Red Gates Farm, .......... and one of the lost farm houses

I know more about the farms here in the township during the first 60 years of the 19th century than I do about them in the second half of the last century. True there are far more photographs of the buildings but what really tells you the story of these places are the family documents, the census records and the countless bits of paper which never get kept.

And even photographs rarely capture the feel of a working farm, which is why I like this one of Red Gates Farm. It is another of the pictures kindly lent to me by Carolyn Willits and what makes it all more exciting is that one of the men staring back at us is her Uncle John who worked on the farm for the Wood family.

I guess we are looking at the farm on a Sunday in late summer. It is a quiet enough moment on a working farm. 
John and the other chap are out of their everyday working clothes into something smarter as befitting a day off. To the right of the picture are the farm’s chickens pecking away and even further to the right some farm equipment has been left propped up against the tree.

The picture is actually a postcard and reminds us that travelling photographers would record scenes like this to sell back to the residents as well to commercial postcard companies. In this case Uncle John used the past card to send to

And we can date the picture to sometime before 1906 when the postcard was sent to James and Florence Wood at 78 Manchester Road. James was the son of Thomas Wood who had been farming Red Gates since 1881.

Now it might seem bizarre that Uncle John would send a postcard from Red Gates which was just a few minutes walk from number 78 but that was how they did it then. With frequent collections and deliveries in a day people did really send a card in the morning to arrange to meet in the afternoon.

Ours was sent at 8.30 in the evening to arrive at breakfast time and the message was simple enough “ Another view for your collection taken while harvesting.” And it was to be one of the last.

Thomas Wood the farmer had died in 1902 and sometime in 1913 or ’14 the farm house was demolished to make way for the new library. It says much for the way that Chorlton had changed since Thomas Wood had taken over Red Gates. It had been one of the larger operations at this end of the township and had still employed three farm workers in 1901. But Thomas Wood was the last to farm Red Gates. Already two of his sons had chosen not to follow him. James had become a commercial clerk and John a music teacher.

Their farm house with its seven rooms went the way of many of our farm houses, so it is good that Carolyn’s picture has survived.

Location; Manchester Road at the Library

Picture; Red Gates Farm circa first decade of the 20th century from the collection of Carolyn Willits.

A chance photograph, some demolished houses, a lost Chorlton road and a lesson in always carrying a camera

It is one of those curious things that it is often the most recent history that goes unrecorded.

I must have walked down Ransfield Road loads of times in the late 70s and early 80s, but cannot remember these houses which were being demolished in Andrew’s photograph.

It was taken in the April of 1983 and like always there is a bit of story.

They date from the last decade of the 19th century and didn’t make their 100th birthday.  All of which is more puzzling given that they were six roomed properties and occupied by relatively well off working class people.  Here was a salesman a secretary, two clerks a plumber, tailor and a telegraphist.

And judging by Andrew's picture they were typical of what had been built at this end of Chorlton

Added to this the properties on the northern side of the road and those in the adjoining Claridge Road are still there. So there is a puzzle which a trawl of the clearance orders might throw up a reason or perhaps it was just a case of a developer buying the properties.

I had wandered down Ransfield Road just a few weeks earlier and couldn’t place when the new properties went up and for a while tracking the history of Ransfield was equally hazy.

Maps from 1907 showed them there but the street directories stubbornly refused to mention them.

All of which was because during the early part of 20th century Ransfield was called Richmond Road and may have been renamed because of the presence of another Richmond Road in Fallowfield, several Richmond Streets and two Richmond Groves one of which was here in Chorlton.

So in the process of exploring a line of demolished houses in the 1980s the quest turned up  another of our lost roads and in the process also points up that simple rule “never let an opportunity go by to record those moments of change."

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Robertson

The art of collecting conkers ………

There is an art to collecting conkers.

The fruit of the Horse chestnut tree, 2004

Now  my Wikipedia tells me “conkers are a traditional children's game in Great Britain and Ireland played using the seeds of horse chestnut trees—the name 'conker' is also applied to the seed and to the tree itself. 

The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks.”*

And surprisingly it says only dates from the 1850s, although there is an account of a similar game from 1821 using snail shells or hazelnuts.

But I reckon it must be heaps older.  After all what could be so simple a game,  a game which must have occurred to children through the ages.

The trees originate in parts of southeast Europe, and there will be someone who can come up with a date for their arrival here.

And no doubt will give chapter and verse on the game and that stinky practice of hardening them first in the oven with an application of vinegar.

Early morning on the Rec, waiting for the conkers to fall, 2022

All of which is fine, but for me, today, it’s the question of how you collect them.

Some people use the bludgeon practice of throwing a big stick into the trees to dislodge the conkers, which I think is a tad dangerous and borders on cheating, while others just walk the walk collecting those that have fallen naturally to the ground.

Now if you choose your moment, usually in the early morning there are plenty lying there ready for the taking.

Rain stopped play, 2022

But then we live opposite the Rec and harvesting the conkers is just a minute’s walk across Beech Road.

And as a child living in Peckham, there was Nunhead Cemetery full of horse chestnut trees and even more conkers. 

Of course, despite how many you collect, you don’t use them all, leading to a plastic bag full of the things that ends up by degrees in the cellar, slowly going mouldy and destined to be thrown out in July, ready for the new season.

That said, with the rain coming down like stair rods this morning I am not sure how many people will be out collecting conkers using either method. 

Location; The Rec

Pictures; The fruit of the Horse chestnut tree © Andrew Dunn, Website: http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/ I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: w:en:Creative Commons, attribution share alike. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  And horse chestnut trees on The Rec, 2022 from  the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Conkers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers

Walk Chorlton's past ..... tomorrow ..... searching for the vanished Martedge

Martledge was that bit of Chorlton which was lost in just three decades, but will be brought out of the shadows on Sunday, when Andrew Simpson and a band of the curiuos explore our past in another history walk.

Redgates Farm, circa 1900, knocked down for Chorlton Library

We will encounter some dark deeds, and silly stories as well as a collection of Chorlton individuals and uncover an awful murder.

All of which will help explain how Chorlton-cum-Hardy changed from being a small rural community on the edge of Manchester into a suburb of the city in just three decades.

Meeting at the former Four Banks at the junction of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads we will take a gentle walk past some farms, the old Royal Oak pub, and a very interesting block of houses dating from 1832. 

Then by degree out across the Isles to gaze at the sight of the old Chorlton Ice Rink, catch a glimpse of the Lloyds and the story of the Great Chorlton Burial Scandal, to finish at the Edge Theatre on Manchester Road

Renshaw's Buildings, 2011, built circa 1830 now under the Royal Oak

Along the way there will be  murder of young Francis Deakin in 1847, the Hulme potato thieves and the amazing Mr Booth who lived at Sedge Lynn and took some of the first photographs of Chorlton.

All of which will help explain how Chorlton-cum-Hardy changed from being a small rural community on the edge of Manchester into a suburb of the city in just three decades.

In those thirty years the fields, farms and market gardens gave way to rows of tall houses, banks, posh shops and a railway. 

So complete was that transformation that the old name of Martledge was lost and people referred to it as simply New Chorlton.

We will meet outside the MR Floors Tile shop on Sunday September 18th at 2 pm.

The cost is just £7.50 which includes heaps of history, some interesting people and refreshments at the Dressing Room Café on Manchester Road after the walk.

Tickets are available from https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/chorltonbookfestival

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Redgates, Farm, circa 1900, from the collection of Carolyn Willits,  Red Gates Farm circa 1830, reproduced as a drawing by Bari Sparshot, 2011 

Everyone should have one ........ stories of the sewing machine ..... on the wireless today

Now we had one and so did my grandmother, but whether they were made by Singer is now lost in faded memory.

And as I write I am looking at one I picked up in the early 1970s in a second-hand shop, although its now lost the furniture it was mounted on and alas was made by Jones not Singer.

All of which is an introduction to the story of the Singer company which twists and turns and throws up some unacceptable behaviour from the company.

It is told an Archive 4 on the wireless today.*

"The song of the Singer has whirred its way through more than 160 years. There is not a town in the world where this machine has not made its presence felt.

Maria Margaronis considers the might of the sewing machine to make empires and change lives for better or worse.

Isaac Singer patented his machine in 1851. That bald fact alone doesn't even begin to describe the individual behind this perfection of technologies and processes. Impresario, inventor, actor and millionaire and father of 22 children with six wives, the last of whom was the model for the Statue of Liberty. There was skulduggery and power play at work in his ability to capture the market - the rise of the first multi-national. As the slogan goes 'Sewing made easy'.

By the late 19th century Singer had 86,000 employees and 5,000 branch offices in 190 countries--a reach second only to the Catholic Church.

But we begin on a busy North London road. The shop simply says SINGER, inside is a nest of sewing machines. It is here that Maria has brought her mother's old machine and it is here she begins her story, unpicking the threads of time. This machine was one of millions made on Glasgow's Clydeside. Singer's European heartland until 1980. A place that produced some 36 million machines.

Maria travels to both Glasgow and to the site of the vast American Singer factory in Elizabethport New Jersey to piece together the story of a once all powerful empire. From the Amazon river where they were traded for emeralds to St Petersburg where the Bolsheviks had the temerity to nationalise the Singer factory. Drawing on oral history, newly recorded interviews and rare gems Maria follows the many threads of Singers presence in the world.

Producer: Mark Burman.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2016."

Location; Radio 4

Pictures; our sewing machine, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Song of the Singer Sewing Machine, Archive on 4, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z2j3r

On Sunday ......walking the past looking for Martledge ... the forgotten bit of Chorlton

Martledge was that bit of Chorlton which was lost in just three decades, but will be brought out of the shadows on Sunday, when Andrew Simpson and a band of the curious explore our past in another history walk.

Barlow Moor Road looking out towards Morrisons,  circa 1880

We will encounter some dark deeds, and silly stories as well as a collection of Chorlton individuals and uncover an awful murder.

All of which will help explain how Chorlton-cum-Hardy changed from being a small rural community on the edge of Manchester into a suburb of the city in just three decades.

Meeting at the former Four Banks at the junction of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads we will take a gentle walk past some farms, the old Royal Oak pub, and a very interesting block of houses dating from 1832. 

Then by degree out across the Isles to gaze at the sight of the old Chorlton Ice Rink, catch a glimpse of the Lloyds and the story of the Great Chorlton Burial Scandal, to finish at the Edge Theatre on Manchester Road

 The old Royal Oak, circa 1900

Along the way there will be  murder of young Francis Deakin in 1847, the Hulme potato thieves and the amazing Mr Booth who lived at Sedge Lynn and took some of the first photographs of Chorlton.

All of which will help explain how Chorlton-cum-Hardy changed from being a small rural community on the edge of Manchester into a suburb of the city in just three decades.

In those thirty years the fields, farms and market gardens gave way to rows of tall houses, banks, posh shops and a railway. 

So complete was that transformation that the old name of Martledge was lost and people referred to it as simply New Chorlton.

The Chorlton Ice Rink, 1907

We will meet outside the MR Floors Tile shop on Sunday September 18th at 2 pm.

The cost is just £7.50 which includes heaps of history, some forgotten people and refreshments at the Dressing Room Café on Manchester Road after the walk.

And the word is that the places on the walk are filling up fast .... but you would expect me to say that ..... still that is what ticket master says and who am I to question them?

Tickets are available from https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/chorltonbookfestival

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road looking out towards the site of the railway station and now Morrison,  circa 1880 and the old Royal Oak, circa 1900,  from the Lloyd Collection, The Chorlton Ice Rink, 1907 from the collection of Chris Griffiths

Manchester Piccadilly...... a new station for a new generation

I have to say that when I first went into the newly designed and refurbished concourse of Piccadilly railway station I was impressed.

Its bold open and light design seemed a world away from the drab and increasingly run down old concourse which had been opened in 1962.

And yet I think that if I had walked into that 1960s entrance with the memories of its Victorian predecessor I might well have been equally impressed.

Now I know the new concourse has its detractors, some of which have said to me it is too much like an airport and could in a different place be the entrance to a supermarket or one of those academy schools.

And perhaps there is something in that comment along with the assertion by one of my friends that  it won't go the full forty years.

But I do have a soft spot for both and increasingly for the original which I never knew and have only seen in pictures.

Those Victorian Stations may have seemed old fashioned and not fit for purpose, but for me the entrance to Manchester Victoria or that of  Charing Cross in London have elegance that can't be matched by Euston.

To which, John Anthony Hewitt has added, "Andrew Simpson Please add a sentence or two that will separate the three different stations that have been London Road / Piccadilly. At the moment, the discussion of the two modern stations seems to suggest that both the architect's design and the present day photo are one and the same concourse".

Location;  Manchester

Picture; Poster British Railways (London Midland Region), Manchester’s New Station by Claude Buckle, 1960, and the entrance of the 2002 makeover from the collection of Andrew Simpson