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| Gate post Edendale, 2016 |
Now I may just have stumbled on a new series which will take the theme of street furniture in to a totally different place.
Of course the purists may well object that gate posts are not technically street furniture and they are probably correct.
But no matter, I have become fascinated by gate posts and especially those big stone ones which carried the name of the house and date back into the 19th century.
Some are all that is left of a grand old pile which once stood solid and resolute marking its owners off as people of substance.
So pretentious were these occupants that they never admitted to having a street number and rather insisted they be listed in the directories by the name of the house.
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| Edendale & West holme, 2016 |
And that is why if you go looking for number 10 Whalley Road in the 1911 street directory you will have to count down past Wester bank, Ravenslea, Wigwell, Lythorpe and West holme before arriving at Edendale, home of Miss Annie Beattie and her fee paying guests.
I rather think her three boarders might well have also liked the idea of living in Edendale rather than number 10. All three were professional chaps in their middle years. One had been born in Greece another in Turkey and a third in St Helens.
Now Miss Beatie didn’t employ a servant but was helped by her aunt who described herself as “assisting in the business.” Of course there may well have been someone who came in to help clean and cook, after Edenale was a ten roomed house.
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| The site of Elmbank, 2016 |
Sadly its gate posts look as if they could do with a bit of tender care, but at least they still stand in front of the house.
Not so next door for while there is still a gate post number 12 or Elmbank has gone, replaced by a new block.
The curious in me wonders what Mr Rear who lived there in 1911 would have made of the demolition of his home.
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| Elmbank, 2016 |
He was in the business of making boxes for mineral water and had a factory on Queens Road in Bradford Manchester.
In time I think I will go looking for the site of his factory and perhaps when he made the move from Denmark Road to Whalley Range.
I am sure that there will be someone who remembers the old house and may even offer up a picture.
In the meantime here is all that I think there is of Mr Rear's property.
It is the gate post.
And that is all I want to say other than to thank Andy Robertson who walked through Whalley Range earlier last week recording all he saw.
Location; Whalley Range, Manchester
Pictures;
Whalley Road, 2016, from the collection of Andy Robertson
