Snaps of Chorlton nu 16 .............. on Beech Road with Mrs England just 52 years ago

Now I can’t be exactly sure of when Mrs England posed on Beech Road for this photograph but it will be sometime before 1974.

And it is a scene I will have missed by just a few years, because while I remember Threshers, the old frontage of Ettchel's and Richardson’s it is the absence of Ivy Court opposite the Rec which fastens the date to sometime before 1974.

Look closely and just beyond the car on the right is the outline of the farmhouse which was demolished to make way for Ivy Court.

There will be plenty of people who still remember Mr and Mrs Riley who lived there in the 1960s and there will even be some who remember being sent for milk from the dairy.

My old friend Marjorie had the regular job of going across the road from the family home on Provis and had more than a few stories of the place.

But the farm stretched back into the 18th century and was farmed from the 1760s by the Renshaw family and later the Bailey’s who were still there at the beginning of the last century.

By the time they left for Park Brow Farm at the bottom of Sandy Lane Beech Road was pretty much as it was in this picture and there was a degree of continuity.

There has always been a news agents on the corner of what is now Beech Road and Chequers, and its companion premises has always been a fish and chip shop.

That said the rest of the parade of shops up to Wilton dates from later in the century while the Thresher frontage was changed sometime after Mason and Burrows departed the building.

So there you have it a little of the history of Beech Road at a time before now, and yes I will conclude with that obvious observation that there ain’t many cars to be seen.

And there I will leave it with just a big thank you to Paul England who allowed me to share another of his family photographs.

Picture; Beech Road sometime before 1974, from the collection of Paul England

Snaps of Chorlton No 11, a badge and a festival in 1984 not bad for one post

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Cheating really, not so much a snap more a picture of the badge of the event

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Tony Walker

Snaps of Chorlton No 2 Beech Road, 1935 King George V’s Jubilee

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Beech Road, 1935

Today we are on Beech Road during the Jubilee of King George V.  I cannot be exact but it will have been between May 6th and May 12th.

It was taken by Marjorie’s sister sometime in the afternoon.

Despite its’ lack of clarity there is enough here to give us a flavour of Beech Road in the 1930s.

To our immediate left is the wall in front of Row House and the adjoining building which by 1929 was the Grange Laundry.  And beyond on the corner of Acres Road was William Allen the iron monger’s who has dropped his canopy to shield the shop from the bright spring sunshine and like all the shop keepers of the period has some at least of his wares on display outside.

It is a fine May day and the bright sunshine has brought out the people, even so there is enough of a breeze to lift the flag and bunting.

And I suppose the thing that most marks this off from today is the absence of cars.  There well away up Beech Road at the corner of Chequers Road is the only one.

What also makes the picture just that little bit more priceless is that the young girl in the foreground is Marjorie.

Picture; Beech Road, 1935, from the collection of Marjorie Holmes

Snaps of Chorlton No 8 the loss of Rowe House

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Row House had stood on the corner of Beech and Acres Road from the early 19th century.

It had been home to the Blomely’s who also gave their name to the fish pond which stretched up Beech Road, and was later lived in by William Batty, politician, jeweller and Methodist

For a while the house was also used as our “Penny Reading Room”, while the adjoining building had been a laundry and factory.

None of which saved it from the developer.

Picture; from the collection of Lawrence Beedle

Snaps of Chorlton No 10, farming some where in Chorlton

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

This is one of my favourite pictures in the collection and it is special for a number of reasons.

First it was lent to me by my friend Allan Brown who had lived here around the village green for his entire life and the seated couple are his grandmother and great grandfather which take his link with the township back into the 19th century.

But it is also because it is one of the few photographs of Chorlton which show people still working the land.

I don’t have a date or a location but we may be in the last quarter of the 19th century somewhere in Chorlton but it featured in my book The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.*


Picture; from the collection of Allan Brown

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

Snaps of Chorlton No 6 the parish churchyard before the landscaping, 1976

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

We are in the parish graveyard in 1976.  I have to say despite walking through the place many times I have no recollection of it looking like this.  And I pretend to be a historian.

Location; Chorlton







Picture; from the collection of Lois Elsden

Snaps of Chorlton, from Neale Road off towards the Meadows 1963-64

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

It was taken in the winter of 1963-4 from the back upstairs window of Ida Bradshaw’s house on Neale Road.

Today the view would be obscured by the flats of Lawn Green, but back then it was all that was left of the farm yard, workshops and land of the farm which had fronted the parish graveyard for two hundred years.

To the right in the background is the Bowling Green Hotel, to the left the houses which face Brookburn Road. And away in the distance are the meadows. What is perhaps remarkable are the buildings on the horizon just left of centre.

These I think were the homes of the sewage workers and stood just to the left of the little footbridge across Chorlton Brook. It is still possible to make out a break in the hedge where the garage of the properties was situated. There are those in Chorlton who remember living in one of them.

Location; Chorlton, Manchester

Picture; from the back upstairs window on Neale Road 1963, from the collection of Ida Bradshaw

Snaps of Chorlton No 4 Bringing down the chimney of the Queen and Pasley circa 1990s or perhaps even earlier

An occasional series featuring  private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

I can’t remember exactly when this was but I reckon it was in the 1990s and points to that simple observation that much of our recent past slides away without us bothering to record it.

Now I have written about the Queen and Pasley Laundry along with the other ones that served us including the one on Beech Road and others on Manchester Road and Wilbraham Road.*

But the Queen and Pasley was the biggest and was still in business in the late 1980s on Crossland Road.

My old friend Tony Walker took the picture which may have been linked to an article which was published in Chorlton Green in 1985 or was taken later.

I can’t now remember if this was during a repair of the big chimney or just prior to its demolition.  And I pretend to be a historian.

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%27s%20lost%20laundries%20and%20launderettes

When you are old enough to remember half day closing ….. and more

I won’t be the only one who remembers when shops closed early one day in the week, pubs stopped serving in the middle of the afternoon and that week in summer when everything in Ashton ground to a halt during Wakes Week.

Mr. England outside his shop by Chorlton Green, circa 1960s

Not that this is some nostalgic meander through the past.

Even then it seemed to me that shop workers and publicans deserved their time off, more so when the shop was one of those corner ones which were pretty much “open all hours”.

Added to which Wakes week seemed a fine idea until you lived in the town and the place became very quiet.

And growing up in the 1950s there were those regulations which prevented you buying some products which in turn led me once to swear eternal secrecy by the shop keeper when I was sent for a packet of butter which she doubled wrapped in newspaper. That said it could have been eggs or potatoes, which the passage of nearly 70 years has made obscure.

It reinforces that other memory of Sundays which was boredom.  Too young to go to the cinema, and with limited hours of broadcasting on the one channel on the telly, the day stretched out as a day to endure.

Most of my friends didn’t play out on a Sunday which left the time divided between rereading last weeks comics and watching the odd passerby.

Paul England outside the shops by the Green, circa 1960s

And then things changed with the relaxation of the laws on retail trading and pub hours, which I can pinpoint.

But just when half day closing became a thing of the past I have yet to track down, along with the slow decline of the traditional retail pattern which saw several grocery shops, green grocers, and butchers existing close to each other in every small community.

Of course, before the widespread ownership of fridges and freezers shopping daily was more to do with keeping food fresh than a lifestyle choice.

But now with online shopping, and the bike delivery just a click away half day closing is just a redundant memory.

Leaving me just to acknowdge that in Varese in northern Italy where some of the faily live, the shops still do close for a few hours in the middle of the day.

And that's it.

Location; the past

Pictures; shopping in Chorlton in the 1960s, from the collection of Paul England

Snaps of Chorlton No 5, a lost railway scene

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

I think we are sometime in the 1980s and we are looking  towards the Wilbraham Road bridge, beyond which was the station and off to our right Adastral House.  

Now someone out there will be much better informed than I about the loco and what it is pulling.  

My knowledge stops at being able to say it is a British Rail locomotive, when we still had a nationalized railway company.

Originally I thought it might be the 1960s but those in the know have helped me push the date forward.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; from the Lloyd Collection 

Snaps of Chorlton nu 15 .............. outside Jean’s wool shop on Beech Road sometime in the 1960s

Yesterday I featured Paul England’s dad outside his shop on St Clements Road and today I am with his mum on Beech Road.

Mrs England ran the wool shop just by the cut that led off to what is now Crossland Road.

It is another of those snaps of Chorlton which pay careful attention.

Mr Westwell was still next door in his grocery shop and may still have had the large painted sign on the upper frontage which proudly announced “Just Arrived” with a picture of a trawler and a smiling salmon.

And not to be outdone on the side of Mrs England’s shop was a hoarding promoting “High Speed Gas.”

Now the products advertised might have changed over time but that hoarding has lasted a full half century.

Not so Joel House which dated from the 1860s and sat back from the road, protected by a low wall which is just visible in our picture.

Picture, shopping in Chorlton in the 1960s, from the collection of Paul England

Snaps of Chorlton nu 14 .............. outside Mr England’s shop on St Clements Road

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Now I am a great fan of the family snap and in some ways they win out for me over the carefully arranged photograph of the professional.

Often because they are a personal record they show us bits of Chorlton which the serious photographer would not touch and have a spontaneity lacking in the more formal compositions.

So here over the next few days are a few from Paul England whose family ran the grocers shop on St Clements’ Road.

It has featured before on the blog but always just as a building but here we have Mr England with three of his customers and it challenges you to come up with a comment.

Picture, shopping in Chorlton in the 1960s, from the collection of Paul England

Snaps of Chorlton nu 17.............. outside Mr England’s shop by Chorlton Green

Now this is the last of the short series taken from the collection of Paul England.

Over the last few days I have been featuring some of his family photographs which were taken in the 1960s

And I am finishing with two which in the way are the most personal

They speak for themselves but perhaps just need me to add that the first is Paul’s dad and the second is Paul.

They were taken outside the family shop on St Clements Road and point to the importance of the family snap, which in its way is a far more useful piece of photographic history than the carefully composed picture made by the professional.


Picture, shopping in Chorlton in the 1960s, from the collection of Paul England

Down on Maple Avenue with more rare pictures

This is another of those wonderful images from Ray Jones whose family owned one of the houses on Maple Avenue for over a century, spanning the old Queen’s Jubilee, two world wars, and much else.

It was taken by Ray’s grandfather and dates from the 1920s.
That said I bet there will be someone out there who is an expert on such vehicles and can offer up the make, the date and more than a bit of its history.

In the same way there will be someone else who will follow up on the number plate and go to those sites which explain how the letters and numbers can date the car.

But for now I shall just thank Ray and make that obvious remark that there would have been very little other traffic parked up on that sunny day on Maple Avenue.

All of which is in direct contrast to today and leads me to wonder just when the transition happened.

Look at photographs from the 1960s and even early 70's and many roads will still be relatively empty and that I think highlights the need for more pictures from those middling decades.

The collection is full of images from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when commercial photographers plied their trade selling to local residents as well as the picture postcard companies.

But from the 1960s as the trade in picture postcards went into decline the numbers of photographs has also diminished.

I know they will be out there, mostly as snaps which now sit in family albums or at the bottom of the sock cupboard and bringing them out into the light would advance our knowledge of the area.

So that’s the appeal done, leaving me just to thank Ray and say I know exactly which house on Maple Avenue this is, but until I approach the owners it seems unfair to say more.

Instead I will close with a comment from Ray who thinks "the the motor is a BSA cyclecar but I'm not certain."

Location; Maple Avenue, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, a car, two kids, and auntie on Maple Avenue, circa 1920s, © Ray Jones

Snaps of Chorlton ............ nu 13 the Horse and Jockey

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Now along with churches pubs must be one of the most popular topics for the snapper.

Sadly the exercise rarely extends to the inside so while there are plenty of the outside of our pubs inns and hotels few of the interior have survived if they were ever taken at all.

So here is another pub exterior.

In this case of the Horse and Jockey sometime in the 1960s 0r 70s.

The pub sent me the picture and I often wonder who took it.

Picture; the Horse & Jockey circa 1960s-70 courtesy of the Horse and Jockey

Snaps of Chorlton No 1 a lost road and a demolished house from Ida

Most of the images we see of Chorlton in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries were the work of professional photographers. 

They arrived in the township, focused on the popular bits and sold them on to the postcard companies.  Sometimes on the off chance they prowled the new roads of New Chorlton and the Ville, taking pictures of individual houses and offering them at a knock down rate to the residents.

Then there were the serious amateurs like Aaron Booth* who in the early 1880s was taking photographs of Martledge. But there are also the snappers, who captured whatever took their fancy.  Often the images are a little blurred and in many cases have a significance lost in time.

And so with this in mind here is the new series.  Snaps of Chorlton, is an occasional rummage through pictures most of which were never meant to be shared beyond the family. Of course the advent of the camera phone has given this a new lease of life.

But for now I am concentrating on old fashioned images and I am starting with two from Ida.  The first was taken by her dad and while the date is unknown it must be before the development of the precinct, because this is Manchester Road from the corner of Wilbraham Road.  Back then it is still a tree lined road of big houses which gently curved round past the Savoy Picture House and around the library.  The car park has yet to break the sweep of the road.

It is a scene I featured recently from a 1938 postcard but is well worth another look.

The second is more recent.  We are on Beech Road, after the demolition of Row House and the factory which stood beside it.  And Ida’s picture perfectly reflects that other thing about snaps which is that they seldom are of popular or photogenic views which makes them equally important.

Row House dated from the early 19^th century and had quite a history.  Here lived the Blomely’s who gave their name to the fish pond that ran from Acres Road up to Chequers Road, and also lived William Batty, politician, jeweller and Methodist  For a while the house was used as our “Penny Reading Room”, while the adjoining building had been a laundry and factory.

So its passing which generated a stir at the time is important as it was one of the last examples of an early 19^th century property in the township.  And here I have a confession, for I have a brick from the house.  I asked for it and the demolition gang a little bemused handed it over.  It was handmade, perhaps with clay from our own clay pits off Oswald Road and I guess was put in place around about 1800.

And a little later Ida took her picture.

Location; Chorlton, Manchester

Pictures; from the collection of Ida Bradshaw

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/aaron-booth-and-his-pictures-of.html

Snaps of Chorlton No 9 Kathaleen Leavy in the Queen and Pasley, mid 1960s

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

We are inside the Queen and Pasley Laundry on Crossland Road.

I have featured both the picture and stories on the laundry* but rather think it is time to bring it out again for this series.

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%27s%20lost%20laundries%20and%20launderettes

Snaps of Chorlton nu 7.............. on Needham Avenue in 1953

Now I am back with one of those family snaps of Chorlton.

Pictures like these were seldom meant to be a statement of high art just an instant reminder of a happy time.

It was sent to me by Susan Barlow who told me that two of her uncles are amongst the bunch of children caught on camera.

And I remember having similar tank tops, and v necked sleeveless jumpers, baggy shorts and grey socks with the a coloured strip.

Those of us of a certain generation will remember those long summer days which started with a game in the street unhindered by cars, moved on to an adventure in the park or on the meadows and finished at tea time with a glass of orange squash before a meal with dad and mum.

And snaps like these are an important part of our history and so the more observant will have spotted the big pram which was large enough to take the baby, a shed load of shopping and the posher models had suspension delivered by leather straps which could be adjusted.

We bought one in the 1980s for our Joshua.

It was second hand and in the playground at Brookburn more than one person claimed it had been theirs before being passed on.

And once it was no longer used for babies and the shopping its chassis offered up a DIY go cart.

Location; Chorlton

PIcture; Needham Avenue, 1953, from the collection of Susan Barlow

With granddad and his cup of soup outside the Post Office on Wilbraham Road

Now I bet a lot of people remember the TV advert for Heinz soup with granddad.

But I had completely forgotten that it also appeared on posters until Ursula shared this picture with me.

We are on Wilbraham Road sometime around 1980 by the post office and Ursula and her friend Helen are in front of the side wall of what was once Lipton’s, became Ethel Austin and is still going strong selling all manner of clothes.

To the left you can just make out the sign for the Asian restaurant and opposite was the wool shop.

I don’t ever recall going in the wool shop but have fond memories of the restaurant and also the travel agents next door.

In that pre internet age if you wanted a holiday or even to book train tickets in advance you relied on the “expert” who talked on the phone to “other experts” and in the space of 20 minutes  sorted out your requirements while you waited .

And it was there that I sorted out a long weekend to Paris, with the chap behind the counter arranging the trains to London, the connecting trains to Dover and from Calais along with Channel crossing and the hotel.

All around were posters for places from Greece to Frinton along with coach excursions and train destinations I never heard of.

It was cluttered old fashioned and a world away from the modern shop with its bank of computers, instant internet access and currency exchange.

And I have Ursula to thank for sparking off the memories of the day she and her best friend Helen posed in front of granddad and his cup of soup.

“My friend Helen was my best friend through secondary school - she also went to St. John's primary as I did. It was Helen's idea to pose for that picture. 

She grew up on St Anne's Road and introduced me to the wonders of King Spot - and Chorlton Cinema where her mum was a cleaner at one point.”

Now I have every confidence that there are similar pictures of Chorlton out there, tucked away in old albums, stuffed at the bottom of wardrobes or just laying around in the attic and I would welcome sharing them with the blog.

And of course if there is a story as well so much the better.

Picture; Wilbraham Road, circa 1980, courtesy of Ursula Achah

On Beech Road ………….. in 1975

There is a gap in pictures of Chorlton, and it is pretty much the time between the 1960s and now.

Before then, there were still plenty of professional photographer’s who took pictures of local landmarks and private residences, which they sold on to commercial picture post card companies and individuals.

But all that fell out of fashion, as fewer people bought picture postcards and more people came to own cameras.

And what had been the carefully composed “professional study” became the family snap, which then were locked way in family albums, or more recently sit on a mobile phone or on a computer.

All of which is a shame because these family snaps offer up a wealth of detail about how we lived not that long ago.

So here is one of Beech Road, taken in 1975 and sent to me by Jude Eccles.

The focus is of course the two youngsters in the pram and a proud dad, but look closely and there are little insights to a Beech Road before the bar culture.

To our leftist is the old Police Station which back then was still offices for the City Council and next to it the Wool shop, Joy Seal’s Chemist and the Chinese takeaway.

Across the road, the factory beside Row House will have been in full production in what had once been a laundry and down in what had been the Co-op, would soon be the home of Strippo, which for a reasonable price would strip away decades of paint and created the pine look which was replicated with sanded wooden floors.

Leaving me just to point out that in the distance just out of sight was the Oven Door Bakery and to correct  a slight slip.

Jude tells me that, "the proud dad is only dad to the little boy with the red hair. They lived across the road from us on Beaumont road. The other boy is my twin brother. The buggy is our twin buggy which they must have borrowed".

Brilliant!  We too had one of those twin buggies along with the big Princess prams, ..... so perhaps a series on Chorlton prams is on its way.

Location; Beech Road

Picture; Beech Road, 1975, from the collection of Jude Eccles.