THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY a new history now in the bookshops

It's arrived.

THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY now in the bookshops.*

Available from Chorlton Book Shop who have been taking orders for months and will be organising the launch and book signing at the Horse & Jockey


“This richly illustrated history exposes every aspect of life in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Drawing on contemporary accounts, Government documents, newspapers, reports, antiquarian books and recent academic work, it debunks many myths about the town – and unearths some surprising truths along the way.

Local historian Andrew Simpson takes the reader to the rural cottages and houses of the past, many of which disappeared only recently and some which are still local landmarks today.

Revealing the close links between rural communities and the city and chapters on farming, local industries, shops and pubs, health, wealth and poverty, children, housework and housing, churches, entertainments and sports, crime, politics and all manner of other topics, it will delight residents and visitors alike.”



*ISBN: 9781860776717; RRP: £18.99, The History Press Ltd, The Mill, Brimscombe Port, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL6 2QG

http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Story-of-Chorlton-cum-Hardy.aspx

Picture; adapted from the original by Peter Topping

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/

Home documents from a World War No 1 The National Milk Scheme

Sometimes it is just enough to let the documents speak for themselves.  

So here is the first from the collection of Graham Gill.

Graham has a vast treasure chest of personal and family material which spans the century we have just left.  

There are photographs from two world wars, adverts from the 1950s and many other wonderful things.

Today I want to feature a permit for the sale of milk issued under the National Milk Scheme, which had been introduced in 1940 as part of the wider policy of rationing.

The National Milk Scheme provided one pint of milk for every child under five. Expectant mothers and young children were entitled to free milk if the combined income of parents was less than 40 shillings a week.  

Parents had to complete a form every three month and obtain the signature of a doctor or “similar responsible person.”

Our document however comes from the other end of the process, and was the permit authorising the Co-op Dairies in Northenden to sell milk at the regulated price Two pence per pint.

Like much about war time regulations the permit ran for a short period and had to be renewed every three months and “at least 14 days before the permit expires.”

Mr Gill had to sell to only those registered with him and “identified by ration books bearing National Registration numbers detailed” with the documentation. 

And nothing was left to chance. So as one war time poster advised, “IN THE EVENT OF ENEMY ACTION PREVENTING YOU FROM OBTAINING MILK FROM YOUR USUAL SUPPLIER, YOU SHOULD APPLY FOR ADVICE TO THE MILK OFFICER, NATIONAL MILK SCHEME.”

So had the Northenden Diary been bombed then consumers were asked to visit Beech House on Yew Tree Road, while in Chorlton it was the Baptist School, Sibson Street, Wilbraham Road.*

What I like so much about the document is that it is an example of everyday life in the midst of a huge war and is an insight into how “the little people caught up in a great century” just got on with the routines.  In its way it is as important as any great paper of State or speech in Parliament.  And above all it is a personal item which fixes a name to an event.

*This was of course Sibson Road and the school was in the Baptist Sunday School Hall which stood behind the church and had incidentally been a Red Cross Hospital during the Great War.

Picture; from the collection of Graham Gill

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

The story of Martledge, the exhibition at Chorlton Library from October 4th

Few people today will have heard of Martledge, and yet it was as much a part of our township as Chorlton or Hardy.

It was that area stretching roughly from the four banks up towards the Library and was a mix of farms, labourers’ cottages, a few fine houses and the old Royal Oak.

As a way of bringing it out of the shadows Peter and I have mounted an exhibition at Chorlton Library beginning tomorrow.

The exhibition charts the changes to the area with pictures and stories and contemporary paintings.

And it is fittting that it should be the library because this was the site of Red Gates Farm which had been home to generations of farmers from the 18th century.

The last family to live at Red Gates left around 1910 and within four years the site had become the library.

Picture; Red Gates Farm from the collection of Carolyn Willitts and Chorlton Library from the Lloyd Collection

Rosen Hallas Home and a second life chance

“A girl comes years ago in the dawn of her maidenhood, not trailing ‘clouds of glory,’ but giving painful evidence of the staining power of the polluted moral atmosphere in which she lived.”*

Change some of the old fashioned words and it could be a description of countless young people who still face abuse at the hand of adults.

It was written in 1921 and refers to an incident that occurred perhaps twenty years earlier.  In this case it turned out well, for the girl who experienced that “polluted moral atmosphere” became a “wife and mother, mistress of a pretty Canadian farm, loved by her husband and valued as a worthy member of an enterprising community.  What lies between the past and present?  A sympathy, a faith, a hope and a vision, working a modern miracle.”

Now William Edmondson who told this story was a devout Christian and the language he uses reflects that faith but he had also been Secretary of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes which had been engaged in rescuing children off the streets of Manchester from 1870.

At first the organisation had concentrated on destitute boys, offering them a bed for the night and a meal.  In time in branched out into a fully campaigning organisation bringing neglectful and abusive parents to court and running holiday homes as well as seeking to provide work and training for young people and emigrating some to Canada.

In 1878 it opened its first girls’ home on George Street which was off Cheetham Hill Road.  This was number 12 George Street and in the same row the Refuge had another five homes.**

A little later in 1886 and a little further along on Bury Old Road it opened the Rosen Hallas Home which was a pretty impressive building and stood in its own gardens with a small hospital in the grounds.

What marks this place out for me is that it was where some of the girls after their training in domestic skills were emigrated to Canada. It looked after between 30 and 40 older girls and they “came voluntarily, stayed willingly, and were free to leave after due notice.”

There were success stories and many of the “girls have responded to the influences brought to bear on them while at Rosen Hallas Home. 

Opposite; reunion of old girls

Some have been difficult cases, often owing to their misfortunes rather than to their fault because of their earlier associations, but the very difficulty has been a challenge to the love and patience of those weaving good character from the raw material of neglected childhood.”



Pictures; Rosen Hallas Home and reunion of old girls, courtesy of the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/ map of the area around Rosen Hallas courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Edmondson, William, Making Rough Places Plain, Fifty Years’ Work of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes 1870-1920, Manchester 1921 pp 78-79
** Numbers 2-12 listed in 1909 as Orphan Homes with Thomas R Ackroyd, secretary. Slater’s Manchester, Salford and Suburban Direct