What was lost is found .... the continuing story of Little Ancoats Street

 History hasn’t been kind to Little Ancoats Street.

Little Ancoats Street from Newton Street, 2019

It is one of those very narrow streets, which has never warranted much in the way of official recognition.

It once stretched from Dean Street, across Newton Street, and almost but not quite running out on to Lever Street.

Today the bit from Dean Street to Newton Street has vanished under a block of new build which was constructed in the last few years, and which wiped out the Lord Nelson pub, which was doing the business of serving beer and good cheer from at least 1841.

In that year the landlord was a Robert Walker, and a decade later it was run by a Mary Ann Belshaw and judging by the occupants listed in the Rate Books it appears to have changed hands frequently.

Little Ancoats Street from Little Lever Street, 2019

As for Little Ancoats Street, it  remains a bit of an enigma.  It shows up on maps of the early 1790s, but as yet there are no listings for who resided there in the directories, nor as yet can I find any entry in the census returns.

And that is slightly odd given that the southern side of the street consisted of residential properties during the middle of the 19th century.

Their absence from the street directories may just be because they were not worthy of inclusion, but they should appear in the census records, especially given that the surrounding streets are all included.

The stretch of Great Ancoats Street, and Ancoats Street which were either side of our street are there in the official records but not ours.

That said some of the buildings along the part of Little Ancoats Street from Little Lever Street may be the original residential properties shown on the maps of the 1840s and 50s, which may be as close as we get to their inhabitants.

But in time and widening the search I am sure the mystery of who lived in them will be revealed.

All of which leaves me with the Lord Nelson, which was demolished in 2010.  That building only dated from 1895, and while there is a suggestion that the original dates from 1830, the first reference I have is 1841.

Little Ancoats Street, 1851

Nor have the records revealed any details of either Mr. Walker  or Ms Belshaw, but I shall keep looking.

But as history often shows .... something always turns up.

And so today Derek Jackson emailed me with an extract from the 1841 census along witha death certificate for a Mr. James Owen who lived on Little Ancoat's Street.

They are a fascinating find, because with a name comes another opportuinity to search the records for the cenus returns and the stories of others who lived on this litte street.

I may even with Derek's permission explore the life of Mr Owen who was born in 1768, died in 1848 and who had been a "weaver", but on his death was described as a "labourer".

Now I have no idea if he was a handloom weaver that skilled occupation which was eclipsed by the coming of the power loom and the absorption of the trade trade into the factory system.

But if so his eventual job as a labourer might be seen as another casuality of industrilization. 

And as you do the census return showed him living with his wife. and a an Ann Jones aged 20 and her daughter of six months.

So a thank you to Derek.

Location; Little Ancoats Street,

Pictures; Little Ancoats Street, 2019, from the collection of Richard Hector Jones, and in 1851,  from Adshead’s map of Manchester 1851 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/


*Lost  Manchester Streets, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Lost+Manchester+Streets

Doing the Ancoats Trail …….. 39 years on … part two

Now, something like 39 years ago I did the Ancoats Trail, which had been designed by Jaqueline Roberts as a guide to what were left of our late 18th and early 19th century buildings.

So, armed with the trail I shall be off on a day when the rain is not falling like stair rods and complete part one of the trip back into the city’s past.

Watch this space.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures pages from the Ancoats Trail, 1984


*The Ancoats Trail, Jaqueline Roberts, Education Service, Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry

Doing the Ancoats Trail …….. 39 years on ...... part one

Now, something like 39 years ago I did the Ancoats Trail, which had been designed by Jaqueline Roberts as a guide to what were left of our late 18th and early 19th century buildings.

The Ancoats Trail, 1984

In 1815 Ancoats had more cotton mills and the largest number of households than any of the other rating districts in the city.

The population, swelled by large numbers of immigrants from Ireland as well as the surrounding area, rose from 11,039 in 1801 to 53,737 by 1861.

It was a crowded and teeming place, which visitors to Manchester either admired or like the Prussian, Johann Georg May thought was a “scene of melancholy.”

A view endorsed by another foreign visitor, who “saw the forest of chimneys pouring forth volumes of steam and smoke, forming an inky canopy which seemed to embrace and involve the whole place ......It is essentially a place of business, where pleasure is unknown as a pursuit, and scarcely rank as secondary considerations. 

The Bradley Street three, 1983

Every person who passes you in the street has the look of thought and the step of haste”

Richard Buxton who lived amongst the grime, smoke and melancholy was far more generous when he wrote, “The operative who lives in a large manufacturing town, sees plenty of the handyworks of his fellow-men in the giant steam-engine, the ingenious mule, which rivals the gossamer in spinning threads, the never-tiring power loom, and the countless other contrivances of mechanical skill which have resulted from the fertile brain of man.”

But this paean to industrial Manchester only serves to act as a contrast to the wonders of flowering plants and open fields. The worker might see “the triumphs of science and art but little of the works of nature. This renders him an intelligent, but to a certain extent, an artificial man.”

Bradley Street, 2016

It is no wonder I suppose that he should hold to the “many delightful walks, by pleasant streams through green woods.” All the more so when faced not only with the dirty industrial waterways, and satanic mills but awful hovels which were home to so many in Ancoats.

Speculators had followed the industrialist in laying out streets and building houses in the area and with no regulations much of the housing was of the worst type.

So here, are the first seven which featured in the publication.  Some like the three one up one down cottages on Bradley Street, survived after decades of neglect and were converted into offices.

They are the last remaining one up one down houses in Manchester. And were redeveloped in the late 90s and nothing is left of the original interior.

The Trail, part 1

Similar houses which have been excavated at Greengate in Salford opposite St Mary’s in Manchester reveal the small shoddy nature of this type of house.

They had room sizes of less than 3.5 m square with foundations of one brick depth.

Walking the Trail

Each ground floor room had a fireplace but there was no sign of floor covering nor a staircase and it is likely that access to the upper floor was by a wooden ladder.

Others on the list were grander, like the row on Lever Street, which have also survived.

They were built in the 1790s and were constructed on three floors with cellars and were occupied by artisan families. The uppermost floor would have been used as workshops and some of these surviving on Liverpool Road still have the longer and wider windows designed to admit the maximum amount of daylight.

So, armed with the trail I shall be off on a day when the rain is not falling like stair rods and complete part one of the trip back into the city’s past.

Watch this space.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures;  one up one down cottages in Bradley Street, 1983 from the Early Manchester Dwellings Group Bradley Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and pages from the Ancoats Trail, 1984


*The Ancoats Trail, Jaqueline Roberts, Education Service, Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry

References
Hartwell Clare, Manchester2001 Penguin page273
May Johann Georg, quoted in Visitors to Manchester complied by L D Bradshw Neil Richardson Manchester 1987 page 25
Cooke Taylor William, Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts of Lancashire quoted in Visitors to Manchester page 36
Buxton R A page xii
Nevell Michael, Manchester the Hidden History The History Press page 149

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ........ nu 82 Little Ancoats Street

History hasn’t been kind to Little Ancoats Street.

Little Ancoats Street from Newton Street, 2019

It is one of those very narrow streets, which has never warranted much in the way of official recognition.

It once stretched from Dean Street, across Newton Street, and almost but not quite running out on to Lever Street.

Today the bit from Dean Street to Newton Street has vanished under a block of new build which was constructed in the last few years, and which wiped out the Lord Nelson pub, which was doing the business of serving beer and good cheer from at least 1841.

In that year the landlord was a Robert Walker, and a decade later it was run by a Mary Ann Belshaw and judging by the occupants listed in the Rate Books it appears to have changed hands frequently.

Little Ancoats Street from Little Lever Street, 2019

As for Little Ancoats Street, it  remains a bit of an enigma.  It shows up on maps of the early 1790s, but as yet there are no listings for who resided there in the directories, nor as yet can I find any entry in the census returns.

And that is slightly odd given that the southern side of the street consisted of residential properties during the middle of the 19th century.

Their absence from the street directories may just be because they were not worthy of inclusion, but they should appear in the census records, especially given that the surrounding streets are all included.

The stretch of Great Ancoats Street, and Ancoats Street which were either side of our street are there in the official records but not ours.

That said some of the buildings along the part of Little Ancoats Street from Little Lever Street may be the original residential properties shown on the maps of the 1840s and 50s, which may be as close as we get to their inhabitants.

But in time and widening the search I am sure the mystery of who lived in them will be revealed.

All of which leaves me with the Lord Nelson, which was demolished in 2010.  That building only dated from 1895, and while there is a suggestion that the original dates from 1830, the first reference I have is 1841.

Little Ancoats Street, 1851

Nor have the records revealed any details of either Mr. Walker  or Ms Belshaw, but I shall keep looking.

But as history often shows .... something always turns up.

And so today Derek Jackson emailed my with and stract from the 1841 census along witha death certificate for a Mr. James Owen who lived on Little Ancoat's Street.

They are a fascinating find, because with a name comes another opportuinity to search the records for the cenus returns and the stories of others who lived on this litte street.

I may even with Derek's permission explore the life of Mr Own who was born in 1768, died in 1848 and who had been a "weaver", but on his death was described as a "labourer".

Now I have no idea if he was a handloom weaver that skilled occupation which was eclipsed by the coming of the power loom and the absorption of the trade trade into the factory system.

But if so his eventual job as a labourer might be seen as another casuality of industrilization. 

And as you do the census return showed him living with his wife , daughter and granddaughter.

So a thnk you to Derek.

Location; Little Ancoats Street,

Pictures; Little Ancoats Street, 2019, from the collection of Richard Hector Jones, and in 1851,  from Adshead’s map of Manchester 1851 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/


*Lost  Manchester Streets, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Lost+Manchester+Streets