Unseen photographs of Hough End Hall and Mrs Annie Elizabeth Roberts

Now the story of Hough End Hall never quite leaves me and I have always been prepared for new pictures and new tales of the lives behind its doors.

Mrs Roberts in the garden, circa 1920s

About a year ago I was given an album of photographs of the last family to live in the hall and farm the surrounding land.

And then more reently I met Mr Stuart Bolton who kindly shared some pictures and newspaper clippings from his great grandmother who worked at the hall.

She was “Annie Elizabeth Roberts, nee Halfpenny; formerly Bateman. I believe she worked at Hough End Hall for about twenty years, from the 1910s to the 1930s.

I think the first one was taken in the 1920s and the second one was taken by the newspaper photographer in the early/mid 1960s.

I am also attaching the clipping from the newspaper which we think it was from the Manchester Evening News from the early/mid ‘60s, unfortunately it’s not dated.”

Mrs Roberts, by the Hall, in 1963

The pictures are just sheer magic and offer up more on the history of the Hall when it was still a working farmhouse.

Until recently there were few images of the building and the family from the early 20th century and these add to our knowledge.

There will be no one now who remembers the garden when it was in its pristine state and pretty soon the memories of the hall in its last sad stage during the 1960s will also fade.

And it is well to remember that from the early 1920s the fate of the Hall hung in the balance.

Newspaper story, possibly the MEN, 1963

There were plans to demolish it for the new road which was planned to run out of the city to and despite more than a few imaginative suggestions for its use during the inter war years it eventually became prey to vandals.

Nor were the developers kind to it.  In the words of one expert they “botched “the job of restoration and then proceeded to hide the hall behind those two ugly office complexes.

Its subsequent use as a restaurant, pub and offices met that all the internal features have long gone, leaving on the original Elizabethan staircase which now resides in Tatton Hall.

So Stuart’s pictures and the story that I know will emerge from them will advance our knowledge and in the process if he is happy I shall tell the story of his great-grandmother.

Location; Hough End Hall

Pictures; Annie Elizabeth Roberts and Hough End Hall from the collection of Stuart Bolton

Mrs Lomax's box mangle at Hough End Hall sometime in 1940

I can remember confiding in someone recently that I knew more about Hough End Hall in the 19th century than I did about the place in the last sixty years.

A box mangle

All of which is now being turned around as people come forward with their memories along with some photographs and a suggestion of where to go looking for the documents.

Chief amongst those with memories is my friend Oliver Bailey whose family rented the hall and the surrounding land from 1940 before buying it from the Egerton estate in the early 1960s and selling it on to a developer later in that decade.

Oliver not only has provided a set of vivid descriptions of the hall and farm buildings along with a plan and the names of some of the men who also worked there but has helped make sense of the place at the end of its time as a working farm.

I was fascinated by the mangle room which shows up on the 1938 Egerton survey.

It was on the first floor to the south of the main entrance and in the middle of the room was “an old mangle that was basically a large box full of cobbles that rolled back and forth on rollers on the wooden base when it was worked by turning the handle.”*

And recently Oliver was “at Mottisfont in Hampshire and they had a box mangle so I thought I would send you a photo.”

It is  one of those wonderful little bits of history that helps bring me closer to the time when the hall was a working farming inhabited by the Lomax family who were there from 1847 till Mrs Lomax died in 1940.

All of which now pushes me on to search for photographs of the Lomax family.

At present there is one picture which I think will be their children in the garden of the hall in the early 20th century but I am confident that in time someone will unearth an image.

After all until yesterday I had no idea what a box mangle looked like.

Picture; box mangle from Mottisfont in Hampshire courtesy of Oliver Bailey

*Oliver Bailey

The picture that revealed a family story ................. the wedding photograph of Miss Lomax of Hough End Hall

The wedding of Miss Lomax and Mr Kitchin, May 1915

This is the wedding photograph of Ethel Mary Lomax of Hough End Hall and Harold Kitching and it is a picture I have long hoped would turn up.

For here are the faces of people I came to know during the four years of researching the story of the Hall and along with another thirty or so pictures began to help tell the story of the Lomax family who were tenant farmers at Hough End from the late 1840s through to 1940.

Until the family album turned up last week we had just one photograph dating from around 1900 which showed the children in the family garden.

There were of course the census returns, some birth, marriage and death certificates along with a few newspaper cuttings but nothing which put you face to face with any of them.

But the photograph album has changed all of that and now I can look upon Samuel and Ethel Lomax and begin to see how the children changed as they grew up.

That said there are many in the album who I cannot identify and I guess a few who will forever remain a mystery but others will come out of the shadows.

Of these there are some fine pictures of Evelyn Lomax in the grounds of the Hall in the 1930s.

She was the youngest of the children and was born in 1910, married Thomas Milburn in 1946 and died only in 2002.

Sadly she doesn’t appear on the wedding photograph because at the moment the photographer set up his camera she ran away hiding  somewhere deep inside the hall or maybe in one of the out houses.

Now that is a loss but before she died she did record the names of some of the wedding party all of which offers up rich pastures of research.

In time we may even discover how Harold and Ethel met.

I know that in 1915 he was living at number 14 Oak Avenue and gave his occupation as a merchant and that he grew up on Cheetham Hill Road.

Evelyn Lomax with Bobby the dog at the hall sometime in the 1930s

So had they come across each other at some social event or was it a chance meeting when Mr Kitchin was out walking past the hall?

Idle speculation maybe but it’s what makes looking into other people’s lives just that bit more fun and even if I don’t ever discover that little mystery I know in time I will find out where they set up home and a bit of what happened to them.

Already I know a some of the other wedding guests and a heap more about Evelyn so the rest is for the future, but it does underline that simple observation that you should never be surprised at the way something unexpected can turn up out of the blue.

And that means that the Lomax family and their time at the Hall has just got a lot more interesting.

Pictures; the wedding of Miss Lomax and Mr Kitching, 1915 and Evelyn at the Hall circa 1930s from the family album of Evelyn nee Lomax Milburn donated by Mrs D Miller

A peacock, a plough and a very old picture ............. the photograph album from Hough End Hall

One of the peacocks, date unknown

Now I am back with a unique collection of photograpghs from a family picture album which I had thought lost.

It belonged to the Lomax family who had lived and farmed at Hough End Hall from the late 1840s till the death of Mrs Lomax in1940.

I say lost but to be strictly accurate I had no idea of its existence until recently and I wish I had come across it earlier when I was writing a book on the hall’s history.*

At the time I thought that there must be some family images of the Lomax family but all that had come down to us was one of the children dated at the turn of the last century and taken from some distance.

But now I have that album of pictures and as you would expect it is a mix of snaps, a few of the hall and gardens and a rare couple of the farm.

And what first caught my eye was the peacock which for a while at least was how the farm was known.

Ploughing on the farm, date unknown

There are still people who speak fondly of the peacocks but with the passage of time some have confused its location despite at least one painting carrying the name Peacock Farm.

I have to admit I never gave it much thought preferring instead to concentrate on the working side of the farm and the people who ran it.

And the album has offered up a wonderful image of the land being ploughed.  I don’t have a date but guess it will be from the early 20th century.

Mrs Lomax circa 1930s

By then the farm had shrunk from about 220 acres and by its end was just a little over three, but it was still a working business and in the 1930s Mrs Lomax was still advertising for farm hands.

She had been born in 1864 married Samuel Lomax in the March of 1888 and took up residence in the hall sometime in the early 20th century on the death of Mr Lomax’s uncle who had run the farm since the late 1840s.

And here is Mrs Lomax.

The picture dates from sometime after the late 1920s and was taken looking south.  Directly behind her is the recently cut Mauldeth Road West and the Corporation houses.

It is a picture I like very much for not only do we have a photograph of Mrs Lomax but also an indication of  just how much the farm has changed in a couple of decades.

As late as the 1890s looking south there were clear views across open land south to the Workhouse while a little to the west was Nell Farm, a nursery and the edge of the newly opened Southern Cemetery.

And that is what makes the family album so unique because the first pictures date from the last decade of the 19th century and span the years almost into the middle of the next century offering up a major contribution to the story of hall.**

The wonder is that they have survived and points up that simple observation that there is more out there than we ever suspect.







Pictures; the Lomax family album now in the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hough End Hall The Story, Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, 2015, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Hough%20End%20Hall

**Hough End Hall, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Hough%20End%20Hall

The picture that revealed a family story ..... the wedding photograph of Miss Lomax of Hough End Hall nu 2 ... what happened next

I like the way that stories have a habit of representing themselves and added to the original.

So a few years ago  I came across the family album of the Lomax family I featured the wedding photograph of Miss Lomax and Mr Kitching.

And yesterday their granddaughter wrote to me with some more pictures and the story of what happened to them

“You mused in the wedding piece about what might have become of the young couple.  Well, they had three children, Ronald (b 1916), Jeanne (b 1917) and Stuart (b 1920 or 1921).  

They migrated to Canada in 1926, to a town called Sooke, on Vancouver Island.  Even today, Sooke is a bit remote (at least by English standards), about 30 miles/50 km from Victoria.  At the time they migrated, it was just a small logging and commercial fishing village, accessible only by a long and winding dirt road from Victoria.  

It must have been quite a shock for my very proper English grandmother to find herself there!  The family stayed in Sooke for a few years, where my grandfather owned the local general store, then moved into Victoria in the 30s, to another general store.  

The depression hit hard, and around 1937 or 1938 my grandfather returned to England to try to re-establish, while the family stayed behind in Canada.  He was unable to get back to Canada before the war broke out, so there was a lengthy separation in the family.  

My uncle Ronnie had enlisted in the Canadian Army medical corps before the war as an ambulance driver, but ended up as an acting Major in an infantry regiment - the South Saskatchewan Rifles (never having been to Saskatchewan in his life) and saw quite a bit of action with his regiment in the liberation of Holland.  

My mother worked before the war as a clerk in the BC public service but also joined up, serving for several years in the RCAF.  Uncle Stuart joined the navy, but sadly died when his ship was torpedoed mid Atlantic.  


At war's end, Grandma and my mother headed to England.  They spent a year there, then returned to Canada with Grandpa in 1947.  My grandparents bought a little house in Victoria, and lived the rest of their lives there.  Grandpa passed away in 1974, Grandma in 1978.

My mother married my father in 1948 in Victoria, and had two children, my sister and myself.  Uncle Ronny married in England and returned to BC, to Vancouver.  

He and his wife also had two children, my cousins Ruth and David.  I've lost touch with Ruth, who moved to the US years ago, but David still lives in BC.  

My sister has recently moved from near Vancouver to the interior of BC, and by coincidence lives not far from David.  My mother now lives in a nursing home near my sister. 

And here am I, living in a lovely town outside Melbourne, in Australia.  So, to answer your musing, that's what became of them.

Although it has no relevance to your histories, I'm attaching a photo of my grandparents taken at a dinner for their 50th anniversary, in 1965.  I think that brings your story full circle.

Pictures; the wedding of Miss Lomax and Mr Kitching, 1915 and s from the family album of Evelyn nee Lomax Milburn donated by Mrs D Miller and the bride and groom, courtesy of Marlene Massey

*The picture that revealed a family story ................. the wedding photograph of Miss Lomax of Hough End Hall, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-picture-that-revealed-family-story.html

A new history of Chorlton in just 20 objects no 8 ......... a photograph and the story of a family

Now I am looking at a picture of Miss Connie Lomax.  

Miss Lomax, circa 1920s

I think it will have been taken sometime in the 1920s and given to Miss Annie Elizabeth Roberts who worked at Hough End Hall from 1911 through to the 1930s.

Miss Lomax was born in 1899 and her family lived at Hough End Hall when it was still a farmhouse.

In its day the farm had consisted of over 240 acres stretching east into Withington and before the mid 18th century had belonged to the Mosley family.

The hall was built in 1596 but for a big chunk of its history it was a farmhouse.

The Lomax family were the last tenant farmers to live in the Hall and with the death of Mrs Lomax in 1940 the tenancy briefly passed to the Bailey family who subsequently bought it and sold it on to developers.

The photograph was passed to me by Stuart Bolton who is the great grandson of Miss Annie Roberts and according to Stuart the handwriting on the picture belongs to his grandmother who makes a very personal link between the Hall and a direct descendant of someone who worked there.

The last of the Lomax daughters died a few years ago and while there are some family members in Canada I rather think there are none left over here.

Miss Roberts, circa 1920s

Very recently a set of pictures of the Lomax’s in the first part of the 20th century came to light and now also we have some of Miss Roberts, all of which offers us a new chapter in the story of the hall and also of someone who worked there.

Originally Stuart thought his great grandmother was there from the 1910s but the census return for 1911 shows a Nellie Redmond and two other servants so we can put her time at Hough End to sometime after April of that year.

All of which is a start.

Location; Hough End Hall



Pictures; Miss Connie Lomax and Miss Annie Elizabeth Roberts, both circa 1920s courtesy of Stuart Bolton

What was Mrs Lomax doing in Hough End Hall in 1931?

Now I wonder what Mrs Lomax was doing in Hough End Hall when this picture was taken in 1931?

By then she was 68, a widow, and had another nine full years ahead.

The Hall had been a farmhouse from the late 18th century and her family had run the farm and lived at Hough End Hall since the 1840s.

And she was still working although the farm had shrunk from 220 acres employing 13 labourers to just over 3 acres.

A decade or so before she had advertised for a young lad to live in and help with the milk round and after her death those 3 acres along with the Hall were rented out to the Bailey family who continued to work the land.

I like this picture which comes courtesy of my friend Sally from the City Council’s Annual Review which is a cornucopia of hidden treasures.

In the fullness of time I will ask Sally if there was a story attached to the picture, but for now I will leave you with the hall in 1932 at a moment when it still looked as it had done for a century.

Picture; Hough End Hall in 1931 from Manchester City Council’s Annual Review, 1932, courtesy of Sally Dervan

Looking for Mrs Lomax's kitchen table at Hough End Hall in 1940

The thing about researching the past is that you can have good days and days when despite hours of burrowing deep into the past there is nothing to show for it.

Sometime in the 1890s

And yes today was one of those.

I was set fair to uncover something more of the story of Hough End Hall.

The broad outline of the Hall’s past is clear but as ever the devil is in the detail and this is especially so of that period when the Hall moved out of agricultural use into the hands of a succession of a property companies and a very uncertain future.

From 1597 till sometime around 1751 it had belonged to the Mosley family and had been one of their family homes.

That said during the 18th century it might already have been rented out and certainly during the second half of that century and all through the next it was a farmhouse.

Most of the occupants are now lost to history but during the 1830s and 40 it was home to Henry Jackson who farmed 200 acres of land and on his death in 1847 passed  to the Lomax family who were still there in 1940.

Today nothing is left of the interior which would have been familiar to both Henry Jackson and the Lomax family.

The grand Elizabethan staircase was taken out by the Egerton’s sometime before 1911 and the small family rooms which had been created out of the large communal areas have now gone and all that is left are two barn like spaces on the ground and first floor.

What is  is worse is that virtually all the internal features disappeared during a short thirty year span from the mid 1960s through to 1990s.

Looking east towards the Hall circa 1900

There are plenty of eyewitness accounts to what was still there when the Hall was empty but had yet to fall into the hands of the developers.

Now who is responsible is difficult to ascertain, certainly in the view of those who wanted the building sympathetically restored what was done in the name of restoration was a bodge.

All of which led me to the Ref and the minutes of the Planning Committee for 1964 when I was fairly certain that I would find details of the plans submitted by the developers.

It appears I was out by two years and I will have to go back and search the 1962 minutes along with other documents which David the archivist has suggested.  All a tad frustrating but with the promise of discovering more on what the old farmhouse looked like and perhaps something on who began to pull it all out.

In 1911 he Victoria History of Lancaster recorded that “the interior of the building, which is now used as a farm-house, has few points of interest, having been a good deal modernized and stripped of its old oak, including a handsome staircase at the east end, which was removed by Lord Egerton to Tatton Lodge.”

But that rather misses the point because it was a farmhouse for perhaps half of its history and given that I know the last two families who occupied it for nearly a century the building they knew fascinates me.

The advert from 1915

But for now I have to be content with being able to date when the Hall passed from the Lomax family.

They had been tenants of Hough End since 1847 when they took over from Mr Jackson.

Samuel Lomax died in 1930 and his wife in September 1940 which will be when the Bailey’s of Park Bridge took over the tenancy.

Slowly bit by bit more of the Lomax time in the hall is coming to light, like the advert of a milk boy in the Manchester Evening News dated 1915.

It may not be the stuff that great history is made of but it is a connection with Mr and Mrs Lomax and by extension with the Bailey’s who took the milk round over.

And the knowledge that like farmers before them they were still employing staff who lived in.

The 1938 Egerton survey of the Hall shows the bedrooms of the labouers'.alas they too have gone.

But I travel in hope that more will come out.

Pictures; of the Hall, from the Lloyd Collection and Wesleyan Handbook, 1896 and advert courtesy of Sally Dervan