Milk from a local farm delivered by horse and cart to Edge Lane

It is not the best of pictures and the date is unclear, so I will start with what we can be certain of.

It is Edge Lane and the road on the right in the distance is Kingshill Road.  We are sometime in the first decade of the 20th century and the boy is delivering milk.

There were still plenty of farms in Chorlton and some like the Higginbotham’s on the green proudly advertised “Families supplied with PURE NEW MILK twice daily from our own cows.”* Twice daily deliveries were offered by all the Creameries and dairy farmers of the area, and it is not hard to see why because with only a cold pantry to keep food fresh no one would stockpile milk.

I suppose the romantic in me might well dwell on the idea of locally produced milk being delivered to local homes but there were very real health risks, not least from diseases like TB and diphtheria.  Medical opinion at the time was all well aware that milk could be contaminated in many different ways.
“the difficulty on the farm is to secure cleanliness in the milker, the atmosphere, the cooling plant and the churner.  The difficulty in the town dairy is largely in the dust laden atmosphere, which alone shows the need of bottling. The difficulties in the home are dirty jugs and other vessels and improper places the milk is exposed until it is required” and in the “crowds of filthy shops in which the milk is exposed side by side with firewood and candles.”**

It led to a debate on the way forward.  For some this meant the “nationalization” of the milk industry which more properly was the muncipilaztion of milk.  This meant different things to different people. So for some it came down to municipal milk farms, for others that “all milk pass municipal examiners” or that the council should buy the bulk of the milk “and after examining it, retail it to the consumers [which] would produce a permanent market and a reasonable profit for the producers and the examination would enable the municipal analysts to trace unsatisfactory sources of supply and to deal with them.”***

It was very simple, “Any practical objections which may be raised against the municipality controlling all dairy farms which send milk into the city or against municipal depots for distribution cannot have greater weight than the objections to a public water supply, and the unanswerable argument in favour of the schemes seems to be that a pure and abundant supply of milk for every child in the city practically without cost is as indispensable as our water supply.”

Which I suppose is pretty sound.  As it was here in Manchester according to the Medical Officer of Health  the Corporation had “exceptional powers for the inspection of cows and cowsheds within the city boundaries under the Manchester Dairies Order,” [and of the 10, 527 visits made to cowsheds in 1905] “the results were fairly satisfactory with comparatively few instances of diseased cows being discovered.”****

All of which would have reassured me if I had been living in Chorlton in 1907, just three years after we had voted to be part of the city and that system of inspection.

On the other hand, out there on Edge Lane, under the trees on a spring day with an open churn I might still feel a little apprehensive about what might settle on the milk.  Which I guess is why Professor James Long was advocating bottling the milk at source, with or without sterilization.

And just a decade after our milk lad stood on Edge Lane dispensing his milk from the churn, The Creameries at 8 Wilbraham Road & & Egerton Terrace, Albany Road was advertising “The Milky Way to Health” with the “Don’t take any chances with your child’s health.  Ensure the PURITY and CLEANLINESS of their MILK having it DELIVERED IN SEALED GLASS BOTTLES.”

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection and St John's Parish magazine 1928



*Chorlton-cum-Hardy Wesleyan Church Grand Bazaar booklet 1908
**James Long, Manchester Guardian, November 20th 1907
*** Manchester Guardian November 8th 1907
**** Report of Manchester’s Medical Officer of Health, Manchester Guardian, February 5th 1907

The Creameries ....... back with a bit of Chorlton's continuity

Now by the time most of you will be reading this story, the bakery at the Creameries on Wilbraham Road will be open for all those who like good bread.

And if by chance you are reading it on Wednesday, then you may just want to call in for breakfast because the Cafe will have opened.

I have been fascinated by this building for decades, and over the years have written about it,* culminating in a chapter in our new book The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.**

I like the way that what was once a creamery has gone almost full circle and in the process a little of its history is now revealed, because after posting a story last week Paul and Chris got in touch with their own stories.

From Paul came, “my wife Leslie Valentine Dunleavy was born in Chorlton shortly after her dad, D.A Dunleavy acquired the Creamery in 1951.

Leslie sometimes worked in the shop, and her mum used to play Tennis at the Chorlton Club with Annie Walkers " Rovers Return " mother.

1928

My own connection with Chorlton is that my maternal grandmother’s first husband was named Charles Chorlton, his father a Chorlton and his mother a Hardy, they sold up in Chorlton and moved to Hanley to open a Theatrical Boarding house for the artistes of Music Hall”.

Now that opens ups a fascinating story for the future.

But returning to the Creameries, Chris had done some detective work and discovered that “I tracked their telephone directory entries from 1928 and the last entry is for 1961. Unfortunately the database for 1962 is corrupt but there was no entry for 1963”.

And that fits nicely with an advert they placed in the parish magazine for 1928 and a listing for them at the same time place in 1969.

2012

All of which leads nicely to Paul’s last thought, that when the family are next passing, “it will be great for three generations to walk into the newly incarnated Creameries in memory of the Dunleavy era and to reflect that Leslie’s dad had been born next door in 1914”.

I am sure there will be more to uncover, but for now I like the sense of continuity in the story.

Like Paul I will zippy down to the Creameries to sample the food and get a bit more of that continuity.

Enough said.

Location: Chorlton

Pictures; of the Creamery, 2018, courtesy of Peter Topping and in 2012 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the advert from St Clement's Parish Magazine, 1928

*The Creameries, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Creameries

*The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, was published on November 16 and is available from Chorlton Bookshop or from http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/ or 07521557888

Welcome back to the Creameries ......

So after a long and empty stretch when the Creameries on Wilbraham Road was just a sign above the door, it is back and open for business.

Ready to go, 2018

Or at least will be soon.

Peter who took the picture yesterday, tells me that “the bakery opens on Tuesday and the cafe on Wednesday” which is a neat bit of history repeating itself.

Back in 1928 it advertised across Chorlton offering “Purity, Quality, Punctuality, BY HAVING YOUR MILK ALWAYS DELIVERED IN SEALED GLASS BOTTLES”.

And that was a real selling point given that milk had often been sold from metal churns which might have no lid, and were transported across the dusty roads of Chorlton by horse and cart.

But like many local creameries ours could not compete in the face of first the big dairies and then later the supermarkets, which together could offer milk, cream, butter and cheese at massive low prices.

I have no idea when the Creamery in Wilbrham Road closed but Peter and I always thought it should be included on our book, “The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" and the news that it was to be reopened guaranteed a story.

So from the chapter, Over the railway bridge, past the Egerton Arcade and then to the Creameries, from theQuirks book, here is an extract.

"Purity,Quality, Punctuality", 1928

'........ like all good stories this one has a happy ending, because what was once a Creamery will be so again although there is a slight twist to the tale.  According to Sophie, one of the team at the Creameries,  “it’s a bakery and that’s the core. What we’re serving could be as simple as a piece of bread and butter, but it’s a treat, and truly delicious.

Key to our menu is bread, cheese, wine and beer. The baker’s oven is the focal point of The Creameries, and our baked dishes go perfectly with our in house cheese, butter and cured meats.

Our aim is to create intelligent and thoughtful food that keeps people happy and interested. We will emphasise British cooking and food provenance, working with ethically minded suppliers'.  

The team consists of Mary Ellen McTague, who is in charge of menus, drinks and service, Sophie Yeoman who will be working full time in the kitchen and managing the site and Sue Wilkinson who is in charge of interior design, marketing and events”.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures; The Creameries, 2018, Peter Topping, & St John's Parish magazine 1928


*The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, was published on November 16 and is available from Chorlton Bookshop or from http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/ or 07521557888

When are you going to write about the Creameries on Wilbraham Road?

2014

The question arose during a conversation last week.

As it turned out I had  already done so, first in 2012 and then again in the new book the Quirks of Chorlton -cum-Hardy which was published at the end of last year.*

Added to which in the intervening years I have revisited the creameries of Chorlton and Whalley Range from time to time.

In an age before fridges milk had an even shorter life span and in made more sense to buy smaller amounts, more often and do it from locally sourced places.

2018

Once when we were a rural community that place was one of the local farms, and even now the stories of being sent for milk, cream or cheeses from the nearby farmer are only just fading from memory.

Later in the early decades of the 20th century there were plenty of businesses engaged in the trade, and just a quick glance at the street directories will show that there were plenty of them around Chorlton.

I suspect I wouldn’t have returned so quickly to the subject after the publication of Quirks, had it not been for a series of pictures Andy took last week of the The Creamery on Wilbraham Road.

1928

The building is being transformed and as ever Andy was there to record the changes since his last visit four years earlier.

And the rest as they say can be summed up in a short writing exercise entitled, the Creameries on Wilbraham Road ...... compare and contrast.

Not to be out done I have included in advert dated 1928.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson, 2014-18 and St John's Parish magazine 1928

*The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, is available from Chorlton Bookshop or from www.pubbooks.co.uk/ or 07521557888

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 34, no more milkmen

Mr Riley and milk cart at Ivy Farm on Beech Road, circa 1920s

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Milkmen have pretty much vanished from our streets.

Having said that I did see one yesterday morning.

It was about 4.30 and his quiet float was making its way up Beech Road in the dead of night.

It is something you rarely see today and yet well into the late 1990s it was how many of us still got our milk, along with the eggs, the butter and those glass bottles of orange squash.

It also led to that practice of “following the milkman home” after a particularly late night and to “catching the milk train” which were those fist trains of the day carrying the milk from outlying areas into the cities and towns.

In yard of Ivy Farm, circa 1920s

Now when Joe and Mary Ann set up home on Beech Road in 1920 I guess they got their milk from one of the local farms of which there were still quite a few, including old Higginbotham’s on the green, Ivy Farm on Beech Road and the Bailey farm at the bottom of Sandy Lane.

The memory of being sent to collect milk or butter from these farms is only now fading from living memory.

Mary Ann will have had hers delivered, first from a horse and cart, later by milk float still drawn by a horse but with those giant rubber wheels and only later by the familiar electric powered float.

Mr Riley with number 59 Beech Road behind him circa 1920s

And over the years the production of milk will have passed from the local farmer and Creamery to the big dairies with their yards around the city.

Our own one on Brookburn Road only closed a decade or so ago and that of Herald’s in Didsbury a little later.

Living in rural Chorlton was to get your milk fresh and relatively clean.

For those living in the city during the 19th century this was less certain.

There were plenty of small dairies and creameries in the heart of all our big towns and cities supplied by cows which lived beside the business.

In 1911 there were 462 dairymen listed in the city.  Some were very small concerns while others like Burgess of Gartside Street between New Quay Street and Bridge Street spread over four properties with another branch in Hampson Street Salford

Milk float at Acre Top Farm, 1930

The development of railways made it possible to bring milk in from the surrounding countryside and so while the dairies remained the city cows vanished from the scene.

But there were many at the beginning of the 20th century who felt unease at the milk we drank.

In 1907 one correspondent to the Manchester Guardian had asked that simple question “Can the present system of milk supply be improved?”** 

It was an issue of public safety for what was wanted “is milk which is clean and free from pathogenic germs and which is rich in fat.”

Delivering the milk with a Burgon Company cart, 1926

But given the often poor level of scrutiny on the farm and during transportation there was no guarantee of its purity for “milk is a mysterious fluid which tells no tales of its manipulation.”  

Moreover it was also at the mercy of “crowds of filthy shops in which milk is exposed side by side with firewood and candles.”

At every stage there was the danger of contamination.

“The difficulty on the farm is to secure cleanliness in the milker, the atmosphere, the cooling plant and the churn.  The difficulty in the town dairy is largely in the dust laden atmosphere, which alone shows the need of bottling.  The difficulties in the home are dirty jugs and other vessels in which the milk is exposed until it is required.”

Milk churns, 1920

And so not for the first time there had been a call for the involvement of the municipal authorities in the production, supply and provision of milk.

This was after all a period when in the interests of public health local government was getting more and more involved in everything from transport and education to housing, sanitation along with clean drinking water, gas and electric supplies.

But by the time I was born supplies were safe and that familiar delivery every morning was  a mark of a civilized way of  life along with the newspaper on the door mat and the return of the postman with the second delivery later in the day.

Milk float 1985

And all three are almost no more.

First the home fridge and then the supermarket reduced the need for a daily pint to be delivered to the door.

Here on Beech Road the deliveries lingered on till the turn of the century, but you got that sense that like the rag and bone man and the knife grinder their day was numbered.

Pictures; Three pictures of Ivy Farm on Beech Road run by Mr Riley, circa 1920s courtesy of Bernard Leech, Milk float at Acre Top Farm, off Heaton Park Road Blackley, 1930, donated to the collection by Mr Roy Jackson, m80514, Milk cart from Burgess Creamery, Gartside Street Manchester, 1926, m60091Milk cart from Burgess Creamery, Gartside Street Manchester, 1920, m60098, milk float, 1985, m 48820, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*The story of a house, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

**James Long, Municipal Milk, Manchester Guardian, November 20th, 1907

The Creamery on Wilbraham Road

It’s not the best picture I have to admit but it tells a story. Before the widespread use of refrigerators most people bought their diary produce fairly frequently. If you were lucky enough to live near a farm which had its own creamery then you bought your milk, butter and cheese from them. And there are still people who remember being sent to Riley’s at Ivy Green Farm on Beech Road to buy milk.

The old farmhouse on the green which had been in the hands of the Higginbotham family from the 1840s still has its creamery which faces north as it should do to ensure it is the coldest part of the cottage.

But away from the green and as the area north of the old village was developed in the last decades of the 19th century there were creameries on Barlow Moor Road and here on Wilbraham Road. Walter who used to live on Acres Road once told me that he had begun work as a boy of 14 at a creamery on Railway Terrace at the junction of Buckingham and Manchester Roads.

Now there is a lot more work to do to date the Creamery in the picture. It was established sometime after 1911 but as yet I can’t give a definite date. Out of curiosity I asked the present users of the shop if there was anything left of the old creamery but sadly there was nothing. Still I always travel in hope and I guess someone will be able to help with a story of the place. In the meantime it will have to be down to trawling the street and trade directories.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson