Mending the light bulb on Randolph Street in 1962 ..... when gas was king

 Now, there is so much going on in this picture that its hard to know where to start.

But I suppose it is the man with the ladder, mending the street lamp.

He appears in several different pictures in the collection and was clearly being followed around.

Just why is now lost, but I suspect as the collection was originally from the City Council it will be to do with maintenance of Corporation property and possibly the problem of vandalism.

Some of the images show a broken glass covering.

In another the man appears to repairing the bracket or gas pipe, and yes I think this might be a gas  street lamp .

And before Eric of Northenden takes me to task, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that gas street lamps were still in use in Ardwick in the 1960s.*

All of which is confirmed by a small story in the Manchester Guardian which reported on February 22nd, 1966 that the “City’s last gas lamp” was taken down.  In a ceremony, attended by “50 people , including civic chiefs, gas officials, residents and cameramen, who crowded the top of Aden Street, Ardwick, yesterday  to say farewell  to the last of Manchester’s one time 21,682 gas lamps.

The lantern of gas lamp No. 1635 was taken down and ceremoniously presented to Councilor Joe Ogden, chairman of the gas lighting committee who said he would offer it up to Manchester Museum as a souvenir”.**

That momentous event was still four years away when our man put his ladder up against the lamp post on the corner of Randolph Street, and drew the attention of children, who may have been more fascinated by the photographer than the lamp man.

Either way they broke off from playing in the street to watch, not that the two lads in the distance, the window cleaner or the woman on her way to the corner shop seemed at all bothered.

There were two Randolph Streets listed in the directories, one in Crumpsall and the other in Levenshulme, and I am minded to think this is Crumpsall.

Although I could be wrong, probably am, leaving me confident that someone will know.

Location; Manchester

Pictures,  Gas Street lamps, Manchester, 1962 -3691.4 and 1962 -3692.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester Gas Lighting, https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=736794.0

**City’s last Gaslamp, Manchester Guardian, February 22nd, 1966

A little bit of Derbyshire's history .... in the Lake Didstrict

 It has been a while since I inducted an object into the Street Furniture Hall of Fame.

This one comes from the Lake District and was uncovered by a chum last week.

Like all the inductees it comes with a history which in this case starts in two places in north Derbyshire. 

Stanton and Stavely were centres of iron manufacture in the 19th century.

Stanton began making iron products in 1846 and Staveley in 1863. 

They merged in 1960 and were nationalized in 1967, only to be priviatized later, acquired by a French company before the works in both places were closed down in the early 21st century.

I will leave it to someone else to explain the rest of the inscription.

For the very interested, there are various sites for each company detailing their history, their significance to the local econmies and their fate, with heaps of pictures.

Location; the Lake District

Picture; from a chum, 2025

When a smelly sewer was just one too many

Now I am pretty much sure I am going to be corrected today or at the very least attract someone who knows more about 19th century sewer ventilation pipes than I do.

But I grew up with one at the top of our road in south east London. It is still there today as is the one my brother in law took a picture of in Plumstead. Of course when you are growing up you take bits of street furniture for granted. Well I did anyway.

Ours was tall made out of iron and was always painted a pale green although the one in Plumstead is more a pale blue. But I digress.

They were for venting the sewers of the more obnoxious and even dangerous gasses which could accumulate down below. I suppose they are still necessary today.

Our Colin reckoned he heard running water when he took one picture of the base.

Now I have not come across one in Manchester but I bet there will be someone who has, and posts the fact with perhaps a picture.

I expect they help date the area.  One source I read suggested that they were erected in the years after the Great London Stink in 1858 and this would fit roughly with when my bit of Peckham was being laid out. They were particularly necessary in hilly areas where gas could get trapped in pockets, and both my bit of Peckham and Colin’s Plumstead are built on hills.

And at least one chap got in on the act and in 1895.  Joseph Edmund Webb, of Birmingham, patented the “Webb’s Patent Sewer Gas Destructor" in  March 1895. At its top, behind a glass, burned a small flame from the town’s gas supply. This acted as a chimney, drawing the sewer gas up to the flame, where it was ignited, thus illuminating the street. The cleverness of Mr Webb’s patent was the way it regulated the supply of sewer gas.

North Tyneside council has restored ten in Whitley Bay and Monkseaton. Blyth council has restored five. Sheffield, though, is the capital of the destructor.

It was built on seven hills, so there were lots of folds and u-bends in its sewer system in which to trap gas.

From 1914 to 1935, it installed 84 destructors, of which 22 remain with three still at work, casting an orange glow on the Sheffield streets.*

And much to my surprise there is even a facebook page.

Which I think might indeed be a fitting point to close on although I have yet to find  Henry Eddie & Co Ltd or the Bow Foundry.

Pictures; from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick   

*The Northern Echo July 2008 http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/memories/3211527.Is_this_just_the_tip_of_the_stink_pole_/

Of polo mints….. chewing gum ….. and Five Boy’s chocolate ….. the vending machine ...no. 1

Now at 74 those modern vending machines which are built like a house, offer infinite variety of things to eat do rather challenge me.

Polo mints in Chorlton, 1958

All of which is an alert to a grumpy story, which was brought on by the discovery of the DVD, “Classic Vending Machines of the 1960s. Film, Refreshing Look, Features Footage Of Classic & Vintage Vendo Antique Vending Machines For Cola, Soda, & Soft Drinks”.

It was rated as having 4 out of 5 stars, but alas was unavailable.  I doubt I would ever buy it, but it did rather fascinate me, and set me off thinking about those vending machines of my youth.

They were far less complicated than their great grandchildren and the earliest I used dispensed polo mints, chewing gum and Five Boy’s chocolate.  

They were sturdy, no nonsense machines, which made no demands on you other than put your money in the slot, turn the handle and watch as the item fell out.  

There were no flashing lights, no messages about how much money had been fed in, and no window to watch as the product made its way down from the holding position to the flap where it could be collected.

A slew of machines, on Princess Road, date unknown

Instead you put in the money, turned the handle, and waited, and if you were lucky you heard the mints or chocolate land with a thud where upon you could retrieve it. 

But sometimes you got nothing because the machine had not been refilled and like as not you didn’t get your money back either.

Added to which there was no guarantee the product was still within its sell by date.  

Too many times on deserted and grim railway stations the vending machine offered up bars of chocolate which were crumbly at the edges, covered in white dots and tasted stale.

I was too young to use cigarette machines, but by the end of the sixties there were those tall and robust machines which delivered cartoons of milk and orange juice., which were a life saver at the end of the day when all the shops had closed.

So, in memory of some of those machines, this is the first of a short series on those simpler style of machines.

Location; Manchester

Pictures, polo mints at 362 Barlow Moor Road, A H Downes, May 1958, m17608, and a slew of machines Princess Road, date unknown, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  and https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk

In Our Time ……..

Location; Beech Road

Picture; In Our Time, 2024, Beech Road. from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Always look down …….. travels across Tenerife encountering the interesting

Over the years I have inducted into the Street Furniture Hall of Fame, the historic, the bizarre and the nondescript and today it is the turn of a humble access plate for Alumbrado Publico Funca.

Now not speaking Spanish I assumed Alumbrado was a place, but it turns out to be the word for lighting, leading me just to   offer up the full translation ….. Funca Public Lighting.

And that is almost that, other than to thank Tony Goulding who wins this weeks commendation for recording the plate while on holiday in Tenerife and sharing his puzzlement at his second image of a circular plate arising from the bare earth on top of a concrete lump.

Happily his final offering was both easy to discern and an amusing mix of Spanish and English …….. “Loro Parque  El must de Canarias” “Parrot Park, The must of the Canary Islands”

So I await the holiday snaps of green parrot's grey lizards and offerings from the souvenir shop along with the menu of suitably themed meals from the the restaurant at the end of the Park, which judging from their site is more extensive and exciting than the poster would suggest.

For here they tell me "Modern zoos are embassies for animals and the ideal showcase for bringing the natural world closer to people.

We have been conceived as a place for animal care, scientific study, and awareness of the global environmental crisis, we are one of the most active links in the current animal and environmental protection not only in the Canary Islands, but throughout the world".*

And for those who might want to take the adventure, tickets in J

Location Tenerife tickets in June and July run from €42 for adults to €30 for children.

Pictures; the Spanish additions to the Street Furniture Hall of Fame, 2024, from the collection of Tony Goulding

*Lor Parque https://www.loroparque.com/en/

Lost in Prague .... with just some street furniture .... and a song

 So today l welcome into the Street Furniture Hall of Fame another great find. *

It is one of those cast-iron objects which I love so much.

Over the years I have inducted into the “club” a host of coal cellar covers, old gas lamps, finger posts, redundant parking meters, quirky litterbins and the odd gasometer.

And so today it’s a nice piece from Prague, collected by a chum yesterday and sent back from the “City of a Hundred Spires” and it is a good one, which not only does the job of helping the water run smoothy but carries that all important coat of arms and the bold announcement that it is part of "Prague sewage system".

My Wikipedia tells me that "the coat of arms was first introduced in the 15th century (when the city of Prague corresponded to what is now the Old Town district). 

It consisted of three silver towers on a red shield. 

In 1649, after the Thirty Years' War, Ferdinand III added an armour arm in silver holding a silver sword emerging from the city gate. This symbol represents the effective defence of the city against the Swedish army during the Thirty Years war. 

The coat of arms was inherited by the modern city of Prague upon its formation in 1784, when the four boroughs (Old Town, New Town, Hradčany and Lesser Town were unified".** 

There is more, but mindful it’s someone else’s research I will just offer the link for you to read the rest.

And that is it.

Location; Prague

Picture; a little bit of Prague, 2024

*Street furniture lost and saved, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Street%20Furniture%20lost%20and%20saved

**Coat of arms of Prague, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Prague#:~:text=The%20coat%20of%20arms%20of,lesser%20and%20a%20greater%20version.&text=The%20coat%20of%20arms%20was,towers%20on%20a%20red%20shield.

One hundred uses for a trolley pole …… nu 1. ……. the poster

The poster advertised a meeting at the Friends Meeting House on January 25th, and judging by the attempts to destroy it, somebody didn’t want to know  “Could Hitler Have Been Stopped?”

And of course this is the lead up to Holocaust Memorial Day which is why I suppose the small political group decided the question needed to be asked this month.

I have no idea how well attended the meeting was, but I missed it by a day.

Location; St Peter’s Square, Manchester

Picture; One hundred uses for a trolley pole …… nu 1. ……. the poster, from collection of Andrew Simpson

Skips make good presents …….

So why not ask for a skip for Christmas?

After all, they will solve your storage problems, and allow your neighbours to show off their discarded household items.

Added to which you can have endless hours of pleasure watching as successive Rag and Bone Men rummage through the half full skip.

And if you are very lucky there may be less in the skip after their visits than before.

Location; Guess

Picture; Skips make good presents, and The Treasures of skip watching, 2022, from the collection of a Skip Lover

Back on Lausanne Road with another bit of street furniture and the memory of a street game

Now I am back with the street furniture of my youth but for once it is something that hasn’t vanished and I am pretty much sure still does the business it was made to do.

So long after the water troughs have gone and the old red telephone kiosk has become a rarity outside the tourist haunts you can still find those tall ventilation shafts.

They were for venting the sewers of the more obnoxious and even dangerous gasses which could accumulate down below.

I have written about them in the past and have been drawn back with memories of the one on the corner of Lausanne Road.*

Of course back when I was growing up there I took it for granted, after all I passed it every day on my way to Edmund Waller and then Samuel Pepys and like pillar boxes and telephone kiosks it was so much part of the scenery as not to even warrant a second look.

But now I wonder if they have a future.  It may be that they remain indispensible but given modern technology their days may be over and they linger on until someone decides they are surplus to requirements.

That would be a shame because the one on the corner with Belfort still evokes memories of hot summer days when the tar at the side of the road had gone soft enough to play with and for what seemed an eternity we would draw it out using discarded lolly sticks.

Back then there was little to distract this street pastime for few cars passed along Lausanne Road and after the milkman had been there was only the weekly bin lorry and occasional rag and bone man to interrupt us.

All a little different from this picture of Gatling Road in Plumstead packed full of cars which will have to stand it for Lausanne Road.

I chose it because it too has a ventilation shaft and also because I have never got round to taking a picture of that bit of Lausanne Road.

But maybe some has and I would welcome a picture of that piece of Street furniture I played beside.

Pictures; Gatling Road, Plumstead, 2012 from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

*When a smelly sewer was just one too many, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Plumstead

A little bit of retail history ………. in the Arndale

Now I have never lost my liking for this bit of early 21st century retail technology.

It is in part the quirky shape, and the bold colours which I know someone will point out was less silly and more the demands of  logical technical design.

But I liked it, and now its gone.

Location; the Arndale, Manchester

Picture; Retail furniture, Manchester, 2003, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

101 ways to use a Chorlton telephone box …..the Calypso one

It’s just a sign of the times.

Once no one would presume to post adverts on the side of a telephone kiosk.

Which was partly because the old fashioned red one with all those tiny windows made it difficult.

Leaving the bold entrepreneur to leave his or her business cards discreetly positioned at eye level inside the box.

But not so now.

Location; Manchester Road

Picture, Calypso Kiosk, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

When the present becomes the past ...........

Now I am not a great fan of those revamped pubs which have been altered and themed.

This usually means just placing a few old photographs on the wall which may or may not be connected to the pub and adding the odd bit of period “stuff” ranging from an early 20th century sewing machine, scrubbing board or rusty enamelled sign for a long gone product.

But then Andy came up with this which he found in “in the Erskine Arms, Conwy”, and knew there was a story.

I remember Craven A cigarettes, and assumed they had gone the way of other brands like Senior Service, Consulate and Woodbines .

But according to my Wikipedia, not so.*

"Craven A is a British brand of cigarette, currently manufactured by British American Tobacco under some of its subsidiaries.  

The cigarette brand is named after the third Earl of Craven.

After the end of World War I, the cigarette market resumed its normal competitive spirit with the Carreras Tobacco Company once more well to the fore. Bernhard Baron, a director of Carreras, knew that to compete successfully his product had to be better than his competitors' and in 1921 Carreras launched Craven A, a brand that became a household name in over 120 countries with the slogan "Will Not Affect Your Throat". 

It was the first machine-made cork-tipped cigarette."*

There is more, but mindful that you don’t lift other people’s research I will just leave you to follow the link.

Not that I think our cigarette dispenser is now in use, leaving me to assume its role is purely decorative.

And reminds me that there is anecdotal evidence that some doctors placed cigarette machines in their waiting rooms in the 1930s, while no newsagents worth their News of The World would forgo placing similar machines outside their shops.

Leaving me just to reflect that I think I will do a bit more research on famous brands which have now faded from the scene.  

After all I grew up in a house where mother smoked and often chose new brands like Guards, and those menthol flavoured Consulate which fascinated me.

And in the case of Consulate lasted into this century.

Happily, I never took up smoking and was very happy when the habit was banned from public spaces, but that is another story.

But I still like catching sight of those old machines which somehow survive in the odd places.

Location; Erskine Arms, Conwy

Picture; Craven A in Conwy, 2022, from the collection of Andy Robertson, the forgotten machine in Deal, 2016, courtesy of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick

*Craven A, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craven_A

A little bit of Sardinia’s street furniture …. now that’s a zippy title

Now once again there will be people who mutter that I should get a life, but in these days of staying in, there is great merit in revisiting that series on lost street furniture.

And having trawled though a series of old photographs I came across these from Sardinia.

We were in Isola Rossa, and as you do I went looking for those old, fashioned drain covers, and was rewarded with not one but three all very close to where we were staying.

Like their British counterparts, each had a different design, and manufacturer.

And that pretty much is that.

Other than to say, in the fullness of time I shall track the company's down who made them and see where that leads.

Location; Sardinia

Pictures; drain covers I have taken a fancy to, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

101 ways to use a Chorlton telephone box …..

Today I am thinking about the revolution in communication which has put a mobile phone into almost everyone’s hand and made the humble telephone box almost a thing of the past.

True they have not yet passed into oblivion, if for no another reason than not everyone has their own personal phone.

But I remember the 1980s when competition between BT and Mercury led to a duplication of telephone boxes where the rival companies plonked the boxes down all over the city often right next to each other.

Added to which BT went on an aggressive programme of installing them in multiple units, sometimes within a short walk.

So, on Beech Road, there were two outside the old post office, another two on the corner of Wilton and a bank of them at the bus terminus.

And now this old form of communication seems to be in retreat.

There are fewer of them, they do not seem to be mended as quickly and many have been given over to other uses, from libraries to shops and museums.

Of course, I know that there were more dubious uses for the boxes, and even before their decline, they were the repository of all sorts of cards from those advertising taxis to those inviting the reader to sign up for other services.

Today many stand forlorn and have become victim to heaps of posters which I suppose makes them still in the business of communication, even if the posters are often quite tatty.

Leaving me just to think back to the time when you could dial a song, reverse the charges or just push button B to get your money back.

And if you were in the know, and had that long series of numbers which were allegedly used by GPO engineers to phone the Exchanges you could make a call for free.

Sadly my innate sense of honesty always stopped me ..... that and a serious mistrust that a] it wouldn't work and b] I might somehow get caught.

Location; Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton

Pictures; 101 ways to use a Chorlton telephone box, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Railway architecture …….. no. 1 .......

Now not all railway architecture needs to be grand or be particularly memorable.

But I like this one, which carried one of the railway lines into the Great Western Warehouse.

Today it is just one of a number which occupy a space used for car parking off Bridgewater Street.

Location; off Deansgate

Picture; railway arch, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Hidden …. forgotten ….. and neglected ….. a piece of our old technology

Now I remain fascinated by those odd bits of our old technology, and so is my friend Barbarella who came across this box.

She told me “It was above a train line, in Cheadle, just passed the Mersey and before the Garden Centre”.

And I think it is a Lucy box, which according to I Spy Lucy Boxes, "is a name applied to boxes, about 3 feet high, about 2 feet wide and about 18 inches deep, which are to be found on pavements throughout the city.*   

Such boxes were originally used in connection with the tram network and then with the trolley bus network; and as part of the general electricity supply network; and for telephone purposes…….. 

The name 'Lucy box' was applied to these boxes because the great majority of them, in the early days at least, were made by the Lucy Foundry in Oxford.**

The equipment in them was used to isolate a section of the tram or trolley bus route - that is, to stop electricity running through that section. 

It could also be used to make the route solid, that is, you could make the electric current bypass the isolating components in the box; this would enable you to work on the box while the trams or trolleys continued running”. 

Of course I might have got this terribly wrong, but then someone will tell me, which is the joy of the blog.

Location; Cheadle

Pictures, what Barbarella saw, 2022, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento

*I Spy Lucy Boxes, http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/lucy/lucyboxes.htm

**W. Lucy & Co., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Lucy_%26_Co.

Left on Beech Road ...... the street furniture collection

Street furniture takes many forms ........... two from Beech Road, yesterday.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Left on Beech Road ...... street furniture, 2022 from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

A pair ………

Together on Market Street

Location; Manchester

Pictures; a pair, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

Street furniture I love ….. back by popular demand ……. the one in Sacro Monte

I say back by popular demand, but I fear only a handful of friends share my interest, but no matter.

And of all the different forms of street furniture, my favourite has to be the heavy metal cover, which might sit over a drain or a coal hole, or event an old telephone conduit.

Either way they are something to marvel at and enjoy.

This one comes from Sacro Monte, Varese

Location, Varese.

Picture; drain cover, Varese, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson