One hundred years of one house in Well Hall .... part 8.........making way for the new .... and losing so much

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now with age has come a degree of respect for the house I now live in, which was built in the same year as the family house in Well Hall.

Both were built in 1915, and both have been much knocked about in the century and a bit since their first residents moved in.

We did little in the way of alterations to the Eltham house during out 30 year stay, partly because much of the ripping out, and adding “new” had already been done. 

Not so the house I now live in, which the previous owner and then me did much to change.  He ripped out fireplaces, and picture rails, and I bits to the bathroom.  Then in a fit of remorse I started to put back what had been taken away, and I have to say not always accurately or sympathetically.  

What I have come to learn is that a house should always be transformed slowly and keep an eye on the original design and the vision of the architect.

So, I was pleased that my friend Carol who still lives in Well Hall has retained more of the original features of her house on the estate than did previous owners of 294.

And yesterday shared some of those features including the fireplaces, which are an exact copy of the one that survived in our house.

They will have been standard design and I know from reading reports of the construction of the estate in 1915 that the architects ordered in large numbers of the same features and fitted them out in each house, which is just as you would expect.

I am hoping that others who read this will send over more pictures of their homes with the bits that first adorned the properties.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; fire places Well Hall, 2022 from the collection of Carol Maddalena

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Stories of the Great War ...... from Manchester

 This is my uncle George in the last years of the Great War.

George Bradford Simpson, 1918

Now I suspect it cannot be before 1917 given that he was born in 1899.

And it is an image that will be familiar to us all. 

Similar pictures appear all the time in books and programmes about the First World War and most families will have one photograph of a young man ready to leave for the Front or at home on leave.

Young Clara, date unknown

These young men stare back at us in their ill fitting uniforms in individual poses or with friends and family and along with those images of the battlefields they pretty much shape our idea of that war.

More recently we have come to see that generation and those who fought in the Second World War as frail men and women with faltering voices and walking sticks who were venerated as the last of their generation.

We forget the majority of them lived full productive lives, contributed to their community getting on with the daily demands of work family and holidays.

This I know because I grew up with them, and when I was growing up they were still just in their 50s and early 60s, and were younger than I am now, still vital, still working and many as yet still waiting to be grandparents.

So, when I was given the chance to write about them I jumped at the opportunity.

The book was commissioned by the History Press in 2013 and told the story of the men, women and children of Manchester who lived through the Great War and it drew on official reports and newspaper accounts as well as letters and photographs and a multitude of other personal items.

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, 1916 Ireland

Much of this material had never been seen before and some of it was unique in that it allowed us to follow families through the whole conflict challenging many of those easy and preconceived views of the war.

So here was the story of George and Nellie Davison of Harpurhey and Hulme, including his years at night school while living in Chorton before they married, her regular trips to stay with him in London and Ireland and his final letters home before his death in the June of 1918.

Across the city and over the river we learn of Miss Rebecca Chapman’s first week as a Salford tram clippie, and Mrs Fannie Jane Barlow’s juggling act of bringing up two young children while working long houses in a Red Cross Voluntary Hospital.

George Davison's letter of June 15 1918

Along with these are the stories of the thousands of children on “part time education” because their schools had been taken over to look after wounded soldiers, as well as those who opposed the war, the campaigns against profiteering and the unequal status of women in the workplace.

And because all books end up with a personal reflection, there are the stories of six of my own family who served and came through and my connection with George Davison, who for a short time was billeted just three minutes walk from where I grew up.

Many of the stories behind the book are available by following the  link.

Pictures; Clara in the uniform of the East Lancs, date unknown,  the Davison's 1916,  and George's letter home, 1918, courtesy of David Harrop, and George Bradford Simpson, 1918 the collection of Andrew Simpson

Location; Manchester

*Manchester Remembering 1914-18 by Andrew Simpson, 2017, History Press 

**A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

St Ann's Square, Snaps of Manchester nu 6

I have to say that there often seems to be building work on the corner where Old Bank Street runs into St Ann’s Square.

And so it as when this snap was taken sometime I think in the 1930s.

Back then the Royal Exchange was an exchange trading in cotton and after the completion of its extension between 1914 and ’31 was the largest trading hall in the country.

Now I might be slightly out with the date, the cars suggest the 1920s and it all hangs on whether what we see is the finished exchange.

Happily someone will have an opinion and provide an answer.

Either way it is another of those wonderful snaps from the collection of Sandra Hapgood, and as I have said before they are a valuable record of what the city looked like.

For unlike the carefully posed professional images these were instant pictures, taken by someone who just liked what they saw.

And so often are ones that no one else has taken.

Picture; St Ann’s Square, date unknown courtesy of Sandra Hapgood

Down Edge Lane at Alderfield and Rye Bank in 1845 ............ avoiding Mrs White and Mr Gresty

Edge Lane 1845

Now that stretch of Edge Lane which runs out of the old township up to Longford Park is somewhere I don’t often visit.

And that is a shame because it was one of those parts of Chorlton which had some fine houses built during the last quarter of the 19th century with stories which have yet to be discovered.

But today I am drawn to what I might have seen in the 1840s had I walked the road out from the village and up to Longford House which had been the home of Thomas Walker, one time pillar of Manchester society but also a radical politician who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade, supported the French Revolution and was indicted for treason in 1794.

The family lived at Barlow Hall from the late 18th century spending the summer there before moving back for the winter to their town house on South Parade which faces what is now Parsonage Gardens.  And it was there that a mob attacked Walker who was forced to drive them off by discharging a pistol in the December of 1792.

Walker survived both the attacks and was acquitted of treason, after which he retired to the new family home at Longford House where he died in February 1817 and was buried in the parish church on the green.

Edge Lane in 1893

Now had I walked along Edge Lane in the summer of 1845 Longford House would not have been visible from the road and I would have to content myself with gazing at the row of trees that bordered the lane and which ran out on all sides surrounding the estate from the prying eyes of people like me.

I suppose I might have wandered across the fields which lay to the east of the estate.

These were Alder Field farmed by Mary White and Rye Bank farmed by James Gresty and on to Reap Bank.

But I would have had to be careful, the first two were arable fields probably growing barley and William Chessyre’s Reap Bank was Meadow land and no farmers now or then is happy at people wandering over their crops.

That said I wonder just when those fields were given over to development.  By 1893 there were two grand houses on the site of Alderfield and what is now Alderfield Road had been cut, pretty much ending where it does today.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to track the history of those two houses using the rate books, directories and census records and from that begin to plot the development of this small area which was home also to one of our oldest Bowling clubs.

And with that I rather think there will be more stories to add to those that have already been told on this little bit of Chorlton.

Pictures; detail of the area from the 1845 OS map for Lancashire, and the OS map of South Lancashire, 1893, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Next; creeping development along Edge Lane and a few interesting people.

That little bit of Egypt in Sunderland …… Imperial stories ….. and personal memories

It’s odd how a name and a memory from over half a century ago sometimes pop back and remind me of a time long ago.

Tel-El-Kebir Road, 2022

The memory is of Tel- El-Kebir Road in Sunderland which I came across in the early 70s.

I was living just south of Sunderland in Seaham Harbour and for reasons now long lost we would regularly pass the road which resonated with me.  

I will have checked out the name as the site of a battle in 1882 in which a Franco British force defeated elements of the Egyptian army, and surmised the road was in honour of the victory.

At the time I took it no further, and today sitting in Manchester I don’t have access to the sort of detail which would offer up when the road was cut who decided on the name and what the residents thought at the time.

There are only 4 places named after the battle.  Two are here in the UK and two in Australia.  The Australian connection makes sense given that during the Great War Australian soldiers were based at a camp located at Tel- El-Kebir.

Of the British sites one is Hendon in Sunderland and the other is Pontypridd in Wales. 

Detail from the Storming of Tel-El-Kebir, 1883

The obvious explanation for the commemoration of the battle is a connection with those who fought at Tel-El-Kebir.  Now I know the names of some of the regiments which were there including the Black Watch, Gordon Highlanders and The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of the Highland Brigade, along with the Guards the 19th Hussars and units of Indian Army.

The Storming of Tel-El-Kebir, 1883

But as yet despite trawling the papers of the time I can’t find a “line of battle”, and so our road may just have got its name from an excess of Imperial enthusiasm.

The answer may lie in a local newspaper, or someone might come forward with the answer.

And given the times Tel- El-Kebir Road could just undergo a name change.

It is perhaps time for such a change and I doubt it will alter my memories. 

Location; Hendon, Sunderland

Picture; The Storming of Tel-El-Kebir, 1883, Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, National Museums Scotland, Accession number, M.1952.50 and Tel-El-Kebir Road, Hendon, Sunderland, 2022, courtesy of Google Maps & Google Earth

One day …. two pictures …..

Location St Peter’s Square

Pictures; one day …. two pictures, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On Deansgate where it joins Blackfriars Street in the 1920s

The corner of Blackfriars Street and Deansgate has never been a popular one for photographers.

Now I know this because I have counted just three on the digital archive of the City and can think of just a few others I have seen in various collections.*

So I was pretty pleased when I came across this one which I think must date from the 1920s.

It did present a little challenge at first to identify exactly where it was because the caption just refers to Deansgate.

But the clue was Stewart and Stewart who were tailors, trading at 46 Deansgate which was on the corner with Blackfriars Street.  Theirs was a large enough business to extend from Deansgate along Blackfriars Street.

They were trading there in 1911 and with a bit of research it should be possible to follow them back and forwards through the 20th century.

As for the building I cannot remember when it came down and was replaced with the present red brick one.
I know it survived the Manchester Blitz so I guess it was just one of those that fell to the developers.

This was not the case with the building opposite which went on the night of December 24th along with the entire block stretching up St Mary’s Gate to St Ann’s Square and also included the Royal Exchange.

Happily some of the near neighbours of 46 Deansgate have survived including the building which once housed T. Hayward & Co. Glass & China.

All of which is a lesson in keeping an eye on the buildings we pass and so often take for granted.

Locatiion; Manchester

*Manchester Local Image Collection, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Picture; Deansgate and Blackfriars Street, circa 1920s, courtesy of Sandra Hapgood