Panto Pictures From 1949

The last post for 2013 comes all the was from Australia... sent in from Joe and showing his wife to be as a young girl in Pantomime in 1949. Lovely pictures, great costumes and sets.

OVER TO JOE: Some photos of my wife, Jean Wilde, for the Hydonian blog site.  Maybe someone knows others who were in these pantomimes.  Panto was held in the church hall in Gee Cross.

Jean Wilde (aged about 8) is kneeling in front row, fourth from the right.

Same panto - Jean Wilde is sitting in front row, second from right. 

Jean and I moved to Australia in 1964 with our two daughters and settled in Canberra.

Cheers and happy new year,

Joe Wilde

UPDATED 03/01/14

From Eric In New Zealand

On second photo reading from the Right on back row they are: Jean Goddard, Cora Wilson, Marjorie Bennison, ?, ?, ?, Dorothy Newton, ?, Margaret Morris,  Joan Stafford, Joan Wimpenny, Marjorie Baddeley, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?.

Happy New Year To One And All

Thank you for sticking by us, and putting up with the last few months, I cannot see the blog being done on a daily basis in the near future... I personally have not the time or inclination to carry on as before , but will post at least once a month. I do check the emails but cannot answer them all.. What I must do in the New Year is to show a few of the comments I had to block, these comments have gradually got worse.... some I could not publish as they are horrid, nasty and some even downright filthy. I do hope the people/person responsible can move on next year.. What a shame this year as to end on such a matter... but these comments have taken the toll on us and we ask ourselves at times 'Why Bother'...  Lets hope this time next year our final post as a much happier tone to it.

Tom  

Cheshire Regiment in Hyde.

Request For Information

In the emails this week was the following..

I would be very pleased if one of the readers could answer my dilemma.

Attached are two photos of a contingent of the Cheshire Regiment in Hyde.

I don't know the actual occasion for this visit or when but guess its in the 70's as the second picture shows SHMD buses at the Glossop stop in Greenfield Street and a SELNEC bus just turning in to Greenfield Street from Great Norbury Street.

Many thanks Eric

Altered Images

Mill Cottages

Gee Cross Mill

View From Hobson Moor

Auto Masters

Garden Street

Woodend Lane By Gaslight 

Ashton Brothers Last Stand

The Grapes

Werneth Low Road

Cobbled Street

Hyde Pit Head

Paintings by Local Artists

When I showed the drawing of Vulcan Street by Trevor Grimshaw recently one of the comments on the post mentioned the Abbey Gallery at the top end of Market Street near the Dowson Road junction. I was passing there yesterday and noticed in the window some paintings by Owen Traynor and a few others of local scenes by other artists. This is a photograph I took which shows a painting by Owen Traynor of the War Memorial, one by him of the cottages at the top of Higham Lane and one of St George's Church by an unknown artist.

Market Street View

Here is a view of Market Street with the Philanthropic Society building with the sign at the top intact. This was destroyed a few years ago when the shop had some work done on it.

Next door is the North Cheshire Herald office, then Portfolio Camera shop and on the far right, the Crown Pub before it was closed down.

Unsure of the date but would probably put it in the late 1980's ?

Charles C Smith

We've got a few drawings and paintings by Charles C Smith and on the back of some of them is this information about the artist. There are also little stickers showing his address as Mansfield Crescent, Denton.

'Tame Valley and Gee Cross Mill'

'Coombes Rocks'

'Hyde Town Hall'

No title on this picture, but I don't think it needs one

There's also no title on this picture, but it's in the Werneth Low Country Park

Help Needed.

  

The following email from Claire Hufnagel was received by us recently. I do hope someone can help her.

 Over to Claire...

 I wonder if you could please help me.

I was given this information (see below) about The Bridge Inn as it could refer to either Samuel Smith my gggrandfather who died in 1854, and who appears in the previous censuses as a beer seller in Hoviley Brow, Hoviley Lane & Hoviley Bridge, or his son Samuel Smith who figues in the 1861 Census and his widow Martha Ann Smith (née Turner) in 1881 as running a pub at 14 Cheapside. No name of the place appears at 14 Cheapside in 1861, 1871 or 1881.

But in the 1891 and 1901 Censuses, with different owners,  this address, 14 Cheapside, has the name "Hatters Arms". In 1911, it is still a pub but no name.

Do you know anything about this change of names. Do you know if The Bridge Inn and the Hatters Arms are the same place?

"The Bridge Inn, 14 Cheapside, Godley. Owners: *Walker and Homfrays, was Watson, Woodhead and Wagstaffe. The Bridge Inn was a beerhouse near the bottom of Cheapside, so named because of its proximity to the bridge crossing Hoviley Brook." (There was once a ford at this point known as Hoviley Ford.)

"The Bridge Inn was established around 1856 by Samuel Smith and in 1916 the renewal of the licence was refused because there were too many licenced houses in the area; within two hundred yards there were two fully licenced and two off licences. The owners of the Bridge Inn, Watson, Woodhead and Wagstaffe, a Salford brewery, stated in their defence that over the past five years they had spent over £22 pounds on alterations, and the landlord, Frederick Scott, protested that he had just purchased three dozen new beer glasses."

Information taken from "A History of the Pubs of Hyde and District" , by Paul Taylor

* Walker & Homfrays of Salford was registered as a brewery in 1896 (though appears to have been in existence earlier than that) and was bought out by Wilsons of Newton Heath in 1949.  In 1929 Walker & Homfrays themselves had bought up the Creeses Brewery in Hyde.

Oakfield Primary School

Here are some school photos sent to us by Norman Ovens. They show both him and his brother, Phil.

Oakfield Primary School  circa 1973

Mrs Reynolds Class

Must be the 1970's judging by the bright colours and assortment of mullet haircuts :)

Mrs Rileys class

As usual, if you know any more of the names,  please let us know.

Many thanks, Norman.

We will remember them.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning


We will remember them.

Owen Traynor

Although we've got a couple of pictures by Owen Traynor I didn't know anything about him till I started to put this post together. He has his own website, which you can access here and below is an extract from that site telling you about Owen.

"Born in Ashton-u-Lyne in 1934, Owen has always lived in Dukinfield. Took an interest in drawing as soon as he could hold a pencil and the fascination with depicting the things he saw around him has never waned. Educated at St Mark's School, Dukinfield and the County Grammer School, Hyde. Began painting seriously in oils at the age of thirteen when many of his subjects were taken from local scenes and he also experimented with more decorative and abstract themes.

After National Service in the army where he served in the Canal Zone, Egypt, he took a teacher training course at Bretton Hall College of Education, near Wakefield. This was a specialist college for art teachers. From 1958 he taught art at West Hill Sc hool, Stalybridge as head of Art Department and many of his pupils have retained their interest in the subject, quite a few becoming professional artists.

Due to an eye infection he had to abandon oil painting for a while and during this period a colleague gave him a set of watercolour paints to try. He took to this most difficult medium at once and the oil he was working on remained unfinished. He never tried oils again. He retired from teaching in 1985 to devote the rest of his time to painting and has been busy ever since. He held his first one-man exhibition in 1968 and his work has been in demand since then. He was the winner of the first Glossop Pro Loco Competition. In 1985 he won the Manchester Council/Manchester Evening News Painting Competition.

Has been awarded prizes by the Society of British Painters and the British Watercolour Society. Commissions have been completed for people throughout Britain and for Greater Manchester Police, Hyperlast, Barclays Bank and Manchester University to mention a few. Reproductions of his work have been published by Felix Rosensteil's Widow and Sons, London and Portfolio Fine Art, Manchester. His work was selected many times for the Laing Competition and he was presented with the Yorkshire Television Award for Painting."

These are the two pictures which we have have for several years:

Market Street - Long Lost Shops

Whilst supermarket shopping is good  because everything is under one roof, I do still miss the old days of going to lots of different shops on a Saturday, with my Mum, to get the shopping .

Woods was a very popular shop.

I think this is circa late 70's to early 80's.

Please feel free to correct me me I'm wrong.

Thanks to Diane for sending the photo to me.

Much appreciated.

Trevor Grimshaw

This is a picture that we've got by Trevor Grimshaw showing St George's Church and on the back of the drawing is a sticker showing where it was drawn:

My early 1960s A-Z shows that Vulcan Street ran between Cross Street and Boardman Street and parallel to Great Norbury Street:

Vulcan Street isn't named on the 1897 map of Hyde but it does show the passageway depicted in the drawing:

Greenfield Secondary Swimming team

The following photo was sent to us by an old friend of mine, Norman Ovens, who now lives in Michigan, USA.

He writes
"I remember the races in Hyde baths, a place I used to live in as a kid. I can't remember who we raced against , it may have been within the school. Names I remember are on the picture".

Greenfield Secondary School Swimming Team 1977

If anyone recognises anymore of these little cuties please let us know. :D

Thanks Norman, much appreciated. 

I hope you and the family are well. x

Remembrance Day song and video

A very poignant song and video written and sung by Terry Kelly from Canada.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kX_3y3u5Uo

The Casualties of War

As we are coming up to Remembrance Day I thought I'd share the following cuttings sent to us recently by Arthur Heywood.

These newspaper clippings show the absolute heartbreak some families endured during WW1.

The following families lost 3 and 4 sons in the war.

I cannot even begin to understand how they coped with losing their loved ones.

Many thanks for sharing, Arthur.

Much appreciated.

Updated from

The Hyde In Wartime Book

At the end of July, 1915, Mrs Esther Long of Cheapside, Hyde, a widow, received from Buckingham Palace a letter, sent on behalf of His Majesty the King congratulating her upon the fact that she had six sons serving with the colours.   The eldest soldier-son was 46 years of age, and the youngest 25. Sergeant Major Thomas Long, George Street, the eldest, married, a volunteer and Territorial for 27 years, and served in the Boer War, and been wounded in France. The seconds son, Lance Corporal Walter Long, for many years with the old Hyde Volunteers, enlisted for active service about Christmas, 1914, and went to France in February, 1915. He died at a Rouen Hospital on the 17th December, 1915, from wounds received in action. His home was at Hallbottom Gate, Newton, and he was married. Private John Long, the third son, enlisted at Whitsuntide, 1915. He was killed instantly, at Dardanelles, on the 1st. January, 1916. The forth, Private William Long, an old soldier, unmarried, served some time in India, also in South Africa, after the Boar War, was in much fighting in France and was 'gassed' on the 2nd of May, 1915. Later he was discharged as physically unfit for further military service, after serving 17 years. The fifth, Private Henry Long, spent 6 years in India, was called up as a reservist immediately after the war started, and at once went to France. He fought at Mons; was taken prisoner, and was subsequently located in Hanover, Germany. He is married, and his home is at Winsford. The youngest of the six, Trooper Joseph Long, went to France in October, 1914, and as been in the thick of the fighting. At the end of February, 1916, he was still in France, having been there all the time, with the exception of one leave of about a week. 

The Boars Head

Here is a photo of The Boars Head which stood at 

145-147 George Street.

The pub which was commonly known as the "Boars Nut" was closed down in 1974 by compulsory purchase, along with many fine old pubs, to make way for the new motorway which split 

Hyde in two.

Many thanks to Tom for supplying the photograph and Paul for the information. - Great team work.

Silver Hill Farm

I thought I may have finally tracked down a photo of Silver Hill Farm but according to The History of Hyde, Silver Hill Farm was long gone when the book was written, so, I assume this photo just shows part of the Silver Hill House estate. :(


This was taken in 1933. 

It looks like the estate was slowly disappearing around this time as the new houses were being built around it.



Silver Hill Farm was located off Stockport Road, the entrance being opposite the Zion Church.

I was always interested in finding out more about it, although long gone, as the house where I was brought up was built on the Orchard of the farm.
Up until finding this picture, I had only ever seen the gate posts of the farm which were on a photo which has been previously shown on the blog.

There is still a house called Silver Hill on Stockport Road (middle left). This was a children's nursery school when I was growing up in the 1960's.

( I will add more history to the post when I can access it ).


Added by Maloney. :)

Jottings-Silver Hill, Gee Cross, Hyde. Saturday, April 13th 1867: The freehold known as Smithy Fold Farm, about a mile from Hyde Railway Station, comprising of dwelling house called Silver Hill, with entrance and lodge and outbuildings, and a quantity of meadow and farmland was sold by auction. On Tuesday, February 17, 1874: The saleLivestock farm emplements etc, took place at Whittaker's Stonepit, Silver Hill, Gee Cross. Auctioner was Thomas Acton. On Wednesday, 22 June, 1881, at the Norfol Arms, Hyde. All the Mansion House known as Silver Hill Estate, situated near Stockport Road, Gee Cross, then occupied by Charles Hibbert Esq, was sold by aution. The land was freehold, free from chief rents and contained 2,824 superficial square yards. On Wednesday evening, 3 August, 1899, at the Mechanics Institute, by order of the exec of the will of the late Peter Green-aformer Mayor of Hyde, the Silver Hill Estate was purchased for £3,620 by Miss Smith, one of the representatives of the on Silver Hill Farm

Many Thanks, Maloney .
Much appreciated.

Pre Mansfield Road Houses

Here is a good shot, taken in 1933, before the Mansfield Road estate was built.

The Railway is to the right of the photo with the Clarkes Arms pub showing bottom right.
The waterworks building can be clearly seen in the middle of the picture.
Mansfield Road is running from the left to the bridge in the top right. This is the bridge that joins Mansfield Road with Peel Street.
It looks like there were plenty of Allotments to be had ! Sadly these seem to be dying out as the land gets built on.

 So much open space !

As before, picture courtesy of Britainfromabove

Many Thanks.

Sweet Dreams in Godley

Here is an interesting little item that was lent to us by John H.

I have no information whatsoever on it. I haven't yet tracked down where the company was either.

Anyone who can help, please contact us.
Thank you.

EDIT

John Barnouin Rowcliffe was a wire manufacturer with a small workshop in Godley that employed 2 boys and 12 men. He was born in Tarporley, Cheshire, and married in Manchester in 1859. As far as can be ascertained the business operated from about 1865 until around 1878.

A little more about John Barnouin Rowcliffe. He lived on Mottram Road, before coming to Hyde he had been an apprentice draper,he was about 17/18 at the time. He then became a manufacturer of small miscellaneous items in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. This was in the late 1850's and early 1860's. He then took up wire manufacturing in Hyde,in the late 1870's he moved to Macclesfield. He died in Chorlton, Manchester, in 1916.

In February 1897, the partnership between John B. Rowcliffe, Fred Rowcliffe and Henry Jermy, carring on business as Engineers and Tool Makers, Levenshulme under the firm of Atlas Engineers was dissolved by mutual consent.

In August 1878, John B. Rowcliffeof Godley was given notice in respect of his invention for woven elastic wire web for matresses.

In 1865, his partnership with James Dillon, Manchester and elsewhere,as small manufacturers under the name J.B.Rowcliff was dissolved.

In 1860, the firm of J.B.Rowcliffe and company, Ducie Street, Manchester, granted patent for the invention of improvements in the apparatus for winding yarn or thread on pin bobbins.

Many thanks to Maloney for supplying the details above !

Much appreciated.

SSAFA Car Show 20 Oct 2013

I went along to the SSAFA car show on Sunday and there was a fair turn out of vehicles on show and spectators to admire them.

The Mayor of Tameside, Councillor Joe Kitchen was there

And as well as serving troops and cadets quite a few of the 'old brigade'

There were army vehicles both modern....

....and not so modern

A line-up of American cars from the 1950s.....

......included this 1958 Ford Edsel Ranger, a car which lost the Ford Motor Company several hundred million dollars, the blame for which was put by some people on the unusual styling

This 1951 Ford Prefect was in pristine condition

A Triumph Roadster from the late 1940s as seen in the 'Bergerac' television series

An Austin 7 Ruby from the mid-1930s

And lastly a couple of Royal Enfields amongst the motorcycle contingent