A Chorlton ghost sign ……

Not all ghost signs have to be very old.

They are the remnants of businesses and products which long ago vanished, but whose faded signs still appear above doorways, shops fronts and on gable ends.

Many belong to the 19th or early 20th centuries, but here is one that many here in Chorlton will remember and like me used for building jobs.

They were B W Gray and Sons Ltd and were situated on Oswald Road tradeding there until the firm was dissolved in May 2016.

I can’t be sure when the business started up but I know it was incorporated in 1994.

But being Chorlton there will be some who will remember when it started trading.

Location; Oswald Road

Picture; the ghost sign, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Losing another Chorlton ghost sign …….

I rather think if I go back later this afternoon this ghost sign will have gone.

It was uncovered as work progresses on what was “Close”, the “Male Grooming” shop at 539a Wilbraham Road.

It was doing the business of all things male grooming from 2012 and was still last year.

Now for those who don’t know ghost signs are all that remain of a business, or product that no longer exists, and so here we have two, the former sign high up at the top of the building to Close, and uncovered for a brief while that of "J.M. Trophies, Engraving and Shoe Repairs".

I have a vague memory of the trophy shop, but it is vague and may not be real.

But since I have been in Chorlton for fifty years I might have passed it, which just leaves someone to come forward who used the place.

I know that back in 2008 it was "NV The Dawn of a New Era in Tanning" while in 1969 it was home to the Manchester Corporation Rating Office and before that I have yet to discover.  I know that the building dates from around 1904 but that at present is it.

Not that I shall be deterred from finding out more.  There are the street directories which lists businesses, and the Rate Books so with a bit of research the story of 539a Wilbraham Road will be revealed.

As for its future, a quick loo at the City’s Planning Portal has not shown up anything.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures; ghost signs on Wilbraham Road, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Morecambe Flip …… and other stories

Memories of the Milk Maid in Piccadilly will fast be fading from living memories.

The Milk Maid, 1906

Mine is sitting in the Milk Maid looking out onto the bus station with the gardens beyond.

It specialized in milk shakes, along with frothy coffee and sweet things.

The bar was light, spacious and had a figure of a milk maid picked out on the tiled side wall.

I doubt many others will remember the place.

Or so I thought but over the last few days people have messaged me with their own fond memories.  “Pancakes”, “frothy coffee” and “wonderful ice creams”, seem to be uppermost in what many remember, along with calling in after shopping or waiting to get the bus home. 

And for one it was “tomato soup with a swirl of cream followed by a cake” which characterized the place.

We frequented it in the early 1970s, usually after a day at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street.  What we had is lost in time, but I guess it would have been during my frothy coffee period.

I do remember the tiled figure of the giant milk maid.

Just when it opened and when it closed I have yet to discover and I still travel in hopes that someone will have a picture.

So far, I have not found an image of the place, but yesterday an old Union colleague phoned to tell me about The Morecambe Flip which was another of the Milk Maid’s specialities which was a pancake served with shrimps in a sauce.  Now Ray is from Morecambe and couldn’t resist asking if the shrimps were Morecambe Shrimps.  I think he already knew the answer which was confirmed when the member of staff just looked back with an expression of incomprehension.

The Golden Egg, circa 1960s

But he got me thinking again about little history, those events and memories which can claim no great place in history.  They are not high matters of state, earth shattering discoveries or the reverberations of war or natural disasters which roll down the generations.

Instead, they are the trivial recollections of the lives we have led.

They can be seeing the old Queen’s coronation on the telly, remembering exactly where you were at the news of the death of President Kennedy or Ottis Reading, or that first date which turned into a long and happy relationship.

And behind those memories are the bits of our own collective history.

The Ceylon Tea Centre, undated

So, in the case of the Milk Maid I am fairly convinced that it was run on behalf of the Milk Marketing Board, one of the state agencies set up to promote British agriculture alongside the Egg Marketing Board. 

Back then plenty of government agencies both here and abroad vied to entice hungry customers to sample the produce.

In St Peter’s Square there was the Ceylon Tea Centre and on Deansgate the Danish Food Centre, and across the city and beyond there were multiple UCP outlets.

It was years before I realized that UCP stood for United Cattle Products which made sense when you walked past the trays of tripe, sausages and black puddings.

The Golden Grill, Woolwich, 1979

And in the more affluent decades of the mid-20th century there were those other chains of new cafes and restaurants, from Wimpey to the Golden Egg, and out on the main roads the chain of Little Chefs.

What they all had in common was that they offered up  uniform regular dishes, the same whether you were in Scunthorpe, Manchester or London.  

Food purists might dismiss them but for a generation on the move with more money in their pockets than in previous generations they represented all that was new and exciting about the 1960s.

Of course they didn’t have the monopoly, mum would regularly go to a Lyons Tea House in the 1940s, and the Kardomah chain had been selling that blend of food, coffee and light entertainment from the early 1900s.

The lost Kardomah, South Mill Street, 2021

The Manchester Guardian in the 1950s carried several adverts for staff to work at the Market Street Café, which in 1952 was offering a successful applicant between £5-£10 for a 47 hour week, spread over 5½ days.  

No experience was required because “full training will be given”.*

All of which makes me think perhaps I will come across someone who worked at the Milk Maid and if pushed might offer up the answer to Ray's question of where the shrimps for the Morecombe Flip came from.

We shall see.

Location; anytime between 1900 and 1980

Pictures; The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, https://tuckdb.org/  The Golden Egg menu circa 1960s, courtesy of Andy Robertson, the Ceylon Tea Centre, date unknown**, and the rival The Golden Grill, Woolwich, 1979 and the entrance to the Kardomah, South Mill Street, Manchester, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,The Kardomah, Market Street, 1958, m62093, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

The Kardomah, Market Street, 1958

*Wanted, Manchester Guadian, October 26, 1955

**Vernon Corea’s visits to the Ceylon Tea Centre at 22 Lower Regent Street London, https://vernoncorea.wordpress.com/tag/ceylon-tea-centre-lower-regent-street-london/

Ghosts in Chorlton .... on Wilbraham Road

Now I have Sonoe Shimizu to thank for this picture of what was once the chemist on the corner of Wilbraham and Albany Roads.

Ghost chemist and future coffee shop, 2025

And the ghost sign announcing “Dispensing Chemist” has been hidden for a very long time.

That said the property has always been a chemist dating back to the beginning of the 20^th century.

Originally the entire row of shops known as Highfield which runs from Albany Road to Keppel Road had been private dwellings fronted by small gardens with access to the houses by a short flight of steps.

And some of the shops including our chemist were still on two levels with the rear of premises raised above the shop floor.

Mr. Flint's chemist shop, circa 1910

Highfield, I suspect had been planned and built as town houses with an eye to attracting residents who wanted to use the new Chorlton Railway Station which offered a quick service to and from central Manchester.

The first conversions in Highfield from residential to business use were in place by 1903, but the chemists were a little later, and by 1909 it is listed as belonging to “Francis B Flint Chemist”.

Shopping at the chemist in 1935

In its time it has been a Co-op Chemist and briefly one of the Everest chain, but as the new window signage indicates it is to become a coffee shop.

And that really is it, other than to thank Sonoe who sent me the images with the message, "Hi Andrew, I live locally in Chorlton and saw this this morning. It’s opposite Morrisons. Thought you might be interested”, which of course I was.

I too had been following the conversion work but never chose to look up and spot the ghost sign.

So there is a lesson for me.

The promise of change, 2025

The signage is a fine example of how shops once advertised their business and I hope they retain it.

And for those puzzled over the term ghost sign, it refers to products,  descriptions of businesses and individuals which longer exist

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures; ghost signs on Wilbraham Road, courtesy of Sonoe Shimizu, and in its former glory around 1910 from the Lloyd Collection and in 1935 A.H. Clarke, m18231 respectively, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

  

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ....no. 96 Soap Street and Mr. Davies

To be accurate Soap Street is less lost but more forgotten.

Soap Street, 1849

Soap Street, 1900

It is one of those very narrow streets that runs off a bigger road, twists and turns before rejoining another bigger road.  

Walk down it today and its like wandering down a canyon, with the  backs of tall of buildings rising to the sky.

Once Soap Street was just a short stretch which started at Thomas Street and joined Back Thomas Street, but sometime in 20th century Back Thomas Street was renamed Soap Street and our twisty turning throughfare ran from Thomas Street down to High Street.

Look in the street directories and it doesn’t fare well.  In some of the early ones it is not mentioned and then when it is, there are few entries along its entire length.

At the turn of the last century the buildings along Soap Street and Back Turner Street were given over to a range of warehouses dominated by shoe and dry salt premises.

And I guess it will be a little later that Clement Davies and Company, Alex McCall Agents, John Yates and Sons along with John Davies, occupied one of the buildings in Soap Street close to Thomas Street.

*Lost Manchester Streets, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Lost%20Manchester%20streets

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Soap Street, 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1849, and Goads Fire Insurance map, 1900, Goads Fire Insurance map, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/, and ghost signs 2021 from the collection of Michael Gorman

On Lapwing Lane with a ghost bank

Now here is one of those buildings that I have never given much thought to.

It is the former bank on Lapwing Lane and I must have passed it countless times, and on occasion stared at it from the window of the restaurant opposite.

I did once try to take some pictures but the light was wrong and I gave up which is a shame because I might have been inspired to dig down in to the history of The Mercantile Bank of Lancashire.

Instead I have had to wait till Andy Robertson wandered past took these pictures and set me going.

As yet I haven’t found out much other than it merged with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank in 1904 which merged with the Bank of Liverpool and Martin in 1927 which subsequently changed its name to Martins and in turn merged with Barclays in 1969.

But there will be someone out there who knows all about the bank and in time will be in touch.

In the meantime I know that our building dates from 1903, which means it had a brief existence as the Mercantile Bank.

Such are the exciting times of the banking world.

And since I posted this Richard has dug deeper and discovered that the Mercantile Bank Of Lancashire Ltd was "founded in 1890 with a head office at temporary premises in Guardian Buildings, Cross Street, Manchester, with capital of £1m, its early growth reflected the continuing industrial prosperity of Manchester. 

The completion of the Manchester Ship Canal resulted in over 200 new accounts, and on 30 June 1891 the bank reported a net profit of £2,806. 

Several branches were opened in the Manchester area, as well as others across Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire. 

In 1900 branches were acquired on the Isle of Man by amalgamation with the Manx Bank. 

Soon after, however, the Mercantile Bank began to run into difficulty, partly due to the effect of the Boer War on investments. 

The board of directors saw that as a relatively small bank, they could only survive by further amalgamation. 

In the early part of 1904, several meetings were held with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank, and on 1 July the business of the Mercantile Bank was transferred to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank."*

And in turn the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank merged with he Bank of Liverpool and Martin in 1927.

Pictures; former Mercantile Bank of Lancashire, 1903, courtesy of Andy Robertson, 2015

*Barclays Bank PLC, https://www.archive.barclays.com/items/show/5305

Who now remembers Dennis and Elaine?

I haven’t always lived in Chorlton.  

I did a year on Butterworth Street by Grey Mare Lane, another few in Ashton Under Lyne and three years as a student in Withington.

And in those first three years of the 70s you couldn’t pass a wall without seeing the names “Dennis and Elaine.”

They were there at bus stops, beside advertising hoardings and of course street walls.
They began in 1970 and ceased as abruptly two years later.

I never got to know who they were and only once saw the names on an office building in town.  So when Dennis or Elaine professed their love for each other it was almost entirely around Withington.

Of course the idea of taking a picture of a piece of graffiti back then would never have occurred to most of us.  You saw it, chuckled if it was amusing, became enraged if it was politically incorrect and mostly instantly forgot it.

But Dennis and Elaine have stayed with me, and their memory was stirred yesterday when I came across the man, the cat and Karl who were caught in the late 1970s in Salford.  I suppose it might be possible to track Karl as he or his friend left his surname, but maybe not.  Perhaps Karl like Dennis and Elaine are best left in the past.

But as we are parading past memories I remember a short story I read back when I was in 5.1 at Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern School for Boys.  Our English teacher was of the firm belief that it didn’t matter what we read as long as we read.

So there on the beaten up bookcases were tons of paperbacks from pulp science fiction to the classics, and it was up to us what we read after the O level lesson.  It was pretty much pot luck, and so I devoured some James Bond, a bit of Graham Green, along with the odd horror novel and lots of rockets to the moon.

One of the books featured  the engaging story of the man who tracked down a joke.  Set in some small mid western town where not much happened, he became obsessed with the source of jokes.  It led him to follow the latest he had been told, via the barber’s shop, the local bar and the caretaker at the Double D motel to a shabby shop in a rundown part of the town.

And there inside in the back room were a gang of men working on writing jokes.  Each was tested on the assembled jokesters and at the end of the morning each member of the team set off for different parts of the town to pass them on.  I seem to recall that their pay was directly linked to the speed that the joke past around the town and its longevity.

Now I fully accept it loses something in the retelling but perhaps it has a bearing on Dennis and Elaine.  I cannot think how they could have covered so much of Withington in such a short time or really the reason why they wanted to be so publicly linked together.  True love I doubt ever stretched to a two year campaign especially given that this was the age of the paint brush not aerosol.

So maybe out there, there was a dedicated team who set about immortalizing the couple.  And in the same way perhaps Karl escaped Salford and left his name elsewhere.

To be continued .......... with how Elaine and l became friends and the discovery she later worked in Tommy Ducks ....

Picture; Denis and Elaine, 1970s from Elaine

Looking for Susan on Wilbraham Road

This Susan is a ghost sign located above the Royal Cod on Wilbraham Road in a building which dates from 1933 and might be older.*

Looking for Susan beside the fried chicken, 2024

It was a bit of infill between a row of semidetached houses and what was Sunwick which became a bank and is now the tile place.

But just when Susan opened her business and planted the sign high up on the wall is unclear.

The telephone number might offer up a clue.

Manchester switched form telephone numbers using a mix of letters and numbers in the late 1960s but the sign looks newer than that. 

A ghost amongst the signs, 2024

If so the street directories which list residents and businesses will be of no help as the last published directory was 1969.

And I have to confess I don’t remember a hairdressers saloon in the building during the 50 or so years I have lived here, but then I am not the most observant chap.

If I were to make a guess perhaps the 1970s, only because the lettering on the sign has that 70s look.

Still someone will know, and be able to tell me ….. perhaps even Susan.

And just as l finished writing the piece Anthony promised to use his street directories to look for Susan but then replied "l didn't need to look it up.  It all came back to me.  Susan Smart Hairdresser.  Our next door neighbour's daughter worked there around 1974. It was on the first floor".

Nor was that all because Antony follwed up the memory with two images.

The first was drawn from his 1962 directory which shows that before Susan there was another hairdressing business operating from the same spot.

And concluded with a screen shot of the present shop with a note on how to get to Susan's.

So there you have it and in my defence 1974 was two years before I arrived in Chorlton.

Not that this should be the end.

1962

I would love to hear from anyone who worked there or had their hair done at Susan's.

2024

It might just be a ghost sign but it's history.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures; ghost signs amongst the signs, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Directory entry from Anthony Petrie, and Royal Cod courtesy of Google maps 2024, and Anthony Petrie

*A ghost sign is the name of a person or business which has long vanished.

The ghost of Kardomah

Now there will be plenty of people who have fond memories of the Kardomah chain of cafés, and in particular, those that operated in Manchester.*

I have come across three, and I guess there may have been more.  There was one at 98 Market Street, another in St Ann’s Square, and this one close to  Albert Square.

The sign is on Southmill Street, which was originally called South Street.

What first attracted me to it was that it is a ghost sign, and ghost signs advertised products and businesses which have long since vanished.

Having clocked the sign I stood back to admire the entrance, and the rest as they say is a story waiting for readers to add their own memories and perhaps pictures.

The Manchester Guardian in the 1950s carried a number of adverts for staff to work at the Market Street Café, which in 1952 was offering a successful applicant between £5-£10 for a 47 hour week, spread over 5½ days.  

No experience was required because “full training will be given”.** 

But in the 1950s, as before and later, one advert for staff at the Kardomah on Market Street bounced off the page with its glaring nod to ineqaulities, making it clear that single women were preferred.

Location; Southmill Street, Manchester

Picture; the Kardomah ghost sign, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Kardomah Cafés, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardomah_Caf%C3%A9s

**Wanted, Manchester Guadian, October 26, 1955

Almost a ghost sign …..

Beech Road

Location; Beech Road

Picture; Almost a ghost sign, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Ghost signs from a long ago conflict

The caption is less than revealing and merely states that it’s Oxford Road, Site of Students Union.

.Now I am a little puzzled because the student’s union building on Oxford Road was put up in 1958, and opened by Harold Macmillan, all of which is a little confusing but will no doubt be sorted out by someone who knows more than me.

My interest lies elsewhere and it is in the buildings themselves.  First I have to say they were grand looking houses, and back in the 19th century were the homes of the comfortably well off.  But I guess by the 1950s had seen their best, although perhaps with some tender care and attention they would have “come up nice.”

For me, toady it is the hand painted sign n the wall that has attracted my attention.

EWS stood for Emergency Water Supply and is a reminder that during the last war an air raid might not just destroy buildings but punch big holes in the roads underneath which were carried the utilities, including water.

And the loss of a water main during an aerial attack could be the difference between containing fires and just watching them burn.

These signs were still very much in evidence when I was growing up but it’s now sixty-eight years since the end of the war, and most of the buildings that carried that EWS have been pulled down, and even where that’s not the case the signs will have long since faded and joined the many other ghost signs whose stories have all but vanished.

Picture; Students Union Oxford Road, 1960, m03829 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Ghost reminders across Fulham ……

An occasional series where Andy Roberston goes home and captures the moment.

So recently he was back in London and offered up pictures of  signs and reminders of how it was done in his old stamping ground.

He told me, “I was in London a couple of weeks ago for the 60th anniversary (1963 intake) school reunion.

Two nights in Fulham …… 43 miles walked ….. 340 photos …….194 pub photos …… 8 visited, ….17 septuagenarians ….. x pints

Here are a few of the highlights!"

Location, Fulham and Putney

Pictures; Bryant & May ghost sign, Lillie Road, Fulham, Shaving Saloon ghost sign, Lacy Road, Putney, 3 mile stone, Fulham Road, Fulham, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

When you get two for one ….. the ghost sign with history

I wonder how many people in Northwich remember this ghost sign when it properly did the business of advertising Bristol cigarettes.

They were one of the products made by W.D.& H.O. Wills which my Wikipedia tells me “was a British tobacco manufacturing company formed in Bristol, England. It was the first British company to mass-produce cigarettes, and one of the founding companies of Imperial Tobacco along with John Player & Sons.

The company was founded in 1786 and went by various names before 1830 when it became "W.D. & H.O. Wills". Tobacco was processed and sold under several brand names, some of which were still used by Imperial Tobacco until the second half of the 20th century. 

The company pioneered the use of cigarette cards within their packaging. Many of the buildings in Bristol and other cities around the United Kingdom still exist with several being converted to residential use”.*

I am too young to remember “fag cards” but was an avid collector of those which came with packets of tea.  These cards carried on the tradition and like their cigarette counterparts, found their way into albums specially produced to hold them and covered a range of topics from butterflies to steam locomotives, war and sporting “heroes” and much more.

And in a homage to cigarette cards, my tea ones were also called “fag cards” and as well as ending up in albums, were traded in the playground.

Along with that game which involved placing two cards propped up against the wall and attempting to knock them down by flicking more cards at them. The winner was the one that dislodged his propped up card and to him/her went all of the discarded cards used in failed attempts to bring one of the two down.

Needless to say many of the winning hoard were grubby, dog eared and battered.

So, back to the ghost sign which seems to show at least two signs and the name, Robert Cheatoe & Sons which I guess may be the name of the distributor or the owners of the tobacconists, who sold Bristol cigarettes.

I wish I had access to the street and trade directories for Witton Street in Northwich where our ghost sign adorns a gable end, but I don’t and that makes it difficult to locate Robert Cheatoe & Sons and determine if the gable end belonged to them.

As for a date or a series of dates for our sign that is also vague.  I know that Bristol cigarettes were manufactured from 1871 to 1974 which gives us quite a margin of time to play with.

All of which leaves with hoping that someone will remember the ghost sign and perhaps provide answers to when it was painted, if it was hidden by a later adverting hoarding and just who and where were the firm Robert Cheatoe & Sons.

We shall see.

And for those still intrigued by ghost signs, they were painted adverts for a product or business, many of which no longer exist, and appeared on walls and even roves.

Some were later covered up by hoardings and others painted over, but occasionally they resurface as a reminder of lost products. look closely at our sign and you can just see the iron fittings which may have supported a hoarding.

Location; Northwich

Pictures; the Northwich ghost sign, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*W.D. & H.O. Wills, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.D._%26_H.O._Wills#:~:text=The%20firm's%20first%20brand%20was,relaunched%20in%201962%20with%20coupons.

Your mission ........ should you accept it ........ Chorlton ghost signs in the sky

The challenge was simple enough.

Barlow Moor Road, 2023

It was accompanied by a picture of a ghost sign and the intriguing “Morning Andrew. While out walking today, doing my 10,000 steps a day for Cancer Relief, I noticed this old sign on a shop that is being refurbished. Your mission, should you accept it, is to find out who they were, what they sold and when they shut down”.

Now it is one of those seemingly bizarre things that the closer you are to the present the more difficult it is find out about the story of an individual’

Of course if they are splashed across the media for any manner of things it is easy, but for the rest of us that prohibition on identity theft and right to anonymity pretty much scuppers any chance to uncover a life.

And that is as it should be.  But it does create plenty of obstacles.  It starts with that hundred-year rule which means no census return is available after the 1921 census.  

Barlow Moor Road, 1959

Added to which the 1931 census was destroyed in the last war and because of that war, no census was taken in 1941.

Likewise certain entries for the 1939 Register taken in September of that year have been redacted all making it more difficult to follow a person.

There are telephone directories, and electoral registers but most are not yet online and the go to street and trade directories for Manchester were last published in 1969.

But I wasn’t deterred, and once I had established that Brian’s ghost sign was at 365 Barlow Moor Road a search of that last Manchester Directory revealed that W Rowlandson was a grocer.

Barlow Moor Road, 2008

And that means that knowledge of the shop will still be within living memory and I am confident someone will remember the shop and W, Rowlandson.

Well, we shall see.

And as a starter I know that in 2008 the shop was inhabited by Spot Signs Professional Sign Makers and Professionals, and by 2012 the grocery mini market of Perspolis.

Location; Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; the ghost sign, 2023, from the collection of Brian Norbury, and 365 Barlow Moor Road, , 1959, R E Stanley m17534, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and 2012, courtesy of Google Maps.

The Britannia Brass Works Ashton Under Lyne ........... a ghost sign that passed me by

Now Hill Street was not a place I ever went to when I lived in Ashton, but we were walking back from the Portland Basin Museum and this was the route we took.

The Brass Works, 2016

I have to say I was impressed with the museum which “is housed within the restored nineteenth century Ashton Canal Warehouse in Ashton-under-Lyne. 

The museum combines a lively modern interior with a peaceful canal side setting. 

It is an exciting family friendly museum, with something for all the family."*

Walking back it would have been pretty easy to miss the Britannia Brass Works which doesn’t much look like the sort of foundry I am used to.

The Brass Works, 1899

So I am hoping that there will be someone out there who can offer up the story of the place and perhaps also something on S Parron.

I know that the Britannia Brass Works was established in 1872 and that just twenty seven years later “Mary Eastwood of Britannia Brass Works Ashton-under-Lyne trading as Walter Eastwood as a Brass Founder and Brass Finisher" had gone bankrupt.**

On a happier note the places was still turning out bits of brass in 1922 when it was "the JUNCTION IRONWORKS CO., Mechanical Engineers, Bentinck Street, Ashton-under-Lyne. T. A.: " Junction Ironworks, Ashton-under-Lyne." T. N.: Ashton-under-Lyne 435. Established 1902. Directors: Fred J. Reed and Harry Jackson.”***

And the rest from 1922 till now will I hope be revealed soon.

Location; Ashton-Under-Lyne

Picture; The Britannia Brass Works, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Portland Basin Museum,  http://www.tameside.gov.uk/museumsgalleries/portland

**London Gazette, November 7 1899

***Whos Who in Engineering, 1922, Graces' Guide to British Industrial History, http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1922_Who's_Who_In_Engineering:_Company_J

Mr Emerson's ghost sign in Stockport and the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood

The Emerson sign, 2014

I am back with that ghost sign in Market Place, Stockport.

It is a fine example of a street advert that has survived long after the business has gone.

I fell across it purely by chance a few months ago and it has intrigued me ever since.

And I am not alone, my friend Sally has written about it and it regularly evokes comment from people I talk to from Stockport.

I know the firm was there by about 1905 but had never gone much deeper by crawling over the street directories, and then by chance I discovered an advert for Mr Emerson from 1895 and my interest has been set off again.

The Emerson advert, 1895

But today it was the book from which the advert came that set me off because it was a copy of the 1895 Heaton Mersey PSA Magazine.

And as you do

Now I had come across the P.S.A,or to give them the full name, the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood back in the 1970s in Ashton Under Lyne.

They were what they said they were an organization designed to provide a pleasant afternoon with a Christian slant on a Sunday.

The first seem to have sprung up in the mid 1870s and their first national conference was in London in 1906.

Now this is another of those areas I want to dig deep into.  There was a political dimension  “The long standing relationship between political Liberalism and Nonconformity brought active Liberals into the movement. 

Market Place, 1905

In the early twentieth century key Labour and Trade Union leaders became actively involved in the PSA/Brotherhood Movement. Labour MPs Arthur Henderson and Will Crooks, and the Liberal MP Theodore C. Taylor were all present at the founding of the National Association of Brotherhoods, PSAs etc in London in 1906. 

Keir Hardie, was also actively involved, he was a main speaker for a Brotherhood Crusade in Lille in 1910. Arthur Henderson MP was elected National President in 1914. The National Adult School Union’s ‘One and All’ journal reported 7 out 9 ‘adult school men’ who stood for parliament were successful in 1910.”*

And there appears to be a Temperance aspect so there is a lot to play for and find out.

The Emerson shop and sign 1895

I had not thought they had a presence in the south of the city but they were here in Chorlton.
Harry Kemp’s Chorlton Alamack for 1910 listed  “The P.S.A. (Men’s Meeting),  Macfayden Memorial Church.  Sundays, 3 p.m. William S Bradshaw, 4, Beechwood Avenue. & P.S.A. (Men’s  and Women Meeting), Wesleyan Mission Hall. Sundays, 3 p.m, Secy., E.H. Astle, 34 Reynard Road.”

And now I find them in Heaton Mersey which I suppose shouldn’t be a surprise, and along with Mr Emerson give me more research opportunities.

Picture; Parish Church and Market, from the series Town & City, by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/  the ghost sign of J. Emerson from the collection of Andrew Simpson and advert for Emerson’s Tailoring from the P.S.A., Magazine, 1895 courtesy of David Harrop

** The Early Adult School and Brotherhood Movements in the West Midlands: Adult Education, Evangelism or Social Activism?, European Social Science History Conference, Glasgow, April 14 2012

A little bit of Turog in Irlam ....... gone but not forgotten

 Now if you are of a certain age and come from the North, the name Turog will instantly conjure up loaves of brown bread.

The flour for the bread was made by Spillers who then sold it on  to bakers who were licensed to make Turog bread, which Spillers promoted by advertising.

And plenty of those adverts still abound across the Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.

So, it isn’t too surprising that Andy came across his ghost sign for the bread.

I say ghost sign because production seems to have ceased a long time ago, although just when I have yet to find out.

Some sources vaguely refer to the 1960s, but it could be later, and might have coincided with a take over of Spillers by Dalgety plc in 1979 who sold the bakery side of the business to Allied Bakery.

But like all these things I am confident someone will tell me.

All of which left its rival Hovis to carry on offering up a type of brown bread made in the same way as Turog.

Location; Irlam

Picture; Turog ghost sign, Irlam, 2022, from the collection of Andy Robertson