Salford Pubs ............. the Packet House Barton Road

Now here is a pub with a history.

It’s just I haven’t got round to looking it up.

Packet Boats ran regular services along our canals.  They offered up to two rates for the wealthy and the middling customers and some had huge panoramic windows and were even pulled by horses with riders in livery.

The Packet House is not one I know so its a thank you to Andy and also to Bill who points out that its "a good old Eccles Barton on Irwell Eccles Pub, not in Salford really but for boundary changes. Always well kept and popular locally but I bet not many know the significance of the name."

And P.J. Thompson who had already corrected me quite rightly with "it's not really a Salford pub, Eccles had nothing to do with Salford before 1974 and had its own council, town hall and mayor."

Now this is what I like.

Location, Salford

Pictures; the Packet House, 2016 courtesy of Andy Robertson

My Salford ..........nu 7 a memorial

Now I don’t claim that any of the following short series of pictures of Salford are magnificent photographs but I like them.

Location; Salford























Picture; Salford 2008 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Visions of a better world .......... nu 1 the protest march

This is a short series which explores and records  popular protest and the demand for change.

The date is 1980, the place Liverpool and the demonstration was against the actions of the new Conservative Government which had been elected the year before.

The picture shows the banner of the Moss Side Labour Party.

Location; Liverpool

Picture; Liverpool October 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Looking for a story in the Eagle Inn on Collier Street ................. another Salford pub

Now Collier Street is one of those typical inner city streets.

The Eagle Inn, 2011

It is narrow, doesn’t really seem to lead anywhere, and apart from the Eagle Inn and some undistinguished retail units there isn’t much there.

The last time I visited the place the old Greengate Baths were looking even more forlorn and derelict.

The baths had opened in the August of 1856, closed just twenty four years later and then for a century it did the business as a warehouse.

But since 1990 the building has been doing nothing save slowly deteriorating year by year.

All of which is a contrast to what Collier Street had once been.  By the 1840s the east side consisted of a row of terraced houses running up from Queen Street to Greengate, while part of the opposite side was a mix of houses with tiny courts behind leaving the rest of that side dominated by part of the Salford Union Workhouse.

The street directories of the time wrote the place off, listing just a few of the residents.

Collier Street, 1849

The British Rolla public house did get a mention.  It stood on the corner of Collier and Rolla Street.

It was still there a full half century later although by then the baths, the Roman Catholic school and St Peter’s Church had replaced the workhouse.

But sometime between 1894 and 1895 it shut up shop or at least falls out of favour with the street directories and is no longer listed.  That said nature abhors a vacuum and across the road at number 19 Collier Street a Mr John Stone is brewing and selling his beer.

And that nicely brings me back to the Eagle, which some sources suggest was open for business by 1902.

Of course to check that out will involve a trawl of the licensing records.

So for now I will content myself with saying that Mr Stone was there at 19 Collier Street from at least 1891 and was still there pulling pints with his wife Selina two decades later.  By then they had been married for 29 years and had nine children who ranged in age from 28 down to eight, all living in a property consisting of just five rooms.

I wonder how his trade fared.  The majority of those in Collier Street were labourers, with a washerwoman, cleaner and shoe maker and some were bringing up families in just one room.

But that as they say is another story.

What would be nice would be to track down Mr and Mrs Stone's family and show them Peter's fine painting of their old pub.

Location; Salford

Painting; the Eagle Inn, Salford © 2011 Peter Topping 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Map; Collier Street, 1949 from the OS Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

The day we went to Ascoli Piceno nu 4 .......

We had left the beech for the morning and gone on an adventure.

And despite the rain following us we had had a pleasant time in the small town just inland of Alba Adriatica.

So having taken the sights across the piazza from the bar which had recently celebrated its hundredth birthday it was time to go.

And yep it is just an empty bottle.

Location; at the Anisetta Meletti in Ascoli Piceno

Picture; at the Anisetta Meletti 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Peel Park, Salford, 1905

We are in Peel Park sometime before 1905

The post card was sent in 1907 and what seems odd was sent to Miss Hodgson and Miss Richards who were on holiday in Blackpool on the North Shore "wishing they were enjoying their time at the sea."

But with numerous collections and deliveries it was common practice to send messages like this confident that a reply would arrive the following day if not sooner.

Picture; Peel Park, Salford R Tuck and Sons, from the series, Manchester courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/postcards/122638

The day we went to Ascoli Piceno nu 3 ....... and then it stopped raining

Now when you are at the seaside there is not a lot you can do if it’s raining.

So instead we went inland to Ascoli Piceno and arrived with the rain.

But then the rain stopped and we discovered this spot beside the Museum

Location; Ascoli Piceno

Picture; when the sun came out, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson