exponentially over recent times, influenced by immigration from the Middle East and East Africa. 

The result has seen an increase in multinationalism in terms of language, culture, bespoke shops, restaurants, cafes, dessert parlours, barber shops and shisha bars, all which have sprung up to serve this ‘new’ community. Perceptions of this street are forever evolving and the exhibition raises the very pertinent question as to whether the term ‘Curry Mile’ is now a misnomer. 

The photographs capture many of the scenes, people, places and religious events of this neighbourhood. The project also references the wider Rusholme community, touching on the impact of Manchester City Football Club’s relocation from Maine Road in 2003 and the demise of the many public houses. 

There is also an interesting collection of ‘Curry Mile Stories’, where past memories and future aspirations of Rusholme, are recorded by members of the community. 

'There are around 90 different dialects and languages spoken here. It is multiculturalism at its best.' RABNAWAZ AKBAR – LABOUR COUNCILLOR FOR RUSHOLME WARD + Meet the photographers at a special talk on Thursday 20th July at 6.00pm + Book via Library Live: Home - Library Live"

Location; CENTRAL REFERENCE LIBRARY, St Peter's Square, Manchester

*Library Live, https://librarylive.co.uk/

**Press Release,  CURRY MILE A Changing Neighbourhood, July 10th – September 30th 2023

Making Christmas a good one ……… in Rusholme with the Red Cross …. December 1918

The scene in this picture postcard will have been replicated across the country in Red Cross hospitals during the four years of the Great War.

This was the Red Cross Hospital in Rusholme in December 1918.

It was and is again a school, but for three years from 1915 it was one of the hospitals under the umbrella of the 2nd General Western Hospital.

I have written extensively about Red Cross Hospitals during the war and in particular those in Manchester, so I shall leave it at that.*

Other than to say this is another picture postcard plundered from the collection of David Harrop.

Location; Rusholme

Pictures; “Christmas tree given to the soldiers, December 1918” 1918, from the collection of David Harrop, and Heald Place School, Rusholme, 2023, courtesy of Goggle Maps.

*Red Cross Hospitals, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Red%20Cross%20Hospitals

CURRY MILE A Changing Neighbourhood .... the exhibition to do

I am a great fan of Phil Portus's photography.

I have known him for nearly three decades and so I was pleased when he told me about his latest exhibition.“An exhibition encompassing perception, recollection & transition”

It is in CENTRAL REFERENCE LIBRARY Manchester on the Upper Gallery July 10th – September 30th 2023

"Covering over 7 years of documentary photography along this iconic stretch of Wilmslow Road in Rusholme, Manchester, photographers Michael Baker & Phil Portus have captured significant moments in time. Commencing in 2016 following a chance meeting with a local charity worker, Hanif Bobat, of Ethnic Health Forum, they set out to capture the ever-changing landscape and cultural diversity of the ‘Curry Mile’ before it changed beyond all recognition. 

What was traditionally a predominantly Indian & Pakistani influenced neighbourhood, the area has evolved exponentially over recent times, influenced by immigration from the Middle East and East Africa. 

The result has seen an increase in multinationalism in terms of language, culture, bespoke shops, restaurants, cafes, dessert parlours, barber shops and shisha bars, all which have sprung up to serve this ‘new’ community. Perceptions of this street are forever evolving and the exhibition raises the very pertinent question as to whether the term ‘Curry Mile’ is now a misnomer. 

The photographs capture many of the scenes, people, places and religious events of this neighbourhood. The project also references the wider Rusholme community, touching on the impact of Manchester City Football Club’s relocation from Maine Road in 2003 and the demise of the many public houses. 

There is also an interesting collection of ‘Curry Mile Stories’, where past memories and future aspirations of Rusholme, are recorded by members of the community. 

'There are around 90 different dialects and languages spoken here. It is multiculturalism at its best.' RABNAWAZ AKBAR – LABOUR COUNCILLOR FOR RUSHOLME WARD + Meet the photographers at a special talk on Thursday 20th July at 6.00pm + Book via Library Live: Home - Library Live"

Location; CENTRAL REFERENCE LIBRARY, St Peter's Square, Manchester

*Library Live, https://librarylive.co.uk/

**Press Release,  CURRY MILE A Changing Neighbourhood, July 10th – September 30th 2023

Lost photographs from the Great War ………..

Now when David sent over some photographs of soldiers recovering in a war time hospital In Rusholme I was not quite prepared for where I would end up.

There are twenty pictures in all and they appear to date from around 1916.

The quality is poor, which might suggest they were taken by a nurse or one of the patients using a simple camera.

But that doesn’t diminish the impact of these photographs, which show a group of soldiers and their nurses in carefree poses.

And the fact that they were not taken by a professional, makes them more powerful as a record of the impact of the war on those who took part.

The notes that accompany the images refer to Birchfield Military Hospital in Rusholme, but as yet I can not find out much about it, other than that the building was demolished in the 1950s as part of the development of the Hollings College affectionately known as the“Toast rack”.

But I know that just prior to the war it was owned by a Samuel Lawrence Mandleberg who was the managing director of an India Rubber Works which produced waterproof garments from a mill on Mill Street in Pendleton.

Mr. Mandleberg, was born in 1863 in Manchester from a family who settled here from the Polish part of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.

And while he owned the house which became the hospital he doesn’t appear to have lived there, residing instead in Salford.

In 1911, the house was occupied by four staff, which may have made it easier to offer up to the military when the war began.

Many people handed over large houses to both the military and the Red Cross, which became hospitals.

A trawl of the directories may provide date for that transfer, and for when it came in Mr. Mandleberg’s possession.

It was a large house with sixteen rooms, located at 235 Wilmslow Road, beside Old Hall Lane and and was set in its own ample grounds, with secluded walks beisde rows of trees, and open land behind the estate.

Added to all this, for those who liked gardening there were a series of green houses.

And for those who didn't, this stretch of Wilmslow Road, led by degree to Didsbury in the south and Chorlton in the west with ample opportunity to wander along the banks of the Mersey

Just what happened to the house at the end of the war is yet to be discovered, but it would appear Mr. Mandleberg, never lived there.  By the 1920s he was in London where he died in 1934, leaving £188,710.

All of which just leaves us with the wartime pictures.  I doubt we will ever find out the identities of any of those in the photographs although the names of four nursing staff are recorded in the scrap book, which I guess belonged to one of those nurses.

Location; Rusholme

Pictures; patients and staff of the Birchfield Military Hospital in Rusholme, circa 1916 from the collection of David Harrop, and Birchfield in 1894, from the OS for South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Having a laugh on a Rusholme street .............. sharing a family picture

Now I always feel privileged when I am entrusted with a set of old family photographs not least because there is always a story behind them.

This is one from the collection of Ken Fisher and it’s got the lot.

I am not sure exactly when it was taken or where but it just draws you in.

The smiling woman in the centre with the bag is Ken’s grandmother and the chap holding the bike is her husband.

It is one of the impromptu snaps which wasn’t planned, was over in a second but in that short space of time the photographer t has caught the moment.

A few people pose for the camera but others including Mrs Fisher seem almost oblivious to its presence.

There are a fair few people in their Sunday best and I particularly like the man on our left who seems more interested in the woman on the bike than he is about having his picture taken, while the young lad outside the shop has either not clocked what is going on or is too cool to let on.

It is the sort of scene which will have been replicated all over the country on those sunny Sundays when everyone came out on to streets with a few hours to spare and the moment allowed you savour what the Italians describe as the “the sweetness of doing nothing”*

Now that might seem to be stretching it after all this is Manchester and not some small walled Italian town in Tuscany, added to which whatever was happening at this moment in time, the women at least in the picture will have had a busy morning, preparing and cooking the dinner, and keeping up with some housework.

Mrs Fisher had been born in 1887, married James Fisher in 1908 and was a widow by the time she was twenty-eight.  Private Fisher had been killed in 1915 at the Battle of Ypres.  They had lived on Moon Street in Rusholme where she continued to live till she moved in with her son in 1967.

Along with this picture Ken has lent a collection of other family photographs, many of them taken on holiday in Blackpool and each has a story.

And that just leaves me to reflect that we will all have a collection tucked away in a cupboard or up in the attic.and yet here will by a set of stories and a shed load of history all of which is worth telling.

Many will not have seen the light of days for decades.

If like us you have never added a name or a date they will baffle a future generation.

And so that said I am off to find the pictures and where I can add some detail.

Location; Manchester




Picture; Mrs Fisher, date unknown from the collection of Ken Fisher

* Dolce far niente, “the sweetness of doing nothing”

In Rusholme .... with a lost street, a closed pub and a long gone Institute

Now, I am following in the footsteps of Andy Robertson who wandered down Victory Street a few days ago.

Wood's Buildings West, 2020

It is one of those almost lost streets, which for most of its existence was called Nelson Street, and originally ran from Monmouth Street to Summer Place, boasting 29 houses, two pubs, a laundry, along with a Working Man’s Club and The People’s Institute.

Just when Nelson Street became Victory Street is unclear, but I guess it will have been when the City undertake a vast set of street name changes during the late 1960s or early 1970s.

But what escaped the cull of name changes was Wood's Buildings West, which is a narrow thoroughfare leading from Nelson Street to Eillen Grove.

Victory Street, formerly, Nelson Street, 2020

The sign is still there, although it is much knocked about and I doubt will last into the next decade.

At which point Andy’s pictures offered up a number of promising research paths of which the People’s Institute seemed particularly intriguing.

What is left of it has been incorporated into the Sahjalal Mosque and Islamic Centre.

The People’s Institute was “established on Nelson Street in 1872 by members of different Christian faiths in Rusholme. The 'Peoples Institute' served as a Mission Hall for religious services, to provide educational and recreational facilities and where the first 'Boys Club' in Manchester was based.
In the photograph of the Hall is a notice in the window stating that the 'Penny Bank' was open on Saturday mornings”.*

Nelson Street, 1969

A new hall was opened in 1910 with the name of the McLaren Memorial People’s Institute.

It is a place I intend to return to., along with Wood's Buildings West, but for now I shall close with the pub which carried the street sign on its gable end.

At present it is closed, and now belongs to the Mosque,  but as late as 2008 it was trading as the Osborn House, although even then the writing was on the wall, or more accurately on the notice form the brewery announcing “Tenancy Opportunity”.

Nelson Street, 1896

In more happier times it was one of the two pubs on Nelson Street and in 1911 was run by Mr. and Mrs. Metcalf, who lived in the property with their two daughters and Ada Sharpe who was employed as a domestic servant.

And here there may just be a clue to that sign for Wood's Buildings, because according to the 1911 census Metcalf's property consisted of four rooms, and yet the existing building looks larger.

Moreover, the OS map for 1896 shows 14 back to back properties stretching back into what was the car park.  Seven of which faced out on to Wood's Building's West.

Location; Rusholme

Pictures; Nelson Street, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and in 1969,D. Wildgoose, m39128, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, and in 1896 from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Peoples Institute, Nelson Street, Rusholme, Rusholme and Victoria Archive, https://rusholmearchive.org/the-peoples-institute-rusholme

Moor Street in Rusholme some around 1965 ............. now long gone

We are on Moor Street in Rusholme, sometime just before it was cleared away around 1965.

Moor Street circa 1965

Now I can’t be exactly sure of the date, but the picture belongs to Ken Fish whose grandmother lived here from 1911 till 1965.

And given the bricked house in the same terrace I think we must be close to that date.

Moor Street ran from Wilmslow Road to Nelson Street, and you won’t find it today on any modern map.

That said it is possible to locate it fairly accurately because across Wilmslow Road directly opposite was Rusholme Grove which is still there today.  It is a narrow unpromising stretch of road broken twice by short footpaths.

But stand at the point where it joins Wilmlsow Road and look toward the city centre and just across the road is a modern row of shops which makes the site of Moor Street.

Back in 1911 it consisted of 21 properties including greengrocers, a fish and chip shop, a butcher’s and a beer shop.

Ken remembers "the off licence was still there in the sixties, my Gran’s was the last one on the right and the"offy" was next door to my gran’s but was forward of her house with the backyard more or less level with her front door.   

Between them was a footpath that led on to Claremont Road and came out near a paper shop and a police station and some other cottages, they were strange because they were below the level of the pavement and there was a slope to the front doors.

My Gran’s cottage when you went in you stepped directly into the front room and down a step, in between the two rooms were very steep stairs with a door to them.  The back room was the kitchen and the floor was made up of natural flag stones with a grid inset in the middle to the sewers.  

The upstairs I can only remember going up once and the ceiling was very low, the other thing that comes to mind is the heavy drapes over all the doors to keep the draughts out, there was also an outdoor toilet and I think if you wanted hot water you had to boil it."

Now there are plenty of pictures of houses from this period in the digital archive but sadly many will have been lost so Ken’s is a fascinating glimpse of a bit of the city just before it vanished forever.

Picture; from the collection of Ken Fish

The house which became a hospital ……….. and the lost wartime pictures

Yesterday I was exploring a collection of photographs from the Great War, which were recently acquired by David Harrop.

There are twenty of them and include soldiers and nurses, and while the quality is iffy, they are a remarkable set of images of men recovering from wounds and illnesses in a wartime auxiliary hospital, which is enhanced by the fact that they will have been taken by a nurse or patient.

The accompanying notes refer to Birchfield Auxiliary Military hospital in Rusholme, but at present apart from the name I have yet to come across anything about the place.

After it ceased as a hospital there is a silence in the records, although there is a suggestion that in the interwar years it belonged to the Co-operative Society and acted as a social club for employees, while sometime after that it became the new home of the Hollings Domestic and Trades College until it was demolished in 1959 to make way for the iconic Toast Rack building.

The original Birchfield stood in its own grounds on the corner of Wilmslow Road and Old Hall Lane.

I can track it back with confidence to 1865 when it shows up in the rate books, as owned by a Godfrey Gottschalk with an annual ratable value of £275, and an estimated rental value of £350.
Although there may have been an earlier property on the site or nearby which was rented by Mr. Gottschalk which was an altogether more modest, but still substantial house, which dates from 1856.

Just two years earlier the OS map for Lancashire shows the site as open land with a brick kiln at the rear. 

There is however a Birch Cottage just south of the brick kiln on the other side of Old Hall Lane, which might be our more modest property.

But that is as far as we can go.

There will be someone who knows, and there will be others with pictures of Birchfield in its hey day, and so I shall await that call.

In the meantime we have those wartime pictures.


And a few of them show the interior which looks to have been lavish, as you would expect, given that when its owner died in 1934 he left £188.710 which one calculation puts at  £13,160,000, or £35,560,000 when measured relative to the wage of the average worker, and a staggering £63,470,000.when measured against per capita of GDP.*

All along way from the lives of the men and women in the pictures.

Location Rusholme








Pictures; soldiers and nurse from the hospital, circa 1916, from the collection of David Harrop, and Birchfield, 1959, J F Harris, m42197 and H Milligan, m66420, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Measuring Worth, https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/relativevalue.php

The picture of Rusholme that washed up in London and came back to Chorlton

Now I grant you it’s not the zippiest of titles but it does the business.

Wilmslow Road, date unknown

We are on Wilmslow Road although I don’t exactly have a date.

But I know that in 1911 the Clarence Pub was run by Mr James Oldham and his neighbour at number 83 which is just visible in the picture belonged to George C. Pinchien, tobacconist and more about both gentlemen at a later date.

The has gone but more recently has been a restaurant.

Mr Oldham of the Clarence Inn and his neighbours, 1911

The picture was sent up to me by my friend Tricia who still lives close to where I grew up in Eltham in South East London, which pretty much explains the title.

Tricia saw a picture I have in the collection of London Transport Tram 1622, on route 40 to the Embankment via the Old Kent Road and Westminster and prompted her to share this one of a Manchester Corporation tram on Wilmslow Road.

The Clarence Inn, date unknown

And as you do I went looking for a date, which I have yet to find, but in the process I did discover that along with the Clarence Inn and Mr Pinchien there was Mr Albert Barber, the butcher, Herbert Mee, the saddler, and Mrs Ann Maria Willcocks, shopkeeper all of whom were neighbours of the Maypole Diary Company and John Armstead, milliner.

Which just leaves me to wonder whether anyone will be able to come up with a date.

And in answer to that question my old mate Andy Robertson has gone one better and sent over a picture of the Clarence Inn from 2015.

It was back then the Pharaoh  but I am not quite sure if it was a night club or a place to eat.

But someone will come back with chapter and verse, adding their own stories of nights in the place and perhaps even of nights when it was the Clarence Inn.

We shall just have to see.




Location; Wilmlsow Road

Picture; Wilmslow Road, date unknown from the collection of Tricia Lesley and the Clarence Inn in 2015 courtesy of Andy Robertson.

The Huntsman Inn in Rusholme ............. one I never went in

I never went into the Huntsman on Wilmlsow Road and unless some enterprising individual takes it on I guess I never will.

That excellent site on all things to do with Manchester Pubs, suggests it closed in July 2011 and it will have been a victim of the demographic changes to the area.

Added to which the transformed Birch Villa and the growth in bars will have pretty much caused its slide into oblivion.

And Andy Robertson’s picture doesn’t show the place at its best but then that is the value of his continuing quest to record bits of the city which have been forgotten, neglected or are about to vanish.

In the last few years he has roamed across the twin cities photographing everything from once fashionable houses, to once popular pubs and the now empty warehouses and factories which in their time were a hive of activity.

So there you have it, and for good measure he found two of the Huntsman in happier days.

And for those with an interest in social history there might well be a story in the buildings on either side of the pub which have also gone .

Pictures; the Huntsman on Wilmlsow Road, 2015 from  the collection of Andy Robertson, and in 1971, A e Dawson, m49777 and 1973, m49778, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

**Huntsman, Wilmslow Road, Pubs of Manchester, http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Huntsman%20-%20Wilmslow%20Road

The Rusholme and Victoria Archive

Today I am singing the praises of the Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive, http://rusholmearchive.org/

It is one of those sites that I suspect has something for everyone.

I first got to explore the Rusholme as a student later was a frequent visitor to Plaza on Upper Brook Street and later still to the old CP Bookshop on Hathersage Road, and since then spent some happy times with my old friend Joe and Bron who lived in Victoria Park and more recently as a parent of children at Xaverian College.

My interest was sparked again when I came across Mrs W.C Williamson who wrote Sketches of Fallowfield and the Surrounding Manors Past and Present in 1888. Like our own Thomas Ellwood Mrs Williams recorded the memories of people who lived in the area when it was still a rural community.

And for anyone interested in the area there is plenty on Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive, ranging from old photographs, letters, personal accounts and all the usual ephemera which recreate past lives.

Photograph, map of the area, 1818 from Williams, W.C Sketches of Fallowfield and the Surrounding Manors Past and Present 1888

What was the Birch Villa and is now Hardy's Well

Now I remember the old Birch Villa with fond memories.

It was one of the very first pubs I drank in back in 1969 and it was a lively place with plenty going on in each of the small rooms that made up the pub.

But the life and interests of a young student living in south Manchester meant that other places took my fancy and I never went back.

In the years afterwards it was a place you passed on the bus and that was pretty much it.

And then more recently I happened to be on that stretch of Wilmslow Road at the junction with Dickinson Road and clocked that the pub was now Hardy's Well, complete with pub garden, telephone box and a poem on the side of the gable end.

Now there will be those who mutter typical of south Manchester to reinvent an old 19^th century boozer into something new and different.

But according to the blog Pubs of Manchester, Past and Present, “we're pleased to report it's reopened and doing superb trade thanks to its simple policy of serving a good selection of decent beer (e.g. Copper Dragon Golden Pippin) in a convivial atmosphere.”

Now I fully recommend this site for anyone interested in the history of Manchester’s pubs.  It covers both the city centre and out into the suburbs and contains pictures, historical information and recommendations.

All of which brings me back to the Birch Villa which closed in 2011 and reopened as Hardy’s Well in the same year. 

And before any one mutters that Hardy’s Well seems a tad contrived it does make sense in that the beer served in the Birch Villa was made at Hardy’s Crown Brewery in Hulme whose name still appears at the top of the pub.

The Birch Villa was serving its beer by 1893 and in 1911 the landlord was Richard Wood assisted by his wife Elizabeth, and three of their four grown up children and two barmaids and two waiters along with a general servant.

It says much for the success of this 13 roomed pub that all the staff lived in and none were over the age of 21.

And I rather think I have written myself into a visit to Hardy’s Well, perhaps in the company of Peter.

Picture; Hardy’s Well,  © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook:  Paintings from Pictureswho painted the picture.

*Pubs of Manchester, http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/

In Rusholme looking for history

What I like about history is that it is always changing.

And that is just the way it works.

So new research or a chance discovery leads to fresh knowledge and new interpretations of the past.

And this is especially so of local history which often relies on local or family historians beavering away and uncovering lost data and stories about the people and the places where they live.

Now this I know because in writing a new book on the history of Didsbury I uncovered events and people who had long since fallen into the shadows.

The book, Didsbury Through Time is a collaboration with local artist Peter Topping, and aims to mix old images with new ones  of the area.

This is a familiar format and not one we wanted to copy, so Peter included some of his own paintings of the streets and buildings and I tried to find out about the people who lived behind the doors.

And with the book out on the shelves as I write we have decided to focus on Rusholme and Victoria Park.

Now the area is very well served by an excellent history site run by Mr Anderson which has some wonderful images of the place and plenty of excellent articles on a whole range of aspects of Rusholme’s history.*

So we shall again seek to do something slightly different which I hope will compliment all the other books along with Mr Anderson’s site.

In the meantime if anyone has any pictures they would like us to use, please contact us at, peter@gladtobe.in  Tel:07521 557888 and see the website http://www.gladtobe.in/

* Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive, http://rusholmearchive.org/

Picture; courtesy of Bruce Anderson, from Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive, http://rusholmearchive.org/

Didsbury Through Time by  Peter Topping and Andrew Simpson was published in November

More from the Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive, all you ever wanted to know but never knew who to ask

One of the things that I really enjoy is reading other sites on local history.

It’s that mix of things, ranging from new ideas on how to communicate stories of the past, the opportunity to follow links and fresh lines of enquiry and just the sheer pleasure in learning more about places.

So it’s time I think to mention Bruce Anderson’s site, Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive http://rusholmearchive.org/ again

It is one that I have referred to already* but is well worth coming back to.  I first came across it while following up some research on Mrs W.C Williamson who wrote Sketches of Fallowfield and the Surrounding Manors Past and Present in 1888. Like our own Thomas Ellwood Mrs Williams recorded the memories of people who lived in the area when it was still a rural community.

And so there are parallels with our own township’s agricultural past and its transformation into a suburb of Manchester.

It’s written with that same love of the locality and a keen sense of research which makes all such sites a good read.

Moreover I rather think you cannot fully understand how Chorlton changed if you do not read about the neighbouring areas, after all what happened to us was also happening to Fallowfield, Burnage, Withington and Didsbury.

First it was the wealthy seeking homes well away from the city centre, then the development of housing estates for the “middling people” and “the 6 shilling a week” families who took advantage of the new train and tram networks to travel into the heart of Manchester but live on the edge of the countryside. And so within the space of three decades what had been rural communities became dormitory  suburbs, and the landscape, people and customs which Mrs C.W. Williamson and Thomas Ellwood described had long gone.

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-rusholme-and-victoria-archive.html

Pictures; from the collection of Bruce Anderson

Fallowfield from field to housing estate in 40 years.

It is hard to grasp just how rural all of south Manchester once was.

Leaving the city and clearing Hulme or Cornbrook a traveller in 1840 would soon have been in fields and by and large it would have changed little from the early years of the 19th century.

And yet within 40 years the land was being parcelled up and handed over to developers who quickly began building houses, and cutting new roads which had been made possible by the provision of improved sanitation, piped water and gas, and given a further push with the establishment of new railway and later tram routes into the heart of the city making it possible to work in Manchester but live in Chorlton, Withington, Didsbury or Fallowfield.

First came the grand villas, then the large semi detached houses with pretentious sounding names, and finally the tall rows of terraced houses catering for the professional and clerical  people.  Lastly the six shillling a week*  two up two downs built for skilled workers and semi skilled.

Just what this meant can be seen in a series of maps that were published in Sketches of Fallowfield by Mrs.W.C. Williamson in 1888.  The looks back on Fallowfield’s rural past which for many was by the 1880s a different place.

Pictures; from Sketches of Fallowfield
* Manchester Evening News September 20th 1901