Past Kemp's Corner and up to Redgate Farm in the summer of 1900

Looking across the Isles, 1882

This is another one of those walks I would like to have taken if only to set the contrast from what I would have seen just fifty years earlier in the summer of 1853.

Now I have been writing about a series of walks that you could have made along what was then called Barlow Moor Lane north from the junction with Chorlton Row up past Lane End, and on into Martledge.*

We would have seen a few fine houses, a couple of farms, and a mix of more humble dwellings along with a pub and beer shop all surrounded by fields and the meandering Rough Leech Gutter.
But by 1893 the fields had all but gone, as had two of the farm houses, and the old wattle and daub cottages.

There was still a little of that old Chorlton to see.  Up where the Library now stands was Redgate Farm and just before it Renshaws Buildings which dated from the early 1830s and lasted well into the 1920s.

And tucked away in splendid isolation in their own grounds and hidden behind high walls were Beech House and Oak Bank.  These two dated back to the early decades of the 19th century and both in that summer of 1893 would soon also be demolished.

Renshaws Buildings circa 1900

In their place would be the houses that still line Barlow Moor Road and Manchester Road.

These were the product of the housing boom from the 1880s and were the homes of the professional, business and clerical families, many of who used the newly opened Chorlton station to get into the heart of the city in just ten minutes.

Now although I fight it I am an old romantic and I don’t think I would have made much of this stretch of Chorlton in that last decade of the 19th century.

So what would we have seen from what is officially known as Chorlton Cross but is more now popularly called Four Bank Corner, or just the Four Banks?

The simple answer is not that different from today.  What is now the HSBC would soon become Kemps the Chemist and Harry Kemp’s name would be what this corner would be called well into the 1960s.

Sunwick House, circa 1900

Opposite was Sunwick House which is still there but is now the Royal Bank of Scotland and beyond down towards Redgate Farm there was a row of large detached houses set back from the road, while on the north side there were Renshaws Buildings and the old Royal Oak.

This dated back to the beginning of the 19th century and was pretty much just a beer house serving the local population, the thirsty farm labourers and the Manchester trade who had come out from the city for the walk and a drink in the countryside.

The present pub would not be built until the mid 1920s and would replace Renshaws Buildings.  It is still possible to see the kerb and bit of pavement beside the pub which once fronted the old property.

But all of that is a little in the future and so back in 1893 our walk would have taken us north of Sunwick past Warwick and Selbourne Roads up to the farm.

Sedge Lynn, 1885

We probably would not have really noticed the home of Aaron Booth which went by the name of Sedge Lynn.

It stood where Nicholas Road joins Manchester Road. Back.

In the 1890s Nicholas Road had yet to be cut and our little section was still part of Manchester Road which ran off down through what is now the car park of the precinct and over Wilbraham Road. And for those of a tidy mind I might just add that Wilbraham Road was still quite recent having been cut in the 1860s.

Now I have written about Sedge Lynn, Mr Booth and his fascination for amateur photography and it is his pictures which more than anything shows the dramatic transformation of this bit of Chorlton in the decade before our walk.

Looking across Manchester Road towards the station , 1882

In 1882 he took a series of pictures just after he had moved in looking west across the Isles into the area which is now Oswald Road and across Manchester Road towards the station.

Stand on the site of Sedge Lynn today and look towards the station and the view is obscured by the houses of Warwick, Albany and Keppel Roads, which is pretty much what you would have seen in 1893, but a decade earlier this was still open farm land.

Pictures; of Martledge in 1882 courtesy of Miss Booth, Sunwick from the Lloyd Collection and the corner of Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road from the collection of Marjorie Holms

*Chorlton Row is now Beech Road, Lane End is the junction between Sandy Lane, High Lane and Barlow Moor Road, and Martledge was the area north of the former Four Banks.

The Story of Sunwick - one of the Four Banks ...... a story from Tony Goulding

As the “Four Banks” is reduced to Three it is perhaps timely to record the history of this building which has marked the centre of Chorlton-cum-Hardy for over a century. 

Originally a private residence and surgery of successive doctors which was known as “Sunwick” as shown on this surviving gatepost.

Picture 2 - “The Gatepost”

Although this gatepost is on Barlow Moor Road Sunwick’s address was 40, Wilbraham Road.

Wilbraham Road was laid down in 1869 and its development began slowly initially from its opposite ends Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield and Edge Lane on the Stretford border. The section through Chorlton-cum-Hardy began a more rapid development outwards towards both extremities from 1880, the catalyst being the opening of the railway station on the 1st January, 1880. 

The first owner of “Sunwick” I have been able to identify was Dr. Andrew Denholm who is shown in the township’s rate books for 1885 to have occupied the property from the 7th October that year. In previous rate books he is recorded at Fern Bank, High Lane.

Dr. Denholm only stayed at “Sunwick” for a few months before he moved the short distance to 67, Wilbraham Road (1) which he named Duddingston House after his birth town in Midlothian, Scotland. He was replaced at “Sunwick” by Dr. George Byrne from the 7th February, 1886 who remained in the house until the middle of the first decade of the 20th Century when he was succeeded in turn by Dr. Henry William Case.

Although born in Scotland, Dr. Denholm was raised in Doncaster, (2) South Yorkshire after his father, David, a smith had journeyed South, with his wife Margaret (née Fraser) and child (Andrew) to take up work in the railway engineering workshops in that town. He married Martha Fletcher in St. Mary the Virgin’s Church, Prestwich, Lancashire on the 21st June, 1884.

George Byrne was born in London in the December quarter of 1860. In 1871 his family is recorded at 141, York Street, Cheetham, Manchester. His father who was born in 1817 in Ireland was a Commercial Traveler for a Fustian Warehouse. His mother, Elizabeth was born in Hutton, Berwickshire, Scotland in 1825.

George was one of 4 children the eldest of 3 sons and is shown on the census return as a medical student at London University. He next appears in the on-line records in the entry for February 5th, 1886 described above. George married Florence Annie Walthew B. A., a graduate in French (1894) of the (Victoria) University of Manchester at St. Chrysostom's Church, Victoria Park, Rusholme, Manchester on the 16th June, 1897. After a reference (3) to him attending the funeral of his father-in-law George Walthew, who had moved to “Churchfield” on Edge Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, on the 28th July, 1905 I have found no further evidence linking him to “Sunwick”. The 1909 electoral register indicates that Dr. Case had taken up residence.

Dr. Henry William Case was a native of the Furness area of Lancashire being born at “Green Bank”, Ulverston in the September quarter of 1867. His father, Robert Fell, from a family of wine and spirit merchants, passed on before Henry William’s first birthday and was buried at the town’s Holy Trinity church on the 30th May, 1868. His mother, Agnes Harriet (née Longbottom), who was born in 1840 in Minster-in-Thanet, Kent, was left with 3 young children;

Henry William, his year older brother Robert Henry and younger sister Mary Fell who was born in the December quarter of 1868.

Henry William Case was placed on the Medical Register in Scotland on the 13th August, 1893 having qualified with an M.B. and a C.M. (Mast. Surg.) at Edinburgh University.

He married Constance Mary Kenworthy of Hampton House, Edge Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy at St. Clement’s Church on the 19th January, 1897. His mother and brother were both witnesses to his marriage. 

Dr. Case occupied premises on Stamford Road, then at “Fulham”, 2, Groby Road, and 2, Maple Avenue before moving to “Sunwick”. Dr. Case and Constance Mary had three daughters; Dorothy Fell Kenworthy (September quarter, 1901), Molly Fell (September quarter, 1905) and Betty Fell (December quarter, 1912). During the First World War served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and attached to the 8th Battalion, Manchester Regiment from June 1915 with the rank of Captain. Subsequent to his demobilization he joined the Cunard Line as a ship’s doctor and surgeon, sailing on both the Aquitania and the Mauretania. Around 1924 he moved his family to Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex where he died, following an operation at the Bexhill Hospital on the 22nd December, 1934.

The exact date the property became a bank is unclear but it seems likely that it coincided with Dr. Case’s removal to Sussex in 1924. It was definitely a bank by 1933 when it appears in the Kelly’s Directory of that year, as Williams Deacon Bank with a Mr. J.H. Wright the bank’s manager. This photo, dated 1929, taken by A.H. Clarke also shows part of the building as a bank.

This ties in with the history of Williams Deacon’s Bank as given in The Nat West Group’s Heritage Hub. Founded in 1836 as The Manchester and Salford Bank with offices in Mosley Street, Manchester. 

It expanded both by opening new branches and taking over other local banks. One such, in 1890, was Williams Deacon a Private Bank which had been its London agent from its foundation. “Williams Deacon” was added to the banks name and in order to keep membership of the London Clearing House its head office was transferred to Birchin Lane in The City of London. 

In 1901 reference to Manchester and Salford was dropped from the bank’s title a reflection of its geographical expansion. In the immediate post-war years 1919-1922 the bank rapidly expanded opening 52 new branches, of which Chorlton-cum-Hardy would seem to have been one. 

The boom was short-lived and as the 20’s decade advanced trade especially in the bank’s heartland of Lancashire went into a decline then came the Wall Street Crash in October, 1929. Williams Deacon’s was in difficulties with mounting bad debt. A “bail out” was needed and in 1930 it was purchased by the Royal Bank of Scotland, although it continued to trade under its former name as a subsidiary of its parent company until 1970. This year saw a reorganization of The Royal Banks subsidiaries and Williams Deacon merged with Glyn Mills & Co. and some 38 branches of The National Bank to form Williams and Glyn’s Bank. At its incorporation into the new bank Williams Deacon were operating 288 branches. 

Williams & Glyn’s lasted until 1985 when a further re-structuring saw the two major subsidiaries of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group merge. From that year the bank operated as the Royal Bank of Scotland until its demise on the 15th August, 2018.

In closing I like to share this photo of the buildings stained glass windows, which were kept when it was turned into a bank, in the hope that they remain after its next transformation.

Tony Goulding ©2020

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Sunwick, 2020 from the collection of Tony Goulding, and in 1929, A.H. Clark, m17430, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Notes:

1) Dr. Denholm is on the electoral register residing at 67, Wilbraham Road in 1910 but the following years census records him as having retired to live in Feltham, Staines, Middlesex. His replacement was the exotically named Hedley Gascoyne Daft who was a widower under tragic circumstances as having married Ethel Rose Wilshaw in Leeds on Valentine’s Day, (14th February), 1910 he was bereaved of his young partner during the December quarter of the same year.

2) In the census of 1861 the family is recorded at 7, Whitaker Street, Doncaster, Yorkshire and in addition to Andrew and his parents the household also included his younger sister 6-years-old Helen and his aunt Helen Fraser.

3) As reported in the following days edition of the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser

Kemp’s Corner .... the Four Banks and Bank Square ....... names that speak of our history

The news that the RBS Bank in Chorlton is to close in August is sad news and more so because according to press reports, the closure of 162 branches across the country will lead to the loss of 800 jobs.*

Sunwick, circa 1900

How the closure will impact on the staff here is unclear, and nether the Guardian or the Manchester Evening News** who also reported the story give any indication of the potential job loss.

And the news of the closure has led to a deal of speculation on the future of the popular name the “Four Banks”, for the junction of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads.

In a lapse of judgment I joined in, but on reflection it is a little in bad taste, given the loss of one of our local banks.

Not that what I say or think will change the decision or the speculation.

So instead I will return to one of my popular preoccupations which is how place names evolve.

For years the spot was known as Kemp’s Corner after Harry Kemp’s Chemist shop which occupied what is now the HSBC Bank and was a popular meeting place well into the late 1960s.  Before that, there is a reference in a picture postcard to the junction as Bank Square.

Kemp's Corner and Sunwick, circa 1900

What all three have in common is that they were popular names which arose from ordinary usage and have been more enduring than the official title of Chorlton Cross.

And that leads me to the building which is at present inhabited by the RBS.

It was called Sunwick and the name is there on one of the stone gate posts facing out onto Barlow Moor Road.

In 1911 it was home to Mr and Mrs Case, their two children and three members of staff.  Mr Case described himself as a “Doctor of Medicine” and playing to the stereotype his handwriting is all but illegible.

But I can make out that amongst the three servants, there was Jesse Lambert who was 30 and was employed as the cook, Mary Carpenter, the Housemaid and Sara Brow who is listed as “waitress”***

Sunwick was a large house consisting of 11 rooms, with small gardens at the back, front and eastern side, and was encompassed by a tall brick wall.  A little of the wall still survives on Wilbraham Road in front of that low level addition to the original building.

Sunwick, 1896

The property was distinctive enough for the map makers to include the its name on the OS map for 1896 and it appears to have been built sometime around 1885, when it was occupied by a Dr Andrew Denholme who sold it onto Dr George Byrne in February of the following year.

Dr Byrne was still there in the early years of the last century and by 1911 was home to the Case family.****

All of which points to the property having been associated with doctors from the outset.

A close trawl of the directories will offer up the moment it passed from a residential property to a bank, which it certainly was by the 1930s.

But, as what it will become that is idle speculation although some may assume it will become another bar, leading one wag to rename the junction, three banks and a bar.

We shall see.

Location; the Four Banks

Picture, Kemp’s Corner and Sunwick circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection and Sunwick in 1896, from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archive Association, digitalarchives.co.uk/

*RBS to close 162 branches with the loss of 800 jobs, Julia Kollewe, The Guardian, May 1 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/01/rbs-to-close-162-branches-with-loss-of-800-jobs

**RBS to close 31 branches in Greater Manchester and Cheshire, Ravender Sembhy & Stuart Greer, Manchester Evening News, May 2 2018, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/rbs-manchester-branch-closures-list-14600276

***Census, Enu 18 664, Didsbury, South Manchester, Lancashire, 1911

****Manchester Rate Books, 1885-1900