The mystery of the lost Chorlton Observatory …. revealed today at 2pm

 As mysteries go it is small beer when compared to the strange disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle or why Wagon Wheels seem smaller than in the past, but the Chorlton Observatory is our mystery.

The Observatory, Brookfield House, and a bit more, 1853

At which point I should say that the Bermuda Triangle much loved of conspiracy theorists and any one with nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon is largely the invention of cynical writers and TV producers, while I suspect Wagon Wheels haven’t got smaller, it’s that those of us of a certain age have just got bigger.

But the Chorlton Observatory is a puzzle.

Brookfield House, 2023

It shows up on the OS map of Chorlton in 1853 and was at the end of the garden belonging to Brookfield House, which is now the office connected with Chorlton Park.

It stood just to the east of a twisty set of ornamental paths, close to what was the processional drive from Barlow Moor Road up to Hough End Hall.

And while it is clearly marked on the 1853 OS, it is missing from the tithe map of 1839 and is not recorded on the later Ordnance Survey map dated 1894.

At present I don’t know what it was like, who constructed it or whether it actually belonged to Brookfield House.  

All the evidence is that it was in the garden of the house, which in the 1850s was rented by a James Partington who was a doctor and lived there with his wife, Frances, two grown up children and two servants.

It makes sense to have sited the observatory at this point given that according to our own historian the land round about was on a gentle mound.*

That said there is no reference to an observatory in the rate books for either James Partington or his successor.

And some might just point out that given that low rise we may just be dealing with an observation by the map makers that here was a place to have an observatory.

But I rather think given the preciseness of those said map makers the note will refer to a proper observatory.

Leaving me just to say that you can debate the point today at 2pm when in the company of Peter Topping, the “Friends”, and heaps of interested people we will be walking the story of Chorlton’s past.

Location; Chorlton Park

Pictures; the observatory in 1853, from the 1853 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk  and Brookfield House, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson.

*Badger and Bear Baiting, Chapter 7, December 19th 1885, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette

The book and the personal story …..... Greece in 1941

History books come in many shapes and sizes, and some start as a contemporary account on events, and only later assume a historical and personal dimension.

The Mediterranean Fleet, 1944

And so, it is with The Mediterranean Fleet Greece to Tripoli, which was the official Admiralty Account of Naval Operations: April 1941 to January 1943.

It was published in 1944, cost 1/6d and carried the request “THERE ARE MANY MEN AND WOMEN IN THE FORCES WHO WOULD WELCOME A CHANCE OF READING THIS BOOK, IF YOU HAND IT INTO THE NEAREST POST OFFICE IT WILL GET TO THEM”.

Now, my  uncle might well have been one of those “in the Forces who would have welcomed a chance to read it”, given that he was part of that account, having been in Greece when it fell to the Axis Powers in 1941, and along with thousands of other “Empire” troops was  evacuated from Crete and the mainland by the Royal Navy.

The book was one of a “job lot” I bought from Bryan the Book in the mid-1980s and made its way from the front room by degree to the cellar where the collection were carefully stored away, unread and then forgotten.

The Return from Greece, 1941

But what is forgotten, is rediscovered and that collection have come back out into the daylight.

Of the half dozen I have this, one caught my eye, because I knew that Uncle Roger had been in Greece.

Indeed as a young RAF aircraft fitter, he travelled from Britain in the January of 1941, down the coast of Africa, through the Suez Canal, and onto Greece, and then back to Egypt, Basra, and finally the Far East where he was captured by the Japanese and died aged just 21 in a POW camp in 1943.

All of this we know, because we have a 23 page letter, written in pencil with accompanying photographs detailing his journey from Britain to the Middle East, with descriptions of Durban, Greece, Egypt and Basra, and including a short account of the Manchester Blitz which he observed from Wilmslow.

The letter was smuggled out of Basra and brought back by a friend to his hometown of Derby and my grandmother.

"After the Raiders had passed", 1941

His time in Greece matches that official account and the photographs from the book showing burning Allied supply ships in Suda Bay are replicated by his own.

The Admiralty account is dense, and I suspect suffers a little from being an official wartime account, but it remains a very personal link to my uncle and in its way is as much a memorial as any tall public monument to those who participated I that campaign.


Location; the Mediterranean, 1941-43

Pictures; cover and the Return from Greece, from The Mediterranean Fleet Greece to Tripoli, The Ministry of Information, 1944, and “After the Raiders had passed”, Greek HQ, Langam, 1941, Roger Hall, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* The Mediterranean Fleet Greece to Tripoli, The Admiralty Account of Naval Operations: April 1941 to January 1943, Ministry of Information, 1944

A little mystery from West Didsbury ………

I doubt we will ever know who the person was who wrote to Miss Eva Stewart, or for that matter why they had left Ireland, or  the identity of a Mrs. G, who is described as “a lovely person”.

The date the picture postcard was sent is unclear, but I know that the red penny stamp of King George V dates from between 1912 and 1922.*

The message reads, “arrived here alright, and had a good night on boat.  I’m just feeling at home here, Mrs. G is a lovely woman, will write tomorrow”.

The house is still there, and is one of those sturdy but modest family homes, which appears on the OS map of 1894 and maybe older.

I cannot find a reference to a Mrs. G for 1911 on the street directories and for now do not have access to those for the rest of the period up to 1922. A search of the later ones will have to wait till I go into Central Ref.

And that leaves so many questions.  

The correspondent might have arrived from Ireland to take up a post as a domestic servant, but that is sheer speculation and so very unhistorical, and alternatively Mrs. G might have been the landlady.

The next step will be to trawl the 1911 census, but I fear that will yield nothing.

So that is it, leaving me just to comment on the photograph which many will recognise as the hospital of what was still the Withington Workhouse.

The experts might be able to make something of the car and conjure up a date, but I will leave that to them.

Location; West Didsbury

Picture; picture postcard, circa 1912-22 from the collection of David Harrop

*I await the expert to correct my assertion of 1912-22.

“My money is on that horse” ……. losing a packet at the Chorlton races

To be fair you have got to go back along time to have seen and bet on a horse race here in Chorlton.

Chorlton Park, 1933

Leaving aside the obvious trip to the bookies or watching it on TV, “the sport of Kings” last took place in Chorlton in 1701.

Now, not a lot of people know that, and I had to turn to the historian Thomas Ellwood who in 1885 wrote, “Barlow Moor is celebrated in the Isthmian annals of Manchester as the scene in the seventeenth century, of annual races and other games, prior to the establishment of the Manchester Races on Kersal Moor.  

All that remains to recall the racecourse is the field bounded by Barlow Moor-lane and the left of the lane leading to Hough-end Hall, still known as the “scaffold field” where there was formerly a low or mound which served as a vantage point from which to view the contests”.*

Scaffold Field in Chorlton Park, 1939

That field was right in the middle of what is now Chorlton Park, roughly running down from the playground to Barlow Moor Road and taking in the football pitches.

Scaffold Field shows up on the tithe map of 1839 under its own name and only ceased to exist when Chorlton Park was laid out in the late 1920s.

I went looking in the Annals of Manchester but failed to turn up a reference to the races, but other sources suggest that “The earliest known race meetings in Manchester were on Barlow Moor, first recorded in 1647, and again from 1697-1701".**

But I may be confusing the Isthmian annals of Manchester, with the Annals of Manchester which was compiled by William Axton in 1885 and is a “Chronological Record [of Manchester] from the earliest times to the end of  1885”.

Or I might just have missed the entry.

Scaffold Field, 1854

Either way I think we can be confident that Scaffold Field was the site of some sort of horse racing in a time long ago.

And as such will be an item for discussion tomorrow on the history walk through Chorlton Park.

It will start at 2 pm and is at the invitation of the Friends of Chorlton Park starting at Brookfield House which is that white building at the Nell Lane. entrance.

There will be plenty who remember the paddling pool, and the pets’ corner, but few who now know that beside the paddling pool there was a large open air swimming bath, a band stand with a covered seating area, and that during the last world war the park had its own air raid shelters.

Added to that the historic records suggest there was a racecourse and an observatory, which fit nicely with stories of Brookfield House, which dates back into the 18th century, and was once home to the son of Francis Deakin who had been brutally murdered in a beer house on Manchester Road in 1847.

Looking towards Scaffold Field from Nell Lane, undated

And for those who want more, the Friends of Chorlton Park have made the invitation as part of Chorlton Open Gardens and will be fundraising for the charity Freedom from Torture.

Location; Chorlton Park****

Pictures; Aerial view of Chorlton Park, 1933, N.S. Roberts, m72054, and Chorlton Park, City Engineers, m09588, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, looking across to Scaffold Field, undated, from the Lloyd Collection, Chorlton Park, 1853, ,from the 1853 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk 

* Badger and Bear Baiting, Chapter 7 December 19th 1885, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette

**Heritage Gateway, https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1405558&resourceID=19191

***The Friends of Chorlton Park, https://www.facebook.com/groups/CholtonPark

****Chorlton Park, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Park

This year we will holiday at home

Now here is one I couldn’t resist.

And for all of us who have at times pondered on saving the holiday money and staying at home our friend on the deck chair with fan, fish and paddling pool might just have hit on something.

Picture, “WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION YOU CAN TAKE YOUR SEASIDE HOLIDAY AT HOME, from the series, Economy Hints, date unknown, by Tuck and sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Adventures in Greece ........ a ferry and a trip into the unknown

My uncle was just 19 when he washed up in Greece, while I was 32.

Arriving by sea

He went onto Basra, and the Far East having already travelled to Cape Town and up the Suez Canal.

By comparison I had done two long weekends in Paris by the time I was 31.*

But his journey’s had been with the RAF, and South Africa and the Suez Canal were stopping off points on his way to war.  His arrival in Greece coincided with the German invasion, which ended with the Fall of Greece and the British retreat to Egypt, while his arrival in the Far East happened just as the Japanese captured Singapore.

Scenes from off the beaten track

All of which made my travels very tame.

But I did get to Greece in the summer of ’81 and while my contemporaries had blazed a trail back packing across the country a decade earlier, I was happy enough to have got there just forty years after Uncle Roger.

Nothing ever quite prepares you for that wall of heat that meets you as you disembark from the aircraft, or the sight of your first Greek island from a ferry which left the Piraeus in the early hours of the morning.

It is easy after a while to get blasé about the view from the sea of a Greek town with its untidy collection of buildings rising in steps from the harbour up to the skyline.

But every time we have done it I never lose that sense of excitement and while I have done my share of bars and “authentic Greek restaurants” I have also taken myself off and explored the quieter places.

The ferry adventure

Often they are the back streets, which during those hot hours of midday till three are usually deserted, with everyone choosing to rest inside their houses.

But of course tourists and especially those from northern Europe, like the famous song, are the  ones to “go out in the midday sun”, accompanied only by mad dogs and other Englishmen.

Still at the time it fed my sense of curiosity and that was all to the good.

Although left to my own devices I was able on occasion to get hopelessly lost, like the time I took the short ferry ride from where w were staying to the main harbour.  The trip took minutes, but the return journey lasted an hour as I had chosen a ferry travelling around the island.

After a day on the beach

And while I remained calm I did ponder on just how far the journey would take and what I might encounter along the way.

Still to this day I burn with embarrassment at the mistake, but it was an adventure and of those at 73 I still revel in.

Location; Greece, 1981

Pictures; Poros in Greece, 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*It would spoil the story to admit that I had at 19 been taken on a trip across the Mediterranean visiting Naples, Athens, Istanbul and Majorca but I was very young and the attractions of the cruise ship won over the sights of three ancient cities.

When pop music was Saturday Club at home in Well Hall

Saturday Club on the Light Programme still has the power to invoke fond memories.

Now if you are my generation, born in the decade after the last World War who entered their teenage years to the sound of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard and who can still remember listening to “She Loves You” for the first time, Saturday Club was essential listening.

It had begun in 1955 but I suppose I was not really aware of its existence for another five years.

Back then if you wanted to listen to pop music on the radio it was slim pickings.

There was of course Radio Luxembourg which I listened to on my small transistor radio but the adverts for Horace Batchelor* plus the way the signal would fade and wane irritated me.

And on Saturday nights after the football results there was Juke Box Jury and later Thank Your Lucky Stars which showcased the latest singles and passed judgement on them.  But all too often these were shows watched by the whole family and as much as I loved my parents and young sisters there were times when you wanted to listen alone.

Now Saturday Club just fell into that requirement.

It went out after my sisters were at Saturday Morning Pictures and mum and dad were doing things.

It’s only real rival for me was Pick of the Pops the following afternoon, that rapid whizz through a week’s chart ups and downs.

This after all was the time when I was still too young to go to the dance hall above Burton's on Well Hall Road and those other live music venue like the Welcome Inn and the Yorkshire Grey were out of the question.

But then came Radio Caroline in 1964 followed by its rival radio London and things just were not the same again.

All of which is teetering on nostalgic tosh and so to the point.  Saturday Club was one of those programmes which didn’t just play records but offered up live performances with interviews which always appealed to me.

But the attention span of a teenager is fickle and with the arrival of Ready Steady Go with its visual and slightly edgy feel I was pulled in a totally new direction.

Top of the Pops might be required viewing to be shared with the whole house and discussed the following day at school but RSG had me hooked.

So bit by bit Saturday Club faded but has never quite left me, and as I head towards my 71st year I still have Tony Blackburn offering me something of the same on Radio 2 with “Sounds of the Sixties.”

Now that is perhaps the point to close but not before one last observation, which is that I know I am growing old when the music of my youth is now played on Radio 2.

Pictures; of Brian Matthew & Saturday Club, featured on Saturday Club** and Burtons in the mid 1960s


* Horace Cyril Batchelor was as an advertiser on Radio Luxembourg. He advertised a way to win money by predicting the results of football matches, sponsoring programmes on Radio Luxembourg.

**Saturday Club
This site is non profit making and solely for fans of Saturday Club to trade/swap off - air copies of the programme in whatever format eg reel to reel, cassette, cd etc, http://www.saturdayclub.info/