Now I have become interested in those water troughs which may well soon rival my obsession with ghost signs.
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They were once a common feature of all our cities and towns and were usually positioned at crossroads or at the side of busy thoroughfares and did the business of providing drinking water for horses, cattle and other live stock.
The ones I remember best were still in use in the early 1950s although I suspect by then their best days were over, and during the next half century they became obsolete.
Some were carted off to Corporation yards and later broken up for hardcore, others became ornamental flower beds and a few have been stolen and no doubt now reside at the bottom of a posh garden somewhere.
In London by 1879 the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association had built 800 fountains and troughs.
Here in the twin cities it was the Manchester and Salford Cattle Trough Association who were engaged in the same work.
I can remember the one in Withington which for a time disappeared before reappearing and also the one in Audenshaw.
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All of which is a lead into the one which Eddie Smith posted recently on the facebook site Classic Salford Photos Group.
The water trough can be found in Ordsall Hall but was originally one of two outside the old Woolpack in Pendleton Square.
I was pleased he gave me permission to feature it and was all set on a major new series only to find that someone had already got there before me and so I will just direct you to Cattle Troughs in Greater Manchester, which is part of a much bigger site and covers my old home city of London with pictures, locations and even records of those that have been stolen.
Picture; water trough Ordsall Hall 2015 and in Pendleton circa 1904, from the collection of Eddie Smith
*Cattle Troughs in Greater Manchester,http://www.mdfcta.co.uk/manc.html
The ones I remember best were still in use in the early 1950s although I suspect by then their best days were over, and during the next half century they became obsolete.
Some were carted off to Corporation yards and later broken up for hardcore, others became ornamental flower beds and a few have been stolen and no doubt now reside at the bottom of a posh garden somewhere.
In London by 1879 the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association had built 800 fountains and troughs.
Here in the twin cities it was the Manchester and Salford Cattle Trough Association who were engaged in the same work.
I can remember the one in Withington which for a time disappeared before reappearing and also the one in Audenshaw.
The water trough can be found in Ordsall Hall but was originally one of two outside the old Woolpack in Pendleton Square.
I was pleased he gave me permission to feature it and was all set on a major new series only to find that someone had already got there before me and so I will just direct you to Cattle Troughs in Greater Manchester, which is part of a much bigger site and covers my old home city of London with pictures, locations and even records of those that have been stolen.
Picture; water trough Ordsall Hall 2015 and in Pendleton circa 1904, from the collection of Eddie Smith
*Cattle Troughs in Greater Manchester,http://www.mdfcta.co.uk/manc.html