Lost in the attic .............. a new collection of photographs of Chorlton........ nu 1 Whitelow Road

This is Whitelow Road sometime in the early 20th century and with the picture comes one of those intriguing little stories.

It is one of a collection of images which were donated to St Clements Church and were found in the attic of a house.

And that is about all I know of the history of the twenty or so photographs of Chorlton.

All except one date from sometime after 1900 and measure 25.5 cms by 42 cms and have been reproduced from picture postcards.

I would love to know who went to all the trouble of first collecting and then enlarging the images and later storing them away.

Now there will be a story there but I doubt it will ever come to light.

So instead I shall concentrate on this one which shows a gang of labourers at work.

I don’t have a date but the company whose name plate appears on the steam engines was Davies Brothers, Asphalt Road Makers who were listed in the 1911 directory with an office on Princess Street and a depot on Green Lane.

Green Lane ran from Brook Street to the Garratt Bridge by the River Medlock in Chorlton on Medlock and long ago was swept away by new developments which included the old BBC Broadcasting building.

What makes the picture interesting is that it is one I have never seen before and comes with a companion photograph which also shows Whitelow Road with the same team of workmen.

Both contain a wealth of detail from the steam engines, barrels of tar to the wooden sets and the large number of labourers.

This was after all at a time when much of the work still relied on muscle power and so despite the steam engines it was still down to shovels, wheelbarrows and a lot of effort.

But the pictures also include that small band of spectators who have been drawn to the scene.

Like the workman they stare back at the camera with that mix of poses, some stopped in their tracks, a few looking curious and the rest those who just can’t miss the opportunity to be in the picture.

And of these the one I am drawn to is the chap in uniform pausing with his parcels to be caught on camera.

Now I am sure there will be someone who can help explains the use of the long wooden beam across the road and others who will want to speculate exactly where along Whitelow Road the pictures were taken from so I shall close by reflecting on how many more pictures of old Chorlton are sitting in attics across the township.

Pictures; Whitelow Road date unknown, from the Simpson Collection

The lost Chorlton Bowling Green ..... Joseph Miller and the Lloyd Terrace ........Whitelow Road gives up its secrets ……….

It was a chance conversation outside the Horse Jockey.

Lloyd Street, 1854 marked in red

I was talking about the history of the pub when l was drawn into a conversation about Whitelow Road.

To be exact the question ran What do l know about Whitelow Road?

The short answer was not a lot other than part of it was once called Lloyd Street.*

This was in 1854 and instantly challenges that tired and well rehersed observation that "there are no streets in Chorlton".

Now, Lloyd owned a big chunk of Chorlton cum Hardy having bought into the township in the 18th century.

Back then Lloyd Street was a far more modest stretch terminating just beyond the Beech Inn where it ran into the 2 acre field called Row Acre which was owned by the Lloyd estate and farmed by Mary White.  In total she rented 77 acres stretched out across Chorlton and she lived at the southern end of Chorlton Green.

Whitelow Road, 2022

So back to the question because my new friend lives in one of the houses directly opposite the Beech and to stamp a bit more authenticity into the story high up in the wall is one of those stone inscription which usually offers up the name of the terrace and sometimes even a date.

Alas there is no date but the name Lloyd Terrace which is a nice connection to Mr. Lloyd.

In1891 my friend's house was occupied by a Joseph Miller who was 23 married to Emma and shared the house with three children, two brothers and a lodger.  

He was from Didsbury, she was from West Gorton and their eldest son, aged 5 had been born in Cheadle.  Within the year after he was born they moved to Chorlton and took up residence in the property by 1889.

Lloyd Terrace, 2022

Mr. Miller gave his as “coach man and domestic groom”  as were his brothers and the lodger.  At which point it is easy to speculate on who they worked for and whether all were employed by the same family. 

What is striking is the variety of birth places.  Along with Didsbury, West Gorton, and Cheadle, we can add three different parts of Shropshire as well as Chorlton.

I haven’t as yet got a date for when the terrace was built but a Frederick Fuller occupied another one of the houses in 1886 and by 1893 Whitelow Road extended all the  way to Wilbraham Road and all the buildings we now know and a few more had all been constructed.

So that just leaves a search of the rate books to push back to the moment when our terrace was built.  

All the evidence would suggest a date after 1881, when the land upon which the terraced is situated is shown up as Bowling Green.  

This must be the lost Bowling Green which had been connected to the Horse and Jockey where according to the historian Thomas Ellwood was “a number of gentlemen used to play bowls on the green then adjoining the Horse and Jockey.  For exclusive use of the green was reserved one afternoon in each week, in return for a small annual subscription, and the players generally partook of tea afterwards, and spent the evening together over a friendly game of cards."***

The lost bowling green 1881

In the 1840s the plot was owned by John Brundrett who rented it out to Thomas Cookson.

It was two acres in size which is roughly the same as the Rec on Beech Road. to and listed as "Garden"

The gentleman later decamped to Edge Lane where they formed a much grander club which limped on till 1950.

This may have precipitated the bowling green's change of use into residential because by 1885  Frederick Fuller was renting from the Brundrett estate in Lloyd Terrace.

As for those with a wider interest in Whitelow Road, it would appear that the stretch from High Lane had also not been cut by 1881, instead much of it is marked as a wooded area held by the Methodists.

So, from being a mystery road, Whitelow has started to give up its secrets.

Picture; map showing Lloyd Street from the OS map of Lancashire 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives,  http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Whitelow Road, 2022, courtesy of Google Mapsthe  map of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Withington Health Board, 1881, courtesy of Trafford Local Studies

* It was still Lloyd Street in 1871

**Ellwood, Thomas Bowling Greens, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, number 26, South Manchester Gazette, May 15, 1886

The mysterious house on Whitelow Road and an intriguing story

Now, I never underestimate how a story can grow and shoot off in the most unexpected directions.

The caption on the photograph says Whitelow Road and I was drawn to it by the men working on the road.

It became a story and  I wrote that I would love to know more about the house.*

And that inspired my old friend Andy Robertson to delve deep in to Manchester’s Local History collection where he found another photograph of the same house.

He sent it over adding that “I think I may have solved the mystery. I found m17923 taken in 1959 and the house looks identical. 

You will notice St John’s Church to the right, so this old house was demolished post 1959 and the land is now the church car park. On the old picture the house looks like it could be on a corner. If this is correct we have an exact location for our workmen”.

And that led to a search for the inhabitants of our big house.  In 1911 it was the Cobley’s who had been there from at least 1891 and were in oil with the four daughters of the widowed Mrs Caroline Cobley listed as Co-Partners in Oil Trust along with the son.

The Trust, was listed in 1911 as “Cobley (The) Trust, oil and grease refineries , wheel grease and boiler composition manufacturers, 2 and 4 Stove st Tipping st, Ancoats”.**

In time I will go looking for the company on the maps of the period and see if they are listed in Company House and whether they appear in the local newspaper.

For now it is enough to record that their house was indeed a big one with twelve rooms, matched by the one opposite which had fourteen rooms and is now the site of a block of flats.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Whitelow Road, date unknown from the Simpson Collection, and in 1959, A E Landers, m17923, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Lost in the attic .............. a new collection of photographs of Chorlton........ nu 1 Whitelow Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/lost-in-attic-new-collection-of.html

**Slater’s Directory, 1911, Alphabet, page 955, Trades page 1958