Who remembers Tudors of Eltham? ......... Peter's story
Now this is less a history story and more a mystery investigation.It began with a picture of an old van in a lane in Footscray and yes once again it was my friend Jean who supplied the picture and...
View ArticleBlackfriars Street and the story behind the Palatine Photographic Company and...
Now it was Mark Twain who said "never let the truth stand in the way of a good story, unless you can't think of anything better"and I have to admit I was tempted.Sometime in the early 20th century this...
View ArticleThe lost road names of Chorlton
Now there are a lot of lost road names in Chorlton. I say lost but most are just name changes.I guess it was matter of eliminating duplicate names which appeared elsewhere in the city.So Regent became...
View Article“How good you Sisters are to us”* ......... stories behind the book nu 13...
An occasional series on the stories behind the new book on Manchester and the Great War.*Miss Bowser, date unknownI wish I could have met Miss Ida Thelka Bowser. She was born in 1873, served with the...
View ArticleWalks I wish I could have taken, ...... up Liverpool Road towards Deansgate...
The station and staiton master's houseWe are on Liverpool Road just a little under twenty years after the opening of the Manchester terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.The station and its...
View ArticleOne hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 83 ......... on the day after...
The continuing storyof the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*Joe and Mary Ann's house, 2017Now yesterday was the election for Greater...
View ArticleLooking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 5...
The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*Ancoats residents, 1920Now I am a little closer to being able to date the end of Homer Street.It went in the big slum...
View ArticleLost and forgotten streets of Salford no 50 on Blackfriars Street
Another from John CaseyLocation; SalfordPicture; Salford in the 1980s from the collection of John Casey
View ArticleThe Manchester Amateur Photographic Society, Mr Morris and the mystery of...
The request from Mr Morris, 1907The Manchester Amateur Photographic Society is one of those societies, that continues to interest me and today I have been drawn back by Mr George Morris of Chandos...
View ArticleTaking a walk along Didsbury Road in Heaton Mersey with Mr Crawley in the...
Today I went walking the lanes of Heaton Mersey in the summer of 1848.Now as daft as that might sound it is possible to recreate such a walk using the census returns the OS map for the period and the...
View ArticleThe Apology
Now how I did it I do not know, but I have managed to park and hide all the comments that have been made to the stories on the blog over the last six years and a bit.They amounted to something in the...
View ArticleTrenches in Piccadilly ............ a New Use for the Old Infirmary Site June...
Looking across to the old Infirmary site, date unknownNow Piccadilly Gardens continues to excite a wealth of feelings from those who miss the old sunken gardens and have no love for that concrete slab...
View ArticleLesnes Abbey ..........once lost and now found courtesy of Woolwich and...
Lesnes Abbey was a place I discovered purely by chance in the summer of 1966.The north wast wall of the abbey, 2013At sixteen I was a bit old for an adventure but that was what it was and I was...
View ArticleOne hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 84 ......... the apricots and...
The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*Apricots in the garden, 2017After seven years our apricot tree is...
View ArticleLost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 51 ................. Booth Street
Now Booth Street is just what you would expect of one of those twisty little streets off Chapel Street which make their way down to the river.Booth Street, 2016Unless you have business down there I...
View ArticleWishing you well ........... postcards from Woolwich, Greenwich and Eltham...
A short series with few words looking at the postcards we sent from Woolwich, Greenwich and Eltham.The description on the back describes “the Parish Church of the Royal Borough of Greenwich is a...
View ArticleOf trolley buses and a company called SELNEC
The trolley bus never did much for me.They were much quieter than the bus or the old trams but they always made me feel ill. I think it was the combination of the heat and the smell of the leather...
View ArticlePiccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 1 The YMCA Hostel 1917
Now if you are of a certain age the old Piccadilly Gardens will be a special place and even now generate a lot of heated debate about the present site.The YMCA Hostel, 1917So here over the next few...
View ArticleA farm on the green
No matter how many times I look at this picture it always has the power to draw me back in.The date is uncertain but my old friend Tony Walker suggested sometime in the 1860s but I cannot be sure.The...
View ArticlePollen Bakery ............ and something new in Ancoats
Now I am rediscovering Ancoats.Pollen , 2017In the 1970s it was one of those places I explored with just a camera and piles of curiosity.And now I am back, having delved into the history of Homer...
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