On finding Miss Wright of Chorlton .............. unlocking a bit more of our history

464 Wilbraham Road, home to Miss Wright circa 1900

Now Miss Wright of Chorlton has been found.

She was and continues to be a clue to the story of the Girls Friendly Society and the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Church Institute which have featured in stories over the last few days.*

The Chorlton-cum-Hardy Church Institute was based for a while in one of the big houses in St Clements Road and the Girls Friendly Society met there during the early decades of the last century.

In 1928 Miss Wright was the President of the G.F.S. and I always knew that if we could find her we would come to know more about both the society and the Institute.

And yesterday Sandra Hapgood came up with Miss Wright’s story which came to light in the 1934 St.Clement’s church magazine in which “she is mentioned as Branch President Miss Wright of 464 Wilbraham Road (now the RBS)

The Acting Branch President was Mrs Evans of 99 Claude Road [and] in 1934 they met every Thursday in the New School (St. Clements) 7.40 - 9.45pm.”

It may also be that the short description of the "G.F.S" in the magazine was actually written by Miss Wright.

"The long, light evenings have gone, so it was with a certain amount of pleasure that we turn to meetings indoors for our recreation and instruction.

During October, on Thursday evenings, G.F.S members will commence their various activities, including musical drill, country and ballroom dancing, ping-pong and other games, needlework - and chatting by the fire.

The evening of Thursday, October 18th, has been reserved for a Lantern Lecture, to which an invitation has been extended to all. Details of the lecture will be announced nearer the date."**

Looking down Wilbraham Road, circa 1900

Sandra adds "it is signed M.I.W and I thought we had Miss Wright's initials but sadly not. 
M.I.W is Miss Wilson the headmistress of the Infant school at that time.”

Now all of that helps with the Institute which was the home of Mr and Mrs Crowhurst in the 1890's who ran a “Ladies School” there and which may have been rented out to the church by its owner William Batty around 1900.

The house was still listed as a club in 1934 but as the new school had been built on St Clements Road some at least of the events that were hosted there had moved across the way.

All of which for me is a fascinating little bit of our local history more so because it is a bit that now sits very much in the shadows.

So I shall go looking again for Miss Wright, Mrs Evans and the others who will tell me more about the Institute and the G.F.S., which just leaves a thank you to Sandra.

Picture; the corner of Wilbraham and Barlow Moor Roads and Miss Wright’s house, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

*The Girls Friendly Society, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Girls%20Friendly%20Society

**St Clement’s Church Magazine, 1932, courtesy of Sandra Hapgood

Searching for the Girls’ Friendly Society in that big house on St Clements Road in 1911

At a church garden party, date unknown

Now I would dearly like to know lots more about the Girls’ Friendly Society or for that matter the night a chap from the Town Hall came to talk on the sanitation in Manchester to a selected group of earnest young men

Come to think about it I would just love to know all I can about the meetings that went on at the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Church Institute which hosted a whole shedful of activities which were run by St Clement's Church.

I  had no idea that the Institute existed and it was only while I was looking for something entirely different on Whitelow Road that I came across a reference to the club on an 1934 map.

And with a bit of digging out of the shadows came the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Church Institute which offered a whole range of entertainments and serious events to the parishioners of St Clement's during the early decades of the 20th century.

It was there by 1911 and possibly a full decade before and may have continued until the 1920s.

Just possibly in the garden of the Institute

At the time St Clement's did not have a church hall and so used eight of the rooms in the house leaving three for Samuel Holt and his wife Christina who in 1911 were described as the caretakers.

During that period it offered a whole range of activities from sewing clubs to lectures and according to Ida Bradshaw was pretty much used during the day and the evening.

All of which brings me back to the Girls’ Friendly Society which was a means by which young women, some of whom may have been servants and living away from home could meet and make friends.

Here in Chorlton most homes employed just the one domestic servant who was expected to carry out all the duties of maintaining the house and had little spare time, so I rather think our Friendly Society must have been a life line for some of them.

Sun and strawberries

And I expect some of them went on the one trip I know the Institute organised to Southport in a charabanc.

Of course much of the documentation will have been lost but there may be an odd newspaper story or photograph and perhaps even a stray letter which makes reference to the Institute.

The house dates from around 1881 and was the property of William Batty who rented it out to various tenants of which Mr and Mrs Crowhurst are the most intriguing.

Thomas Messenger Crowhurst described himself as an “artist, art teacher and landscape painter" while his wife ran a “Ladies School” from the house.

Mr Billing and Miss Attwood, 1913

And it may be when they vacated the property Mr Batty offered it to the church.

All of which opens lots of avenues of research possibilities starting with Mr and Mrs Crowhurst, and Mr Holt the caretaker, and Mr Edgar Taylor who in 1910-11 was the Secretary.

He was an accountant, lived on Park Road and may yet yield up some information.

After all we do have one wedding which took place at the church in 1913 and as Miss Vivien Horsfall Attwood was reported as being from a popular and well known family she may well have spent time at the Institute..

Speculation perhaps but worth following up.

Added to which there are the newspapers which might carry stories of events and perhaps even names which could take us even further.

And it may be that a photograph I had long thought was in the grounds of the church could be in the garden of the Institute.

So I rather think we have not heard the last of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Church Institute.

Pictures, a garden party, date unknown, and Mr Hugget Billing and Miss Vivien Horsfall Attwood  A Chorlton Wedding, the Manchester Courier, April 17 1913, from the collection of Sally Dervan

Looking for the ghosts amongst the parish gravestones ……..

Now, anyone who has taken a stroll through the old parish graveyard of St Clement’s will agree that it is pleasant spot.

The old parish graveyard, 2012

It is sandwiched between the village green to the north and the Bowling Green to the south and offers up a selection of benches to sit and just enjoy the moment.

Added to which there is the history of the place, which starts with the footprint of the church and continues with a collection of gravestones, which record those who were buried here.

The church yard, circa 1870-1880

The earliest dates from 1748 and the last to 1903, and in between there are many whose names are familiar to me.  

Some were at the posh end of the community, but most were from families who made their living from the land, either as tenant farmers, agricultural labourers or in trades related to farming.

What might surprise the casual visitor is that those gravestones are just a fraction of the number which once crowded into the graveyard.

In total there were 345 such monuments, from the simple headstone to elaborate structures, and many held multiple internments.

Those 345 have yet to fade from living memory and are supported by a large number of photographs dating back into the late 19th century and as late as the 1970s.

Just how many people were buried here is difficult to say, and while an estimate can be made from the inscriptions on the gravestones, that will be a conservative estimate, given that some graves were reused over the centuries.

Samuel and Sarah Nixon, 2012

The documentary evidence for this reuse is there in the newspaper reports of the “Great Burial Scandal" which first became official in 1881, when a group of Ratepayers, petitioned the Home Office with their concerns.

Chief of which was that “it is now difficult to tell where there is any land left for new graves, [and because] so many internments have taken place there is not 2ft of earth between the coffin and the surface.”*

There were also lurid tales of existing gravestones being broken up and thrown into the midden of the Bowling Green Hotel to allow new ones to be erected and worse still of bones and skulls appearing and being transported away in wheelbarrows.

The graveyard, 1976

Much more was revealed at the official Government inquiry opened by the Home Office in the November of 1881. 

One witness spoke of “human bones .... knocking about the highway. Only that morning a jawbone with teeth in had been picked up.” 

There were also past sextons who reported the difficulty in finding space to place a coffin and the ever-present danger of unearthing past burials. William Caldwell described how he regularly “disturbed human remains in digging” and once before he “could get down to any depth I smashed into another grave, and I was flooded by liquor and human remains.” **

All of which is an introduction to the Register of Grave Inscriptions of St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green.***

Register of Grave Inscriptions, 1975

It is a slim document running to just twenty pages but contains details of all 345 gravestones.  Alas some are illegible, but there are enough to offer up a comprehensive picture of those that lived here from the mid-18th century through to the end of the following century.

And when combined with the smaller list from the Wesleyan Chapel along with the parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials it is possible to build a picture of the township.

It is a booklet I keep coming back to and one that can still shock me, like the inscription for the Swarbrick family that records that George and his wife Harriet, buried seven of their children between 1817 and 1836.  

The youngest Elizabeth died just two months after she was born, while William was seven years old.  Their parents had been born in the late 18th century and would live on till 1871 and 1874, although by then they were no longer living here.

There is more but that is for another day.

Suffice to say that the inscriptions were collected in the 1970s, in advance of the landscaping of the former graveyard, and sadly the loss of most of the historic gravestones.

Plan showing the original headstones, 1975

The bodies had already been removed in the 1930s.

But we do have a plan of where the original headstones which will allow us to to revisit the final resting places of so many of our residents. 

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; the graveyard, 2012, and headstone of Samuel and Sarah Nixon, 2012, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, the grave yard, circa 1870s-1880s, from the Lloyd Collection, in 1976 from the Journal, and cover and burial plan of Register of Grave Inscriptions of St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green

*The Great Burial Scandal, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-great-burial-scandal.html

 **From the Chorlton Ratepayer Association submission  to the Withington Local Board of Health January 12th 1881, and references from the Manchester Guardian 1881-86, Manchester City Council Town Clerks’ Papers Re Closed Burial Grounds 1930, reports in the dig by Angus Batemean

*** Register of Grave Inscriptions of St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green, RG 37/99 Archives and Local History Library, Manchester Central Reference Library

Lost stories from Chorlton’s graveyard ………

 I am looking at a picture of our own parish graveyard sometime in the late 1970s and it records a scene which has long gone.

When the gravestones were numerous. 1979

Many of the gravestones would be removed during the make over which turned a neglected and forlorn spot into a pleasant recreational area.

In total there had once been 361 monuments to those who had been buried in the graveyard, but only a few survived the rest are lost to us.

And that of course is a terrible loss, both for the descendants of those who were interred here and also to the historian wanting to uncover Chorlton’s past.

Because here had been buried the people of plenty, along with the less wealthy, ranging from farmers, tradesmen to the families of farm labourers.

The Stopford family, 1979

The earliest recorded burials date from the mid-1700s with the possibility there may have been some from the previous century.

We do have the parish burial records along with an inventory made in 1975 of the 361 gravestones, but that will never be the same as standing in front of them and reading not just the names but also the messages that were left.

The Isherwood family, 1979

Like that of William Barlow Stopford who “fell asleep in Jesus” aged just 23, who was buried with his father who was 31 when he died and William’s brother Frank who died on November 14th just 19 months old. 

Sadly, their gravestone is one of the missing ones, along with that of the Isherwood family, whose gravestone records the names of six, two of whom died at 8 and 14 months.

In time I will go looking for their stories but for now all I have are pictures of their gravestones and the locations of where the two sat.  The Stopford’s rested just east of the lych gate and was the first you would encounter on entering the graveyard while the Isherwood plot was one of six graves that rested against the south wall of the church.

I wish I had taken more on what must have been a spring day in 1979, but soe far I have only turned up the two images amongst the 1500 or negatives which I am slowly digitalizing.

There may be more but at present that is it.

Location; the parish graveyard

Pictures; lost scenes from our parish graveyard, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

If you go down to the graveyard today …. You’re sure of a big surprise* …..

 Well, “a big surprise” may be overstating the experience but yesterday I came across these stone setts.

Those mysterious stones, 2026

It’s an odd discovery given that I have alternatively walked through and sat in the old parish graveyard for over four decades.

They appear just to the north and west of the entrance to the old parish church.

Often, they are hidden under a mix of mud and leaf detritus, and I suppose are not that interesting, especially when set against the stone inscriptions of the surviving gravestones.

Once before the 1980s make over there were 362 of them ranging from austere and plain slabs to grand monumental records of lives lived out in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

But with the landscaping of the graveyard came a decision to dispose of most of them, leaving just a handful dotted around the gardens.  The fate of the majority is unclear, but I suspect they ended up as hard core in some motorway.

And with their departure was lost the records of so many of our residents who lived here in the 18th and 19 centuries. Apart from the scandal of destroying the memories of people whose relatives had invested time, money and emotion in recording their lives, there is that simple observation that so much of our history has been lost.

But setting that aside there is the mystery of this stretch of stones.

I wondered how long they had been there, and whether they were original dating from the 19th century into earlier.

I will have walked through the place long before the makeover, but I can’t remember seeing them.

And I suppose they may have been part of the landscaping especially as they appear to include a feature which looks to have been a space for a tree, now long since gone.

Gravestones and inscriptions, 1976

A similar pattern of stones appears around the memorial to PC Cook that policeman who was shot in the line of duty. His death was commemorated by an elaborate monument which was removed and is now in Preston, leaving the present stone slab which is faced with the same sets.

Looking back at the plan of the original 362 gravestone, our mystery spot was inhabited by four headstones of which only one has survived the cull.  This is to John, Margaret, James and John Renshaw who were interred between 121 and 1844.  

The Renshaw family, 2010

Alas those commemorating the Guy, Rogers, Lobley, Horsefield  and Heywood families no longer exist, and with them go the stories of Ann Guy who died aged 81Gertrude “infant daughter of William Henry and Georgina Rogers 8 months, 14days and great granddaughter f the above” and "Louisa Mary [also] daughter of William Henry and Georgina Rogers” who died at 15 months in the August of 1869.  Or Thomas who was the “son of Thomas and Elizabeth Gilmore” who died on July 21st 1870, just 2 months old.

Now set against these lost stories of grief, my stone sets don’t amount to much, but it would be fun to know who thought they should be placed here close to the church entrance.

There is a scheme of planting dating from April 1977 from Recreational Services Department of Manchester City Council which suggests that our spot was for either Lonicera Pileata “an unpretentious ever green plant” or Cytisus praecox a “flowering deciduous shrub”.

But which ever it was it has long gone along with the gravestones that occupied its place.

Location; Chorlton graveyard

Pictures; Chorlton graveyard, 2026, 2010 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the plan of the churchyard, Register Of Grave Descriptions, St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green,1976, RG 37/99, City Engineer and Surveyor, Town Hall, Manchester

*Teddy Bears Picnic,  Jimmy Kennedy, 1932

The Lost Chorlton pictures ......... no 8. ......... giving the graveyard a make over

This was when the parish church yard got its last makeover.

But it will have been in the early 1980s and involved clearing away many of the old gravestones, and landscaping the area including picking out the footprint of the old church, which had stood on the site since 1800 and replaced an earlier chapel which dated back to around 1512.

I can’t exactly remember the old cluttered grave yard or when the makeover happened but the picture will date from the early 1980s soon after it had been completed, when the trees and bushes had yet to grow.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; the churchyard, 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A parish magazine ..... a heap of parochial news ..... and Mr. Lascelles's superior wall tiles ...... Chorlton 1903

Now by chance and with the help of Ida Bradshaw, I am back in 1903, trawling the pages of the March edition of the St Clement’s Parish Magazine.

There will be those who mumble that it is a journey which yields little, but not so.

Contained in its 20 pages are a mix of parochial news, some uplifting stories, accounts of the early Christian Church, and advice for children, along with  biblical questions, a hymn for missionaries and a problem for Draught players.

All of which are fascinating, but a century and a bit on, it is the adverts littered through its pages that make the magazine, a time machine.

In all there are eleven, some advertising national branded goods, but most from local tradesmen, including the butcher R. A. Cooper at 25 Barlow Moor Road, specializing in "Corned Beef and Pickled Tongue", and promising “family orders promptly attended to” and William Mellor, Carting Contractor and Coal Merchant, from 1 Hardy  Avenue whose “Coal Delivered in Bags".

Added to these was Thomas Birrell who was a “Joiner and Builder and General Repairer of Property” with a workshop on the “The Green near the Old Church”, “Estimates given for Greenhouses”.

But the one which drew me in was Geo. E. Lascelles “Dealer in Fish, Game, Poultry, 34, Wilbraham Road, And At Hobson Hall Poultry Farm Egerton Road, Speciality; New Laid Eggs, Farm Fed Chickens, Ducklings, Turkeys, Guinea Fowls Best of Everything at Lowest Possible Prices”.

Now what makes Mr. Lascelles just that bit ahead of his fellow advertisers is that his shop has already featured in several stories recently.

No 34 will be known to many as the home of Shareen Fashions, which supplied school uniforms, and  much more at decent prices, by a family who were always most helpful.

And it was during the alterations by the new owners that I spotted some beautiful period tiles.

Given that they were of fish and poultry I assumed they were put there by Mr. Worthington Brice who was listed as a fishmonger at the property in 1909.

But now I am not so sure, given that George Lascelles was doing the business with fish, chickens, ducklings, and much more six years earlier.

All of which may seem a very nerdy preoccupation, and I have to concede it is, but in the process it all adds to the story of where we live.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; extracts from the St Clement’s Parish Magazine, March 1st, 1903, courtesy of Ida Bradshaw, and poultry tiles, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Three Forgotten Graves .... another story from Tony Goulding

This memorial to Helen Richmond Cox is one of three situated alongside a boundary wall of the old St. Clement’s churchyard in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

 Memorial to Helen Richmond Cox

All three are to a greater or lesser extent obscured by vegetation. Not that any actually mark their remains nor even the site of their graves. 

All the bodies in the graveyard were exhumed in 1930 and reinterred in Southern Cemetery then in the 1980s when Manchester Council decided that graveyard was in a hazardous state and needed to be landscaped, most of the memorials were removed then either destroyed or haphazardly replaced. 

Esther Floweth’s memorial

Some were laid flat to form a pathway with others replaced as ornamental features.    

One of the other gravestones records the birth and death of another child, Esther Floweth, who died on 1st March 1868 aged just 5 years and 9 months. The third is of Anne Ormrod, who was 80 years old when she died on 9th June 1867 while visiting her daughter on that forgotten road of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lloyd Street.

None of these three burials were of a parishioner of St. Clements. Although Ann Ormrod was residing in the parish when she died, she was a native of Bolton, Lancashire. 

Helen Richmond Cox hailed from Stretford, and Esther Floweth lived in Hulme, Manchester. This is not at all unusual, as of the 841 burials recorded in St. Clement’s burial register between 1st January 1851 and 31st December 1876 only 320 show their “abode” as Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

This comprises just 38% of internments.  However, closer examination reveals that with the expansion of the township’s population the trend from1860 onwards was for a gradual increase in the percentage of “local” burials.

Ann Ormrod’s gravestone

While many of those buried who were not residents of St. Clement’s parish were from neighbouring  townships of Didsbury, Withington, and Stretford the majority were from further afield. Hulme and to a lesser degree Chorlton-on-Medlock were the main areas although, Ardwick, Pendleton, and Salford also featured. There was even a small number whose homes were given as much further away in places like Blackpool and Everton!

The large number of non-resident burials obviously made a substantial contribution to the pressure which forced the Home Office to close the graveyard (1) following an enquiry on 25th November 1881.

It is impossible to know the motives involved in these choices to inter a loved one in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, but it is fun to speculate. One reason could be antagonism towards their local vicar leading them to worship in St. Clement’s. 

It could be a combination of the desire, with the industrial spread of Manchester during the middle of the 19th century, for a more idyllic place to bury loved ones offered by the still rural Chorlton-cum-Hardy and the opportunity for some extra revenue for the parish the burial fees would provide. 

Finally, it has been suggested that in some instances there was either no local church or one with a very limited if any graveyard. Some also will have had relatives buried in St. Clement’s. This was the case with Maria Birley of Southport, Lancashire, the widow of Rev. William Birley who had been appointed St. Clement’s first Rector on 17th February 1843 and served in that post until December 1859. (2)     

In this category also is the burial of Frederick Cope on 26th February 1874 whose home address was by far the most distant. After a successful career as a wine merchant in Manchester, when he resided for a time at Oak Bank, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, he retired to his birth county, Warwickshire, viz, Campion Lodge, Leamington. Following his death there on 19th February 1874 his coffin was brought north, and he was interred in the same grave as his wife Elizabeth and two of his children Emily Simms and Frederick Adam (3)

To conclude, like Ann Ormrod, one of the Blackpool residents, William Hughes, was also a visitor to the area. In his case after attending a sale in Manchester he intended to call at Barlow Hall hoping to get a position there and to look-up some old friends in the area he knew from his previous work as a coachman at the Hall, for Sir William Cunliffe Brooks. 

Barlow Hall - 1910

The unfortunate man was “found drowned” that being the verdict of the inquest into the circumstances of his death held at Jackson’s Boat on 17th December 1864.

The matter was widely reported in the press as he was found in “The Moat” a pit in the garden of the home of a prominent banker Conservative M. P. and a Baronet!

Pictures, Barlow Hall – 1910 by Jenny Wylie http://www.british-history.ac.uk/image.aspx?compid=41427&filename=fig99.gif&pubid=288, others from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1) The order prohibited the opening of new graves and only allowed burials of those with a family plot and only if there was sufficient depth to adequately cover the coffin. The final burial was that of Thomas Caleb Butcher on 25th February 1916. (Blog story 22nd August 2020).

2) Rev. William Birley had become an inspector of schools and was the Rector of St. Stephen’s in Pendleton, Salford when he died on 27th July 1865, he was interred in his previous parish’s graveyard. Interestingly the entry in the burials register of St Clement’s shows that his abode was first entered as Chorlton-cum-Hardy before being amended to Pendleton.

3) Both of Fredericks children buried in this grave died young. His daughter, Emily Simms was just 13 years old when she died in April 1846.  Frederick Adam, his only son, died in a tragic suicide when he shot himself in the evening of Friday 1st July 1853. (Blog story 24th October 2015)

Secrets from a Chorlton grave yard ……

I am looking at the remains of a clay pipe dating from around 1831.

King William lV pipe 1831-37

I can be fairly confident of that date because 1831 was the year of the coronation of William lV and our pipe carries a reference to that coronation.

The mystery is how it got to be in the graveyard.  Eric of Needham Avenue will be quick to advance outlandish explanations, but I suspect it was just lost or thrown away, but could of course belong to one of our gravediggers.

It was found along with a selection of coins, tokens, buttons  and a ring during a series of archaeological digs, not long before the graveyard was landscaped.

The dig in 1981

Now the trouble with archaeological digs is that for most of us they look just like a jumble of unconnected holes in the ground with a few bits of stone poking up out of the earth.

Which pretty much seems to be the case from this picture taken in 1981 of the old parish church during the dig conducted by Angus Bateman

He began “some exploratory and very amateurish digs, at weekends, intermittently between October 1970 and August 1972” * and concluded he needed to gain more experience in running a dig and to this end enrolled in a course in archaeology at Manchester University.  

The subsequent 1977 dig formed the project for that certificate and led on to further digs culminating in the 1980-81 season which was carried out with South Trafford Archaeological Group.

The graveyard, 2012

The excavations and the subsequent research undertaken by Angus have helped with an understanding of the two churches which stood on the site from about 1512 till 1949 and a possible dating sequence for the extension of the graveyard in the early nineteenth century.  

The fragments from the later church were carefully analysed and recorded and in some cases Angus was able to track the manufacturers, some of whom were still trading in the 1970s.  He also undertook a very detailed record of all the gravestones, including an analysis of the style and composition of the inscriptions and some work on the light they threw on life expectancy amongst the young in the township.

Location; Chorlton Graveyard

Pictures; the fragment of the King William lV pipe from the collection of Angus Bateman, the dig in 1981 from the Lloyd Collection and the graveyard in 2012 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Bateman, Angus J., Excavations and Other Investigations at Old St Clements Church Yard Chorlton Manchester 1977, Report of work done in part fulfilment of the Certificate Course in Methods of Archaeology, Extra-mural Department, University of Manchester, held by South Trafford Archaeological Group

That unusual picture of the old parish church ….. with a heap more

 This is one of my favourite pictures.

It has appeared countless times before on the blog, and I never tire of writing about it.

This is the old St Clement’s church which stood in in the parish graveyard on the edge of the village green.

I can’t be sure when the photograph was taken, but it was a Reaud picture postcard and was sent to a Miss Clay of Brooks Bar in the September of 1904.

By then the parish church which had served the township since 1800 had just another 37 years, before it was closed because of frost damage, and its congregation joined those of the new church on Edge Lane.

This tall brick church had replaced an earlier timber building which dated back to the early 16th century, and had originally been the Chapel of Rest for the Barlow family.

It is an unusual image and despite its “colorization” has a lot to offer.  Even after a good ten years of researching its history I have to say it is an ugly building, made more so by the two extensions added in the 1830s.

To our left is an old cottage which dates from the early 19th century and may already have been there when King George lost the American colonies.

In 1841 it was home to John and Mary Taylor. 

In the June of that year he had described himself as an agricultural labourer and a decade later aged 72 he was still working on the land while his wife took in laundry.

Now it is impossible to say which farm he worked for or whether he was part of the casual workforce which found work where they could, but there were three farms around the green and another along what is now Brookburn Road

They rented the house from John Renshaw who had owned properties around Chorlton and paid him 1/6d a week in rent. Now this was about the going rate for such a cottage although rents began at just over a shilling [5p].

The cottage stood on open land with fine views back across the green and out toward the Mersey. Like most homes of the day there was a small cottage garden.

Now using the tithe map it is possible to locate the spot the picture was taken and this was Lough Orchard Meadow which in 1845 was one of the fields James Higginbotham rented from the Egerton estate.

Like the surrounding fields it was meadowland which was set aside for growing early grass.  

Mr. Higginbotham rented land across the township, and lived in the farmhouse facing the church school across the village green.  His house is still there, although the barn beside it has been converted in to residential use.

I will leave it up to you to suggest exactly where that field is today.

Leaving me just to comment on the buildings to the east of the church which included another barn, while  lost behind the trees is the Old Bowling Green Inn, which dated back to the late 17th century and was torn down in 1908 to build the present pub.

And for those who like detail there are the arms of what will be a cart, sticking up into the air.

Pictures; St Clement’s Church, circa 1900, and Mr. Taylor's cottage, circa 1900, from the Lloyd collection 

Two pictures ….. and more stories

I have Steve Casson to thank for these two picture postcards of the old St Clements’s Church and the Bowling Green Hotel.

St Clememt's Church, date unknown

I don’t have dates for either, but the battered state of the cards suggests we are back in the 19th century.

And that distressed state adds to their impact, offering up heaps of possible stories, of who originally owned them, how they survived and how eventually they passed to Steve.

But there is even more.

So, in the case of the church there are those steps leading up to the rear of the old Bowling Green Hotel.  

I say old because the pub was demolished to make way for the present building which dates from 1908.

All of which suggests that our photographer was standing roughly on the site of the new pub.

I had never realized that the old pub stood on a slight rise.

The image also gives a fine view of the church from an angle I have also never seen, and along with the details of the windows and great east window there is the pipe of the Arnott stove which was used to keep the church warm.

Bowling Green Hotel, date unknown

The picture of the Bowling Green Hotel is one I am familiar with, but never ceases to interest me.

Steve has also passed over a series of newspaper clippings covering the removal of the headstone memorial to PC Cock who was murdered in Whalley Range, and an act of vandalism to the churchyard when gravestones were toppled over.

PC Cook’s story is in itself a fascinating one offering up an insight into how some mistrusted the Irish, after suspicion fell on the Hebron brothers who were agricultural labourers from Ireland.

Luckily for them the real murderer confessed.

Mr. Casson in the former churchyard, 1978

The memorial stone to the policeman was removed in 1956 to the head quarters of the Lancashire Constabulary at Preston, and in its place is a modest stone inscription close to the Lych Gate.

For years there was also a wooden noticeboard above the bar in the Bowling Green which recounted the story of the murder, but alas it disappeared a long time ago.

But at least we now have this collection of material connected to the church and graveyard.

Steve told me that "I would be confident that the photos were at one time in the possession of Fred maybe through his connections as verger". 

Mr. Casson had been a verger at the church from 1930 till its closure in 1940, he served in the Great War in the Lancashire Fusiliers and was the local window cleaner. 

Location; Chorlton graveyard

Pictures; the old St Clements’s Church and Bowling Green Hotel, undated, newspaper clipping from the Journal April 13th 1978 featuring Mr. Casson, courtesy of Steve Casson

Chorlton-cum-Hardy Vestry …… Disgraceful Proceedings

The world is full of breaking news, most of it grim.

The old Parish Church, circa 187o

So, here is what passed for breaking news in the March of 1865 across our own township.

“Last evening a meeting of the vestry was held  in St Clements School room, Chorlton-cum Hardy.

Before the proceedings commenced Mr. Charles Clark walked up to the table and took the chair.  He said  that the meeting was one adjourned from the vestry at which he had been elected chairman.  He was soon followed by the Rev. J.E. Booth, the rector of the parish , who taking a seat next to that of Mr. Clark, said he took the chair ex-offico”.

At which point one of the churchwardens got up and insisted that the Reverend take the chair, which was followed by competing shouts supporting and objecting to the suggestion, which in turn was followed by both Mr. Clark and the Rev. Booth attempting to speak at the same time.

Circa 1890

Mr. Clarke asserting, he would “not relinquish the chair , if he had to remain in the room till the next morning”, while the Reverend Booth replied that he “would take the chair legally or not”.

In the subsequent shouting and heckling from the meeting Mr. Clark could not be heard.

Happily order was restored and the meeting progressed, with an attempt at a resolution to the dispute which sought to end the great Church division, between those who wanted a new parish church and those who wanted to retain the old place of worship beside the village green.

This older church had begun as a chapel of rest, dating from the 1500, and was rebuilt in 1800 as the parish church.

But by the 1860s despite extension it had become too small, and there was a move a new one, on a site very close by.

All looked to be going well until Lord Egerton offered an alternative site on Edge Lane, which divided the congregation between the traditionalist and those who not only favoured Egerton’s offer but proceeded to raise money and begin building a new church.

1933

That church was completed in stages but while it could only carry out “divine worship”, leaving the task of baptisms, marriages and burial services to the much smaller and older church on the green.

A state of affairs which lasted until 1940 when it was closed because of frost damage, and all services passed to the new church.

But that was way into the future, when Mr. Clark and the Reverend Booth clashed in the old school hall.

The upshot of that tussle was that the meeting resolved to maintain the primacy of the old church, but it had been a fight to the end.

The modernists tabled a resolution calling on the bishop to side with them and transfer the funding from the Church of England to  the new church, but an amendment which recognized the new church but asserted that service should be retained in the old, and more importantly that the official funding should also remain with the old church was carried, “on a large majority in favour which was carried amid cheers and groans”.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; the old parish church circa 1870, from the collection of Tony Walker, and circa 1890 from the Lloyd Collection, and 1933, by F. Blyth, from A Short history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy by J.D. Blyth, 1933

Leaving me just to say that the full story can be found in The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and Chorlton-cum-Hardy Churches, Chapels, Temples, A Synagogue and a Mosque.**

* Chorlton-cum-Hardy Vestry …… Disgraceful Proceedings, Manchester Guardian, March 9, 1865

** The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, and Chorlton-cum-Hardy Churches, Chapels, Temples, A Synagogue and a Mosque, Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, 2018**

OK ….. Chorlton’s Lych Gate is officially reopened …..

Today on a crisp sunny day our Lych Gate was officially reopened.

Looking like new after its restoration, 2025

And I know that is a tad silly since it was built in 1887, and the scaffolding came down before Christmas after its renovation, but nevertheless today our three local councillors, along with friends of the Lych Gate and former graveyard gathered to mark the completion of the work of this much-loved local landmark.

Councillors and Friends mark the completion of the restoration work, 2025

The gate and tower have featured in countless photographs and even made an appearance on the cover of John Lloyd’s history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.*

So, it was fitting that Cllr Gary Bridges, the Deputy Leader of the Council was in attendance with Cllr’s Mathew Benham, John Hacking and Tina Kirwin McGinley to mark the occasion.

Also present was Peter Topping who along with Andrew Simpson was instrumental in setting up the Friends of Chorlton Graveyard which works to raise awareness of the importance of the former parish graveyard.**

The graveyard had its own makeover in the mid-1980s and with the passage of four decades needs a little care and attention.

The former parish graveyard, 2025

The group are interested in how the area could be improved along with the more basic need of more regular clearing of fallen leaves which obscure the grave inscriptions.

But for now a thankyou to the City Council who restored the gate and tower and to our three councillors who oversaw the project.

Location; Chorlton Parish Graveyard

Pictures; celebrating Chorlton’s iconic Lych Gate, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Lloyd, John, The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1972

**Friends of Chorlton Graveyard, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1381914932356270

Nostalgia ….. penny ago ….. memories of a past Chorlton-cum-Hardy

These are pictures of our Lych Gate on the green.

1979

They were taken in the winter of 1979, although I am well prepared to accept a date in the early 1980s.

And looking at them again after a passage of 45 years is to be struck by how dilapidated and neglected it had become.

1979

Once the proud gift of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks who lived at Barlow Hall and who buried their children in the parish graveyard just 90 odd years later it was in a poor state.

There were holes in the panels above the entrance, and boards had been placed over part of the elegant woodwork in the tower while the brickwork looked tired.

It would be another 14 years before the roof of the tower had some tender care and attention, and a full 45 years before the whole structure was restored using materials sympathetic to the original.

The finished project has received a lot of praise, but as ever with those comments came the inevitable ones which suggested Chorlton was no long what it once was.

And … yes on one level it is not what it was.  

It would be naïve to think after almost half a century almost anywhere is going to be the same.

1980

But for some the logical extension is that it is not so good.

And that got me thinking about the Lych Gate which certainly does look better than it did in 1979, and in turn the parish graveyard which had become neglected with some of its 360 head stones in a poor state, with some in danger of toppling over and others the subject to mindless vandalism.

The upshot was that in the 1980s it had had a make over which created a peaceful place with benches, bushes and trees, which in the years since have matured.

The downside, and there was a downside to the makeover was the loss of of most of the headstones, which recorded the names of those who had been buried here since at least the 18th century.

Those inscriptions were indeed a real set of historical records which have now been lost, and despite perhaps the good intentions of the planners their removal was an act of vandalism.

And while we do have a record of the inscriptions made by City Works in 1975, they can no way compensate for the disappearance of the originals.

2023

That said the graveyard had become a sorry place. The church which the headstones surrounded had been closed in 1940 and demolished nine years later bringing to an end a history of worship which stretched back to the early 16th century and perhaps even earlier.  

And in turn the graveyard had been locked off and pretty much neglected by most people, save for the odd trespassing kids and those interested in the inscriptions.

All of which makes it a tad easy and historically lazy to mumble things were better then.

They were different but I am not so sure they were better.  

At 75, I can remember a time when I lived in houses without central heating where in winter ice formed on the inside of windows, and when much of what we take as standard medical care was still in the realms of science fiction.

And when the much-vaunted local grocer’s shops had little variety and sold produce which was often close to its sell by date, and for a six year old telly on the one channel finished early, with programmes interrupted because the service broke down.

There will be few today who remember the BBC’s offering of the “Potter’s Wheel” or “London to Brighton in Four Minutes” which went on for ever while a clever technician fitted the fault.

2024

Of course I suppose on those day I could have climbed over the wall into the parish graveyard and read the inscriptions on the headstones and wondered who had had the job of ringing the bell in the Lych Gate tower on New Year’s Eve.

But that is perhaps another story for another time.

Location; Chorlton Green

Pictures; the Lych Gate, 1979- 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Ok everyone …. the Lych Gate is open again

It’s that brick, stone and wooden tower which is one of the iconic images of where we live.

2024

So much so that many of us take it for granted and barely realized that after 137 years it needed some tender care and attention.

2024

It had been erected to commemorate Queen Victoria’s jubilee, and was a bold statement of support for the old St Clement’s Church which dated from 1800 and stood on the site of an older wattle and daub chapel which had been built at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Today it is perhaps surprising to discover that there had been a time when we had two churches which both went under the name of St Clement’s and that this had its roots in the  Great Chorlton Church schism, when the congregation split over where to build a new church.

The 1800 building was seen to be too small and various sites for a new one were explored, but with no agreement one wing went off, accepted the offer of a parcel of land on Edge Lane and built a new church.

But the authorities retained the old church as the place for baptisms, marriages and burials, and one of the wealthy members of the congregation donated money to enhance the old church.

This was Cunlifee Brooks who lived at Barlow Hall and his donations included money for a grand new east window and the impressive lych gate.

2024

In 1993 the gate had a make over which concentrated on the roof of the bell tower.

But earlier this year a more extensive renovation was undertaken by the City Council looking to use materials which were sympathetic to the original.

The work was finished last week, and the scaffolding came down revealing the structure pretty much as it would have looked like in 1887.

And over the last week and a bit heaps of people have gone down to the green and taken their own pictures to which I now add mine, along with one taken back in 1980 when it had yet to reach its hundredth birthday.

Since then it has stood over a series of archaelogical digs, and watched as more than 350 of the headstones from the graveyard were removed and the site landscapped.

Location; The Lych Gate

Pictures; the restored Lych Gate, 2024, and in 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

1980