Leaf Street Baths in Hulme .............what was lost has been found ............ if just for a short time

Open to the sunlight again .............. the pool, 2016

I am always fascinated when a bit of our collective history is found.

In this case it is the pool of the Leaf Street Baths in Hulme which vanished during the clearance programmes of the 1970s.

It is place I have written about before *and features in the series on our Public Baths.**

To be honest my path to Leaf Street Baths had been via the old workhouse which had been established by the Chorlton Union in the 1830s and which within two decades had been replaced by the bigger and more impressive workhouse in Withington.

Leaf Street Baths, 1920

So in the course of the research I came across  the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company which opened Leaf Street in 1860.

This  was their third public bath house since the company had been formed in 1855, and it built baths in Salford, Mayfield at Ardwick and Victoria Park.  Its assets were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1877.  The company had added a Turkish bath in 1860 which was the first in a public baths in Manchester.

The Leaf Street Baths were demolished in the clearances of the 1970s and today the site is open ground.

Tiles unseen for nearly half a century

Well it is open ground but not for long because there are plans to build here and that takes me to these two pictures of the uncovered baths which were taken by Ian Wilson.

I had no idea that just below the surface bits of those baths were still there or that they would be uncovered.
When Ian posted the pictures on facebook they brought forth quite a few memories from people who had learned to swim there and I suppose for them as much as for me seeing the pool open to the sunlight again is quite wonderful.

Entrance, 1920

All of which just leaves me to suggest you take a visit down there before they vanish again.***

Location; Leaf Street, Hulme





Pictures; Leaf Street Baths, 2016, from the collection of Ian Wilson, and Leaf Street Public Baths, 1920, m57327 and entrance m57328, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Leaf Street Swimming Baths, the first of a set of stories, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/leaf-street-swimming-baths-first-of-set.html

**Manchester and Salford's Public Baths, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20and%20Salford%27s%20Public%20Baths 

***170 new homes expected to be built in Hulme, Bell, Alex MEN, August 3 2015, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/170-new-homes-expected-built-9780001

What was lost is found .... the forgotten Manchester Baths in Mayfield

 Now like a lot of people I was fascinated at the news that “A large Victorian washhouse that served Manchester textile workers more than 150 years ago has been uncovered during work to create the city’s first public park in a century”.*

Leaf Street, 2016

It appeared on an online Guardian report on Sunday and promises to be very exciting, given that "The ornate tiles of the Mayfield baths, whose pools measured nearly 20 metres, were found in ‘stunning’ condition beneath a car park 164 years after it opened”.

Since then, Graham Mottershead, the project manager at Salford Archaeology, has been on radio 4 to explain the significance of the find, which  he said “is a fascinating example of the social and public health advancements that came about during the Industrial Revolution”.

The baths were opened in 1857 by the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company which had been formed two years earlier and had  built baths in Salford, as well as Mayfield, Victoria Park and Leaf Street in Hulme.**  Its assets were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1877. 

At the company’s first shareholder’s meeting on January 7th 1857, the company proudly announced the details of their first bathhouse in Greengate on a plot of land bounded by Rolla-street and Collier-street which was owned by the Salford Union.

Leaf Street, 2016

And having commissioned six architects to submit plans  of which three did, and while the successful plan was more expensive it was decided that it was affordable given that the demolition of the old workhouse would provide materials which could be used in the construction of the new building.

The Directors pointed out that “This establishment is placed  in the centre of a large and dense population with convenient thoroughfares and approaches leading thereto from every direction and is situated only eight minute’s walk from the Exchange”.***

And having opened the "Greengate establishment to public bathing on August 27th [1856] and the laundry on September 1st the receipts during the limited period have exceeded the most sanguine expectations …”

Leaf Street, 2016

So with the promise of even greater returns, the Directors announced that their second bathhouse was to be built at Mayfield in Ardwick.  

The company had already secured an “arrangement with the corporations of Manchester and Salford for a supply of water at the rate of 3d. per 1, 000 gallons of water" and having bought the plot expected the Mayfield Baths to be open on March 31st 1857.

They explained that “This establishment will be placed in the midst of a large and dense population .  The vendors of the land will construct a bridge over the Medlock by means of which , through Boardman-street, a ready and convient access from the districts of Ancoats as well as from all parts of Ardwick, will be secured”.

Mayfield 1924

The rest as they say is history, with the Baths being enlarged in 1925 only to be destroyed during the last world war.  The OS map for 1950 marks the site as “ruins” and the decision to just fill it in and use the site as a car park saved it.

But it isn’t the first of the company’s establishments to reappear into the daylight, because back in 2016 the Leaf Street comples was also redisvovered and excavated.  It had closed it 1977 and like Mayfield had just been filled in.

And it is from the Leaf Street baths that I have taken the pictures, which were taken by Andy Robertson.

Mayfield Baths, 1894

The Leaf Street remains show a striking similarity to those from Mayfield which is not unsurprising.  Sadly copyright considerations have precluded the use of those from the Guardian article, but I bet there will be more Mayfield pictures to see soon.

Location; Mayfield and Hulme.

Pictures; remains of Leaf Street Baths, 2016, from  the collection of Andy Robertson, the opening of the Public Washhouse Mayfield Baths, 1924, City Engineers, m57352, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, and Mayfield Baths, 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Victorian bathhouse uncovered beneath Manchester car park, Josh Halliday, January 10th, 2021, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jan/10/victorian-mayfield-bathhouse-uncovered-archaeologist-beneath-manchester-car-park?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR1mK29vk49WyMlFafXQ2vSnx9ZXETrIUBtSxRHCJN1yjhEXiPBeIxxjAGM

**Leaf Street Baths, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Leaf+Street

***Manchester and Salford Baths and Laundries Company, the Manchester Guardian, January 8th, 1857

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 33 Leaf Street ........ the workhouse, the swimming baths and more flats

Leaf Street, early in 2016

Now if you remember this bit of tiling you will have fond memories of the Leaf Street Baths in Hulme. It was built by the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company which had baths across the city and into Salford.

Ours offered both swimming facilities and a Turkish Bath, and every time the baths are featured there are always plenty of contributions from those who learnt to swim there or just had fun in the water.

Leaf Street, 1920

But like other Victorian baths they never made it past the middle of the 20^th century.

Leaf Street went in the 1970s as part of the huge clearance programme.

What I hadn’t realised is that when they were demolished much of the building was just covered with soil and left.

So when the site began to be redeveloped recently a fair amount of those buried bits were exposed to the light of day.

Andy Robertson was on hand and took a series of pictures recording the excavated site, and was back yesterday to see what the developers and builders had done since.

And this is the result which in time will become more flats and continue the re population of Hulme.

Leaf Street, autumn, 2016

Sadly Andy was not on hand to snap the old workhouse run by the Chorlton Union which sat on the site for twenty or so years until it was replaced by the bigger and more impressive one at Withington in the 1850s.

As for Leaf Street I suppose it will soon not count as a long or forgotten street.

Once it was a busy place which then after the clearances became just a dead end beside the motorway going into town.

But with those new blocks of flats, and  their new set of residents Leaf Street will again be on the map as a place people come home to, write letters to and no doubt will evolve a new a history.

Location; Hulme

Pictures; Leaf Street in 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson, Leaf Street Public Baths, 1920, m57327  courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

A last chance to go visiting Leaf Street Baths in Hulme

Yesterday I suggested that anyone interested in the old Leaf Street Baths in Hulme should get down there because after half a century of being buried they are briefly open again to the sunlight.

It has all been prompted by a couple of pictures Ian Wilson posted on facebook, and having read the story my old friend Andy Robertson was down there in a trice.

Andy has been steadily recording our disappearing past from old textile mills and warehouses to shops houses and the odd garage.

So Leaf Street was a project not to be missed.

With breakfast out of the way, and the blog read, he was down there taking pictures which will become a record not only of what is going on now but what will be to come.

And yesterday in a series of pictures he captured the work being done, but more importantly the geography of the site, including one of the almost intact pools but also the base for what I think is one have been a stone column archways and cellars and my own personal favourites, a set of floor tiles.

Now for the practised visitor to Roman ruins it may not mean much but for me and countless others who remember the baths with fondness these bits of the past will be fascinating.

I never used them but there will be lots who did and they will be able reel off memories of swimming lessons, visits with mum and dad and of course magic moments with their mates.

What I always find interesting is the way so many of these remains are just below the surface which I suppose makes sense when the land above was just being landscaped.

But what a find for the archaeologists and reminds me of the work done in the mid 1970s down at Castlefield when a complex of early 19th century working class cottages revealed that they sat on top of the old Roman town outside the fort.

And for once the lack of foundations and poor construction of those houses was a positive in that the builders had not disturbed the Roman remains.

Of course there will be someone who mutters Leaf Street was no Roman villa but the provision of public baths in working class area in the 19th century is an important bit of history, as is the whole development of municipal baths and wash houses.*

Some are being restored and saved like Victoria Baths just across the city and the impressive one in Ashton-under-Lyne.  Others like the one on Ashton Old Road are empty and neglected.

And so I am pleased Leaf Street is out in the air again and something of its past and the part it played in the lives of Hulme people is briefly remembered again.

Location; Leaf Street, Hulme



Pictures; down at Leaf Street Baths, 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson


*Manchester and Salford's Public Baths, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20and%20Salford%27s%20Public%20Baths 

More fascinating pictures of the lost Leaf Street Baths.

Just when you think that is the end of a story up pops something new.

And just about an hour ago Andy Robertson sent over some fine pictures of the site.

With his usual modesty he made little comment, but they reveal so much of the old baths and make me want to go down there and explore the site.

But Andy has done an excellent job so here are some of what was lost under back fill and is now again open to the sunlight.

The baths had been in by 1860 the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company which  had been formed in 1855, and built baths in Salford, Mayfield at Ardwick and Victoria Park.*

Its assets were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1877.

The company had added a Turkish bath in 1860 which was the first in a public baths in Manchester.

The Leaf Street Baths were demolished in the clearances of the 1970s and today the site is open ground.

When I first posted the story I pondered on who remembered them and the response has been impressive.

There are those who wrote to me describing their first swimming lessons and those who still have their certificate proudly proclaiming their achievement at swimming a length, and memories from Tom who supervised children from nearby Royce School when they attended in the early 1970s.

Nor were the baths just a place for recreation, most also had a washhouse and facilities for families and individuals to take a bath, and in the case of Leaf Street it's own Turkish Baths.**

Location; Leaf Street, Hulme










Pictures; remains of Leaf Street Baths, 2016, from  the collection of Andy Robertson

*Leaf Street Swimming Baths, the first of a set of stories,http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/leaf-street-swimming-baths-first-of-set.html

**Manchester and Salford's Public Baths, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20and%20Salford%27s%20Public%20Baths

Leaf Street Swimming Baths, the first of a set of stories

I pretty much took the old Victorian and Edwardian Swimming Baths for granted. 

After all when you are ten the ornate splendour of the wrought iron, the bright glazed tiles and the stained glass is just background to  the business of playing in the water.

I wish I had taken more interest in my surroundings and so now fifty years on I am having to rediscover that magnificence of the Municipal Public Bath.

Sadly all too many have gone, victims of changing recreational habits, cost cutting exercises and the fact that some at least had come to the end of their useful life.

All of which is the lead into a new series on Manchester and Salford’s Swimming Baths and Washhouses.

Now I have always had a fascination for them and the part they have played in the provision of public services by local governemnets.

And this was further advanced by the talk recently at Chorlton History Group on the Swimming Baths of Greater Manchester.*

So this is the start of the series with a second look at Leaf Street Baths in Hulme.

In 1860 the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company opened their third public baths in Hulme.

The company had been formed in 1855, and built baths in Salford, Mayfield at Ardwick and Victoria Park.  Its assets were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1877.  The company had added a Turkish bath in 1860 which was the first in a public baths in Manchester.  The Leaf Street Baths were demolished in the clearances of the 1970s and today the site is open ground.

When I first posted the story I pondered on who remembered them and the response has been impressive.

There are those who wrote to me describing their first swimming lessons and those who still have their certificate proudly proclaiming their achievement at swimming a length, and memories from Tom who supervised children from nearby Royce School when they attended in the early 1970s.

Nor were the baths just a place for recreation, most also had a washhouse and facilities for families and individuals to take a bath, and in the case of Leaf Street it's own Turkish Baths.

Next, Whitworth Baths on Ashton Old Road and later the role of the Municipal Public Baths in keeping the people of the twin cities clean

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-swimming-baths-have-to-be-one-of.html

Pictures; Leaf Street Public Baths, 1920, m57327 and entrance m57328, Bath cubicle for private washing washing, 1920, m57333 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

Who remembers Leaf Street Public Baths?

Now one of the things I like about writing history is that you get to meet lots of people all of whom have a story to tell, but in the way that history used to be written, most of these people would have been ignored.

They did not hold great offices of state, did not engage an enemy in heroic combat and didn’t come up with some profound invention.

My history lessons at school were full of Kings and Queens, and generals as well as politicians but never about the army of cooks, maid servants or foot soldiers without whom all these noble people could not have done sterling things.

This came back to me recently when I was rereading a story on the old Chorlton Union Workhouse which had stood on the island formed by Leaf Street, Streford New Road, Nelson Street and Devonshire Street. It was replaced by the Withington Workhouse built in 1855.

And the site was taken over by the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company opened their third public baths on the site between 1858-60.

The company had been formed in 1855, and built baths in Salford, Mayfield at Ardwick and Victoria Park.  Its assets were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1877.  The company had added a Turkish bath in 1860 which was the first in a public baths in Manchester.  The Leaf Street Baths were demolished in the clearances of the 1970s and today the site is open ground.

All of which is a roundabout way of wondering if any one remembers the baths, and more importantly has stories about them?

Picture; Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, Leaf Street Public Baths, 1920, m57327 http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Two streets …… one builder ….. and the incomplete story of William Frank

Now it is odd how you can be drawn to someone from the past who less than a decade ago I wouldn’t have wasted any time on.

Mr. Frank's property empire, 1836 from the Poll Book

And so it is with William Frank, who was a small-time property developer whose empire seems to have begun with two streets in Little Ireland in the 1830s.

Frank Street and William Street, 1849

For those who don’t know, Little Ireland was that notorious slum, much written about by Dr. Kay, Frederick Engels and a heap of social observers and historians.

I first came across the two streets over 30 years ago, by which time they had been swallowed up by a factory and were relegated to access points into the building.

But once they were part of a complex of streets off Great Marlborough Street bounded on two sides by the River Medlock and dominated by Frank Street Mill, a gasometer, an iron foundry and boiler houses.

In the 1980s when I first came across these two ghost streets, I was mildly interested in how they became known as Frank Street and William Street, but never took it any further.  Much later I speculated that perhaps they were named after a builder or speculator, but again left it at that.

Great Marlborough Street, with our two streets to the left, 2019

But more recently I went looking for a Mr. Frank and Mr. William and discovered they were the same person.  Added to which his portfolio of 10 properties which he added to, conferred on him a Parliamentary vote in the newly reformed House of Commons.

At which point I still maintained he was like Mr. Gradgrind a hard-faced man of property, profiting on the backs of the workers.

Now he may well have been, but speculators and slum landlords are also worthy of research if only to give a rounded picture of the time.

So, Mr. Frank was born in Guisborough in 1788, died and was buried in 1868 in the old Manchester General Cemetery, and shares his resting place with two others who were mostly likely not related.

And that is about it.  He was married but his wife was dead by 1851, and there are only two references to where he lived.  So in 1836 I can track him to Baxter Street in Hulme, where he lived for at least four years and in 1851 to 99 Duke Street which was just around the corner.

By then he was a lodger in the home of John Hope who was a warehouseman.

Baxter Street and Duke Street, 1849

All of which is hardly a story of unparalleled wealth, because despite adding to his portfolio he appears not to have had a vast number of houses.  And calculating from the rents we know he charged I suspect his total income from all the houses was about £60 a year.

But that fits with what we know was going on in the first decades of the 19th century where small time businessmen built a few houses and rarely ended up with anymore.

Certainly, on both Frank Street and William Street, there were a number of property owners who may have built their own houses on the two streets or bought from William Frank.

The Rate Books do not record anything more on his empire, and as yet don’t even have a reference to Baxter Street.  

Nor have the other usual official documents been kind to him, so apart from his record of baptism there is nothing.  

And to add to the yawning gap, there are no photographs of Baxter Street and none of Duke Street that I can confidently date to the 1850s.  Alas anyone who goes looking for them will be disappointed, for while Leaf Street still exists, Baxter and Duke Streets vanished long ago.

All of which just leaves a certain Samuel Frank who was living on Plymouth Grove in 1861, who may have been the son of William Frank, but as yet the trial is confusing.

So all still to look for.

Location; Chorlton Upon Medlock and Hulme,

Pictures; William and Frank Street, 1849, and Baxter Street, and Duke Streetfrom the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ extract from the Poll Book for South Lancashire, 1836, and Great Marlborough Street, 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson 

*”Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children". Mr. Gradgrind, School Inspector,Hard Times, Charles Dickens, 1854

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 11 Collier Street

Now Collier Street will mean many things to many people.

Collier Street, 2015

For those with a preference for music there is the Blueprint Studios directly opposite on Queen Street and for those who fancy a drink as well as their music there is the Eagle half way up Collier Street.

For others it will be the old baths on the corner with Rolla Street where I am told Mark Addy learnt to swim and which were opened by the same company that built the Leaf Street baths in Hulme and others across Manchester.

But sadly there is no one left who can tell me about learning to swim in its pool or even of a Saturday morning splash about with friends and family because the  baths closed  in 1880 after just 25 years of serving the community.

The Eagle Inn, 2011

So you might be forgiven for thinking that Collier Street has abandoned its history, but not so.

My old friend Val got in touch to tell me that her grandparents lived  in “Artisans Dwellings on Collier Street. 

I have now looked up the place and an interesting tale emerges. They were built by the Artizans Company mainly they built in London.

The man who started it started out working as a scarecrow! The company went bust at one point because of embezzlement by the Company secretary and others. 

His name very Dickensian was Swindlehurst.”

The company had begun in 1867 with high intentions of building for profit good quality low rise properties for working people.  This put them slightly at odds with other companies also building for the poor who had gone down the model of multi story blocks of flats.

Most of their properties were as Val said in London, but they seem to have built here on Collier Street running up from Queen Street as far as Rolla Street.

I can’t exactly date them yet, but they are listed in the 1901 census and while they don’t appear in earlier lists there were people on the site in 1891.

Of course these may be earlier buildings which predate Artisans Buildings but there are a row of properties on the 1895 OS map which do seem to conform to what I think they would be like.

Collier Street, 1895

According to the 1901 census Artisan S Buildings consisted of 68 properties in which lived 276 people.*

Their occupations ranged across the sort of\semi and and unskilled jobs that this bit of Salford had to offer.

So far no picture of the buildings has come to light but Elaine Craven remembers “we left the Greengate area in 1959/1960 I don't know when the Artisans were pulled down, but they were a red brick and cream brick if I remember rightly, it had a big courtyard with a gate which was always locked, and I think they were three high, could be wrong, and they looked good. 

All the kids played in the dwellings, but I don't remember how many kids lived there."***

And that just leaves me with the story behind nu 19 Collier Street in 1911 which was home to Mr and Mrs Stone who lived in the last house on the corner of Collier Street and Rolla Street, which was a pub and here in just five rooms lived the Stone’s and their nine children.**

Pictures; looking down Collier Street towards Queen Street, 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson, and detail of the area in 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Painting; the Eagle Inn, Salford © 2011 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

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

*Enu 14 10- 19, Greengate Salford, Lancashire, 1901

**Enu 131, Salford, Lancashire, 1911

***Elaine Craven, 2016

Who buried Mr. Birley in an open space in Hulme?

I should say that it’s not just who buried him but it’s who then found him.

What was lost is found, 2023

At which point I should point out that it is not Mr. Birley as such but the memorial stone commemorating the opening of Manchester’s first Board School in the June of 1874.

It is a story I have already visited but always promised myself a second go. *

I had thought I would crawl over the newspaper accounts of the opening, featuring the speeches of the good and worthy and their observations on the importance of education and in particular the features of Board School No. 1.

The school, 1962

These included a basement kitchen “with all appliances for tea parties”, “large places for storing fuel, with convenient shoots from the street above, so that all the rooms are warmed by open fireplaces and are thoroughly well ventilated”. 

Added to which the Manchester Guardian reported “The walls are faced to a certain height with glazed bricks, which can be easily cleaned, and on which writing or other defacement is impossible. 

Round both school rooms run bands of encaustic tile, bearing Shakespearean mottos”.**

But one Victorian worthy’s speeches on the value of education are pretty much like another so instead my thought turned to how the stone got there and who decided it should see the light of day again.

Walking to the Brooks Building 2023

Manchester Board School No.1 or Vine Street School as it became was situated close by and so it is entirely possible that when the school was demolished the memorial stone was just part of heaps of building spoil.  Just a little distance away developers found the original sunken baths of the Leaf Street Swimming Baths which were back filled after the walls of the building had been knocked down.

Or it may have been carefully stored away ready for the moment when a new educational institution was built in Hulme close to the old school.***

Someone one will know, and perhaps also reveal who decided to put it on display in a small area of land left to grow wild.

We shall see.

Location; off Old Birley Street, Hulme

 Pictures, memorial stone of Board School No 1, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the school, 1962, H. Milligan, m64822, , courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  

*The lost Hulme School ……, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-lost-hulme-school.html

**The First Board School in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, June 12th 1874

***The Brooks Building, part of the MMU.

Chorlton's Workhouse .............. part 3

Our workhouse stood on the island formed by Leaf Street, Streford New Road, Nelson Street and Devonshire Street in Hulme. It was replaced by the Withington Workhouse built in 1855.

This building survived into the 20th century as a workhouse before being a hospital. It was here that two of my sons were born, the place where a third stayed for 5 weeks after breaking his leg and a frequent destination for the minor accidents of young lads.
Picture; The Withington Workhouse 1856 m53434 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

A planned archaeological dig in Hulme and two retired teachers

There is something very remarkable about an object taken from the ground which belonged to someone in the past.

As I write I have in front of me an oyster shell, which you might think is nothing out of the ordinary, even given the cost of oysters today and the fact that I am a vegetarian.

But this oyster shell is over 1,000 years old and is still marked with the smears of earth when it was lifted from an archaeological site in the Viking part of York in the late ‘70s.

We had gone up for the day and been drawn to where there was a major dig underway. And beside the excavations in a tub for sale was my oyster shell, along with loads more, and the price reflected the quantity on show.

So I paid just 10p. Nothing can ever take away the feeling of excitement and awe at holding an object however so humble that was handled and causally thrown away by some so long ago.

I was reminded of this when I read of the plans to run a dig in Hulme at Birley Fields in March of this year. Hulme has a medieval history but for most of us it will be its 19th century landscape that we are more familiar with.

It grew quickly during those early decades of that century and some at least from Chorlton ended up there, either in the workhouse on Leaf Street or in the narrow terraced housing. Some even made the journey out to wander the lanes of our township, drink in the beer shops and pubs and to work on the farms.

Some are known to me like William Hodge who stood trial for the murder of local woman Mary Moore in the summer of 1838 who was killed on her way home from the Manchester markets just short of her destination at Dog House Farm.

Then there was James Jackson who lived in Hulme and was listed in the 1821-22 edition of Piggott and Dean’s New Directory of Manchester and Salford as Directory as a farmer and carrier. He owned 15 acres of land at Round Thorn which is the area north of Chorlton Brook roughly covering the stretch from the allotments and part of Chorlton Park down to Nell Lane but it was sold to in 1839 after he had gone bankrupt.

Now this isn’t the archaeology which will bring up a Roman coin or Viking oyster shell but it I reckon it will be exciting. Later in the year I plan to write about our own archaeological dig in the parish graveyard during the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

But in the meantime I will leave you with this scene.

Picture the coffee bar of the Urbis in town, with the usual group of mid morning people sipping their lattes and tapping on their lap tops or talking to friends. In one corner there are two retired teachers acting like naughty school children giggling over their latest prank.

And this was exactly what we had just been engaged in.

 My old friend Joe and I had been to Millar Street where they were finishing off an excavation of late 18th and early 19th century working class homes, hard by the CIS building. This wasn’t a day for visitors but we seemed harmless enough, were clearly very enthusiastic and above all over 60, so no danger of causing trouble.

We were politely shown round allowed to take pictures and at the end to the benign smiles of the archaeologists permitted to walk away with a brick each. Handmade, sometime I guess in the 1780s they were as much a treasure as any gold coin or piece of jewellery. Mine has pride of place on one of our bookshelves, and before we are accused of looting, the other piles of bricks were all destined for infilling and yes we had asked.

So there you have it two little pieces of history separated by 900 years give a take a decade and still guaranteed to excite me.
Later I will post a story on these and other excavations of working class homes in Manchester & Salford.

Picture; cellar dwellings at the Miller Street dig October 2009, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The swimming baths have to be one of the great municipal investments. Listen to their history today with Chorlton History Group

Victoria Baths, 1905

The swimming baths have to be one of the great municipal investments.

They were relatively cheap, and many doubled up as a place to wash the family.
In my case there were two that we visited.  The first was the Laurie Grove Baths in Deptford.

It had been built between 1895-98 “by the vestry board of St Paul's Deptford under the Public Baths and Washhouses Act 1846. As well as a large and a small swimming bath the 1st floor had 1st class Ladies and Men's Slipper Baths. 

These individual baths were provided for personal bathing as working class people did not have bathrooms in their own homes. There were also washhouses (laundries) which later had early washing machines installed. On the ground floor there were separate entrances for men and women linked by a ticket office.*

And like our own Victoria Baths these were ornate and grand.  By comparison the pool in the Peckham Health Centre was a complete contrast, with its modernist simple design and large expanse.

I used both but it is of The Deptford one that I have the fondest of memories.

Entrance to Victoria Baths, 1905

As you entered you were hit by that mix of warm air, chlorinated water and noise.

And even before you had bought your ticket and gone through the turn style the hot sticky atmosphere made your winter clothes stick to you, which continued as you walked along the pool side to the changing rooms.

The bigger of the two contained a water shute along with diving platforms which were both a terror and an abiding source of attraction for the young and a constant challenge to achieve the slide or dive without being stopped by the attendant.

But for many the Baths were less a place of fun and more an essential to everyday life.  Most offered a laundry and of course the slipper bath.

We were lucky in that we had a bathroom but my friend John and his siblings would make the short journey across the road armed with soap and then own towels.

Miles Platting Public Wash House, 1950

When I share that memory with my sons they can only look on and ponder that their father truly did belong to a time unlike anything they can imagine.

And it is no good fastening on the lighter moments, like the day Paul Driver fell into the baths fully clothed and for ever after was known as Dribble.

Such stories just confirm that Dad’s youth is as distant to them as the first flight of the Wright Brothers or the opening episode of Coronation Street in 1960.

My childhood along with the many functions of the old Public Baths has pretty much receded into history.
The buildings themselves have proved too costly to maintain or have just succumbed to age and changes of leisure activities.

So the Laurie Grove Baths in Deptford was converted in to art studios for Goldsmiths College, and many like the Leaf Street Baths in Hulme closed when new pools were opened.

All of which is a nice lead into the talk by John Mather on the history of Greater Manchester Swimming Pools on Thursday September 5th at 1.30.

Sharston, 1966

This starts off the autumn programme of the Chorlton History Group which hold their monthly meetings at Chorlton Good Neighbours, Wilbraham St Ninian’s Church, Egerton Rd South, Chorlton £1.50 charge for tea & biscuits.

Now that should have been the end but for a memory prompted by looking at the picture of the Sharston Baths in 1966 It was here a full twenty years after my first visits to Laurie Grove that I had the job of accompanying classes of year 7 students for swimming lessons.  Not that I was expected to get my feet wet.
I saw them onto the coach saw them off at the baths and travelled back to Poundswick High School.

Pictures; First Class Swimming Baths, Victoria Baths, 1905, m51825, entrance to the Victoria Baths, 1905, m51823, Miles Platting Public Wash House 1950, m57371,  Sharston Baths, 1966, m51865, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Laurie Grove Baths, Deptford, Greater London, Heritage Explorer, English Heritage, http://www.heritage-explorer.co.uk/web/he/searchdetail.aspx?id=8307&crit=bathroom

Capturing images of where we live before they are lost for ever ............... the photographs of Andy Robertson

Now the collection has just expanded with a vast new set of pictures from Andy Robertson.

Many of them will have already featured on the blog and they represent a wonderful record of how Manchester, Salford and the surrounding areas are changing.

Andy specialises in capturing bits of the landscape just before and during that moment when they are being redeveloped.

It is an eclectic collection covering everything from derelict pubs and cinemas, to grand old houses past their best and a shed load of industrial sites.

Yesterday it was the old Leaf Street Baths in Hulme, before that the skyline from a car park and before that bits of Chorlton’s shopping history and some old street furniture.

And what makes his work unique is that once he has spotted a subject he follows it through from crumbling and empty relic to demolition, a cleared site and the development.

These two were taken in 2014 of the Wilburn Basin when there was talk of redevelopment.  Since then has been back.

And that is all I am going to say for now other than to thank Andy and to say here is the link to over 150 stories featuring his pictures.*  There are more I just haven't catalogued them yet.

Location, Wilburn Basin

Pictures; the Wilburn Basin June 2014 & January 2016, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Andy Robertson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Andy%20Robertson

A day in December on our High Street ................. nu 4 the parish church

Now if you still live where you grew up the chances are that you take it all for granted.

For those of us who long ago moved away from Eltham that is something we can’t do.

So here for the next few days are a selection of Eltham High street on a December day just before Christmas.

They were taken by Ryan and are not in any order but take me back to the High Street I remember and given that we are close to Christmas it is fitting that there should be one of the church which I am regularly drawn back to.*

And before any one says anything, I too have just spotted the trees are in full leaf, which is either another sign of global warning or this is is a summer picture which I have picked up from Ryan by mistake.

Either way it will feature in June in a walk down the High Street in summer ........... can't be bad.

Picture; St John’s, 2015 from the collection of Ryan Ginn

*Eltham Church, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Eltham%20Church

No more school at Langworthy Road ......... and in its place a military hospital

Now if you are seven years old and going to school on Langworthy Road in Salford the only bright bit of news as the Great War rolls into its second year might be that your school was to become a military hospital.

In the March of that year the authorities identified five schools which they thought might be suitable “for new hospital accommodation required by the military authorities.”*

The five were Secondary School for Boys, Leaf Square, Grecian Street Girls and Infants Schools, Halton Bank School, Langworthy Road School and Tootal Road School, with the option to substitute “Leicester Road School for one of the others.”

The attraction of the five/six were that they were all modern school.
In the case of Langworthy it had only been opened five years earlier in 1915 and had a total intake of 376 boys, 376 girls and 442 infants.

By all accounts it would have passed an Ofsted visit with flying colours.  The average attendance was nearly 100% and it was judged good by a report in 1905.

All of which just left the difficult question of what to do with 1,194 students.

The authorities had not fully worked out the answer to that question in the March of 1915 but considered that “There a number of Sunday Schools and halls in Pendleton and Broughton districts which may be utilised and suggestion has also been made that schools in the neighbourhood of the five selected schools should have two courses a day – one from 8 am. To 1pm. and the other from 1pm.to 5 pm., - one for each school."

This half day schooling was also adopted by Manchester where by 1915 the number of schools taken over amounted to eight. The first was the Central High School for Boys and Girls on Whitworth Street which had a thousand students and became the headquarters of the 2nd Western General Hospital.

The following year another seven schools were taken over.

These were Alfred Street in Harpurhey, Alma Park in Levenshulme, Grange Street in Bradford, Lilly Lane in Moston, Ducie Avenue, Moseley Road and Heald Place which amounted to the loss of 3897 places.**

It had resulted in a degree of ad hoc provision for some at least. In the February of 1916 the Manchester Museum reported that it was providing effective instruction for 900 to a 1,000 children per week drawn from the higher standards of the elementary schools.***

A similar scheme was underway at the City Art Gallery, the Whitworth Institute, and “kindred institutes in the city” and had proved so popular that children not only travelled some distance to attend but even brought their parents.

And that pretty much is that.

Location Salford

Picture; Langworthy Road Military Hospital, circa 1915-17 from the collection of David Harrop

*The New Hospitals, Five Salford Schools to be used, Manchester Guardian, March 17 1915

** 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester, 1914-1919, Margaret Elwin Sparshot

*** War Service in the Museums, Teaching the Half Timers, Manchester Guardian, February 21, 1916

Manchester & British Home Children a research project

I doubt that many people would give the picture much of a second glance. Here is a collection of boys in uniform staring back at the camera with a handful of adults wearing those silly tall shiny hats.

And I suppose most of us would think we had stumbled on a band of apprentice musicians sometime in the 1870s. But the clue is the banner. For these are no ordinary group of children, nor is the building just a backyard.

Here just three years after it had been established was the Central Refuge and Workshops of the Manchester and Salford Boys and Girls Refuges and Homes providing shelter for boys and girls living on the streets. The first home had been at 16 Quay Street, Deansgate, and contained twelve hammocks giving homeless boys a bed for the night and breakfast in the morning before having to fend for themselves during the day. It had opened on January 4th 1870 and closed a year later when the central headquarters was established in Strangeways in the autumn of 1871 on Francis Street where boys received shelter and education and were assigned a form of work most suitable to their abilities.*

And in the following year the first group were sent to the Marchmont Home, Belleville in Ontario, Canada which acted as a receiving home for children pending arrangements with the local farmers to take them into their families and provide work.
It is one of those odd quirks of research that in wanting to find out more about my great uncle who was sent to Canada in 1914 as a British Home Child from Derby I should stumble across a major link with my adopted city.

So now I am locked into a new area of research, for many of the documents from the period relating to the Manchester and Salford Boys and Girls Refuges and Homes are still here in the care of the Archives and Local History Library in the city and with the help and permission of Liz Sykes, Records, Archives & Information Officer of the Together Trust I hope to trawl the history of the organisation and in the process learn more about a scheme which took 100,000 children to Canada.

Pictures; Boys Refuge, Old Refuge Yard, Francis Street 1873, Courtesy of the Together Trust and Maple Leaf emblem by kind permission of Lori Oschefski

*taken from the briefing notes of the Together Trust http://www.togethertrust.org.uk/uploads/assets/files/How%20we%20help/Manchester-Salford-Boys-Girls-Homes-1870-1920.pdf