Another side of Eltham Palace …….. the Courtauld rooms

Now, I grew up with Eltham Palace, and delighted in that walk over the bridge and into the grounds.

Virginia Courtauld's bedroom

And for me, steeped in medieval and Tudor history, the attraction was always the Great Hall, which my imagination filled with the good and the great doing what the good and great always do.

Later I wondered about the more important people who toiled in the kitchens, washed the huge amounts of bed linen and attended to all the needs of the powerful.

But the buildings where all the work was done have long gone, and history did not see fit to record the lives of the servants and agricultural workers.

In the same way I chose to ignore the later years of the Palace when the monarchs and their advisors and friends had moved on, and the building was reduced to near ruin, fit only for storing hay and livestock.

Virginia Courtauld's bathroom

Nor did I really take much interest in the Courtauld’s who acquired the lease of the Palace in 1933, restoring the Great Hall and adding a new building which became their home for eleven years.

And that was my loss, because the Art Deco interior is stunning.

So, I am indebted to Jeremy Harrison who sent me a selection of photographs of some of the rooms, including Virginia Courtauld’s bedroom and bathroom.

There will be many who like me left Eltham a long time ago and may have missed the Courtauld contribution to our Palace, and so with that in mind I intend to return to the 1930s Art Deco building, courtesy of Jeremy.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; the Courtauld Rooms of Eltham Palace, 2018, from the collection of Jeremy Harrison

Looking for pictures of Didbury’s oldest cinema

The cinema on Elm Grove was Didsbury’s oldest picture house and it saw out all its rivals.

The Tudor in 1959

In its time it had many names from the Didsbury Picture House, and the Didsbury Theatre through to the Tudor which it adopted in 1951 and retained till its closure in 1967.

And there will be many in Didsbury who will remember it as the Tudor and may even recall that they were there on the last night on August 12 when it showed Julie Christie in Fahrenheit 451.

By then it had outlived the bigger and more showy Capitol on School Lane which had opened in 1931 with a blaze of publicity as the Union and was partially destroyed by a fire the following year, reopening in 1933.*

Advert 1914

The Tudor was always the smaller neighbour.

It was open for business by 1913 when it was called the Bijou Electric Theatre, seating 350 and run by H Merryweather.**

Looking at the picture from 1959 it may be that the cinema went through either an extension or rebuild.

And that just leaves me to make an appeal for pictures if the Tudor cinema or better still when it was the Bijou.

Location Didsbury

Picture; Elm Grove, 1959, J F Harris, m2333, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and advert, from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914

*The Golden Years of Manchester Picture Houses Derek J Southall, 2010

** The Kinematograph Year Book Program Diary and Directory 1914

Narnia on the Green …….. with a bit of Gas

Now my Ellwood tells me that “Towards the close of the year 1861, many of the inhabitants strongly felt the need of gas and a requisition signed by the principal ratepayers, was forwarded to the Stretford Gas Company, with a request that they would extend their main along Edge Lane to Chorlton”.*

Narnia on the Green, 2022

In the winter of 1885 through to the summer of the following year Thomas Ellwood wrote 26 articles on the history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.  They appeared in the South Manchester Gazette, and took the story of the township from its earliest beginnings to the point when what had once been a small rural community was fast becoming a suburb of Manchester.  

He drew from his own extensive memory but also on the memories of those who had been born in the early part of the 19th century and in turn pulled on the recollections of residents and their grandparents in an unbroken line back to when the old King George lost the American colonies.

The gas lamp on the green, 1979

And in a trice we are walking the lanes and fields of Chorlton-cum-Hardy picking up on traditional rural customs which were already old when Henry V111 chose to marry Ann Boleyn, along with the names of men and women who were buried in the graveyard by the green across the centuries.

And mixed up with these stories are those of “modern" Chorlton, including the arrival of gas, mains water, sanitation and modern transport.

Which leads me back to his comments on the arrival of gas.

“The company granted the request and in the following year gas was supplied to a few of the principal householders.

The Manchester Corporation also extended the main from Seymour Grove shortly afterwards.

The roads in the township were first lighted with gas by the Urban Sanitary Authority in the year 1875.  

They would have been lighted earlier, but for the strenuous opposition of the farmers, who would not agree to any increase in the highway rate.  

The gas lamp on the Green circa 1900

The first lamp was lighted by Mrs. Wild, wife of Dr. Wild, and is the one situated in the centre of the village green”.

So there you are  ….. a little less Narnia and more thank you to the Gas Board.

And I suppose also to Emily Wild who was the wife of Thomas Wild.  

In 1891 they were living at 5 St Clements Road, and a decade earlier in Devon.

Just when they arrived in Chorlton is as yet unclear but by 1891 he had retired.

And by 1901 they had retired to Southport.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; The Narnia lamp on the Green, 2022, & 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

*Elwood, Thomas, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Chapter XX11, South Manchester Gazette, April 13th, 1886

Wandering down Court Yard letting the magic wash over you

When I was growing up the area around the Palace was a pretty magical place.*

Of course the old hall was only open at certain times but that just meant you were forced back to wander down Court Yard and King John’s Walk which let your imagination soar in all sorts of directions.

Back then the history of the half timbered buildings were unknown to me but you could tell that they belonged to a time when the Palace was an important part of any Kings travels around London and beyond.

So with just a bit of historical license it was easy to people them with the great and the good along with the not so good and a whole raft of servants who worked long hours for little reward and have passed out of history.

Now they and the gates into the Palace along with Court Yard and St John’s Walk are regularly photographed and Chrissy and Jean have taken some fine ones over the years which they have been kind enough to allow me to use.

But working on the basis that you can never have enough pictures of Eltham here are two taken by our Elizabeth and Colin one Sunday at the end of October.

And what I like about them is that each offers just a glimpse of this old part of where we live allowing my imagination full reign to conjure up stories of who lived and worked there and just what they said to each other as they watched the sunlight play on the water.

Pictures; around Eltham Palace, October 2015, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

*Eltham Palace, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Eltham%20Palace

A history of Didsbury in just 20 objects ... number 16 ……. plotting the quiet revolution in a pub near you

The story of Didsbury in just twenty objects, chosen at random and delivered in a paragraph or more.

It began when a group of revolutionaries, harmoniously "took tea together” at the Church Inn on November 12th, 1853, after which they set about challenging the social order.

Now I said they were revolutionaries set on challenging the social order, but that may have been a wee bit of an exaggeration.

They were in fact members of the British Freehold Land Society and amongst their members were the radical Abel Heywood, and the equally radical Richard Cobden and John Bright who were MPs.

The aim of the society was the simple one of acquiring estates which could then be divided up into smaller plots to be bought by people of modest means, enabling them to own sufficient property to qualify for a Parliamentary vote at a time when ownership of property secured you a vote.

And that brings us back to the harmonious tea meeting in the Church Inn which is now the Didsbury Hotel, because having taken “tea together” they apportioned the newly bought Kingston estate amongst “the various members who had accepted the 133 allotments” and discussed the “recently purchased second estate consisting of 27 acres situated at Crumpsall Green, within five minutes’ walk of Cheetham Hill omnibus office”.*

The Kingston Estate was situated on what is now either side of Kingston Road, and each plot amounted to one share, which cost £40, and these could be purchased by subscriptions of 4/- per month.

At the meeting those present expressed “the greatest satisfaction at the appearance of new street, extending through the whole estate.”

The Rate Books for the year, record that the rateable value of the estate was £45 and the estate had belonged to our old friend John Arnold, who ran the Prince Albert beer shop and worked the iron in his smithy.

This may not seem in the same league as storming the Bastille, or participating in the attack on the Winter Palace, but it was a serious attempt to address the failure of Parliament to pass a second Reform Bill which would widen the electorate and offer some working-class men the vote.

Of course, it was not about giving the vote to women, or to those with no means even to purchase an allotment, but it was nevertheless a challenge to the existing order.

All of which just leaves me to reflect, that as you sit in the Didsbury Hotel, or look out of that small window across to the parish church, this was where a little bit of our history was made.

Location; Didsbury

Picture; Kingston Road, date unknown

*British Freehold Land Society, Manchester Guardian, November 12th, 1853

Appointments with the past ............. in Cathedral Gardens

Cathedral Gardens is one of my favourite open-air spaces in the city.

Watching the water feature, 2025

It is a relatively recent addition but does what such places are supposed to do offering up somewhere to sit, meet up or take a break from all the busy stuff going on around it.

Long Milgate, 1875, close to the water feature

It is surrounded by much that is our past, from the Corn Exchange, Cathedral, Cheetham’s and Victoria Railway Station, and the new in the form of what was Urbis and is now The National Football Museum.

Go back far enough and it is the site of heaps of old buildings including what was the timber framed Sun Inn which became known as Poet’s Corner.

Later still in the 1950s it was home to a hotel and printing press and as part of the regeneration of this part of the city became Cathedral Gardens after the IRA bomb in 1996.

Over the years I have dropped in on cold winter’s evening, and wandered through in high summer

And on Monday I was there just after 8 in the morning on what was a fine spring day. 

At one end were two Jehovah Witnesses siting on a bench with their promotional material and a few people waiting for a bus, but the gardens were empty leaving me to admire the water feature while busy commuters purposefully made their way from the railway station past Cheetham’s and the Cathedral and onto shops and offices.

The gardens in the early morning, 2025

Of course detractors will point to that time of year when bits of it have been taken over by the Christmas Markets or other events.

Catching the bus, Todd Street, 2025

But there are plenty of other times when it is a pleasant and quiet place to sit, relax  and wonder just where all the busy people are going.

Location; Cathedral Gardens

Pictures; Cathedral Gardens, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Long Millgate, 1875, m02783, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council , http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Calling all Chorlton club memories ………………..

Over the years the blog has gone back to that club on Barlow Moor Road, which has had a collection of names, attracted stories from a range of people and stood on the site of the McDonald’s.

And today I am back with a picture from 1963 sent over by Cath Brownhill who added,

“Hi Andrew, just having a lockdown sort out of bookshelves. I have come across a Manchester United souvenir booklet with this ‘Good Luck’ advert from the Ponderosa club, interesting that it says adjacent to the Princess Theatre Club., commenting, 

I thought the Ponderosa came after the Princess Theatre Club, but I was only 8 in 1963. There is no date on the front of the booklet, but reference to 1963 on a Raleigh advert on the back”.

Now the “Ponderosa” is one I never knew, although Tony Golding referred to it in one of his Princess stories “Ponderosa” is given as one of the clubs formerly owned by Bill Kerfoot in an article in ‘The Stage’ on 23rd April, 1964 describing his new venture into theatrical agency".

So, I shall sit back and await the memories.

And, no sooner had I posted the story, and Margaret Lee responded with "My father was the manager of both the Ponderosa and the Princess Theatre Club. 

The Ponderosa came about, as I understood it at the time, Bill Kerfoot had a room that was being used as storage and someone pointed out that it was big enough for a small bar, and so the idea was put to him that it was a western themed bar and so the Ponderosa was born. 

Both clubs had their own enterance and you could not get from one club into the other without going outside and entering the other club via the front door. 

The Ponderosa didn't have the same opening hours as the Princess".

Adding, "This is the story as I remember it being told at the time, I also remember being on school holidays on the day it was opening and having to go in to wash 

ALL the glasses that were to be used on the opening night!!! 

Thankfully I didn't go in on the night or the next day. Reading the poster the Ponderosa did have the same opening hours as the Princess, but it was not designed as a place to stay in all night so a lot of people would go in the Ponderosa for a drink and wait until the entertainment came on in the Princess then change clubs. 

As I understand it Bill Kerfoot sold both clubs to the Moss group a few years later and went on to pastures new".

Location; Chorlton

Pictures, Manchester United souvenir booklet, 1963, from the collection of Cath Brownhill

*The Princess Ballroom; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Princess+Ballroom&max-results=20&by-date=true