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Stories of Woolwich and the River Thames ........... you never quite knew about

January 15, 2017, 7:00 pm
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Now I have just gone off and ordered the book, Ferries of the Lower Thames by Joan Tucker on the recommendations of my old friend Tricia.

In fourteen chapters it covers the story of our river from Staines down to Yanlet Creek.

Now Staines I knew but Yanlet Creek I had to look up and discovered it is 54 km as the crow flies from London Bridge and was the formal limit of the jurisdiction of the City of London, and yes Staines marks the other boundary.

So that explains the fourteen chapters of which for many of us it will be the two covering the Isle of Dogs, Greenwich and Woolwich which will of real interest.

And Tricia picked out a fascinating description of the ferries and Tommy Tucker who was a captain on one of the ferries.

He will always be linked to the writer Edith Nesbit who lived at Well Hall.  It is a story I have written about in the past and will go back to.

Suffice to say at the time and even now the relationship was the subject of some poor comments on the part of people who misunderstood the couple and their politics.

Both were in the Woolwich Labour Party which over half a century later I joined aged 16 in 1966 and for the details having read the blog stories I suggest you go to Tricia's choice of a good read for January.

Picture; cover of Ferries of the Lower Thames by Joan Tucker, 2013 Amberley Publishing

Location; London

*Ferries of the Lower Thames, by Joan Tucker, 2013 Amberley Publishing,

**Edith Nesbit
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Before the Printworks ......... on Withy Grove with Withy Grove Stores

January 15, 2017, 7:00 pm
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Now if you are old enough to remember when the Printworks produced newspapers then this stretch of Withy Grove will be familiar.

And of course so will Withy Grove Stores which seems always to have been on the corner with Dantzic Street.

That said there was a time when that corner plot was occupied by Joseph Pattreoiovex tobacco manufacture.

But that was way back in 1911 when Pattreoiovex’s was listed at number 39, and Withy Grove Stores traded from the property next door and was big enough to stretch down to number 33.

All of which takes me back to the picture which John Casey took in the mid 1980s and is well worth close study.

Look down Dantzic Street and the brooding back of the modern Printworks is absent and there is a clear view up to Hanover Street.

Today not only is that scene very different but the sign for the With Grove Store is still bright and fresh looking and opposite was T Stensburg & Co at number 1 Shudehill which sold in antiques and proudly boasted it had been established in 1810 and is now a fast food outlet.

Such is the passage of the decades.

Location; Manchester

Pucture; Withy Grove, 1980s from the collection of John Casey
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Wandering the city in July .......... nu 3 shapes

January 15, 2017, 7:29 pm
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It was the one day last July when the weather was just about OK.


And that really is all there is to say.

Location; Manchester

Picture; St Mary's Gate, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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Of floods and weirs and floating hay ricks

January 15, 2017, 7:30 pm
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"It was," wrote Thomas Ellwood the local historian
“no uncommon thing to see the great level of green fields completely covered with water presenting the appearance of a large lake , several miles in circuit.”

It was for this reason that the weir was built.  Just beyond the point where the Brook joins the Mersey and at a bend in the river the weir was built to divert flood water from the Mersey down channels harmlessly out to Stretford and the Kicketty Brook.

After a heavy flood in August 1799 broke the banks where Chorlton Brook joined the Mersey, there were fears that the Bridgewater Aqueduct across the flood plain could be damaged by flooding it was decided to build an overflow channel improving the course of Kicketty Brook and build the stone weir.

Not that it always worked.  Soon after it had been built flood water swept it away and during the nineteenth century neither the weir nor the heighted river banks prevented the Mersey bursting out across the plain.

In July 1828 the Mersey flood water transported hay ricks from the farm behind Barlow Hall down to Stretford only later to bring them back, while on another occasion one man was forced to take refuge in a birch tree till the following morning.

Later floods proved to be even more destructive, destroying a bridge across Chorlton Brook and making for six major floods between  December 1880 and October  1881. The last time the weir took an overflow of flood water was 1915.

On a cold bleak and rain swept morning it is possible to sense the importance of the weir.

Stretching out from the wall is a deep and placid pool of water home to ducks and broken by bunches of water plants.

But with just a little imagination how different it might have been on a stormy night when the river swollen with rain water burst over the weir.

Pictures; Higginbotham’s field in flood, J Montgomery 1963, painted from a photograph dated 1946, m800092, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, picture of weir in 1915 from the collection of Tony Walker

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A thank you ......... stories behind the book nu 24 to those that made the book possible

January 16, 2017, 5:39 am
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An occasional series on the stories behind the new book, Manchester Remembering 1914-18.*

The will of George Davison, 1918
I am looking again at the will of George Davison which he made in the March of 1918 just four months before his death on the Western Front.

It forms one of the many hitherto unseen documents from the Great War which are featured in the book Manchester Remembering 1914-18.

It is a moving a document no less because we know what awaited him but for me it also has a very personal link with that conflict.

George was born in Manchester and spent most of his life in the city but he was stationed in Woolwich and in the spring of 1918 was living just a few doors down from where I grew up in Well Hall in Eltham.

Not that I will be alone in finding such links.  In the course of writing the book I came across people who had discovered medals, letters and pictures of relatives they knew only as a name and others who could take me to where family members who participated in the war had lived and were buried.

Harold Moss, who died in 1916
And I suppose that is the point about the Great War for while it is now a century and more ago almost all of us will have a direct connection with the conflict.

In my case I can count seven close family members who served of which five of them I remember vividly and one of whom only died in 2001.

The book allowed me to share the memories and stories of many others, some like Bob Jones who could take me to the grave of his grandfather in Southern Cemetery and who died from flu while on leave in 1918 and Ken Fisher who talked of his grandmother whose first husband had been captured.

Along the way I was also privileged to share some very personal items, like the replica Cenotaph belonging to the grandfather of Nicola O’Neil and the diary of Harold Wild who was a conscientious objector.

And then there was the help from people who offered up research as well as their own treasured family items, and here I have to thank amongst others Tricia Leslie who tracked down the house George Davison was billeted in when he made that will and Liz Sykes of the Together Trust who provided a selection of photographs and letters from the Trust’s archives.

But the biggest thank you goes to David Harrop who provided the majority of the original source material and who not only offered up advice and encouragement but went out of his way to find fresh material.

So that is about it.

The first batch of books arrived from the publishers today weeks ahead of the publication date and now the preparations are being made for the book launch on February 18 at Central Ref leaving me only to reflect on what the book has meant to me.

Uppermost was a great respect for the heroism and determination of those who participated coupled with a greater understanding of what my own family will have experienced.

None of them ever spoke of the war and only through reading the letters, memoirs and official documents have I come close to what they encountered.

George Bradford Simpson, 1918
And it was that very personal set of discoveries that led me to include a photograph  of one of my uncles.  He wasn’t born in Manchester and he served in a Highland Regiment but after writing the book I have come to know a little bit more of what he did.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; the will of George Davison, March 1918, from the collection of David Harrop, Harold Moss courtesy of the Together Trust, and George Bradford Simpson, 1918 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Manchester Remembering 1914-18 by Andrew Simpson ispublished by the History Press in February 2017

Order now from the History Press, http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/great-war-britain-manchester-remembering-1914-18/9780750978965/ or Chorlton Book Shop,info@chorltonbookshop.co.uk0161 881 6374

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

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Stories behind the book ........ No 5 ......... the challenge and an if of history

January 16, 2017, 6:00 pm
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So here was the challenge .............. what if in 1830 the Government had not passed the Beer Act which made it possible for almost anyone to brew and sell beer?

Now I am not a fan of those what ifs of history but Peter’s question intrigued me, mainly of course because without the explosion of beer shops in the 19th century many of which morphed into the pubs we know today there may not have been as many public houses in the city.

Which of course, would have deprived generations from drinking the stuff, wiped away the vast wealth of the brewing families and made sure the Temperance Movement focused their campaign entirely on wine and spirits.

And of course it would also have meant that our book, Manchester Pubswould instead have become Manchester Gin Palaces and no doubt featured Hogarth’s well known print reinterpreted by Peter.

At which point even I have to pause and mutter that “this is an outrageous bit of self promotion” but I think wins the second challenge which was to work the new book into the story.

But there is an element of truth here because the Beer Act was designed to weaken the hold of Gin Palaces and pretty much seemed to have done the trick.

The old phrase about gin which runs “drunk for a penny, blind drunk for tuppence and straw thrown in for free to sleep it off” had pretty much run its course by the late 19th century.

Now I am hoping someone far more scholarly than me will wade in with a detailed historical analysis of the economic and social implications of the Beer Act leaving me to mention instead the Beer Festival organised by the Campaign for Real Ale which will be at the Central Convention Centre (GMex) from January the 19th to 21st and will feature me, Peter and a shed load of the books along with some interesting beers.

Nor is that all because just down the road there is the Briton’s Protection, the Peveril of the Peak and a few more iconic Manchester Pubs which are in the book.

But of course the stories of these and the other pubs and drinking places can only be revealed by buying the said publication.

My old friend Andy had the said publication for Christmas and tells me “Hi Andrew,

I have just finished your book and I must say well done, it really is a masterpiece.

I have done a tally and have been to 46 of them, mainly in the 70s. That is 59% so a comfortable pass. 

When is the Chorlton/Didsbury one coming out? I expect a higher score on that one!”

An endorsement unprompted by either Peter or me, and in answer to the question we are beginning work on that Chorlton/Didsbury book very soon.

You can order the book from www.pubbooks.co.ukor collect it by prior arrangement from Chorlton, and that is all you are getting for now.

Location; Manchester

*A new book on Manchester Pubs,https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20Pubs

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Wandering the city in July .......... nu 4 waiting for the train

January 16, 2017, 6:30 pm
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It was the one day last July when the weather was just about OK.


And that really is all there is to say.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Oxford Road Railway Station, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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On Shude Hill remembering the 1980s

January 16, 2017, 7:00 pm
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Now in the 1980s Manchester cafe society pretty much still just stretched to a couple of tables and chairs plonked down on the street outside the pub or cafe.

And while I may be unfair this picture by John Casey of Shudehill in the 1980s brings it all back.

But at least this was a distinct improvement on just a decade and a bit before when coffee meant a cup of something brown and very milky, you could only get a glass of wine between 11 and 3 in the day and pub food amounted to a pie, a sandwich or a selection of pickled eggs.

This is that bit of Shudehill from Withy Grove up to Thomas Street and while to our right you can still call in at the Lower Turk’s Head and the successor to the Abergeldie Cafe the left side of the road has been transformed by the new Metro and bus station.

Location; Manchester

Picture; on Shudehill in the 1980s, from the collection of John Casey

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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 35 walking along Greengate in the winter of 1849

January 16, 2017, 7:30 pm
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Greengate in 1849
Now I don’t think there will be many pictures of Greengate in the winter of 1849.

All of which leaves me with a map and a street directory.

The map is self explanatory but street directories may need a bit of an explanation.

They were as they suggest a list of the people and businesses to be found on  the streets of Manchester and Salford.

They came out every year which means that you can track someone more closely than the census which was issued every ten years.

The downside is they only listed the householder missed out those who were deemed unimportant and by extension left out the small and mean back streets.

Greengate from 1 to 35, 1850
That said armed with the names of those householders, it is possible to go looking for them in the census returns from 1841 through to 1911 and once found with a bit deft trawling it is possible to find the missing people and the missing streets.

All of which means that I think we may soon have a new series taking the story of lost and forgotten streets of Salford into the very homes of those who lived on Greengate and Chapel Street, and of course the neighbouring ones.

Greengate from 6 to 34, 1850
So for now I shall be a tad lazy and leave you with the map from 1849 and the first group of residents from the following year.

Now given that the list for 1850 will have been compiled in the winter of 1849 I think we can be confident that in our walk along Greengate we would have been able to meet George Hooley, hairdresser living at number 9 and Thomas Tower who served the pints at the Polytechnic Tavern opposite.

Picture; Greengate 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association,http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
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The Eltham we have lost, part 1 ........ The Chestnuts

January 16, 2017, 7:30 pm
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Now there will be those who accuse me of being lazy this week and not doing my homework, but sometimes it is nice just to let the image say it all.

So here from today and stretching out for the next few days are some scenes of Eltham from the first decade of the last century.

All are taken from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, published in 1909 and represented by Roy Ayers.*

This one is the Ivy Cottage, which stood where ‘the Chestnuts,’ Court Road now stands.  The figure in the foreground is ‘Bishop’ Sharpe, the old schoolmaster, sketching.” R.R.C. Gregory




Picture; The Chestnuts, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

* The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

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Claude Road and a clue to the vanished Beech House

January 16, 2017, 7:30 pm
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The date on this postcard of Claude Road is 1915 but the scene must be earlier.

On the surface it seems an unremarkable image.

It would look to be a morning perhaps in the holidays and the peace is disturbed only by the children playing close to Beech Road and the appearance of the delivery man who has attracted the woman on the right who I guess has come out of her house to catch him.

It is not unlike the same scene today with of course the absence of parked cars and passing traffic. But what does make it remarkable and dates the photograph to sometime in the first decade of the 20th century is the wall and gateway at the bottom of Claude Road where it joins Beech Road.


They are part of Beech House which had stood in its own extensive grounds since at least the 1830s.

Three generations of the Holt family had lived there but the last had died in 1906, and by 1908 the house was empty and the estate was awaiting sale. By sheer chance a postcard showing the lodge has survived. 

The message records a pleasant afternoon spent in the grounds and the speculation that it was soon to disappear. “Edith and I had tea on the lawn of the big house which you see the lodge in the picture. It will soon be sold and then will probably be divided into small plots.”

By the following year part of the garden which ran the length of Barlow Moor Road as far as High Lane had been bought by Manchester Corporation who felled the trees demolished the wall and built the tram terminus on the land. 

The remaining land was developed with the cinema and a row of shops and the garage of Mr Shaw.

But we can be even more precise about the date of our photograph. Claude Road and its neighbouring Reynard had been built by 1907 and the estate wall demolished in 1909.

So that little detail of wall anchors our photograph and provides a view of Beech Road that has gone forever.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Picture, from the Lloyd collection circa 1907-09
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Rediscovering a personal story, making a Canadian connection and opening up new online records

January 17, 2017, 2:35 am
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Now here is a connection I doubt I would ever have made between two of my family and a set of new online records about London from Ancestry.

William Henry Hall on board TS Exmouth 1913-14
We had always known that my grandfather went to sea, but the reason behind the career choice and the ship he sailed on was shrouded in mystery.

Then some years ago our Elizabeth made the discovery amongst the papers of the London Metropolitan Archives of the time granddad spent on the Training Ship Exmouth which was a naval boot camp.

We knew that along with his elder brother it had been decided that his wayward behaviour needed correction and a dose of discipline which involved both of them being sent to the training ship.

Conduct on T S Exmouth
But for reasons still not clear great uncle Roger opted to go to Canada as a British Home Child while granddad did his time in correction.

Sadly the condition of the records unearthed by my sister proved difficult to read and his destination after he had completed his sentence was impossible to read.

But now Ancestry have just added the London Metropolitan Archives to their online collection and as with digital records the quality has been enhanced and we now know that he joined the SS Megantic in the November of 1914.

This was no tramp steamer and he was no cabin boy.  The SS Megantic did the Atlantic run to Canada and with its sister ship was the largest vessel on the Canadian crossing.

SS Megantic, 1909-1920s
The name comes from Lake Megantic in Quebec but that is not the only connection because in the same month and the same year his brother also crossed to Canada as a British Home Child.

Neither lasted long in their new “careers.” Great Uncle Roger after three unsettled placements on farms in NS and NB ran away to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1915 and granddad enlisted in the British Army in 1916.

Of their subsequent time in the military we know more about Roger than we do about granddad, simply because something like 60% of the British army records were destroyed in the Blitz while the Canadian ones are intact and are available online

Running out the guns, on board a training ship, date unknown
And that brings me neatly back to the Ancestry and their new offerings which include as we as the TS Exmouth Training Ship Records, 1876‑1918, Stock Exchange Applications for Membership, 1802‑1924, Freedom of the City Admission Papers, 1681‑1930, Gamekeepers’ Licences, 1727‑1839.

Now I grant you that most of us will be hard pressed to find a relative in some of these new additions, but you never know which of course is the beauty and the value of online records.

They are easy to search, often offer up quality reproductions and above all are readily accessible unlike some precious source material which only a few will ever see.

So I have no time for those who mutter darkly that such records are no substitute for holding the original, which is fine but if the original is on a dusty shelf in a university in Oregon or too fragile to be handled then give me the online substitute.

Of course there will always be a charge for many of these records but if the alternative is the cost of an air flight to North America I will happily continue my subscriptions to Ancestry and Findmypast.

Location; pretty much everywhere.

Pictures; entry of William Hall TS Exmouth, 1913-14, courtesy of London Metropolitan Archives in association with Ancestry.com the SS Megantic circa 1909-1920 from The George Grantham Bain collection in the Library of Congress and taken from SS Megantic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Megantic a training ship, from the archives of the Together Trust, courtesy of the Archivist,http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-blog.html

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An afternoon in St Ann’s Square on a day in May ............. nu 1 listening to the music

January 17, 2017, 6:30 pm
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The sun was shining, the square was free of market stalls and on a Sunday before a Bank Holiday the crowds were out just enjoying the sunshine.

It doesn’t get better than that.

Location; St Ann’s Square, Manchester














Picture; listening to the music beside the fountain, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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Back in Stalybridge ......... no 1 cheese pie, chips, mushy peas and a pint

January 17, 2017, 6:30 pm
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Now it is sometime since we have been in Stalybridge.

Back in the 1970s when I lived in Ashton, a walk along Beaufort Road from our house on Raynham Street up past the park and down into Stalybridge was a must on a warm sunny Sunday.

That said there were those occasions when we never got further than the Sycamore which back then was still small rooms each with a distinctive character.

Today more often than not it’s the Buffet on Stalybridge railway station which takes our fancy and we have been known to turn it into an adventure and arrive in style from Manchester on the train.

So that seems a perfect reason to feature John Casey’s picture of the interior and kick start a few more stories on the town.*

Location; Stalybridge

Picture; inside the buffet, 2016 from the collection of John Casey

*Stalybridge, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Stalybridge

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The Vanished Ones ............ no 1 the Post Office

January 17, 2017, 6:30 pm
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Now take a keen photographer with an eye for how the city is changing and you get a new series which for want of a better title I shall call the “Vanished Ones.”

I am back with my old friend Andy Robertson who makes it his business to record the passing of everything from pubs, mills to offices and houses.

Those who follow the blog regularly will know just how tenacious he can be at chronicling the passing of one building and the emergence of another.

And that is it

We are by Victoria railway station separated by just a year.

Location; Victoria Railway Station,2016, 2017





Picture; the Post Office, 2016, 2017 from the collection of Andy Robertson


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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 36 standing on Greengate with the help of Mr Goad

January 17, 2017, 7:00 pm
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Now yesterday we were on Greengate in the winter of 1949 and today we have moved forward almost a full half century.

Of course by now there are a bank of photographs to call on to recreate what Greengate was like.

But instead I have fallen back on a map.

And it is a very unusual map in that its main purpose was to assist insurance companies.

“Goad’s fire insurance plans had a number of features that distinguished them from the available commercial maps, notably the Ordnance Survey town plans. 

First and most importantly, the plans were produced to meet the needs of a specific customer, the fire insurance companies, providing a range of information that would enable them to assess more accurately the risks associated with insuring properties. 

To that end the plans, surveyed on a scale of 40 feet to the inch, covered all properties in a town or city centre, recording information on the materials used in the construction of each building. 

This was achieved by means of a colour code (red: brick and stone; light blue: skylights on one/two storey buildings; purple: skylights on taller buildings; yellow: wooden buildings), a feature which gave the plans their distinctive appearance. 


Details were provided of the internal layout of buildings, particular attention being given to the construction and flammability of party walls, skylights, windows and doorways. 

Thus roofs were identified as slate, tile, metal, cement and felt with tar. The entrances in warehouses distinguished such features as hoists and the crane doors.”*

Now that is pretty impressive.

More so because the plans were regularly updated although instead of printing a new plan correction slips were produced and just pasted on the original section of the map.

All of which means that the original sheet became a multi-layered document and dating the map can be a bit difficult given that the first surveys were undertaken in 1886 and were still being issued in 1901.

That said they are a fascinating guide and just leaves me to trawl the directories to match the names on the maps with the street lists.

Picture; Greengate 1886-1901, from Goads Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Introduction to Goads Fire Insurance Maps, Digital Archives Association

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Sometime on a summers day in the early 1920s and a lost cinema

January 17, 2017, 7:30 pm
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I am looking at a picture of the Savoy on Manchester Road. Few in Chorlton will remember it as the Savoy and any one born after the 1960s may only know it as the Co-op Undertakers. But for most of the early 20th century it was the largest of our cinemas here in Chorlton.


It is one of those wonderful photographs which reveal much about an older Chorlton.

It was taken sometime in the early 1920s on what must have been a warm summers day.

The man painting out last week’s film is in shirt sleeves and the two by the entrance are wearing straw hats which were popular in the early decades of the 20th century.

 But what locates it to sometime after 1920 are the films which were being shown.

Sea Wolf was made in 1913, Should a husband Forgive was made in 1919 while Butterfly Man dates from 1920. I am not sure what the films say about cinema audience in the 1920s all three in their different ways were tales of morality .

In Sea Wolf the hero who has been rescued from a collision at sea is unable to break away from his rescuer who forces him to become a cabin boy, do menial work, and learn to fight to protect himself from a brutal crew, but eventually he is set free.

 In Should a Husband forgive, the heroine is at first misunderstood by the love of her life and rejected till she saves him, and finally in Butterfly Man a social gad fly does one good deed but this is not enough to wipe out his many misdoings and the end of the film sees him alone and forlorn.

Sea Wolf had been written by Jack London was an immediate success and in the first film version starred Jack London as a seaman.

Now I have already written about the size and grandeur of these early picture houses and the Savoy was no exception. First there is the stone frontage with its columns, and embellishments topped by the twin domes and then there is the wrought iron canopy.

This was a big buildings possibly the biggest in the township. At night it would be lit up unlike any of our other buildings and even during the day must have attracted comment.

It was of course well sited given that this was the new Chorlton which had grown quickly in the last thirty years providing a ready audience. Next door was the snooker hall and within a few years there would be the rebuilt Royal Oak Hotel.

But it is also the little detail in the photograph that makes it special. Just in front of the cinema is the emergency telephone for summing the fire brigade, and a little to its left the ornate iron column carrying the tram cables.

So there you have it, a little slice of Chorlton in the summer of the early 20th century.

Picture; The Savoy cinema, Manchester Road early 1920s from the Lloyd Collection
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On Eltham Green with some fine houses from the 1840s

January 17, 2017, 7:30 pm
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I will have passed these houses on the bus and never given them much of a thought which is a shame really because they are fine houses dating from the 1840s.

Later I think I shall explore their stories but in the meantime here is a short description from Darrell Spurgeon

“This old piece of common land is now split apart by Westhorne Avenue and its roundabout/  In a pleasant setting fronting the west part of the Green is a varied and attractive group of houses, mostly of the late 840s(some with modern porches and extensions).  

Some are detached houses are in pairs.  The only serious intrusions are a post war block in the grounds of no8. And nos 11/12, a pair c1903; otherwise the whole group is very handsome.”*

Picture; from Discover Eltham and its Environs, Darrell Spurgeon, 2000

*Discover Eltham and its Environs, Darrell Spurgeon, 2000

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Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 79 Bradshaw Street

January 17, 2017, 7:30 pm
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Now you wont find Bradshaw Street although if you are brave enough to stand in the bus lane beside the Metro stop at the Shudehill Interchange you will be close.

Once, and not that long ago Bradshaw Street ran from Shudehill across to Dantzic Street, and on a sunny day back in the 1980s John Casey wandered along and took this picture.

In the distance is ShudeHill with the Abergeldie cafe and the Lower Turks Head just visible.

I don't remember Bradshaw Street, more I suspect because I just took it for granted, and totally missed the opening of the metro stop on the First City Crossing in 2003 or for that matter the opening of the bus and coach station three years later.

All of which makes John's picture a treasure.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Bradshaw Street, 1980s from the collection of John Casey
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Back in Stalybridge ........... nu 2 a lost pub

January 18, 2017, 6:00 pm
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