On Edge Lane with the Stretford Pageant sometime in the 1960s

I am back with another of those excellent photographs from the collection of Jack Kennedy.*

And this time we are with the Stretford Pageant sometime in the 1960s on Edge Lane just before the procession made its way into Longford Park.

Now there are many in Stretford and Chorlton who will have very fond memories of this event and I featured the memories of one Rose Queen from 1928 a few years ago.**

Jack’s picture perfectly captures the moment, so much so that there isn’t anything more to add.

Picture; Stretford Pageant, circa 1960s, courtesy of Dave Kennedy

*jack kennedy black & white photography https://www.flickr.com/photos/8188211@N02/sets/72157647573263194

**Memories of a Stretford Rose Queen in 1928 by Karen J Mossman, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/memories-of-stretford-rose-queen-in.html

When I lost a water trough ….. in Stretford in the summer of 1965

 I collect water troughs ….. eccentric perhaps but fun.

And had I been on Chester Road in the summer of 1965 this one would have made the collection.

But then in 1965 I was sixteen still living at home in southeast London and had yet to come across one of the passions of my life.  

Sixty years ago I might well have snapped this one, recorded its exact location, and returned decades later to check its fate.

Now I have no idea how many water troughs were made in the 19th century or for that matter how many have survived.

In London they were made and maintained by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association which is not the zippiest of names but neatly does the business.

It had been founded in 1859 as the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain Association and added the rest when it began providing fresh water for horses and cattle as well as fountains for the people of London.

According to Dickens’s Dictionary of London, in 1879 there were 800 fountains and troughs which on a hot day 30,000 people took advantage of the supply while a “single trough supplied the wants of 1,800 horses in day.”*

So, I shouldn’t be surprised that in my pursuit of water troughs I should keep turning up fine examples of ones that have lasted the course.

All of which leads me back to the Chester Road trough which the caption from the 1965 slide says was erected in 1874, and here’s the rub I can’t find it.

I have wandered down Chester Road using Google maps, checked out the route from the 1896 OS map, and even trawled the collection of old photographs from Trafford Lifetimes, but to no avail.**

That said someone will know, suggest where to look and perhaps surprise me with the fact that it now resides in one of the parks.

And even before the post went live, my friend Lawrence helped me out with, "I do remember it now. That’s the floodlights of Old Trafford in the background. 

They were four steel towers at each corner. Erected around late 1957 early 1958. Now demolished. That pub is the Dog and Partridge. Used to go drinking in there when I was 16. Now demolished and the Bishop’s Blaze pub was built there.

Chester Road was widened and the island went under tarmac and the horse trough disappeared. That area has fascinating relics of the early 20th Century. I think the building behind the camera now a Halfords tyre fixing garage was a factory for motor cars.

It's the starter for ten.

Location; Stretford

Pictures; the Stretford water trough, Chester Road 1965, from the 1965 Collection 

*quoted from Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Drinking_Fountain_and_Cattle_Trough_Association

**Trafford Lifetimes, https://apps.trafford.gov.uk/TraffordLifetimes/

Where are you now? .....not quite lost but now very found

I am guessing there will be a very simple answer which will make me look daft, but I wonder where this milestone is now? And of course there was ..... jist read to the bottom.

The "Old Mile Post", 1965

It was according to the caption the “Old Mile Post, Chester Road, Stretford, (outside St Matthews Church)”.

Now I was there a few months ago and couldn’t see it.

But back then I wasn’t looking for it, and indeed only discovered it last week when I was looking through a set of colour slides, donated by the daughter of the chap who took the pictures.

In all there are 32 images, which cover Manchester, Salford, Stretford, Wythenshawe and Chorlton.

The collection was made in the summer of 1965, and are mix of industrial scenes, some historic buildings and a few of city centre Manchester.

So that is it.

My old fellow wanderer through the past, Bill Sumner has promised to investigate.

The Great Stone, 1965

Leaving me just to add the bonus picture of the Great Stone, which Historic England tells me “is probably the remains of a medieval boundary cross. 

It is now at the entrance to Gorse Hill Park but it originally stood on the south side of the Roman road from Manchester to Chester. 

It was moved here in 1925. It is also thought to have been used later as a plague stone. Plague stones had holes in, usually filled with vinegar, where money from an infected town could be placed so that trades people delivering food could collect it. 

This meant they did not have to come in to contact with those infected. The vinegar was thought to act as a disinfectant on the money”.*

So, 40 years after it was placed in the park it was the subject of a photograph, and while I can be sure of its location I bet there will be someone with an alternative explanation for its origin.

We shall see

Where Chris and others said it was, 2025

And sure enough the answer to the missing mile post has been solved.

It is outside the St Ann's Chruch on Chester Road.  Apologies to all those who correctlty located it and to who I said it wasn't, and to Chris Geliher,who had the patience and the determination to offer up an image of the mile post in situ.

In my defence it is much smaller than I thought it would be in real life and missed it on my google maps trawl of  Chester Road.

*The Great Stone, Chester Road, Stretford, Greater Manchester, Historic England, https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/educational-images/the-great-stone-chester-road-stretford-8408

Location; Stretford

Pictures; Old Mile Post and Great Stone, 1965 from the 1965 Collection, and the Mile Post outside St Ann's Church, 2025, from Chris Geliher

The Stretford I never knew ………..60 years ago

It is 60 years ago that this collection of images was taken.

They cover Manchester, Stretford and out to Chorlton and Wythenshawe and are a mix of industrial scenes, some old historic buildings and more than a few of well-known city centre sites.

What they have in common was the year they were taken and that originally they were colour slides.

The collection was donated to me by the daughter of the photographer, but somewhere along the line their identity was lost, although I am still looking for the letter, email or Facebook message which alerted me to the names of the woman who donated them and the photographer.

I hope by posting them the donor will come forward and I can change the credit from the 1965 collection to a name.

These are image of the Stretford I never knew.

That said the first is vaguely familiar and is the junction of Edge Lane and Chester Road, but with differences.

The second is Longford Hall, which I may just remember, but never really bothered with and then it was gone. 

Like all of the32 I the collection they are a unique record of how things were in 1965.

Location; Stretford

Pictures, Edge Lane and Chester Road, and Longford Hall from the 1965 Collection

On Stretford Station with a bit of our railway past

It will soon be nearly a quarter of a century since the last train ran from Stretford station which means that memories of a time before the tram will be fading

Stretford Station, April 1961

I briefly used the station back in the 1970s and had no idea of its history or the railway line.

It had been opened in 1849 by the Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Railway and was in part designed to transport food grown in Altrincham and Stretford into the heart of Manchester and in time would challenge the Duke's Canal as the main means of carrying heavy goods in to Manchester.

I have no doubt it would have created quite a stir.

The men who built the line were viewed at best with suspicion and at worst with fear.  They had a well deserved reputation for hard drinking and rough behaviour which is no surprise given the dangers of the work they undertook.

Central Station, April 1961

And there may well have been a few of  our farm a labourers who were taken on to do some of the least skilled work while some of our farmers and market gardeners would have taken advantage of the line to move their crops to the Manchester markets.

But its impact was also to start a wave of house building along Edge Lane.

The train offered the quickest way into town and allowed those who earned a living in the city to escape to what was still the countryside.

Of course by the time I used the train Edge Lane and the surrounding area had long lost any semblance of countryside, but the station still looked like an old fashioned railway, which is where my fiend Ann comes into the story.

She “found these the other day, tucked away. Stretford station in 1961, and Manchester Central, probably a similar date. I used to travel from Stretford to Oxford Road Station, spending my time on the journey drawing the other passengers.”

And so after sixty-two years a little bit of what an old railway station looked like is here to see again.

Now that is not so daft given that Stretford has become a Metro Stop with shiny yellow trams and Central having long lost its trains is now an Exhibition Centre.

Pictures; Stretford and Central Stations, April 1961 courtesy of Ann Love