Pictures from a Chorlton Bus ..... no 1 ... Kemp's Corner and other nostalgic moments

The top deck of a Chorlton bus must be a pretty neat way of seeing the world below.

The 85, 2024

And when it is the same bus at about the same time every day, then you have got yourself a project.

Stone clues, 2024

And yesterday it was the 85 passing along Barlow Moor Road, although I confess that  on this day, I sat downstairs allowing me a full glimpse of the building which was the former HSBC bank.

There will be plenty who remember it as the Midland, and before that a fast-food outlet and before that as Harry Kemp’s Chemist.

Mr. Kemp opened his pharmacy at the start of the last century, added a landmark clock and so we gained that popular place to meet up which for seventy years was simply known as "Kemp’s Corner".

The name long survived the demise of Harry Kemp and his chemist and in more recent times entered the popular culture as one corner of “Four Bank Corner”, or just simply “the Four Banks”.

Now I have written extensively over the years about Harry Kemp and Kemp’s Corner so I won’t say more.

Kemp's Corner undergoing a makeover, 1978

Instead I am intrigued by the stone blocks uncovered when the rendering was taken off, which offer the promise of some research and a story.

But for now I am back with the bus, and the slight lingering smell that pervaded it as it waited at the Chorlton Office.

It was a feint odour but took me back to those old London buses of the 1950s and 60s, which on a summer’s day reeked of worn smelly upholstery with a hint of dust and warm engine oil.

But which were pleasant when compared to the interior of their rival, the trolley bus which somehow mimicked the smell with that added whammy that they were much hotter, made little noise other than a low whir and made me thoroughly ill every time I ventured on one.

The facelift, 1978

Nor was it just the trolley buses of London Transport, but also their green rivals of Derby Corporation which I had to endure on visits to my grandparents.

But enough of such memories, other than to say the new fleets of buses are a luxury compared to their predecessors.

I shall instead pursue the clues to just what the stone blocks were which were hidden in 1978 during the conversion of the property to the bank.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures, from a Chorlton Bus, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The Midland Bank extension, from the Chorlton edition of the Stretford and Urmston Journal, April 13, 1978

*Kemp’s Corner, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Kemp%27s%20Corner

The Vanished Ones ............... no 4 back at Hunts Bank with a favourite

Now I am back by Hunts Bank looking up to the Cathedral and there is that missing building again.

It featured a few days ago when Andy Robertson sent me two pictures of a before and after which were taken a year apart.

The after was dates this year and the before from 2016.

Not to be out done John Casey has shared two more which take the story back a full three decades.

Lots of people were fascinated  by the building which had once been a hotel and dated back into the 19th century.

It had been built between 1837-45 by the Manchester and Leeds railway Company and was actually three buildings.

One section consisted of livery stables and offices, the middle building was offices and shops and the northern section was constructed between 1842-43 as a railway hotel serving Victoria Station.

Later the buildings were turned over to retail use and in 1969 were acquired by Chetham’s School which applied for planning permission to convert the building into classrooms.

And now it has gone.

Back in 2014 the case was made for its demolition which makes interesting reading particularly for the details of the proposed use for the site.*

So that is about it leaving me only to include a second photograph from John showing a but more of that building along with the cathedral and river.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Palatine Building and Victoria Street, circa 1980s, from the collection of John Casey

*When Demolition Makes Sense:  MCR’s Palatine Building, https://confidentials.com/manchester/when-demolition-makes-sense-mcrs-palatine-building#:~:text=This%20article%20was%20originally%20published,medieval%20buildings%20can%20be%20revealed.

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.17 the Rising Sun in pale blue

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham, circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

After the children have gone ….. Gable Nook … some doctors ..... and a story

Gable Nook is that slightly sad looking house on the corner of Wilbraham and Corkland Road, and it is clearly waiting for something to happen.

Gable Nook ... waiting for something to happen, 2024

Once on any weekday it would be full of nursery children doing what nursery children do.

But now the playground is covered in moss, the happy busy kid’s posters in the windows are fading and in one upstairs room hangs a flag making a statement on a war.

It’s last Ofsted report in 2018 judged it “Good” and had plenty of positive things to say.*

But sometime after that it closed, and it is beginning to look a bit ghostly.

Overgrown, 2024

All of which is a shame for a building which dates from 1890, had eleven rooms and commanded fine views of the new railway station.

It’s first occupant was an Alfred Alexander Mumford who was a surgeon and continued to live and practice there until around 1909.

In happier times, 2013

Thereafter it came the surgery of Helm and Steele-Smith and was still doing the business in 1939.

I last wrote about it in 2013 when it was still looking after children. **

After that at present I have yet to find out what happened to the building, but I know that the Gable Nook Nursery opened in 1992, which offers up just a short window of 53 years to research, but then someone might know.

We shall see.

And within a day I have been told that it was a nursery going back through the 1980s back into the 70s and onto the 1960s.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Gable Nook, 2013 and 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Gable Nook Day Nursery, Ofsted, https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/16/500085  

**Old houses and forgotten stories, four houses on Wilbraham Road in 1911, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2013/07/old-houses-and-forgotten-stories-four.html

At Victoria Station ............... on the morning of December 23 1940

This is platform 16 in Victoria Station on the morning of December 23 1940 just hours after the all clear had sounded on what had been the first night of the Manchester Blitz.

Now the story is pretty well known and so rather than retell the events of the two nights with the dismal record of death, and the destruction of property I will just linger on these two pictures.

I wasn’t there and given that the events were 77 years ago there will be few who were.

But the photographs vividly convey the damage, from the collapsed and twisted metal to the empty roof devoid of glass.

And of course there would have been that powerful smell of smoke which got everywhere and would cling to your clothes long after you had left the scene.

The images come from the collection of David Harrop and were I think press photographs.

Of course there will be people with up todate pictures of Victoria Station but I leave it up to them to post them as a comparison

Pictures; Victoria Station, December 23 1940 from the collection of David Harrop

Looking out on the High Street with memories of past girlfriends

Even on a Sunday in late October our High Street can be a busy place.

And looking out from the parish church I am reminded of the countless times I stood in the shelter of that entrance waiting for a friend.

More often than not it will have been a girl friend although thinking about it there were only three steady ones.

That said the corner of Well Hall Road and the High Street was a favoured place for me and Jenny to meet up.  In term time she lived in the lodge at Crown Woods and if we were going out to the cinema this was a sensible place to meet.

And this was in that pre mobile age when once the choice of where to meet was made you had to stick to it or suffer the consequences of missing each other and trying to second guess an alternative which otherwise meant mutual recriminations on the Monday morning.

So along with the entrance to Avery Hill and the Wimpy bar this place will always have a special place in my memory.

Picture; the parish churchyard, October 2015 from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

Walking Pomona in the company of Andy Robertson

Andy Robertson is an accomplished photographer of the changing landscape of Greater Manchester.

And just over a week ago he was down at Pomona.

Location; Pomona

Pictures,  Pomona, 2024, from the collection of Andy Robertson