On the 10.30 from Chorlton to Didsbury with tram stops at Withington and all points south

Waiting at East Didsbury

As historic journeys go I don’t suppose it ranks with the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830 which inaugurated the first passenger railway in the world but the short tram trip from Chorlton to East Didsbury was quite something.

It was the first time in forty six years that the route had been travelled by passengers in receipt of a ticket and brought me closer to a little bit of our transport history.

The railway line was opened in 1880 and ran for 87 years until it was closed to passenger traffic in 1967.
And yesterday it was possible to travel again from Chorlton to Didsbury and beyond.

Of course the new service is a tram not a train and none of the Metro stops match exactly the sites of the old railway stations.

But there is something about doing the route again after forty six years and judging by the people on the tram I wasn’t alone in wanting to experience the journey.

More than half had come with cameras and busied themselves recording the trip while others spoke in hushed but excited tones of steam trains and the merits of one route over another.  And this was mid morning long after the press and important people had travelled the route and officially declared it open.

South from Central Station in 1947 from Mile By Mile

Now for me it was about recreating a little bit of that transport history but for most people it will just be a quick and straightforward way of getting into town and that is just as it should be.  After all back in 1880 people took the train for exactly the same reason.

The  trip from Chorlton into the heart of the city took just over ten minutes and like the tram it was a frequent service.

This I know because I have read my copy of Mile By Mile, "a detailed account of every mile of the journey” written in 1947 and recently reissued.*

But was something I forger to tell Phil and Janet who I have known for years and who like me were "off on a jolly" from Burton Road to Didsbury.

Both were full of what the route promised for nights in Chorlton along with visits to Jazz sessions in Didsbury.  Such is the tram.

Pictures; tram at East Didsbury from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the train route from Central Station south towards London from MILE BY MILE ON BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS, S.N.PIKE, published by Aurum Press Ltd, and original Mile by Mile on the L.M.S. 1947

*Mile By Mile, travelling our railways in 1947 http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/mile-by-mile-traveling-our-railways-in.html

At Chorlton Metro waiting to recreate a journey last done 44 years ago

Painting of tram leaving Chorlton for St Werburghs and south on to Didsbury,

          © Peter Topping 2013 

I shall be on one of the first trams from Chorlton to Didsbury today which I know marks me out as a little eccentric because it will be part of my continuing obsession with riding the lost railway lines of south Manchester.

Now the route from Chorlton to Didsbury was opened in 1880 and was part of the line that took you from Central Station, south to Buxton and on to Derby, Sheffield and London.  By 1900 over 200,000 tickets were sold from the station and a decade later Didsbury was served by 38 trains running south and 40 running north with a frequency of every ten minutes in  peak time.

Locomotive-45602 and train at Didsbury, 1954

So to travel along the line again will be like recreating a bit of our lost past.

But history rarely repeats itself in exactly the same way so while I can journey along the line I will not be able to alight at the old Didsbury Station which was opened on January 1st 1880 and closed on January 2nd 1967.

Instead the new metro station is a little to the east of the old station.

And if I wish I can travel on to East Didsbury or return stop by stop to Chorlton.  This will take me past the West Didsbury metro point which is close to the old Withington and West Didsbury station which was on the north east side of Lapwing Lane.

Didsbury Station, 1951

Originally it was called "Withington", then from 1884 "Withington and Albert Park", receiving its final name in 1915. All that remains is a boundary wall, by a block of flats Brankgate Court which were built on the site.

From there the tram will run through the new metro stops at Burton Road, and Withington before St Werburghs and Chorlton.

And at this point I sense that very soon the story will become a travelogue for the lost age of steam or an advert for Metro so time to close.  But for those who want to read more about the closed stations of south Manchester I recommend http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/

Pictures; painting of tram leaving Chorlton for St Werburghs and south  to Didsbury,© Peter Topping 2013 www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk and Didsbury Railway Station in 1951, m63442 and Locomotive-45602 and train heading north to Manchester in 1954, m63444, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

Walking in the north of the township through Martledge in the summer of 1847 part 2

Martledge in 1847

Continuing our walk along Barlow Moor Lane, north through Martledge, a  journey which will take in some great houses, a shop, farms and a pub as well as cottages of wattle and daub and brick

Yesterday we passed Clough Farm and Oak Bank and have crossed the Rough Leech Gutter.

At this point the modern traveller will cross the junction of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads.

Officially this point is known as Chorlton Cross, a name bestowed by the city planners and not one which is widely used.  Place names tend to grow out of people’s experiences and survive long after the reason for the name has been forgotten.  So it is with this junction.  For perhaps three generations it was known as Kemp’s Corner, taking its name from Kemps the Chemist.

Harry Kemp was a local politician and his chemist stood on the west corner of Barlow Moor Road where it joins Wilbraham Road from the beginning of the twentieth century.  The clock above the chemist made it a local landmark and as such was a recognised meeting point.  Today the same spot is often referred to as the four banks, which given the fact that there is one on each corner makes sense.

Renshaws Buildings

Had we rested at this point in 1847, with the Rough Leech Gutter at our back we would have uninterrupted views of open fields to both east and west.

Ahead of us there was a sprawl of properties including farm houses cottages and a pub and ending at Red GatesFarm where the library now stands.

Dominating this stretch was the tall block of Renshaw’s Buildings.

These were built by John Renshaw some time before 1832 and like Grantham’s and Brownhill’s Buildings they were an exercise in speculative building.

But unlike the other two it was designed with an impressive gable end which fronted Barlow Moor Lane and was taller than the surrounding properties.

It ran at right angles to the road and access for most of the individual properties was by way of a path.  The building was demolished in the 1920s to make way for the new Royal Oak which still stands on the site. But the path is still there on the eastern side of pub, and it retains the stone pavement and road sets.

Maps show that there were twelve single units which suggest they may have been built as one up one down properties and this seems to be confirmed by the large numbers of families who lived there in the mid century.

The Royal Oak

Beyond Renshaw’s on what is now a double fronted set of shops stood the old Royal Oak.

It was a detached, two storied building and it had a commanding position.  Not only was it on the route to and from the city but it was the only pub here about.

To the north was Red Gates Farm and surrounding the pub were a cluster of cottages including

Renshaws or New Buildings.  In all it served a little community of about 100 people.  It’s only competition coming from Mrs Leech’s beer house.

In those spring days in the late 1840s and early ‘50s it would have been a busy place.  The first real Sunday visitors of the year would have taken advantage of the improved weather, and joined the locals who along with the gossip of the day may have swapped tips on gardening with William Wise the gardener while his wife Hannah who ran the pub dispensed the beer to her customers.

During the rest of the week there would have been a steady trade from farm workers passing on their way between the fields.  And those who lived in the township returning from the city may have added to the gathering.

One such was Thomas Leigh.  His mistake was to stop off on his way home from the markets in Manchester and spend the night drinking with a John Battersby who then stole two sovereigns [£2] from Leigh while he slept.

Like so much of the township the natural geography of the land has been lost.  Water courses like the Rough Leech Gutter have been culverted, ponds drained and slight rises hidden by buildings.  This is particularly true as we move further north.  And the first clue to all this is the road itself.  Old roads twist and turn following ancient field boundaries and natural obstacles.

Manchester Road snakes its way from the village to enter Martledge where the shopping precinct stands and for a short distance ceases to exist.  The break was occasioned by the creation of the precinct car park, not that this has stopped people using the route to come out on Nicolas Road which itself runs in to the continuation of Manchester Road at the junction with Selbourne Road.

Part of the Isles, 1847

But sections of it appear to have had different names.  From Edge Lane to Wilbraham Road was known as Chapel Lane terminating at Ash Tree, so called because of an ash tree which grew in the road.

And the rest where it crosses the modern Wilbraham Road before disappearing into the car park and reappearing at Nicolas Road was known as Chorlton Lane.

This was the site of the finger posts and for a while the area was also known as Martledge Green.

But these seem to be local names for a section of the road which was also called Stretford Road.

Had we not turned west at Ash Tree, we could have continued north towards Oswald Fields.  This today is the start of Oswald Road and in 1847 it would have taken us past Martha Helsby’s garden on our right and through the 4 acres she rented from the Lloyd Estate before the track came out beside the Longford Brook.

The Isles, 1882

Just beyond the car park are the school and the houses bordering the long roads of Longford, Nicolas Newport and Oswald.

Here is the site of Isles, where little streams fed ponds which had once been marl pits.  Marl was used to enrich the soil and has been dug here from the 16th century if not before.

Later still the clay was used for bricks and a little further west of Oswald Road were the Brick Kiln Pits which had already been excavated and filled with water by 1847.  Even later this was where the brick company made the bricks for the villas and terraces of the township.

Today St John’s School stands on part of the old brick fields while the occasional brick still turns up on and near the football pitch.

Adapted from THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

Pictures; map of Barlow Moor Lane, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ drawing of Renshasws Buildings © Barri Sparshot, and the Royal Oak and the Isles from the Lloyd Collection

Walking down Beech Road in the summer of 1847, today at 2 pm

The parish church, circa 1860

“this great tract of meadows, gardens and pasture land.”*

In 1857 the writer Edwin Muir had taken the train from Manchester to Stretford,  and after clearing the  “cotton mills, and dye works, and chemical manufactories of Cornbrook,” he arrived in Stretford where he saw “this great tract of meadows, gardens and pasture land.”  

To the south was the village of Stretford and to the north and east across open land and lost behind trees was our own township.

The Row 1847

Now I don’t think he came here and so would not have walked down the Row from Barlow Moor Lane to Chorlton Green which is a pity, because had he done so he would have been rewarded with views of some fine houses, much productive farm land, plenty of orchards and the relatively new Wesleyan chapel hard by the smithy and a beer shop.

All of which is a trailer for a walk down Beech Road in 1847, recreating something of what you would have seen, who you might have met and most importantly who you had to be polite to.

Sutton's Cottage on the corner of Beech Road and Wilton Road, circa 1890

Meet at the corner of Beech Road and Barlow Moor Road by the bus station, at 2pm today for a gentle stroll to Chorlton Green and the Horse and Jockey and lots of history

This is part of the GLAD TO BE IN CHORLTON, contribution to Chorlton Arts Festival.  Chorlton-cum-Hardy past, present and touch of tassology is collaboration between me and local artist Peter Topping with photographs and stories of the past and paintings of the present and a hint of the future.

Now given that most attempts at predicting the future are usually wrong and that the best we can ever hope to do is guess the outcomes using the present as a template, Peter decided we might as well fall back on tassology which is the art of divination using tea leaves.

It is an old practice which some sources have traced back to medieval European fortune tellers who developed their readings from splatters of wax, lead, and other molten substances and evolved into tea-leaf reading in the seventeenth century.

And coincided with the introduction of tea by Dutch merchants in to Europe.  Not to be outdone my source also suggests that in the Middle East the practice is carried out using left-over coffee grounds.

This may work for Peter, but as a crusty old historian I rely on the past and present to suggest the things to come but tassology does have the added benefit that you get to drink a cup of tea.

Gratrix Farm at the junction of Beech and Beaumont Road

And as we finish at the Horse and Jockey you can always go into the pub which is participating in our  tassology bit of fun, as are also The Post Office Cafe and the Lloyds Hotel and look through the tea leaves.

Moreover at all three along with another nine venues you can read excerpts from our History Trail.**

So all that leaves me to do is remind you of the walk and highlight walk number two starting at the National Westminster bank at the junction of Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road on May 26th at 2 pm where we will pick up the story of the township and explore New Chorlton which developed from the 1880s.

Pictures; the parish church circa 1860s and Gratrix’s farm circa 1900, from the collection of Tony Walker,  Sutton's Cottage © Barri Sparshot, detail of Beech Road in 1847, from the OS map of Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Glad to be in Chorlton poster © Peter Topping

* Muir, Edwin, Lancashire Sketches 1869

** The History Trail can be viewed at The Horse & Jockey, Franny & Filer, St Clement's Church, The Lloyd's, The Library (occasions), Fosters Cycles, Unicorn, The Bar, Chorlton Eatery, Morrisons,Chorlton High School,The Post Box Cafe

A little of Chorlton's railway history, something about Morrisons and the new tram line to Didsbury

Chorlton Railway Station, circa 1900

It is one of those sad facts that if you can remember travelling from Chorlton railway station into the heart of the city or out in to the Hope Valley you will be on the wrong side of 45.

Not of course that 45 is old but it is just about the length of time that we have been missing a fast rail connection to Manchester.

And before the purists object the last train ran in 1967 and the first tram in 2011 which if you have done the sums is 44 years and to my reckoning  is still  a big chunk of anyone’s time.

But because shunting engines and goods waggons are even less interesting I doubt that few now are bothered with the fact that running alongside Albany Road was Chorlton’s own depot for coal and anything else that could be delivered by rail.

Weighing machine and hut, circa 1910

Now that I think is sad, especially as during the 50s my old friend Oliver Bailey remembers walking the newly arrived pigs from the goods yard through the roads of Chorlton to the family farm on Sandy Lane.

And likewise Ida can tell me which coal merchant she was sent to when the coal bill needed paying.

At any one time from the end of the 19th century well into the 20th century there were four or five coal merchants operating from Albany Road site along with builders and nurserymen. In 1911 there were five of them working from the yard by the railway line along with J. Duckett & Sons, building merchants, and J. A. Bruce Alexander, nurseryman.

It closed in November 1964 although a private siding stayed open for a while.

But with the closure of the railway link it all came to an end.  The coal merchants went, the rail tracks were pulled up to be replaced by a small business park and  a supermarket.

All of which brings us pretty much up to today.  The business park is still there and so is the supermarket which is now owned by Morrisons.

Morrisons, 2013, © Peter Topping

And I rather like the idea that Morrison’s are on the site of our old railway station.

After all the company was founded by William Morrison in 1899 just under twenty years after the railway arrived.

It began as an egg and butter stall in Rawson Market, Bradford and grew from there.

For most of its trading history it was based in the north but its purchase of Safeway in 2004 not only allowed it to expand across the country but brought it here to Chorlton.

At Morrisons with a story

In turn it has asked to be part of the Chorlton History trail and you can see part one of the story of the site along with paintings by Peter Topping in the store.

This as many will know is part of the GLAD TO BE IN CHORLTON initiative which now has 12  venues where you can read more about the history of where we live and something special about each place.

And as if on queue this comes along side the exciting news that from May 23rd you will be able to head out from the metro station next to Morrisons south to Didsbury, calling at Withington, Burton Road, West Didsbury, Didsbury Village and East Didsbury.

Metro stop, Chorlton, 2013 © Peter Topping

This 4.4km (2.7 miles) extension to the existing South Manchester line has been finished several months ahead of schedule.

So there you have it. A little of our railway history, something about Morrisons and the new tram line to Didsbury.

Pictures; Chorlton Railway Station circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection, Morrisons supermarket and tram,© Peter Topping 2013 www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Memories of when the milk arrived by horse, of dye cast toys and much more

When you are around the past there is always that temptation to slide into nostalgia or worse still to adopt a cynical, hard and sneering approach.

The first sends you tip toeing down picturesque cobbled streets to the strains of a barrel organ and the knowledge that no one locks their doors at night.  

The other points up that the cobbles were actually called sets, were often dangerous to both horse and pedestrian while  the barrel organ had a limited repertoire and if people did leave their homes unlocked that was because there was little worth stealing.

And as ever the truth is somewhere in between.  All of which was prompted by a recent flurry of memories on a facebook site.*

It is one of those places where people post pictures of Manchester along with some of their thoughts and reminiscences.  

A picture of a horse trough in Withington sparked a series of conversations which went off in different directions and included naturally enough horse drawn vehicles, some of the carrying companies and milk bottles and the cream at the top of the milk.

These are not the memories that summon up the fall of empires or the onset of wars but are as much the stuff of history.

And so I got thinking of the milk vans that delivered our milk in London in the 1950s.  Our round still relied on a horse drawn wagon which however as a consession to the mid 20^th century came with big rubber wheels.

It belonged to United Dairies which had been formed in 1917 from a number of smaller companies and by the 1950s had become the UK’s largest dairy products company.

Here as you would expect are a legion of little stories.

Back in the 1920s the United Dairies pioneered the sale of pasteurized milk which had been an issue stretching back to the beginning of the last century. 

In 1907 one correspondant to the Manchester Guardian had asked that simple question “Can the present system of milk supply be improved.?” 

It was an issue of public safety for what was wanted “is milk which is clean and free from pathogenic germs and which is rich in fat.”

But given the often poor level of scrutiny on the farm and during transportation there was no guarantee of its purity for “milk is a mysterious fluid which tells no tales of its manipulation.”  Moreover it was also at the mercy of “crowds of filthy shops in which milk is exposed side by side with firewood and candles.”

At every stage there was the danger of contamination. “The difficulty on the farm is to secure cleanliness in the milker, the atmosphere, the cooling plant and the churn.  The difficulty in the town dairy is largely in the dust laden atmosphere, which alone shows the need of bottling.  The difficulties in the home are dirty jugs and other vessels in which the milk is exposed until it is required.”

And so not for the first time there had been a call for the involvement of the municipal authorities in the production, supply and provision of milk.  This was after all a period when in the interests of public health local government was getting more and more involved in everything from transport and education to housing, sanitation along with clean drinking water, gas and electric suppilies.

But is was also the age of the train when more and more things were carried by rail of which milk was one.

United Dairies, was a large user of milk trains, and in agreement with the railway companies supplied its own distinctive coloured milk containers to top the railway companies chassis. 

While rival Express Dairies preferred the Great Western Railway, United Dairies preferred the Southern Railway.

Those odd looking milk containers were a common enough site on our railways as were the toy versions which appeared on the model railway sets of my youth.

Along with them were those miniature dye cast models of horse carts, motorised floats and the milk lorries.  

All were familiar toys when I was young but have pretty much disappeared and are now collectors items, which I suppose has also become the fate of the milkman.

One did pass our house today but they are as much a rarity as the dye cast model.  

Here on Beech Road the deliveries lingered on till the turn of the century, but you got that sense that like the rag and bone man and the knife grinder their day was numbered.

Now they are as much a memory as the local dairy on Brookburn Road or the horse drawn milk float which is just about where I started.

Pictures; United Dairies 6 wheel milk tank originally a British Railway Milk Tank Waggon now part of the rolling stock of the Bluebell Railway,  August 2007, by Bluebellnutter, other images from the internet source unknown

*Manchester Film and Pictorial History, https://www.facebook.com/groups/248854231451/10151408156411452/?notif_t=group_comment_reply

*James Long, Municipal Milk, Manchester Guardian, November 20^th, 1907

Wilmslow Road, a scene now lost to living memory

Wilmslow Road and wellington Road, 1910

This is another one of those pictures which has all but passed from living memory.

The photograph was taken in 1910 but the scene with the horse trough and the trees behind would be gone in just another seventeen years.

We are on Wilmslow Road in Withington looking up towards Fallowfield and Wellington Road is there on our left.

The water trough errected in 1876

The horse trough was moved in 1927 to a site opposite the White Lion before moving again to Copson Street and disappearing sometime in the late 70s or early 70s only to be discovered in Heald Green in 1985.

Behind those tall trees the large house which was still occupied as a private residence would become the post office and temporary library in December 1911.

It was demolished in 1925 to make way for the new purpose built Carnegie library.

This was to be the last of three built in Withington as part of the promise made when the four townships of Burnage, Chorlton, Didsbury and Withington voted to join the city in 1904.

Withington Library in 1959

It was opened in 1927 and has so dominated the corner of Wilmlsow Road and wellington Road that it is hard to imagine the scene captured by the photographer in 1910.

The new library had 11,000 books including a small techical section.  It was according to Councillor Davy the largest ofthe  three built in the old Withington Districy Council.

Looking towards the water trough circa 1914

Pictures;Wilmlsow Road, Chalmers, 1910, m41784, and the same spot in 1959, taken by J F Harris, m42554, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council and the horse trough today courtesy of JBS.

The horse trough today on Copson Street