Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 55 standing on Greengate with the help of Mr Goad

Now yesterday we were on Greengate in the winter of 1949 and today we have moved forward almost a full half century.

Of course by now there are a bank of photographs to call on to recreate what Greengate was like.

But instead I have fallen back on a map.

And it is a very unusual map in that its main purpose was to assist insurance companies.

“Goad’s fire insurance plans had a number of features that distinguished them from the available commercial maps, notably the Ordnance Survey town plans. 

First and most importantly, the plans were produced to meet the needs of a specific customer, the fire insurance companies, providing a range of information that would enable them to assess more accurately the risks associated with insuring properties. 

To that end the plans, surveyed on a scale of 40 feet to the inch, covered all properties in a town or city centre, recording information on the materials used in the construction of each building. 

This was achieved by means of a colour code (red: brick and stone; light blue: skylights on one/two storey buildings; purple: skylights on taller buildings; yellow: wooden buildings), a feature which gave the plans their distinctive appearance. 

Details were provided of the internal layout of buildings, particular attention being given to the construction and flammability of party walls, skylights, windows and doorways. 

Thus roofs were identified as slate, tile, metal, cement and felt with tar. The entrances in warehouses distinguished such features as hoists and the crane doors.”*

Now that is pretty impressive.

More so because the plans were regularly updated although instead of printing a new plan correction slips were produced and just pasted on the original section of the map.

All of which means that the original sheet became a multi-layered document and dating the map can be a bit difficult given that the first surveys were undertaken in 1886 and were still being issued in 1901.

That said they are a fascinating guide and just leaves me to trawl the directories to match the names on the maps with the street lists.

Picture; Greengate 1886-1901, from Goads Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Introduction to Goads Fire Insurance Maps, Digital Archives Association

On Blackfriars Street in 1894

We are on Blackfriars Street sometime at the beginning of April 1894.

Now I can be pretty certain of that because our old friend Samuel L Coulthurst wrote the location on the picture and the dates on the adverts place it just before April 7.

It is that classic image most of us have of a northern city.

One of the women wears a shawl; another is in one of those long dresses with a white apron while the men all wear the distinctive hats of the period or the equally characteristic flat cap.

It is a period when the young still dressed like their elders and so in the centre is a youngster who looks just like a cut down version of the men around him.

And it is all in the detail, from the enamel jug held by one woman to the slightly dirty hands of one the men.

I would love to know what is going on, for while the woman in the shawl looks directly at Mr Coulthurst, the attention of the rest has been caught by something we cannot see.

The clue may be the half obscured man facing us who at pinch might be singing or addressing the crowd.

It may be a fancy on my part but there is just a hint that the woman with the shawl and jug looks a tad apprehensive, but I might be wrong.

The original notes accompanying the photograph may help but sadly I don’t have access to them.

They appear to have been quite detailed including a description, catalogue number and the photographer’s name.

And the image formed part of a wider collection which had been commissioned by the Manchester Amateur Photographic Society which under took the first photographic survey of Manchester and Salford between 1892-1901.

So our Blackfriars picture is one of these.

But even given the absence of those notes there is much that the photograph offers up.

On the wall there are countless adverts which take us back into Manchester and Salford of the 1890s.

Alderman Dickins who features on the Sale of Works ad for April 6 & 7 was a prominent Conservative politician on the city council who in 1894 was in his mid 50s and described himself as a cotton merchant.

Croxton Park Races was an annual event which drew large crowds.

They were held near the village of Waltham of the Wolds which is in Leicestershire and is another example of the degree to which Victorian past times had long since extended beyond local boundaries.

It appears to have begun in 1821 and lasted till 1914.*

That said I doubt that any of our crowd would have made that journey.
And for now I will leave them watching the event captured by Mr Coulthurst.

There is more here, like the location of the grand house at OLD TRAFFORD,   SOLD FOR AUCTION and what looks to be the announcement of an election.

But they will wait for another time.









Picture; Blackfriars Street, 1894, Samuel L Coulthurst, m 80496, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Croxton Races: pre 1881, Waltham on the Wold, http://local-history.org.uk/waltham/croxton-races-pre-1881/

In search of Worsley mysteries …….. two halls….. five old pictures and …. an enigmatic clue

I am not a fan of those stories of mysterious and dark goings on in old halls, which at best leave the ghost of some tragic figure wandering the corridors or at worse stamp the place with a curse which rings down the centuries.

The Hall circa 1896-8

And on our visits to Worsley Old Hall nothing untoward has befallen us, other than the singing man in the lavatory whose mastery of the 1-minute aria from La bohème was astonishing.

The food and the service has been excellent, and Rosa from Milan always asks to go back.

Now, I must confess I only vaguely knew of the Hall’s existence until our Ben and Lindsey took us there a few years ago and since then we often drop in for a leisurely midday meal. *

My Wikipedia tells me that it is "a public house and restaurant in Worsley, Greater Manchester, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building," dates from the 16th or 17th centuries and has undergone several additions before becoming a pub in 1930.

The Hall "in the show", circa 1896-98

Added to which “the hall is of particular historical importance because it was here that Francis Egerton, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, James Brindley and John Gilbert planned the Bridgewater Canal and supervised its building”.

And it serves up an excellent Cheshire cheese, onion and potato pie, served up with buttered greens, and redcurrant gravy.

But as far as I know there are no restless spirits or dark stories of treachery, unfilled promises and strange sudden deaths.

That said my friend Phil Portus has presented with a mystery, which comes in the form of five old images of Worsley and Wardley Hall, which he tells me .  “A while ago friends who lives in the old house opposite the Moor Allerton prep school found these somewhere in the house and gave me 5 old half plate glass negs to me as I'm a photographer. 

I'd forgotten about them and found them when clearing out stuff.  Here is a quick inverted phone shot on my light table”.

Wardley Hall, circa 1896-98

They are undated, of mixed quality but are a fascinating record of the two halls sometime in the late 19th century.

That said what I thought at first was a shot of Worsley Hall may not be so.

The connfusion arose because of a reference to the Hall on a faded typed card which offers up details of the images, how to process them, and the name J.T. Sandell along with the word Halation which a source describes as “a photographic effect that can add a sense of nostalgia and warmth to a photograph or video. 

It is often associated with the look of film and can be used to give digital images a more analog feel. 

You can achieve this type of "bloom" or halation through diffusion filters for your camera lens”***

I hadn’t expected to track Mr. Sandell’s down assuming he was a local photographer in the Salford or Manchester area.

But not so, he was from South Norwood in London, pioneered a new photographic process, but died in near poverty in 1906.****

The clue, circa 1896-98

According to another source he established his own company in 1896, in Norwood Junction, South Norwood, which folded two years later, “the firm produced dry plates and later films, specialising in multi-coated plates and Cristoid films. Sandell Works Co. went into receivership in June 1898, its interests were taken over by Sandell Films & Plates Ltd (capital £10,000). J.T. Sandell (d. 1907) ended his links with the company in 1902. 

T.K. Grant worked for the company until 1901 as a sales representative.

References: Phot. Dealer Jun/1898, p. 148. Phot. Dealer Mar/1899 p. 69. Article in Phot. Dealer Jun/1902 p. 143 on Sandell. Phot. Dealer Nov/1902 p. 276. BJP 21/6/1901, p. 396.”*****

Between them the two “Sandell” sites include more information, along with a picture of our man and a poster.

So, I suppose that goes some way to explain the Worsley mystery, offering up a date range for our pictures and possible identity for the photographer, all of which means our next visit to the Worsley Old Hall will have the added bonus of knowing we are eating in a place with a bit of photographic history.

And my task will be to match the image s with the Hall thereby confirming or not that Mr. Sundell passed this way.

Another of Wardley Hall, circa 1896-98

Location, Worsley 

Pictures, Worsley Old Hall, and Wardley Hall, circa 1896-8, from the collection of Ron Marsden and Clare Debenham. courtesy of Phil Portus, http://www.philportus.co.uk/

*Worsley Old Hall, https://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/worsleyoldhall/

** Worsley Old Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worsley_Old_Hall

***Fstoppers, https://fstoppers.com/guest/use-halation-624893#:~:text=Halation%20is%20a%20photographic%20effect,filters%20for%20your%20camera%20lens.

****J.T. Sandell, Historic Camera, http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2707

**** Sandell, Early Photography, http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/companies4.html

Doing Christmas ……… with the Manchester children’s charity …….. no. 1 ……The appeal

A short series exploring in just one image a day the work of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Shelter over Christmas.

The charity was formed in 1870 to give six destitute boys a night’s shelter but very quickly  expanded its  work to include, girls, industrial training and homes as well as helping newly released prisoners.

The full story of the charity was published earlier this year as The Ever Open Door,* and is available from The Together Trust, https://shop.togethertrust.org.uk/

Location; Manchester and Salford

Pictures; Christmas Collection Leaflet, 1898, courtesy of the Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/

*A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

The Vine in Sale, the Ainscow Hotel on Trinity Way and a bit of a detective story

Now it started with a picture of the Vine on Washway Road, and ended with the Ainscow Hotel on Trinity Way in Salford.

The Vine, 2015

All of which makes perfect sense given that both are in a similar line of business but as ever the route from one to the other was a tad more complicated.

Andy took the pictures of the Vine recently on his latest excursion to record bits of our history.

What caught his attention was the fine lettering at roof level which contained not only the name of the pub but the Watson and Woodhead Brewery.

And that set me going.  The brewery was located between Bolton Street and Irwell Street just a short walk from Salford Station.  One source suggested that it operated from 1895-98 and it shows up on the OS map for 1894.

The Vine on Washway Road, 2015

All of which is muddied by the same source which suggested a date for the Vine of 1909.

At which point I am fully prepared for some one to help me out, especially given that the brewery appears to have continued until 1927.

And here I will fall back on Ainscow Hotel which records that “the building changed hands in 1927, becoming a jam factory for Mackie & Sons Fruit Preservers. 

In 1957 the building was occupied by Brown Brothers Auto Parts who would remain there until 1986. From then, this splendid testament to Northern industrialisation would lay barren – eventually falling into disrepair.

The Brewery, 1894

In restoring this famous landmark, we have sought to capture the character of the original building. 
We believe that it is simply too interesting to be allowed go to waste. 

As such, our guests will be able to enjoy some of the original features and architectural aesthetics that prove that ‘they don’t build them like that anymore’.

Having served as an industrial workplace for over a century, the Brown Brothers Building has played an important role in the working lives of tens of thousands of local people. 

In respect of this, we have worked with Salford City Council to recruit 75% of our staff from the local community in order to preserve this tradition.”

Now that it was I call a bit of a twisty journey but offers up some fascinating bits of our history.

Pictures; the Vine in Sale 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and detail of Bolton Street from the 1894 OS of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

* The Ainscow Hotel, Trinity Way, Salford,M3 5EN http://theainscow.com/about.php

The Classic Slum, Salford stories from 1900

When you get to my age whole swathes of your childhood landscape have gone.

Many of the homes of friends have vanished under slum clearance plans along with the corner shops, small factories and builder’s yards.

Some have been replaced with social housing, but many more by prime state of the art flats for young couples with plenty of disposable incomes.

I guess it’s what comes of growing up in what had become shabby run down parts of our towns and cities which more recently have been rediscovered and gentrified.

Or they have become car parks which was the fate of the houses and streets where my mother’s family lived in Derby from the 1840s through to the 1970s.

Not that this is a nostalgic ramble of warm memories and cosy stories of a world that was better than today.  I have always been suspicious of that repackaged brand of history.  True people did share, and doors were left unlocked but that had more to do with the pitiful amounts of possessions that people possessed.

Open air markets like Flatiron on Chapel Street in Salford may look quaint to us today but were places where “poverty busied itself”* and almost any item of second hand clothing was available for a price.

And it is that remembered phrase that has drawn me back to Robert Robert’s powerful description of growing up in Salford in the first quarter of the 20th century.

You won’t find any romantic tosh of lives of happy poverty.  People constantly battled against the grime, the vermin and the damp which threatened to invade their homes, in mean and often dark streets and courts where fresh air and sunlight rarely penetrated, and with the ever present threat that bad luck, ill health or unemployment might pitch the family into the workhouse.

Not that people gave up.

“On Sundays the artisan in his best suit looked like the artisan in his best suit; no one could ever mistake him for a member of the middle classes.  But any day at all the poor looked poor.  With us they wore, irrespective of fit, whatever would hide indecency; clogs or blutchers [Derby shoe] on their feet and about the neck a muffler – white, if possible, for the Lord’s Day.

Those in greatest need found even the old brokers’ shop too expensive ; they bought everything from the local Flatiron Market”

Now in recent years there has been a real attempt to turn the pawnbrokers shop into something respectable, something without the taint of poverty, and in the words of one friend “into a place for today, where bargains can be found and deals done to avoid using the credit card.”

But for me they will always be places where desperate families pawned possessions including treasured wedding rings to eke out the weeks income and just because it was part of the regular routine as much as seeing the dawn rise and the night fall it was no less demeaning.

In my own childhood in that “you have never had it so good" decade it was the tally man who brought the consumer goods and the essential clothing at ten shillings down and four shillings a week, and like all credit deals meant that you were often still paying for items which had worn away.

Not that you can compare life for most us in the 1950s with the existence described by Robert Roberts, where “Cheap Sunday boots for children were the bane of young lives.  Hard and ill-fitting, they rubbed the skin off the heels and toes without getting one’s sympathy much sympathy from adults who often were plagued themselves with corns, callouses, ‘segs’ and bunions.  In any crowd of workers on the move a sizeable number would have been seen walking badly”**

And it was also in the faces of those pre NHS generations.  Seldom do you see working class women smiling in photographs because to do so would reveal the extent to which a poor diet and lack of professional dental care had wrought havoc on their teeth.

Still in the 1930s it was possible to have a bad tooth pulled for a small fee in the open on Ashton market and in rural areas by the blacksmith.  And the surprise expressed by some at the huge numbers of spectacles and prescriptions issued in the first year of the National Health Service was less about the exploitation a free service but was an indication of the very real need for medical care which decades of poverty had meant were out of the reach of vast numbers of people.

So the Classic Slum is essential reading covering everything from possessions, to food and drink, manners and morals and high days and takes the story of the poorest parts of the city on from the writings of Dr Kay and Frederick Engels in the 1830s and 40s, and acts as measure for how far things have improved in the first quarter of our own new century.

*Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum, Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century, 1971, Pelican edition 1973

** ibid Robert Roberts

Pictures; Union Street Derby, 1950, from the collection of Cynthia Wigley, and Flatiron market Salford, Samuel Coulhurst, 1894, m59571 & m59569, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and Bradford Power Station and Stuart Street, circa 1970s from the collection Eileen Blake