Andrew Simpson

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Well Hall

Picture; Well Hall circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

It’s not the best picture I have taken but this one of Beech Road early this morning offers up clues to our past.

Looking up Beech Road, June 2018

Ever since I wrote, The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, I have been fascinated by what the township would have been like in the 1850s.*

Now that is not as difficult or fanciful as it might seem.

The book was about what Chorlton would have been like during the first half of the 19th century and was drawn from contemporary accounts, old maps, along with census returns, rate books and the tithe records.

Putting all these together it is possible to reconstruct Beech Road as it would have been, including the location of the houses, and fields, and the residents, as well as the owners of both the land and the properties, and finally what was actually being grown in the fields on either side of what was then called Chorlton Row.

So looking again at the picture, it is possible to pick out the twist in what was really just a country lane, which in 1850, accommodated a set of cottages which jutted out roughly opposite the skip and later was dominated by a huge beech tree.

Further along on the left was the home of the Holt family and was known variously as Beech Cottage and later Beech House, while out to the right was a set of fields which were a mix of arable and pasture.

Along Chorlton Row and on to Round Thorn, 1853

From where I took the picture you would also have had a fine view of Lime Bank at Round Thorn.**

The house is still there, although much knocked about and is hidden by Carringtons.

It dates back to the early 19th century and may in fact have been built during the closing decades of the previous century.

In the 1840s it was the home of the Morton family and on the evening of evening of Tuesday June 20 Mr Morton took a stroll down the Row and onto the Green and the school where on this night he would chair a meeting of the local tax payers which threatened a rebellion.

But that is a story for another time.

Location; Chorlton Row

Pictures; detail from the OS map for Lancashire 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives,http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2011/11/the-st

**Lime Bank, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Lime%20Bank

Now I am always wary of giving a decade a title and with it a description.

I grew up in the 1960s and became grown up in the 70s.

The first is always portrayed as the swinging decade and the following as the dismal decade.

And of course there is some truth in both.

To be 14 in 1964 was to be in very heaven. It began with the music and that feeling that we could all be, "Beautiful boys with bright red guitars in the spaces between the stars" *

And it followed on with the fashions in clothes, furniture and films all adding to that sense that here was something different where anything was possible.

For those just a tad older than me, it meant leaving a job on a Friday and walking into a new one on Monday, and blowing Friday's wages on a set of Ben Sherman shirts, or Quant make up, with an eye on a stylish set of fabrics from Habitat.

By contrast the 70s were one of those lean dismal periods dominated by growing industrial unrest, stack shoes and lava lamps.

That said I liked and still like lava lamps, along with loon trousers, and much else about the 70s.

As for the 1960s, there is something slightly at odds with what I lived through.

I was a boy from south east London, at home on Well Hall Road, Eltham High Street and Woolwich market.

I didn’t have the spending power of those at work and no one told me about the Marque Club until I left for Manchester in 1969.

And so, I saw much of that swinging period at a distance, taking in the films of Michael Cane, and Terence Stamp, watching Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy on the news, and wondering if I had the chance would I be a Mod or a Rocker.

On balance it would have been a Mod, and with the limited money I had that was where I slowly progressed, but in the absence of friends with scooters and Parkas, I opted for the 161 bus or the 8.40 to Charing Cross.

Leaving me starting the 70s in Manchester at The Twisted Wheel and an introduction to what would become known as Northern Soul, and wandering across my newly adopted city, exploring all that it had to offer.

And then by the middle of the decade, buying our first house out in Ashton, getting married and starting the job I did for 35 years. All of which marked my passage into becoming grown up.

I suspect many who read this story will have similar experiences, and like me cherish both decades for what they offered and what we did during them.

So in the words of Brian Patten, "My celluloid companions, it’s only a few years
Since I knew you. Something in us has faded.
Has the Terrible Fiend, That Ghastly Adversary,
Mr Old Age, Caught you in his deadly trap,
and come finally to polish you off,
His machinegun dripping with years … ?"**

Which is far too serious, so instead, I will call time with Roger McGough’s Vinegar,
"sometimes
i feel like a priest
in a fish & chips queue
quietly thinking
as the vinegar runs through
how nice it would be
to buy supper for two"***

Location; the far away decades

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Mrs Albion You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter, Adrian Henri

**Where are you now, Batman,? Brian Pattern

***Vinegar, Roger McGough

All three from The Mersey Sound, 1967, Penguin

Now I seem to be drawn back to Greengate and have decided to feature this one from Andy Robertson who over the years has been recording the changes to the twin cities and so here is his take on Greengate.

I asked him to wander down and take a few photographs of the place.

And this is the one he began, taken in 2016, with which he tells me was made more difficult by the absence of some old familiar landmarks and the equal absence of street signs.

So there you have it .......... and when he wanders back I bet it will all have changed again.

Location; Salford

Picture; Greengate 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson

And of course the answer is no there won’t be, ....... Simpsons Ready Made Food Ltd, closed a while ago and the site is being readied for a proposed housing estate.

Planning permission has been granted for the demolition of the factory and the erection of 58 properties, consisting of houses and apartments, of which two are classed as “affordable rent units”, and four “shared ownership units”.*

Andy Robertson has been down to the site twice and his latest pictures come with the observation that there is scaffolding up around the front building, “perhaps they are keeping the outer bit as part of the redevelopment”

Well having looked at the plans it would appear the building will go, and the space will be filled with eight properties.

Location; Urmston

Pictures; the site, 2018 from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Trafford Planning Portal. Demolition of existing factory buildings to allow for residential development comprising; 58no. new dwellings. Alongside ancillary works including; a new main access from Stretford Road and associated landscaping. 0481/FUL/17 https://publicaccess.trafford.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=OKR1LPQLMZ900&activeTab=summary

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Eltham, circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The story of how we lived here in the first half of the 19th century.

There may still have been upwards of fifty wattle and daub houses in the 1840s in our township.

They were constructed from a timber framework with walls made of branches woven together and covered with a mixture of clay, gravel, hay and even horse hair and topped with a thatched roof.

Samuel and Sarah Sutton brought up their 2 children in one of these cottages. Their home was one of two adjoining cottages situated on the Row and in every sense looked the rural part.

The white walls and wooden beams were partly obscured by ivy and the front door was approached through a small country garden. Behind the house and away from the view of strangers stood the privy and the back garden where the Sutton’s grew fruit, vegetables and flowers.

There would be currant and gooseberry bushes, raspberry canes, rhubarb and mix of vegetables which made an important contribution to the family income and were often home to chickens and even a pig.

Such houses were easy to build and equally easy to maintain, but there could be disadvantages to living in them. The porous nature of walls meant they were damp and crumbling clay meant endless repairs.

According to a later Parliamentary report “Many of them have not been lined with lath and plaster inside and so are fearfully cold in winter. The walls may not be an inch in thickness and where the lathes are decayed the fingers may be easily pushed through. The roof is of thatch, which if kept in good repair forms a good covering, warm in winter and cool in summer, though doubtless in many instances served as harbour for vermin, for dirt, for the condensed exhalations from the bodies of the occupants of the bedrooms....”

Floors made of brick or stone were laid directly on the ground and were almost invariably damp, and in the worst cases reeked with moisture. Once the brick was broken, the floor became uneven and the bare earth exposed. This might be compounded where the cottage floor was below the ground outside or the floor level was uneven which caused problems of drainage. Even the proudest wife and mother must have been reconciled to damp and dirt which were the result of such floors.

The only heating would come from the open fire which might have been combined with a cooking range. On damp days when the coal or wood was wet the smell would permeate every room in the house. During the winter months the unheated bedrooms were particularly unpleasant places. On the coldest nights ice would form on the inside of windows.

Cottages of this design were often limited to four rooms, and some may have had only two, with the family living downstairs and sleeping on the upper floor. In some cases access to the bedroom was by ladder rather than stairs and in many cases bedrooms were left open. One surviving cottage in Chorlton from the eighteenth century did have a staircase which opened out to a big bedroom giving little in the way of privacy.

As for sanitation this would have been equally primitive. Nationally the rural picture was grim with privies often draining into open channels which themselves got blocked with refuse and so flowed too slowly to allow the waste to disperse.

Picture; Sutton’s Cottage circa 1892, photograph from the Wesleyan Souvenir Handbook of 1895 in the collection of Philip Lloyd

Behind the houses, 1979

The two up two down terraced house remains a feature of most of our towns and cities.

Most were built in the mid 19th century onwards, some were adapted from older two roomed back to backs and some were altered to add another room, or the addition of an extension.

But across the country, particularly in the north and the midlands they were and still are a major part of the housing stock.

And many of us will have close connections to them. My mother and grandparents lived in one in Derby, and the first house I bought was a two up two down mid terrace in Ashton -Under- Lyne.

Now this is no romantic descent into some warm cosy nostalgic commentary on two up two downs. They are fine for those starting out together when there is just the two of you with an option on a baby but cannot have been fun for a large family.

After all where do you put everybody? Not that this was ever a new problem. Overcrowding both in the towns and cities as well as the countryside has always been the lot of many working families.

12 Hope Street, Derby, circa 1930s

Back in rural areas in the 19th century parents fell on a range of strategies.

Where possible some of the children stayed with relatives or deals were struck with neighbours who involved families with boys and girls sharing out the children and setting up single sex bedrooms in each other’s houses.

And if none of that was possible it was down to the blanket across the room dividing the area in two.*

All of which brings me back to the house in Ashton -Under -Lyne. It was the usual model. You walked in off the street into the front room and directly facing you was the door to the back room. In our case the stairs ran from the very back of the second room up to a small landing and the two upstairs rooms, one of which had been divided to take a bath room.

Almost all the original features had gone and so it was impossible to know what the downstairs fireplaces had been like, the design of the range or even the doors, for all of them including the front door had that 1950s makeover which involved a sheet of hardboard which was nailed on.

Outside at the rear we had a yard with the lavatory and beside it the gate to the alley.

12 Hope Street, Derby, 1926

Back in 1911, our house with its four rooms had been home to James and Catherine Porter, their four children and James’s sister.

And here really is what must have been a problem, for the Porter’s had a ten year old daughter, two sons aged 3 and 2 and a baby and then there was Elizabeth Porter the 39 year old sister.

Now I cannot be sure but I suspect the problem had only recently become more complicated, because Elizabeth had been living with her father who had died the year before and we can only guess how they all fitted in.

And there we pretty much have to leave the family. Elizabeth was working as a cotton winder in a local mill and so may have found alternative accommodation or maybe they all adapted and made the best they could.

The house is still there and while many of these two up two downs have been cleared away, plenty more are still doing the business.

Ours dated from sometime at the end of the 19th or the very beginning of the 20th century and like so many it was built within sight of the local mill and what had been a colliery.

Just across from the house along Whiteacre Road, there were three coal pits and two reservoirs all gone now although when we were there the site was still just a landscaped hill.

Picture; Behind the houses, 1979, back yard of 12 Hope Street, circa 1930 and 1926, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Reports of the Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women & Children in Agriculture in England, HMSO, 1843

A short series reflecting on a bit of gentle fun from the seaside.

That said each of the four has something to say about the period in which they were sent.

But I will leave you to draw conclusions.

Location; at the seaside in Wales

Picture; courtesy of Ron Stubley

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Now I don’t go in for nostalgia and rarely spend a lot of time reflecting on what might have been.

But a long time ago I regularly waited outside the solicitor’s which was housed in that tall glass building beside the Royal Liver Building.

It will have been around the summer of 1973 and I was meeting Kay.

She worked as a temp in the offices and I would make my way over from Grey Mare Lane where were living and after work take in a meal or a film before heading home.

I occasionally passed the place over the next four decades and watched as the building came to the end of its useful life, and was then used as a place to stick posters advertising everything from gigs to bars and restaurants.

And sometime between late 2012 and the middle of 2014 it was demolished along with the smaller property to its left and the impressive Liver Building which at some point had been painted black.

It took me a few weeks to work out where it had been on my last visit but I found the vacant lot, and not for the first time I reflected on how yet another bit of my past has become an open space, vying with the others which are now car parks or blocks of flats.

And no sooner had I posted the story and Stephen told me that "this was a Securicor building in the mid 80s to early 90s. KRISTINA HARRISON solicitors were next door and did it not become a niche theatre during its black decor days or maybe theatre workshop?

It was Pony Express couriers (subsid of securicor)and securicor cleaning company mid 80s which was run there."

And P.J.Thompsn added, "the smaller property to the left was Slade House. The offices of 'The Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers and Engravers (SLADE) a British trade union representing workers in the printing industry.

Formed in Manchester in 1885.

They helped me get a pay rise in 1978."

Location; Salford Chapel Street

Picture; Chapel Street, no date, m77263, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The first in a new series of growing up in Chorlton by Trevor James

The Old Road, 2016

The picture of the 1st Chorltonville cub and scout group shown on your blog for Wednesday, 15 November 2017 from Frank Tomlin was of particular interest to me, as I might be included in it. Unfortunately, I cannot tell for sure, given the picture quality. Together with my best friend, Leonard Smith, I was a Wolf Cub in the 1st Chorltonville (52nd Manchester) pack from 1952-1955.

We both lived in the same street on the Barlow Moor estate.

Every Friday (I think) throughout the year, we would set off at 5.30pm and walk along Floyd, Hardcastle and Burrows Avenues, down Hardy Lane, along Hurstville Road and through the passage at the end into the ‘Ville’.

The hut where we met was at the end of Brookburn Road, as it becomes a path across The Meadows. At the end of the meeting, we walked back home, in the dark much of the year, between the ages of 8 to 11 years old and neither we nor our parents thought anything of it.

The Cub Pack, circa 1950s

The one person in the photograph I can identify has a moustache and wears a Scout hat. When I knew him, he was the local Scout District Commissioner – don’t think I ever knew his name.

He always reminded me of Jimmy Edwards; just as funny and loud, too. Our first Akela was --- Blair; my mother was quite taken with him, saying he had ‘matinee idol’ looks. Our later cubmaster was Tom Alcorn, who was much younger (probably early twenties); both lived in Chorltonville.

In the summer, if it was fine, much of the meeting was held outdoors, on the Meadows, playing games. That’s where we spent much of our time, especially at weekends.

Hardy Farm, 1965

We usually approached via Hardy Lane; beyond Hurstville Road it was just a farm track. I’m not sure if I remember Hardy Lane Cottages or merely think I recall them, but I certainly remember Hardy Farm.

As you walked through it, there was an orchard on the right (Leonard & I went scrumping apples there, once, and we were discovered by the farmer), then an open, Dutch barn with corrugated iron roof , and lastly an open-fronted brick barn. This last had an orange box nailed to the gable end, with the middle stave knocked out. This was occupied, as intended, by a barn owl.

On the opposite side of the track was the farmhouse and ancillary buildings. The track at this point sloped down quite sharply. The last building was the cowshed or shippon, where the farmer (Mr. Mellor?) hand-milked his three or four cows. He had a retail milk round; the milk was unpasteurised, but TB-tested, of course. We didn’t use his milk, ours was delivered by the Co-op. The rumour was that Mr. Mellor watered the milk.

Beyond the farm the track flattened out and, about the point at which it bent to the left, there was a pond on the righthand side. For some reason, a fairly large-diameter cast-iron pipe crossed the pond, 1-2 feet above the surface. It pointed in the direction of the sewage farm, but where it came from I don’t know – maybe Barlow Hall, as it looked as though it predated the Barlow Hall estate. The pond had all that small boys could wish for – minnows, tadpoles (in season), newts, water beetles.

The Meadows, 2002

If we had gone down on our bikes, we ventured slightly further afield. Our boundaries were never discussed but were tacitly agreed.

On the Chorlton bank of the Mersey, the towpath downstream from Jackson’s Boat bridge as far as ‘Thunder Bridge’, which carried the railway line (now Metrolink) over the river; upstream, on the towpath, not far at all, as there was nothing of interest except for Barlow Wood (which we knew as Bluebell Wood).

However, we did cross the river, which was grossly polluted, smelt vile and whose flow was punctuated by small rafts of foam – still in the period 1952-55. We didn’t stray far along the towpath in either direction; instead, we would cycle up Rifle Road about as far as the first corner. At that point, we turned left off the road and into a ‘field’, which at that time was a dump for all sorts of rubbish, some six feet high.

We rode over this, back to the river. What we rode over in many places was white and fluffy. In hindsight, it must have been white asbestos. I’ve still no (severe) breathing difficulties, fingers crossed.

© Trevor James, 2018

Location; the 1950s

Pictures; the Old Road, 2012 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, First Chorltonville Cub and Scout troop, 1950s, courtesy of Frank Tomlin, Hardy Farm, 1965, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Meadows, 2002, from the collection of David Bishop

It began as an idle bit of research about a house and developed into a story of when this bit of Chorlton was developed, and about one family who settled here in the early 1880s.

No. Crossland Road, 1972

The house is on Crossland Road and for most of its 128 years it was a corner shop, selling groceries.

And for a long time I have wondered when it and the two small rows of houses close by were built.

Members of the old Chorlton Brass band were living in some of them by the mid 1890s, but just when they went up had puzzled me.

Not that I ever bothered to go and look, but yesterday I did.

The Rate Books suggest that Stanley Grove dates from 1884 and that the one on Crossland from 1890.

Now at this stage those dates are not set in stone, but there are no records of either property before then.

Looking down Crossland Road, 1972

At the time they were owned by John Neale and together the 14 houses brought in an annual rent of £217, while his two houses on Albemarle Road collectively earned him another £35.

I can track the residents at no. 1 Crossland back to 1890 and forward with some hiccups to 1969.*

In 1939 it was the home of Mr and Mrs Gibb who sold sweets, groceries and tobacco from the shop and just 28 years earlier Mrs Margaret Walker did the same.

And it is the Walker family that caught my interest not least because Margaret had been married at 15 and had had 5 children.

Beech Road, 1907

Together, the Walker’s and the Crossland Road and Stanley Grove offer up new insights into how this bit of Chorlton grew.

We are in what had become known as Old Chorlton or the Old Village to distinguish it from the development that began in the 1880s around the Four Banks, which was quickly built up and catered for the “middling people” many of whom worked in the city and commuted back by train to the township which still had a rural feel.

I suspect at weekends they took themselves off to the village green and by degree walked the fields crossing Chorlton Brook and on the Mersey and beyond.

But our bit of Chorlton was also being developed, and Crossland, Stanley and Redbridge Grove fit into that, development.

Looking at the census returns, a fair number of the residents were new comers, as were the Walkers. They came from Worcestershire and Mr Walker gave his occupation variously as labourer and gardener.

They were still in Worcestershire in 1871 but were here by 1884, when they were living in Stanley Grove, and in the course of the next few years moved on to Beech Road, Acres Road and Clarence Road before settling on Whitelow Road.

Of all the properties only two have vanished and of these it is the one on Beech Road which is intriguing because this I think will be the row of cottages which ran at right angles and jutted out on to the road, roughly opposite what is now Reeves Road.

Sometime around 1900 or into the following year Richard died and the family relocated to Stanley Grove.

Crossland Road, 1909

Margaret continued to work as a laundress, but given that she now lived opposite the big Pasley Laundry it is just possible that she went to work there.

Either way by 1911 she was dispensing groceries from no. 1 Crossland Road, possibly assisted by her daughter Florence and her son Charles who was a Postman.

And it appears she had taken over from one of daughters who was running the show two years earlier.

The 1911 census records that there were four rooms to the house, which is pretty much where we came in.

Only to reflect that the story once again challenges those who are particularly sniffy about newcomers to Chorlton, with that hint that anyone not born here is somehow an outsider, which of course is silly, given that all of us will have a family history that once upon a time started somewhere else.

*In 1890 the shop was run by a Johnson Clarke and in 1969 by Mrs D Jones.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; cottages on Beech Road, J Jackson, 1907, m17651, Stanley Grove, From Crossland Road, H Milligan, m18209, m18209, and m17732, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

You won’t find Homer Street.

St Andrew's School, 1910

It disappeared sometime between 1934 and 1938 and I guess was part of an early clearance policy.

There will be ways of finding out but for now I am going to concentrate on the 100 or so years it was there when it was home to generations of families who worked in the factories the mills, and the timber and railway yards.

The project was prompted by my friend Bob Armato who commissioned a report on the area in advance of building a warehouse on the site. By then Homer Street and the neighbouring properties on St Andrew’s Square, Gees Place, Dryden Street and Marsden Square had vanished so completely that they do not appear on any modern maps.*

Homer Street, 1851

But go back into the middle of the 19th century and they are all there.

It is difficult at present to get a sense of what the houses were like, but some at least were back to backs that looked out on to narrow and half enclosed streets and courts.

At the end of Homer Street was a reservoir and three streets down was the Mount Street Dye Works.

Sometime around 1851 the St Andrew’s National School was opened. It is there on Adshead’s map of that year but is missing from the OS for 1849.

In time I will explore its story but so far I know that in 1911 the boys school had 248 students on roll although the average attendance was just 155, while the girls school had 272 with an average attendance of 160.

St Andrew Street, 1850

Some at least of the students would have been drawn from Homer Street.**

In 1851 it consisted of 15 houses which were home to 93 people.

The occupations of the residents included a porter, charwoman, several labourers, a carter and a number who did various jobs in the textile industry.

Most were from Manchester or the surrounding townships but a fair few as you would expect from the date were from Ireland.

At number 9 was Mr John McCormick a stone mason from Ireland living with his wife Mary who had been born in Manchester and their son James. The house was also occupied by the five members of the Harris family. Mr Harris and his wife were also from Ireland although their children were born here.

St Andrew's Church. 1960

There is much more and over the next few weeks I shall wander back to the beginning of Homer Street and forward into the 1930s in an effort to record some of the changes to the area and how the families of Homer Street fared.

But I shall conclude by observing that for almost all of its existence it didn't even get an entry in the street directories leaving me to fall back on St Andrew Street's listing for 1850***

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; St Andrew’s School, Homer Street, 1920, m48646, and St Andrew’s Church, 1964, T Brooks, m10604, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Homer Street in 1851, from Adshead map of Manchester 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Amato Food Products, http://www.amatoproducts.co.uk/

**Homer Street, Enu 1u 2-6, London Road, Manchester, 1851

***Slater's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1850, page 90

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A short series reflecting on a bit of gentle fun from the seaside.

Location; at the seaside in Wales

Picture; courtesy of Ron Stubley

Now in the catalogue this is labelled Chapel Street but I am fairly confident we are in fact on Greengate, because this is the Flying Dutchman, a pub I have written about before.

The gap in the buildings is Mallet’s Court and if you were to walk a few yards back past the pub heading to our right you would be on Gorton Street.

There is no date but it must be later than 1900 because in that year Mr Samuel Coulthurst photographed the collection of buildings and included in the picture was a tall house on the extreme left which in this image has been demolished.

Nor can I think it can post date 1910 because by the following year the pub is listed as a boarding house.

The photograph also yields up the name of the brewery supplying the Flying Dutchman which was the Cornbrook Brewery.

It had started up in the 18th century, was registered in 1885 and after modest acquisitions of other breweries was bought up by Carringtons in 1961 and finally closed in 1973.

At the beginning of the 20th century it was on Elsemere Street in Hulme.

I doubt their records have survived but I shall go looking after all it would be intriguing to know why they thought it necessary to take replace the old sign with the name of the pub for one advertising themselves.

All of which just leaves me to thank Alan Jennings who spotted my mistake in calling the pub the Flying Horseman and added a fine piece of extra information.

"Hi Andrew, the pub was called the Flying Dutchman, it was named after the 1849 Derby winner,the pubs name is on the lamp above the door, in 1850 it was a Whip makers shop then two years later it became the pub, in the early 1900's the pub was one of several that the Authorities wanted to close.

The Cornbrook brewery had a lease on the property and in July 1905, they installed a new licensee, Thomas Carney who moved there from the Waterloo Hotel further along Greengate.

Eight months later the police reported that the place was still being used by thieves and other bad characters and so it was referred for Compensation , the Brewery were awarded £607 and it closed in 1907... this info came from Salford Pubs by Neil Richardson and also another wonderful little book called November Skies..."

Location; Salford

Additional information from Alan Jennings

Picture; Chapel Street, date unknown, W Ellis, M77245, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

I wonder how many of the Friends of Beech Road who visit each weekend will have clocked that our chippy has closed.

Now the passing of any local business is a something to regret, especially as it was the source of many a quick meal over the last forty or so years.

And its history goes back much further, because along with the newsagents next door it has consistently sold the same thing since it opened at the beginning of the 20th century.

That makes it almost unique and its record is only matched by four Chorlton pubs, and the bakery opposite.

These are the Horse & Jockey which got its license in 1793, The Lloyds, which started serving in 1868, the Beech from the early 20th century and the Trevor Arms, from just 1908, although in the case of the Trevor there was a beer shop on or next to it from the 1870s.

And in answer to the torrent of comments about the other pubs, the Bowling Green moved into its present building in the early 20th century, having traded from the 1780s from a building next door, and the Royal Oak only dates from the 1930s, having also moved out of its original building.

True, that pub over the water also dates from the 18th century but it is no longer in Chorlton, while the Spread Eagle was a private residence much longer than it has ever been a pub and hotel.

On a happy note, I am pleased that the manager of the chippy is still frying chips and battered fish but is now opposite the old swimming baths, which just leaves me to report that there are rumours that no 42 Beech Road will continue its long relationship with food and reopen as a Chinese takeaway.

I wonder what it will be called, and I do remember the chippy has gone through a series of different names, of which my favourite must be the “Vimto Chippy” so called because of the Vimto stickers around the window.

And once we have a new name it maybe time to revise the Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardywhich was published last year, including a paragraph on the return of a Chinese takeaway to Beech Road.*

Location; Beech Road

Picture; the chippy, 2017, from the collection of Peter Topping

*A Quirky book about Chorlton, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20Quirky%20book%20about%20Chorlton

Now I would like to think that one of these young people could be Ethel Ward.

Students at St Andrews School, 1920

She was living with her parents at number 9 Homer Street and it is just possible she attended St Andrew’s School which was at the end of the road.

Homer Street and in particular number 9 has over the last few days drawn me in and I want to know more.

It was just a few minutes away from Fairfield Street and on a quiet night the Ward family would have heard the distinctive clung of railway waggons being shunted in the nearby sidings, caught the smell from the river and the dye works and worried that young Ethel might do something daft beside the canal.

Homer Street, 1894

That said I remember my old friend Norman who had been born close by telling me how he had learnt to swim by being thrown in that same canal.

I last visited number 9 in 1851 when it was home to two families.

At that time I knew little about the property but now know that it consisted of four rooms which given that there were seven of them must have made it a squeeze.

Just exactly what the condition of number 9 was like is unknown, but by 1911 it was at least 74 years old having been built as part of the swift development of the area in the early and mid 19th century.*

The class of 1920, St Andrew's School, 1920

The earliest entry in the rate books is 1837 when the block was owned by a Mr Price who is still the owner in 1851.**.

I suspect Mr and Mrs Ward counted themselves relatively lucky because many of the surrounding properties consisted of just two and three rooms and were home to large families.

He was an electrician for Manchester Corporation and as such was a skilled worker.

They had been married for eleven years and Ethel as their only child.

For Ethel there would have been little that could be said to have offered up exciting places to play.

Just a short walk down Phobe Street was a tree lined Recreational Ground which backed on to the river but it was dominated by a cotton mill off to the east and the Ancoats Goods Yard to the north delivering a fair share of noise, smells and if the wind were in the wrong direction no doubt the old cloud of smoke.

Of course there is a danger in letting your imagination over play the industrial scene and I have also to concede that by the time our school picture was taken Ethel would have been fourteen and already working, perhaps in that very textile factory that overlooked the Rec.

St Andrew's Square, 1966

Her home and the rest of the houses on Homer Street had gone by 1938 although the street and some of the surrounding ones continued to appear on maps, but by the end of the century even their imprint had vanished under a site which had various industrial uses and now is a warehouse for Armato Food Products and it was the current owners who suggested I might be interested in the site.***

Which is almost the end, but I have to add that in wandering the neighbouring streets I did come across a Mr Simpson living with his wife and two boarders in three rooms at number 17 St Andrew’s Street. He was no relation but I like the way a random search throws up a Simpson.****

Pictures; St Andrew’s School, Homer Street, 1920, m48646, and St Andrew’s Square from St Andrews Street, facing west, 1966, T Brooks, m10604, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=passand Homer Street in 1894,from the OS for South Lancashire, 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Homer Street, Enu 12 272, Central, Manchester, 1911

**Manchester Rate Books, 1837- 1851

***Amato Food Products, http://www.amatoproducts.co.uk/

****St Andrews Street, Enu 12 188, Central, Manchester, 1911

I don’t have a picture of Sarah Ann Walker, and I doubt I will ever come across one.

Stanley Grove, 1972

She was born in 1872, worked as a domestic servant and briefly ran the grocery shop at 1 Crossland Road, in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and was buried in Southern Cemetery in 1958, where she rests with her parents

In between she had lived and worked in Didsbury and Southport and very possibly other parts of the north.

Hers is an interesting story because it matches the lives and experiences of countless others who history has forgotten. I say forgotten but the reality is it never took much notice.

Until yesterday I was blissfully unaware of her existence, but I came across her because of the shop which a few years later her mother was running.

And that drew me in. Miss Walker’s father was a labourer and her mother a laundress and sometime in the early 1880s the family exchanged their home in Bengeworth in Worcestershire for Chorlton.

1 Crossland Road and Stanley Grove, 1972

I can’t be exactly sure, but in 1881 they were in a small cottage in Bengeworth and three years later in Stanley Grove in Chorlton and from there they moved around.

In 1885/6 they were on Beech Road, Clarence Road and finally after another short stay on Stanley they settled into Whitelow Road.

And it is there in 1891 that we pick up the family on a census record.

By then Sarah Ann was living and working on Palatine Road as a housemaid, along with a cook and waitress in the home of an “East Indian and General Merchant”.

The Vine Inn, 2015

A decade later she had progressed to a finer house in Southport and had risen to be the cook in a household with three other servants and in 1904 she was in the shop on Crossland Road.

After which the trail becomes a bit messier.

There is a listing for a Miss Sarah Ann as a cook at 133 Washway Road, in Sale and references to a Mrs Sarah Ann Walker in Stanley Grove in 1903 that is also described a cook, as well as a listing at the shop in 1909.

Finally there is a record in the 1939 Register to a Miss Sarah Ann Cook who was living at 13 Royal Avenue.
She is described as an invalid and the householder, and lived with her sister Florence and a lodger.

It is quite possible that she might have decided to adopt a marital status and then revert and the link to the occupation as a cook is consistent which takes us back to 133 Washway Road which today is the Vine Inn, prompting me to go looking to see if the street numbers are still the same.

All of which is a tad confusing, and made more so when you look at the burial plot in Southern Cemetery.

The Vine Inn 2015

Sarah Ann is there with her mother who was buried in 1931, her father in 1924, her sister in 1913 and possibly her sister’s daughter who was interred later in 1913.

It looks pretty straight forward but for her father, who all the earlier evidence suggests died between 1900 and 1901.

So we return to the observation that Miss Sarah has presented us with a trail of mysteries, but along the way reveals something about who was living in Chorlton in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where they came from and the work they did.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Stanley Grove, 1972, A Dawson m18210 & 1972 H Milligan m18208, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=passand the Vine Inn, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.16 looking out from Well Hall Station

Beech Road offs up some more stories

...... "to be young was very heaven" ..... growing up in the 1960s & 70s

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 16 ......... not so much lost but waiting for something new

And will there be no more Simpson pies from Urmston?

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.17 the Rising Sun in pale blue

Wattle and daub cottages in Chorlton

Living in a two up two down house any time from the 1890s

A little bit of gentle fun at the seaside in the 1930s ........ no 2 Pinched

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.18 the Plaisteds

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ............ nu 20 remembering a bit of Chapel Street

CUBS & THE MEADOWS ...... a story from Trevor James

On Crossland Road looking for a story with Mrs Margaret Walker in 1911

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 1 Homer Street

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 20 out across a busy river

A little bit of gentle fun at the seaside in the 1920s ............. no 3 "The Midnight Choo-Choo”

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 24 Greengate and the one they got wrong

No chips .... no fish .... no mushy peas .... no pies ...... on Beech Road ..... in the summer of 2018

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 2 Homer Street and the Ward family

Miss Sarah Ann Walker of Crescent Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy ....... and a trail of mysteries