Sedge Lynn …….. the missing picture

Now I am looking at a photograph of Sedge Lynn on Manchester Road.

Two Sedge Lynn's .... for the price of one picture, circa 1907-1920

It stood on the site of what was the cinema and later still the Co-op Undertaker’s and its name has now been appropriated by the Wetherspoons pub which in turn was once a temperance snooker hall.

The house dates from 1882 and was the home of the Booth family, who occupied it from when it was built till it was demolished in 1919 or 1920.

It consisted of eleven rooms and the rear offered up views across the fields towards Stretford.

Sedge Lynn, circa 1907-1920

The house and the family have fascinated me for a decade, and I have written about them along with the story of the cinema and the temperance hall. *

Mr. Arron Booth was a successful businessman and a photographer, and we have some fine pictures taken by him of Chorlton in the 1880s, including one looking out on the back garden and across to Longford Hall when the area was still open land and known as the Isles.

One of his daughter’s Ann Shepley Booth owned a private school on High Lane which later transferred to Napier Road, in what appears to be a swap with a Mr. Dadley.

He ran a Grammar school was looking for a larger premises and so transferred his school to 59 High Lane, and later extending into the neighbouring property.

But for those more interested in the Weatherspoons next door, is that irony that it began as a temperance hall, built by the Temperance Billiard Halls company with office in Pendleton.  In 1911 the company had halls across the city and beyond.**

The Temperance Hall, circa 1907-1920

These included Moss Lane East, Stockport Road, Rochdale Road, Ashton Old Road, Bury New Road, Broad Street, Eccles New Road, Liverpool Road, Station Road, Altrincham, Cross Street Sale, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Wilmslow Road, Rusholme, Hyde Road in Gorton, Stretford Road, Old Trafford and Cheetham Hill Road. 

All were built to a basic design with those large windows along the roof to admit the maximum amount of daylight.  Some still survive but have morphed into different uses, from a restaurant in Urmston to garages and supermarkets.

Ours in Chorlton long ago lost its temperance connection but remained a place to play snooker until quite recently.

Leaving me just to thank George Cieslik who kindly gave me permission to use the image and point out that the lamp post outside the house was still there in the 1950s.

Location; Manchester Road, Chorlton

Picture; Sedge Lynn circa 1907 -1920, from the collection of George Cieslik

*Sedge Lynn, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Sedge+Lynn

**Temperance, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Temperance

Another of Chorlton in the mid 1980s

Now sticking with pictures of Chorlton’s recent history, here is another from the camera of Tom McGrath taken in 1985.

It speaks for itself but if you want the original story it is From Temperance snooker hall to a Wetherspoon's pub.

And then you can wander off to follow up on Temperance Halls or  Chorlton in the 1980s.


Picture;  by Tom McGrath

Down on Rochdale Road ……. with the Embassy Club

This is Peter Topping’s painting of the Embassy Club on Rochdale Road.

For many it will of course be one of the venues across the City where you could still watch live entertainment.

But for me who collects Temperance  Billiard Halls, this is another one for the collection.

The Temperance Billiard Halls were an important aspect of the Temperance Movement and  many in the were built by The Temperance Billiard Hall Co Ltd, which had been founded in 1906 and was based at 3 Ford Lane in Pendleton.

In 1911 the temperance empire, included sites on Moss Lane East, Stockport Road, Ashton Old Road, Bury New Road, Broad Street, Eccles New Road, Liverpool Road, Station Road, Altrincham, Cross Street Sale, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Wilmlsow Road, Rusholme, Hyde Road in Gorton, Stretford Road, Old Trafford, Cheetham Hill Road, as well as this one on Rochdale Road.

I can’t as yet be sure when it was built, but it will be sometime between 1903 and 1909.  Nor can I be quite sure when it closed, but I do know that in 1958 it became Bernard Manning’s Embassy Club.

And along with places like the Golden Garter in Wythenshawe, the Princess Club and the Mersey Hotel, it was a place to enjoy live entertainment at a time when many people were opting to stay at home in front of the television.

In the case of the Embassy Club the big attraction was Mr. Manning himself, and here there is a great divide between those that found him funny and those that thought much of his act was at best questionable and at worst offensive.

Personally, I didn’t find him funny, but then nor did I like most of the “alternative comedy” which in the 1980s came to dominate both television and a lot of the cubs.

All of which I suspect flows from the fact that I was brought up with the Goons, ITMA, and the Glums, and pretty much stopped laughing after Beyond the Fringe and That Was The Week that Was.

Location; Harpurhey

Painting; The Embassy Club © 2012 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures. www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

When you collect stuff ……….. always go for the big items ..... Temperance Halls

 Now many and varied are the things I collect.

And a long time ago, I put aside cigarette cards, old Eagle comics and period picture postcards for the really big things.

The things you would class as street furniture, ranging from coal hole covers, to roadside gas lamps and  ghost signs.

Even larger are temperance snooker halls of which there are still a fair few in Greater Manchester.

As far as I am aware most are no longer used for their original purpose, but long ago were converted into workshops, restaurants and in the case of the one in Chorlton transformed into a Weatherspoons.

They were built by The Temperance Billiard Hall Co Ltd which had been founded in 1906 and was based at 3 Ford Lane in Pendleton.

In 1911 the temperance empire, included sites on Moss Lane East, Stockport Road, Rochdale Road, Ashton Old Road, Bury New Road, Broad Street, Eccles New Road, Liverpool Road, Station Road, Altrincham, Cross Street Sale, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Wilmlsow Road, Rusholme, Hyde Road in Gorton, Stretford Road, Old Trafford and Cheetham Hill Road. 

And into the collectors box today goes this one collected by Alan Jennings.

It is on Bolton Street in Bury, and as yet I am not sure if it was built by The Temperance Billiard Hall Company, but it looks like the others.

So thank you to Alan.

Location; Bolton

Picture; former Temperance snooker hall, Bolton Street in Bury, 2020, from the collection of Alan Jennings

*Temperance, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Temperance

          &

Snooker Halls, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=snooker+halls

Chorlton’s own snooker club ………..

This is how I remember the old Temperance Billiard Hall which opened in 1907 and was part of an influential movement.*

1990s

The hall was one of a number opened across Greater Manchester, which pretty much conformed to a uniform design.

Most have gone, with a few being adapted to industrial or retail use.

Ours survived, continuing to offer up billiards and at some point, morphed in to the Chorlton Snooker Club.

I can’t be exactly sure when the picture was taken but it will be in the mid to late 1990s, by which time the exterior had been much mucked about, and part of the hall was rented out to a taxi firm.

1958

All very different from the beginning of the 20th century when the power of the movement was such that plans for the rebuilding of two Chorlton pubs. 

The Bowling Green after initial objections went a head in 1908, but The Royal Oak had to wait till the 1930s.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton Snooker Club, circa 1990s, courtesy of Steve, and the Temperance Billiard Hall, Chorlton, November 1958,  A.H. Downes, m18044, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*"Away, away with rum by gum," signing the pledge to forgo the demon drink
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Temperance

From Temperance snooker hall to a Wetherspoon's pub

It’s another one of those then and now stories.  

But because I like to reflect on some of the more recent changes to Chorlton I have turned again to the photographs of Tom McGrath.

Tom took a series of pictures in 1985 and revisited the same spot earlier this year and they are as revealing of what we used to be like as any contrast between pictures of the last century and today.

So here we are at the old Temperance Hall.  It had been opened as non drinking snooker venue which is pretty much what it still was in 1985 and of course irony of ironies is now a pub.  But I have to say the owners have done well to save a place which might otherwise have been demolished.

Pictures; by Tom McGrath

In Urmston

The hall in 1988

Now I couldn’t resist using this image of the old Temperance Hall in Urmston.

I passed a few years back and of course didn’t have my camera, and while I promised myself I would go back I never have.

So it’s a thank you to Angie Thomas who posted it recently on facebook.

And for those who compare it with our own hall which is now ironically a pub they can visit my earlier stories, Sedge Lynn, ...... the story behind the picture, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/sedge-lynn-story-behind-picture.html and
From Temperance snooker hall to a Wetherspoon's pub
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/from-temperance-snooker-hall-to.html

Picture; courtesy of Angie Thomas

Sedge Lynn, ............ the story behind the picture

It is a place I have just taken for granted but I see now something of the original designer’s intention.

This was a building meant to attract people. Even on a drab grey day with that fine drizzle and the grime from countless coal fires any one passing would have been drawn to it. For a start there are the tiles which are a mix of shades of green which complement the coloured glass and the exotically designed entrance.

I am pleased Wetherspoons saved the building because it could have suffered the same fate as a similar building in Urmston which has lost its frontage to an inelegant extension, so that all that remains is the curved roof rising above a poorly constructed entrance.

But there is an irony in the use that Wetherspoons have put the place and as ever there is a story, which is why Peter and I have decided to come together. He paints the pictures and in the process records Chorlton at a moment in time and I dig deep and find out something of their past. And there is a story here in fact lots of stories. The building is the old Temperence Billiard Hall, so designed with its bright exterior to lure young men in and away from the pubs. We might sneer today at the idea of temperance but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries many working men were drawn in to pubs and the demon drink was responsible for some family misery. Not that it could be avoided, for many employers paid out in the local pub and even the sick and benefit clubs met in drinking places.


The hall was opened in 1907 and was designed with long roof windows to attract the maximum light.

But this is not the end of the story. Sedge Lynn was once a house situated where the old cinema and now Coop Funeral Directors stood. During the last twenty years of the 19th century it was home to the Booth family. Arron Booth was a comfortably off business man who owned a packing business employing 7 men, and sometime after 1881 they moved from Ardwick to Chorlton.

Now it is not entirely clear which of the Booth family was responsible but someone in the November of 1882 took a series of photographs of the area. These included a view from the back of the house across what was called the Isles and is now the land stretching out along Oswald and Longford Roads to Stretford. In 1882 it was what it had always been, an open expanse of land dominated by ponds which had been dug out for marl for the fields and clay for house bricks. Another picture looks out from the front across Barlow Moor Road to the railway station with nothing but fields and the occasional cottage.

I have yet to track the Booth family but they appear to have moved on before 1907.

Peter’s pictures hang in a number of venues across Chorlton and can also be seen on his facebook site Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Picture © Peter Topping 2011 http://www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk .