Susan say's: I'm sharing a recently acquired postcard of Hyde Chapel. In my collection, I have many others of the chapel but none quite like this. Unfortunately, as it was not posted I can't date it, but on the back is the printer's identity - Woolley, Tower Street Printing Works, Hyde. I've never heard of them and wonder if anyone else has. The card obviously has age to it, as the requirement is for a 1/2d stamp.
I'm also attaching another new recently obtained card of Manchester Road, below Newton Street along with its approximate location today. What a difference! Again, I can't date this card as it hasn't been posted, but looking at what the men on the right are wearing, I'd say late 20s early-mid 30s. As a child I remember a shop on the left of the picture called Busy Bee which sold children's wear. You can just about pick out the corner of Newton Street where, I suppose Garbett's shoes were there even at that time.
2 comments:
Nice photo of Manchester Rd Susan, like you, I am not too sure of the date either, so my guess is sometime in the 30s like you, though others may beg to differ! I remember the Busy Bee shop very well, in fact in the early fifties there was a fashion show held by the Busy Bee at Hyde Chapel School, and I remember reluctantly having to walk down the catwalk wearing pretty dresses, I was very young, very shy, and not that bothered about pretty dresses then, as I was a real tomboy!
And yes Susan, Garbett Comfort Corner shoe shop was there then, it was my family's shoe shop, and what a treat Manchester Rd looks back then,looks a great place to shop, doesn't it? I love all those canopies, though later in years when big lorries/waggons turned the tight corner onto Newton St, they would sometimes catch Comfort Corners canopies and completely ruin them, on one occasion we even had some waggon shedding their load and smashing into the shop windows. I think this was sometime in the sixties. (think the reporter did an article on it back then) The lovely Comfort corner shop was pulled down to make way for the motorway slip road in 1971 (sad day, I still miss seeing this wonderful shop!)
I moved to Hyde in '63 and all of the shops on either side of Manchester Road would have still been there.The building that faces the camera belonged to Hyde Coop. (the words "equitable cooperative society..." can just be made out above the top-floor windows) and by '63 part of the building (to the right) had been removed to create the bus station entrance (the rest vanished in the '70s when all of the structures on the left disappeared for the motorway).
Garbetts' shoe-shop had a small,framed,picture of a tram in one of the display-windows.Dated 'April 13th,1947', it showed a Manchester tram passing under the M/Cr.Road railway-bridge.Interestingly,the extra pairs of overhead-wires for the proposed trolley-bus service were in place,although that service was 3 or 4 years away.
When Garbetts moved to Market Street, the picture was put on display again.
Much of the property on Newton Street/George Street and on the Garbetts side of M/Cr. Road looked pretty run-down I. the '60s so maybe the new roads only hastened the inevitable clearance.The Hoviley area was poor-standard slum housing [like the property that stood on the present bus-station/medical-centre site] it would have had to go-and did.What is sad is that all those small shops/
businesses were wiped out with nowhere to go. We now have an 'empty quarter' that will never come back to life.
Post a Comment