200 Upper Brook Street reveals its story

This is the story of number 200 Upper Brook Street which I have to confess no longer exists.

It was one of block of houses which ran from Akers Street to Grafton Street and in time I will get an exact date for its construction.

But for now I know that it was built sometime between 1849 and 1894 and looks to be on the plans for demolition in the late 1960’s.

And with a bit more diligent research we should be able to find out who its last residents were and that is important because back in 1968 someone took a whole series of pictures of the place both inside and out and those photographs may will gives us a clue to the occupiers taste in wall paper and furniture.

So I am very pleased that Neil Simpson has shared the images which he became across while engaged in a new project working in the Central Library.

The negatives in the collection are dated from 1956 to 2007 and there are approximately 200,000 negatives to be digitised at three minutes a scan.

The plan is to gradually make the scanned images available online  on the Manchester Local Images Collection Website.

It is rare to see inside the homes of ordinary people and while these rooms are quite clearly almost empty there is enough to get an idea of the style of wallpaper, and the remains of some of the original features.

So over the next few weeks we will revisit number 200 Upper Brook Street and its secret.

In 1911 the property is listed to a Mrs Hannah Moseley and was described as apartments. Mrs Moseley was 70 years old and shared the house with her daughter Janet.

She was a widow, had been married for twenty years and out lived four of her six children.

Back in the April of 1911 she occupied five of the eight rooms, two more were rented out to a clerk with a Mr Habib from Constantinople taking the last room.

And that brings me back to the pictures.  

There will be many who remember the old gas stove, the enamelled cream and green storage jars along with the old cupboards and the doors with their ventilation twirls.

Leaving me just to add that Tony Petrie has unearthed that, "200 Upper Brook Street isn't listed in either the 1962 or 1954 versions of Kelly's. 

There is a listing for 1929.

Which may just suggest that I have got the house number wrong.

Picture; 200 Upper Brook Street, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

200 Upper Brook Street ...... a life style choice and a mystery

Now I have become fascinated by the pictures from 200 Upper Brook Street which were taken in 1968.

I had hoped that I might be able to report on who lived there the year the pictures were taken.

That search led to the 1969 street directory which was the last to be published.

But alas by the time the list was compiled the last residents had moved out and the whole of the stretch of Upper Brook Street from Brunswick Street to Grafton Street were devoid of occupied properties.

So in the fullness of time I will return to Central Ref to explore the earlier directories and I suspect the property will have been in use as flats which were how Mrs Moseley was making a living back in 1911.

So for now it is the rooms and that living room.  I doubt that today there will be many houses which still have this heavy old furniture which were probably quite old when the picture was taken.

And I rather think the combination of the armchair; settee and table in an upstairs back room suggest that in 1968 our house was still in multi occupancy.

The room with its gas fire and period wall paper remind me of so many places I spent my early years in the city.

All very familiar but what puzzles me is the bathroom.  It looks pretty ordinary and the fittings could date back beyond the Edwardian period, with that bath panel hiding the claw legs of the cast iron bath with its solid taps which look to have received the “chrome treatment”.

But the lavatory offers up a mystery, because I see no pipe connecting to the tank which held the water to flush the thing.

It’s location under the window precludes one of those tall tanks, but then the more modern variation which would be just above the seat is also missing.

So dear reader how did it work?

And that seems a good place to close, leaving me only to thank Neil Simpson who has shared the images from a new project working on the Town Hall Photographer's Collection Digitisation Project in the Central Library, which currently is volunteer led and volunteer staffed.*

The negatives in the collection are dated from 1956 to 2007 and there are approximately 200,000 negatives to be digitised at three minutes a scan.

The plan is to gradually make the scanned images available online on the Manchester Local Images Collection Website.*

So that really is it, although I do wonder just what stories there are lurking in those rooms, but of course that I guess we will never know.

Stop Press:  And as ever Neil and Bill were on hand to suggest an explanation for the mystery which is no mystery at all.

Bill writes, "Simple stuff Andrew, the high level toilet cistern is up on the left hand wall and is connected to the toilet by a lead flush pipe that curves behind that washbasin to the back of the toilet pan, a very common practice where a window is above. 

The bath is not cast iron and neither does it have a panel. 

It is a pressed steel enamel coated bath, a cheaper and light weight alternative to cast iron and plastic of course was not available then. I have fitted and in later years ripped out many of these."

Location; Manchester

Picture; 200 Upper Brook Street, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester City Council Archives+ Town Hall Photographer's Collection Flickr Album, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/sets/72157684413651581

Advertising things in 1959 ...… never miss an opportunity

 We are on Upper Brook Street with a group of houses about to be demolished.

But never underestimate the determination of an advertising company to use every available site to good use.

And so in 1959, as you passed these houses there were the boards advertising Navy Blue Cigarettes and Corn Flakes.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; never miss an advertising opportunity, 1959, 1959-2878.1courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?

Finding the name ..... finding the story

Now as everyone knows who has ever gone looking for a great uncle or a maiden aunt, the past can be unforgiving.

The Blackstock, 2014

Official records do not always lead anywhere and all the other genealogical tricks of the trade can prove unrewarding.

And so it was when I took up the challenge to find a Joseph Fletcher who features in a Warrington project to track 41 men of the Great War.

All but Mr Fletcher had been found and I was asked to help, which I suspect was less to do with my detective skills and more that I had once written a story about the Blackstock pub on Upper Brook Street where in 1911 Annie and Ellen Riley were working.

Two years later and Annie and married Joseph and the hunt was on to find out more.

The entrance

My part was to confirm that the pub was the correct one and that and to look for Mr Fletcher in Temple Street where it was believed the family had once lived

Alas the 1911 directory failed to turn up a Fletcher family.

But so far I have done the easy bit, relying on the people in Warrington to supply some of the information and trawling the electronic records.

So as we all know in the end there is no substitute for going down and trawling the records in Central Ref, which I will do.

There will be the  electoral registers as well as the full sweep of directories.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; The Blackstock 2014, from the collection of Andy Robertson

On Upper Brook Street looking at a lost pub

Now this is one of those pubs that passed me by and yet I should have visited it.

It was the Blackstock on Upper Brook Street, beside Blackstock Street and it was still serving pints in the 1990s.

What always makes it special for me is that it was close to the Plaza that eating place which will be fondly remembered by many.*

But then again thinking about it by the time we had hit the Plaza the the pubs would all be closed and anyway a visit there was really just an after thought to a night in the city centre.

I am sure there were many things on the menu but I can only ever remember eating the chicken or meat bryani, half of which cost 3/6d in 1970 and was more than enough for two.

The chicken arrived on a pile of yellow rice and raw onion with a small pot of the curry sauce and after vast quantities of cheap student union beer it went down well.

So back to the Blackstock of which I know virtually nothing.

In 1911 it was run by a Mr Frank Morris and beyond it were the quaintly named, Spring, Summer and Autumn Streets.

I have only been in the place since it became a computer shop but standing there I have pondered on its earlier existence.

It was one of those many roomed pubs which allowed you to squirrel yourself away with a few friends and more than likely be missed by that person who never bought a round and never wanted to leave till last orders.

And Andy who took the pictures and put me to shame for never recording the place commented that “I took a few photos this morning, at least it wasn't raining. Nothing very interesting but...this was the Blackstock on Upper Brook Street, near junction with Hathersage Road.

Since the mid 1990s it has been the home of Micro Direct and Ian has been a regular customer for most of that time. He warned me they were about to close down, hence my journey!”

Pictures; courtesy of Andy Robertson, July 2014