Looking for "June" The Ladies hairdresser and Busy Bee Stores, sometime in 1930

Looking "June" the Hairdressers on Wilbraham Road

I never underestimate the power of a collection of old local adverts to offer up fascinating stories and pretty much take you all over the place.

So here in front of me are a set of those adverts which appeared on the dust jacket of a book lent out by Mr R. Greig Wilson who owned a newsagents on Sandy Lane and also ran one of our Circulating libraries.

Now circulating libraries were private affairs and existed alongside the local public library, and such was the demand for novels and lighter factual material that many of our newsagents went into business renting books out.

Busy Bee

At home in London mother was a regular at the local bookshop who also traded in lending copies and across Chorlton there were quite a few, from the one that operated on Beech Road, to Mr Lloyd’s on
Upper Chorlton Road and of course R. Greig Wilson’s on Sandy Lane.

It is a topic I have visited quite a few times over the years and no doubt will return to.

But for today my attention has been drawn to Busy Bee Stores  (W. Wellard, Proprietor) at 264 Upper Chorlton Road, and “June” The Ladies’ Hairdresser and Beauty Specialist on Broadwalk Wilbraham Road.

It will take some time to date the collection of adverts and that will involve trawling the directories but I think they will be from the 1930s.

Not that Mr Grieg has been much of a help for he was selling his “Stationary, Tobacco and Picture postcards” along with delivering his newspapers from at least 1911.

That said it will be after 1911 because down on Upper Chorlton Road at 264 was a Mr John Joseph Taylor who was a tailor.

Now Mr Wellard was trading as an iron monger at the shop by 1929 and Charles Slightman who also advertised on the dust cover was selling his newspapers and lending out his collection of over 1,000 books from his lending library on Manchester Road from 1923 through to 1935 so we are in the right decade and a bit.

"June"

And until those directories yield up a definite date I am settling for sometime in the 1930s for it was around then that “June” at the Broadwalk began Permanent Waving by the Nestlé System which was the "Radione" system in which the hair was wound dry and inserted into hollow cellophane tubes sealed at both ends, but contained moistened paper”*

Long along Wilbraham Road circa 1930s

She was in her saloon at 523 Wilbraham Road by 1929 but Karl Nessler who had perfected his alternative method of curling hair in 1905 using a mixture of cow urine and water did not come up with the improvement which he called the Nestlé System until the 30’s.

“June” charged 20/- for the process and also offered "Tinting, Manicure, Face Massage , [and] all kinds of hair work carried out by experts.”

I have often wondered whether her customers were aware that Mr Nessler had arrived in Britain from Germany in 1901 and facing being interned when the Great War broke out fled to America, or that during his first experiments on his wife he managed to burn her hair off and cause some scalp burns.

That advert for an early perm, circa 1905

All of which is a complete digression but is one of the fascinating little journeys behind which there is a serious point because together the eleven adverts will reveal a little bit more about the Chorlton of just eighty or so years ago.

And in one of those nice little twist of coincidences, 264 Upper Chorlton Road is again a hardware store specialising in much the same stuff as Busy Bee which along with offering “Glass and China [as] a speciality offered “Electric Vacuum cleaners for Hire.”

But there the coincidences stop for now where “June" permed and manicured the present proprietor offers sweets and newspapers which I suppose has almost brought us full circle.

Pictures, adverts from the dust cover of a book courtesy of Margaret Connelly, Wilbraham Road in 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson and an  early 20th century advertisement for Nessler's permanent wave machine, transferred by SreeBot, Wikipedia

*Perm (hairstyle), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perm_(hairstyle)

Welcome back Wellfield ….. that impressive and historic house in Whalley Range

History hasn’t been kind to that grand old house at the end of Upper Chorlton Road close to the former Whalley Hotel.

Wellfield, 2023

Once it was home to a succession of wealthy families but for most of the last century it was the site of a series of commercial ventures, which included a laundry, a wallpaper warehouse and more recently a carpet showroom.

And to add to the indignity the property was divided into a number of self-contained flats, which were themselves subdivided over the decades.

But all that decline has been reversed by Peter Armistead and his team of architects, builders, and interior designers, and today as the development enters its final stages, 59 Upper Chorlton Road is once again an attractive place to live.

It first appears in the records in 1861 as the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hinchelwood, their four children and four servants.

Wellfield, 1894

The property commanded a rateable value of £160 which marked it out as one of the more expensive properties along the road with views across fields towards the gardens of Hullard Hall.  

Original floor, 2020

It was set in an extensive garden with two greenhouses and fronted the still private Upper Chorlton Road which had been cut by Samuel Brooks in the 1830s for his new Whalley Range development.

From the beginning it carried the name of Wellfield, and throughout the rest of the 19th century was home to merchants and manufacturers.  

Of these the McQuade family, bought the house in 1871 and stayed there until 1899 were the longest residents.

But by then the surrounding area was being developed, and the fine views towards Hullard Hall were obscured by row of semidetached properties, which included The Whalley Range Orphanage, while some of the grand houses close to Wellfield had vanished to be replaced by more modest homes. 

And by the turn of the century the Hichelwood’s former home had also undergone a transformation, and was being used as a laundry, with only part of the house occupied by a family who worked in the business.

Just when the laundry ceased is as yet unclear but the OS maps for 1933 and 1951 record the property as Wellfield Linen Works, which doesn’t preclude it still being be a laundry.

After the demolition of the industrial workshops, 2020

But in 1954 it is listed as the Paramount Wallpapers Ltd warehouse and in 1962 59 Upper Chorlton Road operated as “Linda Gay Dresses Ltd. Gown manufacturers” and 59a as "Needham F. (Shopfitters) Ltd". 

The last directory entry is for 1969 when the property was listed as “W.P.M ltd. Wallpaper mfs”.

That said in the 2000s it was a carpet warehouse, and I can attest to buying two cheapy carpets from them.

As for the house, by 1939 it was divided into three flats, and continued as such into 1962, and later still seems to have been further subdivided into 10.

It is a common enough story, which saw a once grand house converted to fit the changing needs of the 20th century when its size and decline in the use of domestic servants made it less attractive as a home for one family.

What perhaps adds a twist is its partial conversion in to industrial and retail use.

And that may have just saved it from being demolished in favour of a block of pedestrian flats which maximise the footprint to squeeze as many flats as possible onto the exiting plot of land.

That could still have been the fate of Wellfield, but instead it was acquired Armistead Property who specialise in transforming old residential properties into modern apartments while retaining as much of the original character as possible.*

Work in progress, 2020

Their work has featured on the blog over the years, including the award-winning Denbigh Villas development on High Lane and the equally impressive Carlton Terrace, at 199 and 201 Upper Chorlton Road.**

In the case of Wellfield the plan was to create 17 apartments using the existing house and an extension and creating roof top gardens.

Features like the large south facing window, and the floor tiles in the hall have been retained and any internal features which survived the brutal years of “laundry and multi occupancy”.

But modern planning regulations have precluded the retention of the barrel roof in the cellar.

That said the architect Simon Jones and the contractors have been alert to the possibilities of saving more of the original house as possible.

Added to these the original brickwork has been restored to what it would have looked like when Mr. and Mrs. Hinchelwood first took possession sometime in 1861. 

It will always remain an area of debate as to how far an old property should be saved and what the price of saving it will be.  

There are countless examples of where the conversion has been done badly and fails to honour the original building but done properly and it seems to me, we are on a winner.

Armistead conversions fall into that second category.  Witness Denbigh Villas on High Lane which was home to a famous industrialist and historian as well as a school

Finished rooms, 2023

Its survival and renovation by Armistead has done much to save a bit of our history, while the alternative would have been to see such a historic building left and sliding slowly into an increasingly parlous state till safety demanded its demolition.

That could have been the fate of Wellfield, and I am pleased it has also been saved.

And just after the story went live, Nick Turner got in touch and added, "My dad owned 59 Upper Chorlton Road in the 70s, 80s and 90s. 

It was an upholstery and soft furnishings business known as LE Swain and Turner.

 

The business was in the long warehouse. The block was offices and then converted into 10 studio apartments, I used to collect the rent from the tenants. They've done a great job on it, looks amazing!"

Location; Whalley Range

Pictures; Wellfield, 2022, from the collections of Andrew Simpson the site 1894, from the 1894 OS map of Lancashire and the 1894 OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and other  pictures by Jak Spedding, https://jakspedding.co.uk, courtesy of Armistead Property Armistead Property

Finished, 2023

* Armistead Property, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

**Denbigh Villas, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=denbigh+Villas&max-results=20&by-date=true & Carlton Terrace, 

Following the 81 bus on a winter’s day along Upper Chorlton Road ……. now that’s a zippy title

I am the first to admit that following the 81 Corporation bus along Upper Chorlton Road on a winter’s day sometime in the early 1960s might seem a little dull.  

But not so, and I am indebted to George Cieslik who posted his picture a while ago and gave me permission to add it to the collection and tell its story.

We  are heading towards town and this is the bus stop just before Wood Road, and for those who know the stretch the block of flats to our right still exist, but pretty much everything else on either side has gone.

That starts with the large house, pocking out of the trees,  behind its impressive brick wall on the corner of Wood Road and Upper Chorlton Road .

While the even grander house close to the bus stop, and marked only by the stone gate posts, had only a few more years.

It had once been the residence of Mr. Demosthenos Tchaoussoglou, who was a shipping merchant, from the Ottoman Empire.  He had applied and was granted naturalization in 1905 and in 1911 was living in the house, with his wife, Helene and three children along with a cook, housemaid and “nursery governess”.

Mr. and Mrs., Tchaoussoglou, had married in 1906, and their first child was born the following year.

Theirs was a large house which in 1911 had thirteen rooms which I suppose made it perfect as the home of the Allied Libraries Ltd.

Just when the company moved into the property is yet to be discovered.

It had grown as a chain of rental libraries in the years after the last world war and at its peak in March 1962 it hired out 362, 000 books through 1,489 bookshops.

Just when it closed is also yet to be discovered, but I do know it was still there in 1969.

Look more closely and there beyond Mr. and Mrs.Tchaoussoglou's, home is Carlton Terrace, which had been built in 1871 and has recently been renovated and redeveloped into modern apartments.

Location; Upper Chorlton Road

Picture; following the 81 along Upper Chorlton Road, circa early 1960s, from the collection of George Cieslik

Wellfield .... in Whalley Range ...... rises again …………

 No. 59 Upper Chorlton Road has had one of those “interesting stories” which is only to be expected for a house which is 161 years old.

Work in progress, 2022

It first appears in the records in 1861 as the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hinchelwood, their four children and four servants.

The property commanded a rateable value of £160 which marked it out as one of the more expensive properties along the road with views across fields towards the gardens of Hullard Hall.  

It was set in an extensive garden with two greenhouses and fronted the still private Upper Chorlton Road which had been cut by Samuel Brooks in the 1830s for his new Whalley Range development.

The site of Wellfield marked in red, 1854

From the beginning it carried the name of Wellfield, and throughout the rest of the 19th century was home to merchants and manufacturers.  

Of these the McQuade family, bought the house in 1871 and stayed there until 1899 were the longest residents.

But by then the surrounding area was being developed, and the fine views towards Hullard Hall were obscured by row of semidetached properties, which included The Whalley Range Orphanage, while some of the grand houses close to Wellfield had vanished to be replaced by more modest homes. 

And by the turn of the century the Hichelwood’s former home had also undergone a transformation, and was being used as a laundry, with only part of the house occupied by a family who worked in the business.

Wellfield surrounded, 1894

Just when the laundry ceased is as yet unclear but the OS maps for 1933 and 1951 record the property as Wellfield Linen Works, which doesn’t preclude it still being be a laundry.

But in 1954 it is listed as the Paramount Wallpapers Ltd warehouse and in 1962 59 Upper Chorlton Road operated as “Linda Gay Dresses Ltd. Gown manufacturers” and 59a as "Needham F. (Shopfitters) Ltd". 

The last directory entry is for 1969 when the property was listed as “W.P.M ltd. Wallpaper mfs”.

That said in the 2000s it was a carpet warehouse, and I can attest to buying two cheapy carpets from them.

As for the house, by 1939 it was divided into three flats, and continued as such into 1962, and later still seems to have been further subdivided into 10.

It is a common enough story, which saw a once grand house converted to fit the changing needs of the 20th century when its size and decline in the use of domestic servants made it less attractive as a home for one family.

Work begins, 2022

What perhaps adds a twist is its partial conversion in to industrial and retail use.

And that may have just saved it from being demolished in favour of a block of pedestrian flats which maximise the footprint to squeeze as many flats as possible onto the exiting plot of land.

That could still have been the fate of Wellfield, but instead it was acquired Armistead Property who specialise in transforming old residential properties into modern apartments while retaining as much of the original character as possible.*

The original floor tiles, 2022

Their work has featured on the blog over the years, including the award-winning Denbigh Villas development on High Lane and the equally impressive Carlton Terrace, at 199 and 201 Upper Chorlton Road.**

Transforming the upstairs, 2022

In the case of Wellfield the plan is to create 17 apartments using the existing house and an extension and creating roof top gardens.

Features like the large south facing window, and the floor tiles in the hall will be retained and any internal features which survived the brutal years of “laundry and multi occupancy”.

But modern planning regulations may preclude the retention of the barrel roof in the cellar.

That said the architect Simon Jones and the contractors have been alert to the possibilities of saving more of the original house as possible.

Added to these the original brickwork is in the process of being cleaned to brig it back to what it would have looked like when Mr. and Mrs. Hinchelwood walked in on for the very first time.

It will always remain an area of debate as to how far an old property should be saved and what the price of saving it will be.  

There are countless examples of where the conversion has been done badly and fails to honour the original building but done properly and it seems to me, we are on a winner.

After the laundry and warehouse were demolished, 2022

So, the survival of Denbigh Villas which was home to a famous industrialist and historian as well as a school does much to save a bit of our history, while the alternative is to see such historic buildings left neglected in an increasingly parlous state till safety demands their demolition.

Location; Whalley Range

Pictures; Wellfield, 2022, from the collections of Andrew Simpson and Armistead Property and the site in 1854 and 1894, from the 1854 OS map of Lancashire and the 1894 OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

* Armistead Property, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

**Denbigh Villas, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=denbigh+Villas&max-results=20&by-date=true & Carlton Terrace, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/At%20200%2F198%20Upper%20Chorlton%20Road

The Worralls of Whalley Range

Having been contacted by a couple of descendants of the Rickards family, the subject of a number of my recent posts on this Blog, I have been taking a fresh look at some wider family members.   

Henry Worrall was the husband of Louisa Rickards; whose divorce was central to one of the posts referred to above.  The Worrall family of Whalley Range owned a substantial dyeing company, with a huge dye-works on Worrall Road, Ordsall Lane, Salford and a smaller one at Midgehole a hamlet in Calderdale, near Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. 1

 

Crimesworth Dye Works

This factory was renamed “Crimsworth” when acquired by the Worrall family a name also later used by Henry Worrall for his mansion on Upper Chorlton Road, Whalley Range.

Henry Worrall’s father James was a lifelong friend of Charles Hilditch Rickards, (his wife Louisa’s uncle). They were friends from childhood 2 in the Pendleton area of Salford fostered by their attendance at the same school, Manchester Grammar, and in 1857 they shared in joint enterprise to develop property around the Ordsall Dye Works. 3 They were both, also, heavily involved in public affairs, both men served as governors of their Alma Mater. James Worrall was also elected as the Mayor of Salford for 1861/2.

Crimsworth Upper Chorlton Road

Henry’s father and his elder brother, also named James both resided in large houses in Whalley Range. In 1871, James Sr., his wife, Anne (née Leigh), five sons (James Jr., Edward, Henry, George Wyatt, and Charles Francis) all occupied “Woodland” on Whalley Road. The household also included four servants. After his son James’s marriage to Jane Gibbons at St. Paul’s Church, Hastings, Sussex on the 13th December, 1875, James Worrall Sr, moved to “Oldfield” further down Whalley Road to accommodate his eldest son’s growing household. By the time of the 1881 census, this included, besides his wife, three young daughters, (Florence Anne, Katherine Mary, and Edith Jane) and no less than five servants.

James Jr. moved out to West Hall, High Legh, Knutsford, Cheshire 4 and after his father’s death on the Sunday the 13th July, 1890 only his brother, Henry, remained in Whalley Range.

Edward Worrall, James Sr’s second son, moved to Leicestershire and took up farming and in the June quarter of 1876 he married Harriet Adcock, the daughter of Richard, a local farmer, in Gaulby, Leicestershire.

The couples only child, Dorothy Hester, was born on the 6th October, 1889 at Wing, Rutland. In due course she went on to marry, on the 7th November, 1912 at St. Peter’s Church, Wing, her cousin Philip, the eldest son of Henry Worrall and his first wife, Louisa Rickards. Thus, providing a neat point to end as Philip has also appeared in a previous post, here.

Pictures: Crimsworth Dye Works – 11th September, 2000 by David Martin; the geograph project. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license, https://creativecommons.org/license/by-sa/2.0/deed.en and Crimsworth Upper Chorlton Road m 40768 A. H. Downes Courtesy of Manchester Libraries Information and Archives Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Notes: -

1) The Worrall family’s wealth is best displayed by some of their probate records. On his death, in 1890, James Sr left an estate of £347,465 (£45,502,332 today). James Jr. died on the 10th April, 1930 in Tenterden, Kent leaving an estate of £473,011 (£31,617,914). Henry died on the 10th March, 1939; his estate was valued at £114,351 (£7,643,670 today).

2) The childhood friendship of James Worrall and Charles Hilditch Rickards was described in a book, “Recollections of My Old Homes” written by Anne Rickards; Charles Hilditch’s sister. 

3) The details of this enterprise were disclosed in the Lancaster Gazette, 14th March, 1857 edition.

4) In the 1891 census a son, James, had been added and the four children were all living in the house at High Legh. In the absence of both their parents they were in the care of a governess, Sarah J. Wilson and SEVEN other servants. 

James and his wife, Jane, were visiting his brothers George Whyatt (described as a musician), with whom they were staying, and Edward at Wing, Rutland.

All that remains is for me to thank Peter, one of the descendants of the Rickards for the loan of “Recollections------” book.

Whalley Cottage ………. the one that doesn’t want to be found

Of course, it’s a daft title, because cottages are inanimate, and so can not  want to stay hidden.

Whalley Cottage, 1960

But there is a very real sense that Whalley Cottage which stood at the junction of Upper Chorlton Road and what is now Egerton Road North has managed to hide its tracks.

I say that because while I have pictures of the property in 1960, know who lived there at the turn of the last century and can find it on maps going back to 1854, anything more has proved impossible to discover.

That said, as soon as the story goes live, someone will prove me wrong, offer chapter and verse, which is all to the good.

Milton Court, 1972

Today the site is occupied by a block of flats, of which I know very little other than that there does exist one picture dating from 1972 .

And here is the confession I have never given the block much thought and never really pondered on what it replaced.

As to what prompted my interest, that is down to a series of photographs which show Whalley Cottage, in 1960even then I suppose I would have just clocked it as another of our lost houses and moved on.

Whalley Cottage, 1960

But it was the name that drew me in, because I have often come across the cottage on old maps, and assumed it was just a small rural cottage, but now, the pictures from 1960 and its footprint on both the 1894 OS and 1952 map show a substantial building roughly in the shape of the letter E, with a tower in the centre, and a greenhouse on the west wing, along with outhouses to the east.

It was significant enough a property to be named on the 1854 OS, but its footprint appears more modest than the building which later occupied the plot.

I cant date when this earlier cottage was built, but I think it must date from when Samuel Brooks cut his road from West Point up to Brook’s Bar in 1838, although there is a possible candidate in place by 1830.

Whalley Cottage, 1960

All of which is fine, and with a bit of time I should be able to track it back in the Rate books from 1898 when it was occupied by a Mrs. Ann Gregory and owned by a Mr. John Gregory.

The Gregory family appear still to be there in 1911, but so far a search of the census records has not located the family, and in 1939, the property is unoccupied with a note that the resident was “registered in the Sheffield area”.

So, for now I suppose it will be a matter of  of sifting through the directories back from 1969, locating the names of who lived in the cottage and looking for a match in the census record, along with trawling the newspapers.

But then, someone might offer up the answer.

Location; Upper Chorlton Road,

Pictures; Whalley Cottage in 1960, m40752, looking from West Point, and again in 1960,  m40753, m40754, A H Downes, and the block of flats, known as Milton Court, 1972, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

What we inherit and what we pass on ..... those two houses on Upper Chorlton Road

Now I know it is not an original observation that the homes we occupy are places that we hold in trust and that sooner or later we will pass them on to someone else.

the two properties just before the redevelopment

And it really doesn’t matter whether it is a palace or a modest semi in the suburbs.

The question is how will the property fare on our watch?

Will we have left it in a better state and what will be the stories that we contribute to its history?

I can count five houses which I have called home, along with umpteen flats and bed sits.

Of the five two have been truly family homes where I was happy and where I think we made a difference.

And of these the last is the one we still occupy today after nearly forty years, and I suppose our contribution is that we are the first of the four to own it, who have had children running through the place.

The first of the two to be completed

All of which makes me reflect on the twin stories of numbers 198 and 200 Upper Chorlton Road which I have regularly written about.*

They were built in the 1870s when a large chunk of Upper Chorlton Road was still fields, experienced mixed fortunes which by the beginning of this century had left them unloved, neglected and pretty much in danger.

But they have had a new lease of life, being converted by a developer into a series of residences for the 21st century.**

I had the opportunity to wander around them during their conversion, wore the hard hat, watched as bits of unsympathetic and unsafe alterations were swept away and finally returned as the completed flats were finished.

The development has won an award and more than that has saved two grand old properties and made them homes again.

Location Whalley Range

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* At 200 & 198 Upper Chorlton Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/At%20200%2F198%20Upper%20Chorlton%20Road

** Armistead Properties, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

Coming out of the shadows ........ those two houses on Upper Chorlton Road

I think Mrs Emma Hyde and Mr John Windsor would applaud the way their two homes on Upper Chorlton Road have been treated.

Well over a century ago Mrs Hyde resided at 198 and her neighbour Mr Windsor at number 200.

By then their two homes were just a bit shy of being fifty years old and they will have still been grand properties dominating this stretch of the road.

Sadly time and the second half of the last century were not kind to either house.

Each had been clumsily converted into flats with little regard for the original design and then both had been neglected over the years to a point when most developers would have just knocked them down, and built one of those big boxes, packed full of flats and as remarkable as a cheap cheese sandwich.

But not so Mr Armisted, who instead set about saving the fabric of the two buildings and then converting the interior into sixteen modern apartments.

I have followed the story of numbers 198 and 200 for the last six months, during which time I have researched their history and some of the people who have made these two buildings their home and more recently have visited the houses at regular intervals.

And now they are almost finished.

I like the way that these two have been saved and made to suit the 21st century.  After all most of us will never live in a house with fifteen rooms, heated by coal fires and kept clean by an army of servants.

All of which begs the question of what should become of such grand old piles?

Pulling them down seems wrong and this way at least the building has been preserved and with it a bit of the history of Upper Chorlton Road.

Location; Upper Chorlton Road


Pictures; 198 and 200 Upper Chorlton Road, 2017 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and from the 1960's, by Downes A H, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass,  

*Armistead Properties, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

**At 200 & 198 Upper Chorlton Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/At%20200%2F198%20Upper%20Chorlton%20Road

198 Upper Chorlton Road ......... a house reborn

Tired and in need of some care, 2016

Now there will be those who think I might just have gone over the top with the title but not so.

Number 198 and its twin were built in 1871 and time and a succession of landlords have not been kind to either property.*

Once they were grand homes built when much of the surrounding area was still fields but sometime in the 1970s they were converted into flats.

The conversions were not done well and in the process some of the original features were lost including the staircases, and the elaborate plaster mouldings.

Built in 1871

The exterior brickwork, window frames and roof had been neglected and parts of the property were damp and a home to various sorts of rot.

Added to which part of the garden had been sold off in plots and long ago had been built on.

The easiest solution would have been to call time on the two and demolish them replacing these 1870s villas with blocks of flats.

This had already happened to both the buildings opposite and to an equally fine house which had stood the other corner of Upper Chorlton Road and Wood Road.

But I am glad that Mr Armistead who bought the two chose instead to save them. It has taken a year and there is much still to do but already the first of the new flats in 198 are finished and they have been tastefully done.**

There will be sixteen flats where once two families lived.  The 1911 census records that no 200 had fifteen rooms, excluding “scullery landing, lobby, closet, and bathrooms” and no 198 had twelve rooms.

Few families today would need such a lot of rooms, and the cost of heating such properties will be expensive. But back in the 1870s there were servants to keep the place clean and an abundance of coal to keep the house warm and if there were cold spots the solution was the application of another layer of clothes.

Now I won’t be alone in remembering a time when few houses had central heating, ice formed on the inside of windows in the winter and the best weapon against draughts were carpets on the floors, heavy duty curtains at the windows and equally heavy duty curtains behind the doors.

A work in progress, 2016

But the sixteen flats of numbers 198 and 200 Upper Chorlton Road are very different, offering up elegance and comfort that the first owners of the two houses could never envisage.

That said I bet they would have embraced the new features with enthusiasm reflecting on how much more comfortable the flats are when compared to what was on offer in 1871.

There is still much work to do but already the buildings are beginning to look good again, as good perhaps as they had been in 1881 just ten years after they were built.

Coming together, 2017

And that raises that interesting question of what to do with an old building.

Many, like schools, warehouses and mills long ago ceased to be places where children were taught, things were made or in the case of our Victorian workhouses,  places where misery was distributed in uncaring heaps.

The solution in the middle decades of the last century was to tear them down, and in some cases that might still be appropriate, but for many others it is about finding a new use and then carefully restoring the old fabric while making them relevant to today.

198, exterior cleaned and beginning to look like it did in 1871

So I am glad that our two houses once again to do what they were designed for, with the added bonus that more people can share them.

Location; Manchester






Pictures; 198/200 Upper Chorlton Road, 2016-17 courtesy of Armistead Properties

*At 200/198 Upper Chorlton Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/At%20200%2F198%20Upper%20Chorlton%20Road

**Armistead Properties, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

No 200/198 Upper Chorlton Road ...... part 2 Dr Johnston

Now I like the way that a house begins to reveal a little bit of its history.

198 Upper Chorlton Road, 1960

In the case of 198 Upper Chorlton Road the bonus has been a slice of how we used to live which today looks as remote from us as the Penny Farthing and the telegram.

But that is to jump ahead of the story.

198 Upper Chorlton Road is the other half of two grand houses built sometime after 1871.

I know that both were family homes and belonged to comfortably well off people who employed servants, owned businesses or were rich enough to style themselves as “living on private means.”

But until recently the documentary evidence stopped at 1911 leaving a gap of a century to fill.

In time that gap will be partly filled by a trawl of the directories in Central Ref which will supply the names of the householders from 1911 till 1969.

That said I do know that for a while no 198 was home to a Doctor and for this I have Margaret Holmes to than k who remembers that “we went to Doctor Johnston’s surgery in the right hand of the pair. 

The Directory entry, 1969

The practice later moved nearer to the Seymour before buying the Ashville surgery across the road where it is now. 

I think it was his family house and he was our doctor when I was born in 1938. 

I believe we saw another doctor during the war as I think he was called up and back to him after and stayed with them ever since.

There were no appointments you just went and sat until it was your turn.”

And according to the Directory for 1969 a “Sydney Johnson M.B., B.Ch. physcn & surgn” is listed at 198 which could be our doctor or possibly his son.

The chronology will become clear with more research but for now it is that last comment of Margaret’s that there was a time when “there were no appointments [and ] you just went and sat until it was your turn.”

Nor was that all because more often not the waiting room was just a room which might still double as part of the home outside of surgery hours.

Entrance to 198, 1960

Back in the 1950s our doctor’s waiting area had been the snooker room of the house.

We sat on chairs that surrounded the room on all four sides facing the snooker table, and still on one of the walls was the scoreboard, made of polished wood with gilt lettering and two sliding buttons which could be pushed along to record the scores.

The place had a musty damp smell, and I doubt the heavy curtains were cleaned and certainly were never drawn.

In one corner was an old gas fire set in a fireplace.

The ornate marble mantelpiece and surround gave the gas fire an air of elegance which was not matched by its condition.

One of its clay upright burners was broken and the flame hissed and flickered offering only a poor amount of heat.

I can’t remember that any one spoke and the only sound was the occasional cough or sniff.

You knew it was your turn to go in when everyone else around you had arrived after you.

There was no intercom, no flashing display board and the indication that your turn had arrived was marked by the sound of the last patient leaving by the front door.

The protocol determined that you wait a few minutes before leaving the room and walking across the corridor to the doctor’s room.

Dr Mcloughlin always recognised you and after a few minutes of shuffling through the wooden draws got out your notes in their brown envelope.

Of course it might have been a bit different at 198 Upper Chorlton Road, but I rather think not.

Location Manchester

Picture; 198 Upper Chorlton Road,  198, m40864, Downes, 1960, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass,  

No 200/198 Upper Chorlton Road ...... part 1 looking for stories

Now I don’t suppose I would ever have been drawn into the story of no 200 Upper Chorlton Road if Mr Armistead had not asked me to research the house and its neighbour.*

200 and 198 Upper Chorlton Road, 1960

They are two of the grand villas set back from the road which you just know have histories but are all too easily ignored as you pass them on the bus.

Once and not that long ago there were many more of them along this stretch of Upper Chorlton Road, but the trend to smaller families, higher fuel prices and the demise of the domestic servant pretty much meant that they were no longer attractive places to live.

Some like nu 202 were demolished to make way for a modern block of flats retaining only the old name of the house as a faint reminder of what had once been there.

202 Upper Chorlton Road..... the Allied Library, 1960

The fate of many other big houses was to be converted into bedsits with little regard for the original architecture or lay out.

As someone one who spent his student years in a succession of bed sits the memories are of cold, damp properties.

At best the rooms had been re papered with wood chip and at worst a coat of bright orange or green emulsion had been applied over the original wall paper.

They were dismal dreary places, where you got to know none of your immediate neighbours.

Most were just passing through and the only record that they had stayed were those piles of junk mail and old election addresses which sat for months in a corner of the hall.

Of course once each of these properties had been a real home, and each would have had their share of stories.

So it was with no 202 which for a while had been the Allied Library and from where at its peak in March 1962 hired out 362, 000 books to small private lending libraries.

But cheap paperbacks did for the small commercial libraries and the Allied Library closed sometime in the 1960s.

Our two houses with the Lawn Tennis Ground, 1994

All of which brings me to its neighbours no 200 and 198 Upper Chorlton Road.

They were built sometime after 1871, and appear on the OS map for 1894 set in their own grounds and looked out on to a tennis ground with clear views across open countryside to Hullard Hill Farm.

Just to the north was “Manchester Football Ground.”

That said the urban sprawl down from Hulme as far as Stretford Road and Brooks Bar was in place, and the opposite side of Upper Chorlton Road was full of largish villas.

Our two houses were big.

The 1911 census records that no 200 had fifteen rooms, excluding “scullery landing, lobby, closet, and bathrooms” and no 198 had twelve rooms.

It is more than likely they would have been built with a well and there is documentary evidence that houses in Chorlton built in 1862 had internal wells.

Mains water came into Chorlton in 1864 and it is possible that around this time properties your properties could have been connected by another pipe from wither Manchester or Stretford.

Sadly the 1881 and ’91 census do not allow us to be exactly sure who was occupying the properties but by 1901 a Mrs Emma Hyde was at no 198 and a Mr John Windsor next door.

They were as you would expect comfortably well off.  Mrs Hyde described herself as as “living on own means.”  She shared the house with her four unmarried daughters and Edith Baynes who was the “cook/domestic.”

The Hyde family were still there in 1909, although sometime between 1903 and 1909 Mrs Hyde died and the householder is listed as Miss Annie Hyde who was the eldest daughter and had been born in 1861.

The entrance of 198 Upper Chorlton Road, 1960

In a way more promising might be the Windsor family who moved into no 200 sometime after the April of 1891.

He was a “merchant” and at the turn of the last century owned Windsor’s Bridgewater Union Mills with a factory in Rochdale and an office/ warehouse at 1 Canal Street in Manchester.

Sadly all we have are two photographs of the exterior of the houses taken in 1960.

There will be more and I rather hope that someone will come forward and share their pictures and perhaps even have a few of the inside of each house.

The added bonus would be a few stories of what it was like to live in no 200 and no 198.

As a historian I would be fascinated to see what there is, as would Mr Armistead who is currently developing the two properties.

All of which is a good point to stop.

You can contact me by leaving a comment on the blog.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Allied Librarie,  202 Upper Chorlton Road, m40870 no 202, m40865 and 198, m40864, Downes A H m40870, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass,  Upper Chorlton Road, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/


*Armistead Properties, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

So what is happening on Upper Chorlton Road?

If I think hard enough I should just be able to remember these two houses.

They stood on Upper Chorlton Road, and I must have passed them countless times on the bus, but if I noticed them I have long since forgotten.

So I have Andy Robertson to thank for taking the picture of where they stood and hunting out the original house.

It was at 145 Upper Chorlton Road, and was caught on camera by A H Downes in the summer of 1960.

Now Mr Downes was one of those remarkable photographers who chose to record in detail the houses, shops and other buildings, property by property along Wilbraham and Barlow Moor Roads and lots of those in between.

So we owe him quite a debt because many of the places he recorded have altered dramatically and some like 145 have vanished completely.

Back when he began to record them in the late 1950s I doubt that they were that different from when they had been built during the last decades of the 19th and the early years of the 20th century.

And number 145 is a case in point.  The windows display the traditional lace which were common a century ago and the lawn and drive  well kept.

Of course the property has gained a garage which I guess dates from around the time the car was purchased.

Now with a bit more digging I should be able to find out the identity of the man in the picture.

But for now I shall leave you with the same question Andy posed to me which is compare our first picture with our last and work out what they have in common.

I doubt the answer will be as simple as “further along Upper Chorlton Road,”  “both taken by A H Downes” or that “the second picture was taken first judging by the two women who appear in each photograph.”

Pictures;  Upper Chorlton Road by A H Downes, 1960, m40783, m40784 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Upper Chorlton Road today, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 2014