Down at West Point in 1911 before the Seymour Hotel ........ looking for the story of Jonathan Brown .... gardener and expert orchid grower

Now the Seymour has passed into history and soon memories will fade that this was the last pub before the long dry walk along Upper Chorlton Road to Brooks Bar and the Whalley Hotel

West Point, 1911

That said you would be hard pressed to find anyone who could remember when this grand old place was a private residence.

And now only history books will offer up its time as the hone of Samuel Gratrix who called his house West Point at the junction of Manchester Road, Seymour Grove and Upper Chorlton Road.

All of which l was reminded of when Jonathan Brown set me off on a hunt for his grandfather who was the gardener for Mr Gratrix.

Jonathan came across a reference to the both men in an article from The Orchid World published in 1911.*

He grandfather was living in the lodge with his wife Betsy. They had been married for less than a year and in 1914 Mrs Brown had a son. Their home vanished long before I knew the Seymour and l haven’t found a picture of the lodge.  But it had five rooms and was situated on the south side of Mr Gratrix's big property.

Samuel Gratrix, curca 1911

Locating the Brown's in 1911 was easy enough and the story then made its way to Rawtenstall where Jonathan had been born in 1883.

Just eight years later and his mother was a widow bringing up six children and working as a charwoman.

Her husband had been a teacher and while it is unclear yet when he died it will have to be after 1886 when their last child was born.

In time l will track Mrs Brown who had been born in Norfolk in 1855 which made her just 36 when she was bringing up her children.

All of which was new to Jonathan who an hour earlier knew nothing of his paternal father's family before 1914.

And the final twist was the 1871 census which not only revealed that his great grandfather was a pupil teacher but that his great great grandfather farmed 35 acres outside Rawtenstall and had been born at the beginning of the 19th century in Colne.

That might seem a long way from West Point in 1911 so I shall finish with an extract from The Orchid World which having praised Mrs Gratrix for “looking after the wants of these delicate and youthful Orchids” turned to Mr Brown “who has charge also of the 17 acres of grounds and] shows fully his capabilities as an experts Orchid grower, and the many rare and beautiful plants which he is entrusted should act as a great incentive to his ever willing desire to still further improve their good qualities.”*

West Point, 1894

I think Mr Brown would be pretty pleased with that.

Not that he stayed at West Point.

At some time he moved on eventually landing up in Huddersfield where the family settled and along the way set up a business, although Jonathan told me his grandfather was for moving on but his son put his foot down and Yorkshire became home.

And that is about it for now but I remain fascinated at how chance connections open up a whole new set of stories.

So for me apart from making a new acquaintance I have found a picture of West Point before it became the Seymour, discovered that its grounds extended to 17 acres and learnt a little about one of our gardeners and residents.

Location; West Point

Pictures; West Point, Whalley Range and Mr Samuel Gratrix from The Orchid World, Vol 1 nu 1910-1911, from the collection of Jonathan Brown, and West Point from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Orchid World, Vol 1 nu 1910-1911, pages 154-8

West Point on the edge of Chorlton

West point in the 1950s

Well I am back at West Point at the junction of Manchester and Upper Chorlton Roads where they meet Seymour Grove.

Once and it was a long time ago this was commonly known as the Flash and I have to say there wasn’t much there.

In fact before the late 1830s had you wandered north out through Martledge* past Red Gate Farm and Dark Lane up to the Flash there was no Upper Chorlton Road and our route would have taken us up  what is now Seymour Grove but was then called Trafford Lane.

The Flash, 1841-53

Back then Trafford Lane was according to the historian Elwood, “nothing more than an old lane or rough cart road, with deep ditches at each side, overshadowed by trees, and used chiefly by the farmers and foot-passengers of the village.”**

But sometime and it may have been around the time that Samuel Brooks began developing Jackson’s Moss turning it in that desirable southern suburb of Whalley Range, the Flash became West Point.

It might have been helped by the road he cut from Whalley Range into Chorlton at the Flash.  This was Upper Chorlton Road and while it was a toll road may have been a more attractive route into the city than Trafford Lane.

And as such by the late 1850s and early 1860s began to attract those wanting a pleasant place to live.

West Point 1888-93

One of these was Samuel Gratrix who was living on the corner of Upper Chorlton Road where it ran into Manchester Road.

 He was there by 1861.  Opposite was the home of his son which was known as West Point by 1881 and a  name which was adopted as the address for some of the other fine properties nearby.

This raises that tantalizing question of whether the house gave its name to the area or whether West Point had come into common use to describe the point where the three roads converged.

There are plenty of such examples here in Chorlton.  So Chorlton Cross may be the official designation for the junction of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads but people call it the Four Banks, and half a century earlier it was Kemps’ Corner after Harry Chemist’s chemist which stood where the HSBC is today.

Likewise Lane End was historically the name for the junction of Barlow Moor Road, Sandy Lane and High Lane.  And it too had once been known as Brundretts Corner after the grocery shop that dominated the spot back in the mid 19th century.

West Point, in the 1950s

At least two modern historians have written that The Flash became known as West Point at the same time that Samuel Brooks bought Jackson Moss and began developing it as Whalley Range which was 1836.***

Now I can’t verify that, but the name West Point is there in the 1881 census and on the OS map of South Lancashire for 1888-93 and our historian Elwood writing in 1886 more than once makes the point that what once had been known as the Flash was now West Point.

And just twenty years later as the first trams rumbled south from the city their destination boards announced West Point as the end of the route.

West Point circa 1903

By 1908 that famialr row of shops had been built and the small development of houses behind had been laid out which were to become the blue print for Chorltonville.

Commercial photographers never tired of using the junction and snapping the older members of the community sitting on the circualt bench watching as West Point ent about its business.

But like so many popular place names it has fallen a little out of common usage.

That said there are people who still refer to it as West Point and now my new pal David who lives in Firswood has set the ball rolling to get the name re-established with a sign post.  He has already approached a councillor in the Longford ward of Trafford.

Now that I like, and I shall be returning to the story.

*Martledge the northern most community of the township and now the area north of the Four Banks up to the Library which was the site of Red Gates Farm
** Elwood, Thomas, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Chapter 6, South Manchester Gazette, December 12 1885
*** John Lloyd, and Cliff Hayes
***8 Enu 16a page 30, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire 1881

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection and details from the OS map of Lancashire, 1841-53, and South Lancashire, 1888-93 courtesy of Digital Archives http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

West Point the place largely forgotten

Now I don’t often feature West Point which is a shame really but there is quite a lot here, ranging from the murder of a policeman, a grand old pub, and a small housing estate which was a prototype for Chorltonville.

So here is the first of an occasional series on West Point which is where Manchester Road, Seymour Grove and Upper Chorlton Road meet.

Until recently the eastern corner was dominated by the Seymour Hotel which had once been a private residence.

It was a barn of a place and past its best by the time I sometimes went in there.  Like so many of these big pubs it no longer attracted enough people and was demolished for a block of flats.

Location; West Point circa 1950s

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

In Firswood with the Cookson family at Firs Farm in the June of 1841

Firswood Metro stop, July 2013

Firswood metro stop is one of the new ones on the old railway line that ran out from Central Station south through Chorlton, Didsbury and on into Derbyshire.

And a little to the west of the stop was Firs Farm.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when the farm house was built but it was there by 1830 and four decades later John Cookson was farming 225 acres and employing 12 labourers.

This was something of a success story because ten years earlier his father had farmed just 137 acres earlier still had described himself as a potato dealer rather than a farmer, and from 1830-36  as a labourer*

By 1841 he was at Firs Farm so the transition from labourer to tenant farmer will have occurred sometime during the previous five years.

And pretty much straight away the family begin to grow the farm, so that during that June of 1841 they already had eight farm servants living with them ranging from the eldest at 20 down to George Baker aged just ten.

The practice of employing farm servants is an interesting one, and had benefits for both farmer and employee.  The contract was for a year, often made at a hiring fair and in return for a slightly reduced wage the farm servant lived in with the family or in accommodation nearby.

Firs Farm and east to West Point, 1893

This suited younger farm workers who had left home and offered a degree of job security.  In some cases the contract was struck between the farmer and the parents of the labourer.

Like so much of the area Firswood remained farm land until quite recently, so while to the east at West Point the first fine houses were being built in the 1860s the area around the Quadrant came much later with the social housing arriving only with the end of the farm in 1930.

Pictures; the Metro stop at Firswood from the collection of Andrew Simpson and detail of the area surrounding the farm east to West Point from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1888-93, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*1841-71 census for Stretford and parish records of St Mathews Stretford 1834

West Point on the Chorlton, Trafford border and that marker sign

It’s less a new story and more an update on an old one.

West Point is the area around the junction of Upper Chorlton Road, Manchester Road and Seymour Grove.

Before its development as an area of fine houses for wealthy families it was known simply as the Flash.

But West Point was its name for most of the last decades of the 19th century and well into the following.

Since then the name has rather faded from living memory.

Recently there was a move to reinstate both the name and erect a sign post.

So David who lives in Firswood set the ball rolling by approaching a councillor in the Longford ward of Trafford who was sympathetic and collecting signatures on a petition.

The hope was that Trafford Council would fund the cost, but sadly it felt the area was too small to warrant a sign and would also “create confusion for people trying to find the building West Point at the junction of Chester Road and Stretford Road.”*

And while it had no objection to the erection of a marker pillar it “currently has no funding to pay for such a feature.”

This does not rule out a marker pillar but this would have to be paid for by voluntary contributions, which given the present economic climate is understandable.

So we shall see.

Pictures; of West Point from the Lloyd collection

*RE: PETITION Requesting ‘West Point’ Marker or Sign, August 21 2013

West Point again

Yesterday I was at West Point and I have decided to stay there today.

It is that bit which I often thought was Whalley Range but was just inside the township at its northern edge.

It was also known as the Flash, and back in 1840 there wasn’t much there.  Just a little to the west and out of the township was Firs Farm and a little further along Upper Chorlton Road was Whalley Cottage and Whalley House.

But our parade of shops is a late addition. In the 1840s the site was just open fields and while there had been a steady encroachment down Upper Lloyd Street towards Chorlton our block was built sometime between 1909 and 1911.

And in 1911 there was along this parade almost all you could want, ranging from a grocer, milliner, fruit shop and confectioner, to the Post Office which was also a stationary, a draper next to the tailors and a butcher, boot dealer, hair dresser, fishmonger, baker, chemist and dairy shop.

Of course by the time the picture was taken sometime in the mid 20th century, some of the premises had changed usage, but remarkably the post office remained in the hands of the Lloyd family well into the last century.

What I particularly like is the way each shop keeper proudly displayed their name on the sun shade.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection