Out on Upper Chorlton Road looking for Samuel Brooks at Whalley House

Upper Chorlton Road stretches from the northern end of Chorlton up towards the city.

Back in the 1840s it was brand new and the product of Samuel Brooks’s grand plan to build an estate for the wealthy and genteel who wanted to live in the countryside but still be close to Manchester.

It is one of those stories which mix Victorian drive and ingenuity with a splash of vision and a fair amount of arrogance.

He bought the area then known as Jackson’s Moss in 1836 which I know is technically a year before the old Queen ascended the throne and proceeded to develop the estate thereafter.

Part of the grand scheme involved the sale of land  which became the site of the Lancashire Independent College and cutting the long road from the edge of town out to his proposed estate.

And not to be out done he renamed the area Whalley Range in recognition of his birthplace.

That done and his fine house built, he then proceeded to connect the pipe from his lavatory to the Black Brook which ran alongside the road.

Now he was not alone in assuming that such a solution to his waste problem was a perfectly acceptable way of doing things but a little unfair on the people who lived hard by the brook as it flowed past their cottages at Oswald Lane, giving rise 50 years later tospeculation that this might be a risk to public health.*

But had I ventured out onto Upper Chorlton Road soon after it completion I doubt that I would have seen Mr Brooks given that his fine home was hidden from view behind high walls.  That and the fact that this new addition to the roads north of the township was a toll road.

I suspect I would have opted for what is now Seymour Grove and travelled out along what was just a narrow carter’s tracked flanked by tall trees up to the Stretford Road.  Leaving Mr Brooks and his Whalley Range to those that could afford it.

* The Sanitary Condition of Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester Guardian May 19th, 1886.

Picture; detail of Whalley Range from the OS map of Lancashire, 1841, courtesy of Digital Archives Association http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and part of Upper Chorlton Road showing the wall of Whalley House early 1900s, from the Lloyd Collection

Manley House, Whalley Hall and Upper Chorlton Road

This I think should be the last of the stories on the mystery of Whalley House on Upper Chorlton Road.

I began it all with a picture of a gatehouse which the caption described as the entrance to Whalley House.

Now this was the home of the banker Samuel Brooks who in 1836 bought Jackson’s Moss and set about developing it into a desirable housing estate for the seriously well off just a few miles south of Manchester.

It was on Upper Chorlton Road and out of sheer curiosity I set about looking it up on the 1911 census which was the first to detail the exact number of rooms in each property.  Samuel had lived there with his three children and five servants.

Maps of the 1840s show it as a grand place set in large gardens, but those self same maps suggest it was further north than our picture and I couldn’t find it on the census.

What I did find was Manley Hall, and today’s picture confirms that our gate house is that of Manley House, for which I have a whole set of people living in the house and the grounds.

The caption reads “Upper Chorlton Road looking from Manley Hall towards Brook’s Bar about 1911”

And in the fullness of time I think I will bring them out into the sunlight.  In the meantime I think  having ventured out of the township as I shall continue along Upper Chorlton Road and out towards the city taking in more of Whalley Range.

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

Back on Upper Chorlton Road and the mystery of Whalley House

Now sometimes you get locked into a quest which you know is trivial and so it is with today’s story, because I am still on Upper Chorlton Road pondering on the mystery of Whalley House.

Back in the middle decades of the 19th century this was the home of Samuel Brooks who was a banker, property developer and like many of his class a philanthropist.

In 1832 he had subscribed to a fund to alleviate the hardships caused by the Cholera epidemic, and eight years later contributed £1,500 towards the building of the Lancashire Independent College in Whalley Range.

His donation which was the second largest  contribution amounted to almost 15% of the cost of the building.  Now the cynics might point to the fact that Samuel sold the land upon which the college was built for £3,650 and thus made a gain, but I think that would be a little unfair.

It also takes us away from the quest.  Yesterday’s story featured the photograph which is identified as Whalley House, but the maps and census returns would place it further north along Upper Chorlton Road.

And just perhaps this second picture helps with that idea.  We are again on Upper Chorlton Road just past the TA Centre and there is the familiar gate house.  The parade of shops is still there today but the gatehouse has gone.

But looking at the two photographs this is clearly the same gate house.  The date of this second picture is unknown but I judge it to be sometime in the 1930s, which was after Whalley House had been demolished.

Now of course the gate house may have been knocked down later but I am as I expect are you a little confused.  So I would welcome help.

But before I close I want to look more closely at this second photograph. Something like 80 years separate it from today but little has really changed.  The garage is still there, and so are the shops, although many have followed the trend of Chorlton and have become bars and restaurants.  Take away the tram, tram lines and the old fashioned cars and all that really dates it are the uniform curtains and blinds at the upstairs windows, some of which have been drawn against the strong winter sunshine.

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection

Out on Upper Chorlton Road in 1925

We are outside the township which might be seen as leaving my comfort zone, but only just outside.

The year is 1925 and this is Upper Chorlton Road.

Back in the 1840s this area was being developed by Samuel Brooks into "a desirable estate for gentlemen and their families."

It had been a swampy area known as Jackson’s Moss but with its purchase by Brooks in 1836 it was transformed into a pleasant estate of fine houses set in large private gardens.  And it was a patten he was to repeat elsewhere.

As a testament to his own confidence in the development he chose to live on the estate and it is the entrance to his house which we can see in the photograph.  This was Whalley House and it stood here for almost a century before being demolished in 1930.

Well that it was the caption says on the photograph in the collection but I am just a tad unsure.  The maps from the 1840s through to the ‘90s suggest that Whalley House was a little further to the north which seems to be confirmed by the 1901 census.

All of which may seem a little pedantic and something I want to return to tomorrow.  In the meantime I think I will explore a little bit more of the life of Samuel Brooks.

He was a banker and lived at his new home with his three adult children and five servants.  Like many of his contemporaries none of the servants he employed were local.  This was a common enough practice, for who would want their family secrets made the gossip of the community? So of his five, one was born in Withington, and second from Yorkshire, a third from Suffolk and the remaining two from Manchester.

Two years after he bought the land he cut a new road from West Point* to Brooks Bar.  This had originally been just a footpath along which ran a brook which he arched over and used as a sewer from his home to the Black Brook.

It was an amazingly cavalier approach to sanitation and is a reminder that there must be plenty more little brooks, streams and water courses which once flowed in the open and have now been buried and many forgotten.

And his brazen use of the brook as a sewer caused problems well into the century.  Thomas Ellwood writing in 1885 reported that

“the brook frequently flooded the footpath during heavy rain, and old William Hesketh, who lived at the Pop Cottage, was often awakened at night by the cries of travellers for help and guidance through the water. Amongst these was sometimes the Wesleyan minister, who had been to the village to preach.“ **

All of which is a long way from the picture of Upper Chorlton Road on a summer’s day in 1925. And in my search to find out more about the houses of Whalley Range I came across this site which is a wonderful place to get a sense of the history and current events in the place where Samuel Brooks developed his estate in  1836. http://whalleyrange.org/

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

*West Point was the name for what is now the junction of Manchester, Upper Chorlton Roads and Seymour Grove
** Elwood, Thomas, Roads and Footpaths, December 12th  1885, South Manchester Gazette