The Victorian Society in Manchesterregistered Charity No

The Victorian Society in ManchesterRegistered Charity No. 1081435 Registered Charity No.1081435 Spring Newsletter 2015

Waterhouse, which is arguably more EDITORIAL Holloway Sanatorium in Surrey, and has a fine, little altered Gothic successful than the original. Revival exterior and some remarkable THE FUTURE FOR ROCHDALE Victorian interiors. Rochdale Development Agency, TOWN HALL on behalf of Rochdale Council, The Town Hall was designed for a commissioned The Architectural There are ambitious plans to revitalise range of functions including a court, History Practice to research the history Rochdale’s famous Town Hall which assembly hall, council chamber, and architecture of the building in ranks among the very best of Victorian library and fire and police stations. 2012, to inform discussions about the Town Halls built in Britain and is, Crossland’s tall tower collapsed after future of the building. At the same deservedly, Grade I listed. In 2013, the a fire in 1883 and was replaced with a time, art historian Julian Treuherz majority of Council staff and functions new, slightly detached tower by Alfred advised on the rich, well-preserved moved out of the Town Hall to a new purpose-built Council Office at Number 1 Riverside, leaving much of the Town Hall under-used. Whilst the Town Hall remains open to visitors and for functions, there is an opportunity for new uses which will allow more people to enjoy the building’s magnificent Victorian architecture and history.

The Town Hall was designed in the 1860s by W.H.Crossland and opened in 1871, as a statement of Rochdale’s civic pride, economic prosperity and radical politics. The building shares some characteristics with Crossland’s slightly later monumental designs for the Royal Holloway College and

interiors including wall paintings and decoration executed by some of the best artists and designers of the period such as Heaton, Butler and Bayne and Henry Holiday. Rooms used for entertaining, such as the Mayor’s Parlour, are decorated with depictions of birds, flowers and animals, which were popular themes for Victorian interiors. In contrast, rooms designed for council business such as the Reception Room and Small Exchange are decorated with realistic paintings of great rarity and significance depicting contemporary tradesmen and textile machinery. Other rooms are treated in a plain manner to reflect their functions or have been substantially altered in the 20th century. These less significant areas offer scope for change, although Above right - wall painting, former Council Chamber. Above left - detail there is also potential to restore the of the ceiling in the Mayor's parlour; both by Heaton, Butler and Bayne decoration in one or two rooms. 1 The area surrounding the Town Hall crests have now disappeared under was improved in the late 19th century layers of varnish. NEWS to provide a suitable landscape setting, with a new river-side road and Mark Widdup, Director of Economy landscaped parks on the hill behind. and Environment at Rochdale Borough The setting was also altered in the Council, said: 'Rochdale Town Hall is a 20th century; the Memorial Gardens spectacular building which has played with Lutyens's cenotaph were laid out a large part in the civic life of Rochdale A Railway Sesquicentenary north of the river Roch, but the most and stood as an important landmark in This year marks the 150th damaging change was the culverting the region for the last 144 years. As its anniversary of the railway line of the river before the Second World proud custodians we want to ensure its through Marple to New Mills, which War. The Council is awaiting the future for generations to come so that was extended from the Guide outcome of a bid to the Heritage it can continue to be used and loved Bridge - Romiley line by the Marple, Lottery Fund to uncover part of the another 144 years from now. It’s clear New Mills and Hayfield Junction culverted river in the town centre, that this magnificent building is a star Railway and opened in 1865. There which may increase impetus for further attraction and doesn’t need wholesale will be exhibitions in the waiting improvements, such as reopening the change. What we are seeking to do is rooms of both stations to mark culverted section of the river in front of enhance what is already there to make the occasion. New Mills Central the Town Hall. this fantastic building even better.' still has its original building on the down platform, designed by Louis The Council is also developing plans The proposals have been progressed Edgar Roberts, the chief architect for the Town Hall itself, following the with the Friends of Rochdale Town Hall of the Manchester, Sheffield and completion of a feasibility study. BDP who are passionate about securing Lincolnshire Railway. Unfortunately were commissioned to undertake the a vibrant and sustainable future for the attached stationmaster’s house study by the Rochdale Development the building and have already begun has been unoccupied for several Agency. Emerging proposals include fund-raising to aid restoration work. years, despite the existence of a the restoration of the vast Magna They have recently established a community rail partnership covering Carta fresco by Henry Holiday which Facebook page to share stories of the line; CRPs often succeed adorns the east wall of the Great Hall. the history of the Town Hall as well as in finding alternative uses for They also seek to bring sections of present activities which have included redundant station buildings. For the building, previously closed to the abseiling from the clock tower and those who do not know New Mills, it public for a number of years, back observing the Town Hall’s own family is worth visiting in its own right. The into use as public and commercial of peregrine falcons. To find out more railway follows the River Goyt, which space. Improvements to the area in about the history of the Town Hall and at New Mills enters a gorge known front of the building to make it more the work of the Friends of Rochdale as The Torrs. Just beyond the station attractive and inviting will complete Town Hall contact Pam Haigh on the line is carried by a massive the scheme, which would be delivered 017706 868092. The Council will be stone retaining wall, best seen from in phases over a five-year period. consulting with the wider community the Millennium Walkway below, Detailed ideas for consideration on their plans over the coming months. after which it plunges into a tunnel include creating a new hall with a high through the rocky side of the gorge vaulted ceiling in the old library space Tours of Rochdale Town Hall take and crosses the River Sett before by removing mezzanine levels. This place on the last Friday of each month reaching easier country further up area, which was previously subdivided at 2.15pm and last approximately 2 the valley. to create offices for council staff, could hours. To book call 01706 924797. accommodate a seated audience of https://www.facebook.com/ Marple station is also situated on about 80 people or be used for smaller friendsofrochdaletownhall/info the steep side of the valley, giving events, complementing activities in the it a cramped site. This did not stop Great Hall. Marion Barter: (The Architectural the Sheffield and Midland Joint History Practice) and Kerrie Committee (MSL and Midland Other unique features of the Town Melrose (Turley Heritage, previously Railways), which had taken over Hall, such as the old police cells, last Conservation Officer at Rochdale the line, from adding extra tracks on used more than 30 years ago, would Council) December 2014 the opposite side of the platforms also be restored for new uses. And and installing a goods yard and there are plans to create a new version The Manchester Victorian Society warehouse in 1875. All this was of the Roche Suite that would host c/o Portico Library swept away in 1970, allowing an wedding ceremonies in an improved 57 Mosley Street approach road and car park to be setting. Manchester M2 3HY provided. Unfortunately this entailed relocation of the station building There is also a desire to restore much The Victorian Society is the champion for from the down to the up platform, of the historical artwork in the Town Victorian and Edwardian buildings in England adjacent to the car park. A polite Hall, including the roof panels in the and Wales description of the new building is Great Hall whose images of royal that it is devoid of architectural 2 merit. Also lost were the remarkable Perth. Locke was in partnership Worthington in his 1858 extension. glass and iron canopies on both with John E. Errington, and Brassey He added a squat crenellated tower platforms, also dating from 1875, with John Stephenson and William with a corner turret, a feature he which were over 1300 feet long and Mackenzie, while one of Tite’s included when he rebuilt Tebay in contained 1600 panes of glass. The assistants was Thomas Worthington, 1863. Tite’s Penrith station, in local last structure to remain was the who did most of the detail work. red sandstone with lighter dressings, footbridge, dismantled one night in Later Worthington opened his own had a fine large mullioned window August 2012 and taken to Peak Rail practice in Manchester, where he giving on to the lofty booking hall. at Matlock. A local photographer was responsible for a number of Tite excelled himself at Carlisle, stayed up to record the operation. notable buildings, including the adopting a collegiate style that took On the Romiley side of Marple is the Albert Memorial in Albert Square. He full advantage of a spacious central 12-arch Marple Viaduct across the also designed the station at Kendal site opposite Robert Smirke’s Citadel Goyt, 124 feet above river level, best on the branch to Windermere, now law courts. The station was paid for viewed from the aqueduct on the parallel Peak Forest Canal.

We trust that there will be photographs of all these features in the exhibitions, which will be in place in July. Further details should be available on www. newmillstowncouncil.org.uk and www.marple-uk.com

Roger Barton February 2015

SIR WILLIAM TITE AND THE LANCASTER AND CARLISLE RAILWAY

Sir William Tite (1798 –1873), twice president of the RIBA, is best Carlisle Citadel Station around 1850: architect Sir Willaim Tite known for rebuilding the Royal Exchange in the City of London in much altered, and most probably 1884. As well as having a large and the rebuilding of the larger junction lucrative architectural practice, he station at Oxenholme that matched was an Associate of the Institute others on the line (both 1852). of Civil Engineers and a surveyor, His elder brother Samuel Barton valuer and arbitrator. He also held Worthington was the Lancaster & numerous directorships, especially Carlisle’s resident engineer. in railway companies for many Tite’s small stations on this line of which he bought land. For 17 were in three designs, of one or two years he was MP for Bath. He storeys and all modestly Tudorish, designed over 70 stations large featuring gable copings and kneelers, and small, later with his partner dormers and mullions, with minor Edward N. Clifton. A man of affairs variations. The use of local stone with wide interests, some of his ensured that they fitted comfortably financial dealings were questioned into the changing landscape as the at the time. In his railway work he line proceeded northwards. Although was closely associated with the all twelve of them have now been celebrated engineer Joseph Locke closed, Tite’s buildings remain at and the great contractor Thomas Hest Bank, Carnforth (later much Brassey. Together they also built extended and still open), Burton & lines in Northern France for which Holme, Milnthorpe, their first site at Tite designed the stations. Low Gill, Shap and Brisco, together The triumvirate worked on the with several lineside houses. Lancaster & Carlisle Railway (1846) simultaneously with its continuation At the larger stations Tite adopted Sir William Tite by Hennah & Kent, the Caledonian and Scottish a much bolder Tudor styling, which albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s Central railways to Edinburgh and at Lancaster was emphasised by © National Portrait Gallery, London 3 jointly by the Caledonian Railway, re-roofed in a manner that was more liaison on the Scottish work was whose heraldic crest appears on a appropriate to Tite’s building than conducted from Perth, causing shield alongside the Lancaster & his own was – it had glazed Gothic Trotman to make frequent journeys Carlisle’s over the five-bay entrance panelled end screens. Unfortunately to and from London. He worked for arcade. The two blank shields were it has since been shortened and William Tite until his death in 1865 intended for two other companies the end screens replaced by cheap and was buried in West Norwood using the station, but in the event corrugated steel. In the early 1860s cemetery which Tite had designed. they did not share in the cost, Penrith station was enlarged, preferring to be tenants. The heavily followed in 1902 by a further This brief account is based on buttressed facade is emphasised enlargement at Lancaster station, in two articles by the author which by tall stone shafts, an array of attic both cases in a manner sympathetic appeared in Back Track magazine for dormers and a prominent clock to Tite’s original buildings. September and October 2008, which include a full list of source material.

Gordon Biddle December 2014

TwO WEDDINGS, ONE FUNERAL Featuring a would-be actress, a working mum and her (slightly eccentric) son, the following is the tangential tale of the connection between women’s higher education in Victorian England, Scottish topography and their associations with Manchester.

In the archive of Girton College, Cambridge, is a photograph of five young Victorian ladies, the first Penrith Station in 1925 students at the College for Women, Benslow House, Hitchin. Three of tower. The interior is equally lavish, North of the border, Tite’s smaller these - Louisa Lumsden, Rachel particularly the former refreshment stations were very similar to those Cook and Sarah Woodhead - would room which has two large stone on the Lancaster & Carlisle , but with shortly achieve fame as the “Girton baronial fireplaces bearing Latin the addition of crow-stepped gables Pioneers.” In the Lent Term of 1873 inscriptions which can be loosely to add an appropriate Scottish touch. they were the first three women to sit translated as 'God made these The large station at Perth (1848) had and unofficially pass the Cambridge comforts to rest' and 'Make us always strong affinities with Carlisle, in both Tripos examinations, previously an remember this place AD1848'. styling and layout, including a slender exclusively male preserve. Rachel octagonal clock tower. Unfortunately, Cook and Louisa Lumsden both Tite also designed an adjoining plain, in 1884, additional platforms were took the Classical Tripos while Sarah three-bay iron and glass train shed built in front, masking Tite’s fine Woodhead took the Mathematical with a massive stone outer screen facade. Tripos. At Benslow House the wall, although he admitted he was Cambridge college system was not very happy with what was a In 1846 Tite set up an office in emulated as much as possible. difficult exercise in achieving any Carlisle from which his design work Lecturers from the Cambridge colleges sort of harmony. No doubt there were and site supervision on both sides volunteered to repeat their lectures also restraints on cost. To its credit of the border was controlled by his to the Hitchin students in their spare the Lancaster & Carlisle’s successor, nephew and senior assistant Arthur time, and thus the women's days the London & North Western Railway, John Green, together with Ebenezer were largely dictated by the railway together with the Caledonian, in Trotman and Thomas Worthington. timetables. Encouraged by their 1880-81 enlarged the station with a Tite’s visits were not very frequent, initial success, the college authorities new island platform building that was for which he was criticised by the moved to a new 33-acre site 2.5 miles in matching style. This included a fine directors; mainly he sent sketches north-west of Cambridge where Girton refreshment room that complemented from his London office, to be worked College opened in October 1873. the original one opposite, and an up in detail at Carlisle. When the unusual integral signal box having financial crash in 1847 curtailed Rachel Susan Cook was born on 1 elaborate oriel windows overlooking expenditure, the Carlisle office was February 1848 at St Andrews, Fife, the platforms on both sides. At closed. By now most of the Lancaster the youngest of the five daughters the same time, the train shed was & Carlisle work was complete and of Revd. John Cook (1807–1869), 4 minister of St Leonard’s, St Andrews Friends. On leaving the college Sarah school at Silverwell House. About the and later professor of ecclesiastical Woodhead returned to Manchester same time Bolton Girls’ Day School, history, University of St Andrews, and where she joined the staff of the later renamed Bolton High School for his wife, Rachel Susan Farquhar. newly established Manchester High Girls, was established with an intake George Eliot described her as the School for Girls as the school’s first of 22 girls and a schoolroom in the most beautiful woman that she had mathematical mistress. In 1875 she Mechanics Institute. In 1880 Mrs ever seen and after leaving Hitchin married a fellow Quaker, Christopher Sarah Corbett, then aged 29, was College Rachel had thoughts of the Corbett. He had been educated appointed the second headmistress, stage as a profession, but this idea at Sidcot School, and was then amalgamating the school with her was abandoned upon her marriage. successively pupil, assistant and own and moving to new premises at 39 Chorley New Road. By the time of her appointment the Corbetts had a second child, Catherine Louisa Corbett, born in 1878, and one of the first women to qualify as a doctor at Manchester University Medical School.

Like the Munros but smaller: Meanwhile, the Corbetts’ first child, John Rooke Corbett, continued his father’s practice as surveyor and valuer at 9 Albert Square, Manchester, before moving to Bristol as District Valuer after the First World War. He had been educated at both Hulme and Manchester Grammar Schools before attending St John's College, Cambridge (1895 to 1898). Somewhat unconventionally, he is reported as

Gorton pioneers in 1872. Back row from left – Rachel Cook, unknown, Louisa Lumsden, Sarah Woodhead photobucket.com/images/girton%20college,%20cambridge

In October 1872, while still at Hitchin, partner in the firm of Corbett and Raby she had been introduced to Catherine (dissolved in 1874), and afterwards Scott, sister of Charles Prestwich partner with his father and brother as Scott, the newly appointed editor of E. Corbett and Sons. He was valuer the Manchester Guardian. On 20 May to the Overseers of Manchester and 1874 C P Scott and Rachel Cook the Chorlton Union, and, had valued married, and from 1874 to 1881 they the Manchester waterworks. Joseph lived at Breeze Hill, Holden Road, Corbett, the borough surveyor of Kersal, where their three eldest Salford (see Manchester Victorian children, Madeline (1876), Laurence Society Newsletter Summer 2014), Prestwich (1877), and John Russell was his brother. (1879), were born. Their fourth child, A formidable woman, quite prepared to Edward Taylor (1883), was born at their John Rooke Corbett (1876-1949) new home at The Firs, Fallowfield, defy the conventions of the day, Sarah where Rachel was to live until her Woodward was unwilling to give up her having walked from Manchester to death on 27 November 1905. As Mrs professional career and sink gracefully Cambridge at the beginning of the C P Scott she continued to promote into the role of wife and mother. Even term, and back again at the end, on at women’s education, becoming a after her marriage, she continued least one occasion. member of the Manchester School as a visiting mistress at Manchester Board and campaigning for women’s High School until July 1876; this only Described as "the greatest walker of entry to Manchester University. two months before the birth of her his generation," he was one of the first child, John Rooke Corbett, on 27 founder-members of The Rucksack Sarah Woodhead (1851-1908), the September of that year. Club in Manchester and for many youngest of the three “pioneers”, was years their Convener of Rambles. the daughter of a Manchester grocer The family then moved to Bolton In 1923 he joined the Scottish and a member of the Society of where Sarah established her own Mountaineering Club and in 1930

5 became only the fourth person, and began to appear in the 1820s and most important was Joseph Nash’s first Englishman, to complete the 1830s was part of the broader four-volume work, The Mansions Munros (Scottish peaks over 3000 feet Gothic Revival movement. At first, of England in the Olden Time. in height). the style was loosely coined Old Published between 1839 and 1849, English but as understanding of these volumes comprised a collection It was this passion for hill walking that period styles became clearer, Gothic of 104 nostalgic illustrations of would provide his enduring legacy. and Elizabethan came to be seen romantic medieval and Elizabethan To the hill walkers of Scotland “The as two distinct entities. Since the manor houses. These plates, Corbetts” are the 220 Scottish hills architecture of Elizabeth’s reign perhaps more than anything else, between 2,500 and 3,000 feet in was a major focus of interest during gave rise to the romantic notion of a height with a prominence of at least the nineteenth century, and as lost past. 500 feet. The list of such hills was contemporary writers nearly always compiled by Corbett in the 1920s referred to half-timbered architecture Tied to this idea of a lost Old but was not published until after as Elizabethan, this article gives England was a widespread reaction his death in 1949, when his sister, preference to the term Elizabethan against the effects of the Industrial Catherine Louisa, passed it to the over the more general Tudor. Revolution. As towns and factories Scottish Mountaineering Club. Those spread over fields and farms, the who climb all 220 peaks are termed As the Romantic movement whole English rural tradition came to Corbetteers. By 2011, 440 people had intensified during the early-nineteenth be seen as increasingly threatened. climbed all the Corbetts and recorded century, it became fashionable to People began to seek the visual their completion with the Scottish live in a historic and romantic old surroundings of a pre-industrial age, Mountaineering Club. hall, which had previously been and the Middle Ages and Tudor considered as cold and draughty. period were romanticized as part of a Neil Darlington September 2014 A number of factors coalesced to purer, more bucolic past. foster an interest in the Elizabethan Until his retirement, Neil Darlington era. The single most important event By the 1830s, the most popular was an architect in private practice was the Elizabethan-style coronation source of inspiration for domestic for almost forty years. He is a contributor to Historic Scotland’s of King George IV in 1821. For designs was the Gothic, Tudor, or on-line database, the ‘Dictionary of patriotic and religious reasons the Elizabethan manor house. According Scottish Architects,’ and for the past Elizabethan period was seen as the to architectural historian Mark fifteen years has been researching the most acceptable and proper for a Girouard: 'To the Victorians such lives of architects working in Greater Protestant power. The Elizabethan houses conjured up images of an old- Manchester between 1820 and 1940. regalia in which George dressed style English gentleman, dispensing his Privy Councillors, for instance, hospitality in the great hall, with fires evoked a past of patriotic nostalgia. blazing in the great arched fireplaces, AGECROFT HALL: smoke rising from innumerable From Elizabethan Manor Publications also played a key role chimney-stacks, comfortable groups to Victorian Country in stoking the early-Victorian passion gossiping in ingles and oriels, and House: part TWO for things Elizabethan. One of the generous sheltering roofs over all.' The Architectural Context: The Gothic and Elizabethan Revivals

By the time Agecroft Hall was featured in Country Life magazine, many of its ancient charms dated from the nineteenth century. Agecroft’s Victorian transformation was a direct result of new architectural fashions and philosophies that were sweeping England, part of a national awakening of interest in the medieval and Tudor past and the romantic revival of Gothic and Elizabethan architecture. Fuelled by nostalgia, patriotism, and religious revival, interest in the Gothic and Elizabethan styles lasted from the 1820s through to the end of the century.

The new interest in Elizabethan timber-frame architecture which Agecroft: the Great Hall as billiard room 6 As a result the display of traditional exotica all combine to give the feeling to have servants waiting in the hall, timber framing, or half-timbering, of artistic eclecticism that late and many families began to use their became fashionable. This was made Victorians aimed at achieving. great halls as billiard rooms. During practical by the recent discovery the first half of the century, billiards that coal tar, a by-product of the The Aesthetic movement of the increasingly became a gentleman’s coal industry, could be used as a 1860s sought to enrich and ennoble game, and a billiard room became a wood preservative. It was no longer domestic life through the beauty necessity in a country house of any necessary to cover the walls of a and power of art. Reaching its size. During the 1850s and 1860s, house with plaster to protect them highpoint between the mid-1870s halls began to be used as informal from the elements; a coat of tar and mid-1880s, the movement living rooms in addition to their allowed the timber framing to remain placed a new and powerful emphasis continued use for special occasions exposed but undamaged by the on the decorative arts, and sought such as balls and dinners. weather. This development, coming to raise them to the level of fine Agecroft’s great hall reflected these trends. By 1884, Agecroft’s hall had been converted into a billiard room with a large billiard table in the centre beneath a six-light gas fixture. Even though the room was used for billiards, it still displayed the traditional trappings of a great hall such as weaponry and armour.

Later, Agecroft’s great hall was converted into a parlour/music room, with grand and upright pianos as well as an organ. Two giant brass chandeliers replaced the six-light gas fixture. Chairs and sofas with tasselled fringes were added, potted plants were introduced, and the floor was now covered with oriental carpets. Accent tables with tasselled tablecloths were deployed around the room and loaded down with picturesque bric-a-brac. Every flat surface was commandeered for The Great Hall converted to parlour/music room the display of objects, all artistically arranged. A dense web of surface as it did just when fashionable people art. One of the main ideas of the patterning flowed over textiles were trying to medievalize their movement was that a room and and carved wooden furniture houses, led to the black and white everything in it could be conceived alike, together with the eclectic work now so closely associated with as a work of art. Objects from foreign juxtaposition of suits of armour with Tudor England. civilizations were relished for their peacock feathers, Asian porcelain, exotic associations. An artistically and wicker chairs, epitomising By the middle of the century, designed room was not limited to Aesthetic movement taste. country house life had acquired the arts of one period or country but an increasingly religious tone, with drew inspiration from any number of Agecroft’s drawing room contained preference for the Gothic. However, cultures and styles. a matched set of sumptuously as religious enthusiasm cooled in carved Rococo Revival furniture that the 1860s the Elizabethan style was Agecroft’s Great Hall: The appears to have been made in the seen as a more relaxed and genial Romantic revival of old English mid-nineteenth century. It included alternative. It embodied the accepted architecture and customs included side chairs, a large drawing room image of a lost Merrie Olde England. the revival of great halls and the table, an armchair, and a sofa. The large-scale entertaining that took maker of this furniture is not known, Agecroft and the Aesthetic place in them. Great halls received but two of the side chairs and the Movement: Photographs of Agecroft a big boost when Westminster Hall table survive at Ordsall Hall today. taken during the 1880s show the was used as the setting for the rooms richly adorned in the latest magnificent Coronation Banquet of Over the course of the nineteenth Aesthetic movement taste. The King George IV in 1821. century, the Hull and Buck families wealth of ornamental patterns, Once call bell systems were went to great effort and expense Oriental carpets, Asian porcelain, and invented, it was no longer necessary to restore Agecroft’s Elizabethan

7 character. By the end of the century, taken away, the house being at Architectural historian Giles Worsley Agecroft Hall exuded Elizabethan present unoccupied.' Unfortunately noted in 2002 that only fierce family charm from every brick and timber, in 1911, William Thomas Dauntesey pride could have ensured this rare infusing the house with an aesthetic died in a riding accident seven years survival of an ancient manor house richness that still comes across even after inheriting the house. The house so close to Manchester into the in old black-and-white photographs. would have been inherited by his twentieth century, and by the 1920s, only son, Herbert Dauntesey, but he even the romantic pull of family Epilogue: The Edwardian Era had been killed in the Boer War in history was not enough. Finally, in and Twentieth Century. Although South Africa in 1901. Agecroft thus December 1925, after sitting partially Agecroft appears to have been passed to his sister, and the only vacant for fifteen years, the family flourishing during the late-nineteenth surviving child, Evelyn (1879-1961), sold Agecroft Hall at public auction century, the estate around it who assumed the Dauntesey name. to American banker Thomas C. was being ravaged by industrial The next year, in 1912, she married Williams, Jr. His ancestors were from development. Not only was the Lieutenant-Colonel William Harkness. England and Wales, and his family’s property located just outside The couple may have used Agecroft wealth during the nineteenth century Manchester, it was also located as an occasional residence, at best, was initially derived from tobacco in above large coal deposits. but could have felt little emotional Richmond. During the eighteenth century, as tie to it. They owned a rather more Manchester grew to become the agreeably situated house in Dorset— Agecroft Hall was dismantled in cotton capital of the world, the Lovell’s Court. March 1926 and the usable portions Manchester, Bury, and Bolton Canal shipped across the Atlantic in crates was cut across Agecroft lands to By the time Miss Dauntesey inherited to Richmond, Virginia. New York transport coal to the steam engines Agecroft, the family had not used it architect Henry Grant Morse rebuilt which powered Manchester’s cotton as a full-time residence for seven the house on a grassy hill overlook- and textile mills. Coal mining at years. A 1913 article in the ing the James River as the home of Agecroft began in 1826, and in 1852, Manchester Morning Chronicle Williams and his wife, Elizabeth. It the East Lancashire Railway ran a described the hall: 'Now the hall was completed in 1928. railway line through the property, stands amidst its fine ancestral trees just yards from the house. The initial deserted, and almost forgotten. On In his reconstruction of Agecroft, plans for the railway line would have some of its walls there still hang a the architect, Henry Morse, did not gone straight through the house and few family portraits and some other build an exact replica of the original a petition to Parliament led the rail interesting pictures. In some of house but adapted the building company to re-route the line, which it the rooms are still to be seen some for Virginia’s warmer climate and did, but only slightly. fine specimens of old oak furniture, the needs of modern living. At the beautifully carved and black with age. same time, he sought to convey the The 1902 Country Life article on But everything seems to be dead and ancient character and feel of the Agecroft praised the current owner lifeless, the human element having original manor house. And this is an for Agecroft’s preservation but also been withdrawn.' important point. During this period, noted, 'There are dead oaks, which American architects practising in have been killed, it is said, by the The family offered the house to the the Tudor Revival mode often went smoke and fumes from the chimney Corporation of Salford and to the to great lengths to reproduce the shafts of coal mines in the vicinity.' Swinton and Pendlebury Council, or effects of age and weathering in to anyone who would rent it for £150 order to achieve an authentic old- Captain Robert Dauntesey, the last per annum, but there was no interest. world look. The last thing they and owner to use Agecroft as a full- The final blow came in 1913, when their patrons wanted was a house time residence, lived there until his it was decided that the remaining that looked new. Of course in the death in 1904. Dauntesey’s brother, coal underneath the house, valued case of Agecroft, artificial weathering Captain William Thomas Slater Hull- at £15,000, was worth more than was not necessary. Morse rebuilt the Brown (1841-1911), inherited the the house itself. The operations to most character-defining portions of Agecroft estate under the Dauntesey extract the coal were said to have the original house and grafted them name but continued to reside at his undermined the foundations, making onto a floor plan that was F-shaped residence, Chester Lodge, Sandown the house unsafe for habitation. instead of quadrangular in order on the Isle of Wight. to better catch the breezes and However, the house wasn’t encourage air circulation. Instead In 1911 the fourth volume of the completely abandoned, it turns out. of sequestering the façade of the Victoria History of the County of According to a 1949 article in the hall range, with its brilliant display of Lancaster was published, including Salford City Reporter, an old retainer diamond chequerboard patterning, an entry on Agecroft Hall, written of the family, Mr. Morecroft and his inside a courtyard, he positioned it the previous year. The article noted wife, resided at the hall for over forty- on an outward-facing wall so that it Agecroft’s vacant state: 'Other eight years, caring for it while the would be the first thing guests would rooms also contain good oak family was away. see as they arrived by motorcar. The furniture, though much has been house featured electricity, central

8 steam heat, and modern plumbing, in the years between World War I their servants during the late-Tudor but all modern services were hidden and the Great Depression. Buyers and early-Stuart periods. and disguised. Even the radiators who purchased lots in Windsor were camouflaged to blend in with Farms were responsible for building In conclusion, most American studies the oak panelling. In the spirit their own homes, but the design of Agecroft have focused on either of Agecroft’s Victorian owners, covenants for the neighbourhood its twentieth-century history as the Morse also added new Tudor-style ensured that the style of houses house that was moved across the architectural features to make the would be Tudor. Windsor Farms, Atlantic, or its Elizabethan and house even more impressively Incorporated provided help with the early-Stuart history, which is the current mission of the museum. Little attention, however, has been paid to the house’s history during the nineteenth century. During the Victorian era, Agecroft experienced a glorious rebirth and a second golden age as a fashionable country house. Considering that many of Agecroft’s character-defining architectural features which survive today are actually Victorian, this is a period of significance in the history of the house that deserves to be recognized.

Chris Novelli 2014

A native of Richmond, Virginia, Chris Novelli has worked as an architectural historian with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and has been a weekend tour guide at Agecroft Hall since Agecroft: Richmond Virginia: the hall range in 2014 1997. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1996 with Elizabethan, such as moulded financing of both houses and lots and a master’s degree in architectural plaster ceilings with linear geometric was marketed as an English arcadia history. Chris Novelli has lectured patterning in the downstairs formal in the New World with Agecroft Hall on architectural topics at the Virginia rooms. playing a central role in establishing Museum of Fine Arts and has given the English character and identity of architectural walking tours of the city. Although Agecroft’s new riverfront the community. Many years later, setting was secluded and pastoral, Williams’ niece recalled that in his The full length article complete with it was in fact part of a 440-acre planning for the neighbourhood her footnotes is available by emailing planned community Williams was uncle had intended Windsor Farms to [email protected] developing known as Windsor Farms. be 'not like the other developments, Most of the land that comprised but a place for Richmonders to be Windsor Farms had been part of proud of.' MANCHESTER GROUP - the eighteenth century Windsor EVENT REVIEWS farm. By the 1920s, the area was When Agecroft was purchased in quickly becoming part of Richmond’s 1925, Thomas Williams was in failing An Excursion by Train to Leeds: fashionable new West End. Williams health and, sadly, he died in 1929, Marks & Spencer, Penny Bazaars inherited most of the land from only a year after the house was and the Manchester Connection. his father, and it was his wish to finished, leaving a generous endow- 16 July 2014 develop it as an English-style garden ment to support the hall for the use The firm of Marks & Spencer started suburb. Williams hired John Nolen, of the people of Richmond as an art as the well remembered Penny a nationally renowned city planner, gallery. Elizabeth continued to live Bazaar on an outside stall in Leeds to lay out the neighbourhood and there and later remarried. In 1967, market in 1884. It moved into the retained the largest tract— twenty- she moved to smaller quarters and indoor market two years later and three acres—for his own residence. helped to convert the house into expanded its operations in West Inspired by urban planning trends a museum, as had been her first Yorkshire. The equally well known in Great Britain, the idea of the husband’s wish. Agecroft has been phrase, ‘Don’t ask the price – it’s a English country village was adopted open to the public as a historic house penny’', arose because its founders, for the design of a number of museum since 1969, interpreting the Michael Marks and Isaac Dewhurst, planned communities in America lifestyle of the English gentry and 9 didn’t speak English. In connection An Examination of Victorian and George Wragge. Another interesting with the establishment of a Marks & Edwardian Manchester. 30 August bank is Brooks Bank (George Truefitt Spencer Archive on the campus of 2014 1868; now Lombardy Chambers), Leeds University, a replica Penny with its distinctive iron crown. Bazaar has been recreated inside Hard though it is to imagine an Cunliffe Brooks was a wealthy man Leeds Market and the company has unplanned event from arch-organiser who developed Brooklands as well initiated a Heritage Trail through the Mark Watson, that is what this as owning an estate in Scotland. He city. Led by Kevin Flynn, our party walk purported to be, the planned had aristocratic connexions and was visited the site of the first shop (now trip to Hull having fallen victim to friendly with Millais, who painted otherwise occupied) in the Victoria railway engineering works. What his daughter. The bank was sold to Quarter Arcade and, via other sites, resulted was a fair-weather stroll in Lloyds when Brooks died in 1900. ended with the black basalt-faced the area bounded by Market Street, premises built for them in 1951. The Deansgate, King Street, York Street The most varied street as regards the walk then progressed to the Archive and Mosley Street. Mark’s approach character of the buildings was King to hear a talk by Hannah Jenkinson. was quite personal, so we heard Street. The western part consists of During the 1890s the firm continued about his ancestors’ involvement small buildings, now mostly shops, to expand; Thomas Spencer joined with the buildings and his own efforts that have developed organically. A Michael Marks and the company we in conserving them, as well as lots plain stone one at the Deansgate end now know was incorporated in 1894. of interesting facts from Mark’s was given a half-timbered frontage Shortly after, Manchester became copious knowledge. Photography by Maxwell & Tuke in 1900. It still the site of the main warehouse and got several mentions as well. The has a ceiling inspired by Haddon Hall head office, in premises which still buildings we saw were not confined but most of the fittings have gone. exist in Derby Street, Cheetham Hill, to the Victorian Society’s period but Old Exchange Buildings (Royle & with Michael Marks living around the favourable comments mostly were. Bennett 1897) has Burmantofts tiles corner in a property on Cheetham visible inside. At Cross Street the Hill Road, also still extant. Both A prominent feature of the area is buildings become larger, starting Thomas Spencer and Michael Marks banks, of which we saw some 15, with the impressive Eagle Insurance died in 1907 and, following years the majority designed during the building on the corner (Heathcote & of boardroom litigation, Israel Sieff Victorian and Edwardian period Son 1911; the architects had offices came in to continue the company’s by a variety of architects. Many upstairs). It was designed to impress, nationwide expansion. By the time of have changed to other uses, with large dormer windows and World War One there were over 60 especially as restaurants and chimneys, and of course an eagle retail outlets and the head office had pubs. We looked inside Parr’s Bank at roof level. Alfred Waterhouse’s moved to London. (Charles Heathcote 1902), now an Prudential Assurance building (1888), establishment called Browns. The which housed Edgar Wood’s offices Whilst the mainstay of the business opulent banking hall has a mosaic on the top floor, underwent major was always clothing, even in the floor and marble columns, which alterations 20 years ago when it was Edwardian period the firm sold encase iron girders, and the superb converted to a branch of Barclays biscuits and custard powder – the manager’s office is largely intact. In Bank. Mark explained how the new first convenience food. In the common with several other buildings terracotta was matched to the old by seventies, they pioneered up-market in the area, the ironwork is by Shaws of Darwen. At the top of King ready meals creating the enormous sector such products represent today. The firm’s place in social and commercial history is perhaps exemplified by a tragedy concerning a girl assistant dying from pneumonia on Birkenhead outdoor market in the winter of 1892. The firm immediately brought in duck-boards for the staff to stand on to insulate them from the cold and, soon afterwards, moved all their stalls indoors.

The newly established Heritage Trail and Archive exemplifies and places in context the firm’s historical significance and the costume displays represent a fascinating fashion chronology of the past one hundred years. The Reform Club from the Builder (1870). Architects E. Salomons David Astbury August 2014 and J.P. Jones of Manchester and London. 10 Street is the Reform Club (Edward Sir Samuel Peto, was a significant Salomons 1870), one of several nineteenth century patron who clubs in the area. It is a striking had had Somerleyton Hall in building in Venetian Gothic, with rich Suffolk extensively remodelled and decorations, including sculptures at redesigned with input from such the corners carved by T Williams. notables as the architect John Thomas and garden designers Two notable buildings elsewhere Nesfield and Paxton. After an were the much-rebuilt Royal education interrupted by illness Exchange (Bradshaw Gass & Hope Harold Peto travelled in Europe. 1914) and Barton Arcade (Corbett Then, in 1871, aged 17, he began his Raby & Sawyer 1871). We heard that architectural training with J. Clements the former, which closed in 1968, and later the Lucas brothers in was full of wires and divided into Lowestoft as this fishing port became numbered grids so that the traders a fashionable resort. His father and could be located. Links to Greenwich brothers, who had many contacts in enabled them to set their watches London via their railway-building and accurately. The Barton Arcade was public-works building businesses, supposedly based on the Galleria then helped provide Harold Peto Vittorio Emanuele in Milan but Mark with an entree into the London was sceptical. The ironwork was architectural world, and in 1876 he from Possilpark Foundry in Glasgow joined Ernest George in partnership. and brought to the site in sections. The practice was a spectacular Nothing is left of the original shop success: ‘the Eton of offices’ and ‘the fronts, and the units are in poor cradle of English domestic revival’. shape, with high rents and frequent changes of tenant. The arcade had a caretaker’s flat with a roof garden.

There are plenty of areas in the city centre still to explore, so it looks as though there will be compensations in the event that any more trips have to be abandoned. We are very grateful to Mark for stepping in on this occasion.

Roger Barton September 2014

Harold Peto: Architect, Garden Designer and Aesthete with Hilary J Grainger. 23 September 2014 YHA

Harold Peto, the architect and Peto's patio garden at Iford Manor, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire landscape gardener, has had his career re-appraised by Professor Here Peto was able to cultivate his inspiration Peto had travelled and Hilary Grainger. Her recent research ideas on refined taste, influenced become a keen and eclectic collector and book on the architect Sir Ernest by his aesthetic leanings, which he of antiquities. He was inspired by a George threw new light on the then liked to impose on his clients. many influences such as Northern work of Peto, his partner in their This contrasted with George’s more Flemish buildings with their extensive architectural practice. This revealed modest approach which placed the use of glazed firebrick. He visited new facets to Peto’s achievements clients’ wishes at the centre of his the USA and his American diaries and inspiration which should elevate designs. reflect how he was impressed by his position to a more significant level aspects as diverse as hydraulic lifts in late nineteenth and early twentieth Peto embraced the developing and the prevalence of Italianate century architecture and garden fashion for architects to design interiors. The prominent firm of design than previously thought. interiors and to source or design McKim and White, with their richer furniture and artefacts. For Sir clients, used marble extensively to Professor Grainger reviewed Peto's Andrew Walker of Liverpool Peto create luxurious interiors and this early life: his background was one designed the interior of his yacht, was echoed by George and Peto in of wealth and privilege. His father, even down to the wine glasses. For the redesigning of 6 Carlton House Terrace where much marble was 11 employed. However, by 1892 Peto considered Peto to be the ‘British would be unacceptable today. had retired through ill-health and an aesthete in pose, appearance increasing aversion to London. He and voice’ and an arbiter of taste The intended market for these became aloof, wishing to avoid the in the salons of the wealthy. She illustrations seems to have been ‘populace’: thus the George and Peto recognised Peto’s consummate skill primarily artisans and the lower partnership was dissolved. in marrying houses and gardens middle class, rather than the to their geographical sites as he working class (who would have Peto then withdrew to the country, understood the complexity of the been unable to afford some of the purchased Iford Manor in Wiltshire relationship between architecture publications). There were single and set about remodelling the house and interior and garden design. illustrations, thought to have been and gardens. The interior was passed around in men’s gatherings; fairly restrained with a focus on his Many thanks to Professor Grainger there is also evidence that they collection of old English furniture. for her extensive and fascinating talk were displayed in shop windows, The gardens, on steep hillsides, were and insights into the thoughts and where they could attract disorderly of Italianate design, characterised work of Harold Peto. crowds. However, there were also by terraces, steps and loggias, while many images in regular publications remaining open to the magnificent Anne Hodgson December 2014 such as illustrated magazines, which rural views. Whilst unable to practise started to be produced well before as an architect under the rules The Comic Image in the Market Dickens’s time. There were several of the dissolution of his practice Place 1820-1850 with Brian series of comic magazines, while with George, he was instead Maidment. 28 October 2014 YHA other series (such as Everybody’s commissioned by various clients Album) consisted of a miscellany of to design gardens, amongst them Professor Maidment’s talk was images. There were also sheets of Buscot Park in Oxfordshire, with its based on his research into popular caricatures and illustrated series of distinctive water features. Ilnacullin, images between the Georgian era of songs and play texts, which gave an island off the south-west coast of political caricatures and the Victorian families opportunities for home Ireland, is another beautiful example, fashion for illustrated books and entertainment. containing, amongst other structures, periodicals. Previously this period a Grecian temple, a Martello tower had largely been ignored and even Many people used these publications and an Italian casita. Many rare now little is known of where or why for compiling scrapbooks and the and stunning plants of his choice some of the material was published like, which was a popular pastime. flourished in its mild micro-climate. as no publishers’ archives survive. Illustrations were also readily reused Indeed he used Gertrude Jekyll’s The transitory nature of the material by other publishers, as copyright and William Robinson’s knowledge to means that much has been lost. laws had not yet been introduced. inform his choice of natural English Illustrators had the advantage of planting: Jekyll was impressed by his Even the identity of some of being immune to the censorship that restraint. the artists is unknown as they was applied to the written word. were not acknowledged by their In his final creative phase Peto publishers. They were skilled and It was clear that the years from 1820 worked on three important villa inventive, but their work was usually were not characterised by a unique gardens on the Côte d’Azur in executed quickly and with no great style, but represented a transition southern France. These were finesse. They made much use of period, combining continuation of the lavish and imaginative designs wood engraving, which started to era of caricatures with the beginnings which appear to bring together all be developed around 1800 and of the illustrated magazine. We saw his talents before he retired in the allowed the use of tones and the many examples of the fascinating 1920s. Amongst them, Villa Sylvia at incorporation of conventional type. material arising from this era, some Cap Ferrat contained a magnificent Lithography came in a few years all too relevant today while others marble staircase, whilst a fifteenth- later and enabled illustrations to be could only be interpreted by those century mantelpiece was installed printed in colour. with detailed knowledge of the in the dining room, thus mixing the period. We were left wondering antique and the new. The gardens, The images these illustrators whether such material was produced on a steep hillside, were designed to produced covered a wide variety outside London, particular in fall away from the house to allow the of themes. Some followed the old Manchester, and how much of this stunning views of the Mediterranean tradition of political satire, but many survives. We are very grateful to Sea . Villa Maryland was built in 1910 made comments on the society of Professor Maidment for entertaining for Arthur Young, the Hull shipbuilder. the day. Often the point was obvious, us so well and hope that one day we Here Peto married the elegance of but images could be subtle and shall have the opportunity of a locally an Italian palazzo with the comfort heavily symbolic. Like with present- based talk on the same subject. demanded by an Englishman. day cartoons, the aim was to amuse, but this was sometimes achieved by Roger Barton October 2014 Professor Grainger concluded by other means such as punning. The quoting Henry Avray Tipping who humour could be cruel and some

12 MANCHESTER GROUP standard monograph on Moore, Cheetham Hill was taken into the discusses the architect’s work Manchester township in 1838 as part 2015 Events in the decade of his greatest triumphs, of the first phase of incorporation. including such celebrated It was at that date more country TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2015 masterpieces as All Saints, Tooting than town. In subsequent decades, An illustrated talk Graveney, and St Wilfrid, Harrogate. adjacency to Victoria Station enabled its development as an immigrant- Liberty & Co: 1875-1915 with Daryl Bennett 7 pm for 7.15 pm catalysed community. High-density Friends Meeting House Arts and Crafts Enthusiast and terraced housing and workshops cost: £7 grew up in the Red Bank area. Author No need to book in advance

7 pm for 7.15 pm Here was the birthplace of the author Friends Meeting House SUNDAY 31 MAY 2015 Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Nobel cost: £5 Physics Laureate J.J. Thomson and Up the Hill from Victoria: a Walk Benny Rothman of Kinder Trespass around Cheetham fame. The area’s Jewish heritage TUESDAY 24 MARCH 2015 with Graham Roundhill, David has been well researched. This walk Astbury and Mark Watson will consider not just the Jewish An illustrated talk heritage but also Roman Catholicism The VIP of Cemeteries: Making A morning walk starting at 10.00am relating to St Chad’s church and the Money out of Mortality at Highgate in the Cheetham Hill Road/Derby Anglican community which, in the Street and Empire Street areas. This mid-Victorian period, is said to have with Ian Dungavell, area has the still-extant Ice Palace made St Luke’s church the wealthiest Chief Executive of the Friends of building, Joseph Holt’s brewery and in the Manchester area. Highgate Cemetery, formerly Director Marks & Spencer’s first Manchester of the Victorian Society warehouse and head office. Meet at 10 am outside Derby Brewery Arms In the early nineteenth century, the 95 Cheetham Hill Road unsanitary, overcrowded churchyards Manchester M8 8PY of London presented the deceased and the bereaved with numerous Please book a place by contacting indignities, among them grave Mark Watson robbers, body snatchers, and bodies Email: [email protected] being dismembered and rearranged Tel: 07831267642 to take up less space. Both the state cost: £10 including donations and the established church failed to provide a decent, secure alternative, leaving private, profit-making SATURDAY 6 JUNE 2015 companies to fill the gap by providing attractive gardens of the dead on the An Insight into Victoria Park outskirts of the metropolis. In this talk An Afternoon Walk Ian Dungavell will explain the genesis with local historian, Bruce Anderson, of Highgate Cemetery. Father Ian Gomersall and Mark Watson 7 pm for 7.15 pm Friends Meeting House Opened in 1834, Victoria Park, was cost: £7 a privileged gated walled community, No need to book in advance with its own constables. Today it is a St John the Evangelist, Cheetham conservation area at the heart of a Hill, Paley and Austin (1871) multicultural and vibrant community. TUESDAY 28 APRIL 2015 Bruce Anderson's and Ian Gomersall's For the enthusiastic and the fitter, interest in Victoria Park centres around An illustrated talk there will be an afternoon option of the grand homes of the Manchester Temple Moore being led round the Smedley Lane Cottontots who came to live in the area area where the tower of St Luke’s during the nineteenth century. They will with Geoff Brandwood, survives and is now in the care enlighten us with their knowledge of architectural historian and former of Greater Manchester Building the families and the villas they lived in Chairman of the Victorian Society Preservation Trust. Also we will visit as they lead us around the Park. the High Town area to view the now The Gothic revival in Britain enjoyed a closed St John the Evangelist, Paley We shall break during the afternoon St Martin’s Summer in the churches and Austin, Grade II* on Waterloo for tea and biscuits at St Chrystostom's of Temple Moore (1856–1920). Road. Church. Geoff Brandwood, author of the 13 Meet at 1.45 for 2pm Dock Offices (now Maritime Museum) appeared early, in his contributions to at the junction of Oxney Road and before concentrating on the great the exhibitions Victorian Church Art Oxford Place range of architecture and townscape (1971-2) and Marble Halls (1973). He Manchester M14 5TG in the Old Town. Here are medieval has published widely on 19th century churches, 17th and 18th century visual culture, notably a history of Please book a place by contacting merchants’ houses and Victorian and the V&A, Vision and Accident (1999), Mark Watson Edwardian commercial and public and a biography (with Elizabeth Email: [email protected] buildings. Bonython) of Henry Cole, The Tel: 07831267642 Great Exhibitor (2003). He teaches David Neave, former senior lecturer museum history on the ‘Curating Cost: £10 including donations and in Department of History, University Modern Design’ course at Kingston afternoon tea of Hull, is the author of many University. books and articles on Hull and East Yorkshire including the revision of 7 pm for 7.15 pm SATURDAY 18 JULY 2015 the Pevsner, Buildings of England Friends Meeting House An Excursion by Train to Sheffield volume on Yorkshire, York and the with Valerie Bayliss, Chair of the East Riding and, with his wife Susan, Cost: £5 South Yorkshire Group of the the Pevsner Architectural Guide to No need to book in advance Victorian Society, and Mark Watson Hull (2010).

The walk will be in two parts. The Cost: £20 excluding travel costs, SATURDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2015 morning will be centred on Sheffield’s including donations An evening visit and talk surviving Victorian core, which dates St Martin’s church, Low Marple – a largely from the 1870s and 80s, Please complete the booking form on commentary: its architecture and when industry started to move out page 17 of the newsletter furnishings in context of the town centre and the rising with Anthony Burton, Art Historian demand for the accommodation and Curator of public administration made an TUESDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2015 impact. In the afternoon we take An illustrated talk The second talk looks in detail at the a step backwards, looking at a St Martin’s church, Low Marple art and architecture of St Martin’s, surviving mainly Georgian area, the – an introduction: the Gothic setting its features in the context of way its use changed in the 19th and Revival, J.D. Sedding, the Arts and the other work of the architects and 20th centuries and how it is changing Crafts Movement, Henry Wilson designers involved. Morris & Co again. Sheffield is a very different city with Anthony Burton, Art Historian glass, and work by Christopher Whall from Manchester and we can reflect and Curator are considered, as well as the work as we proceed on why this is so. of Sedding and Wilson. This first of two consecutive talks Valerie Bayliss has chaired the sets the scene for the appearance of The church is next to Marple railway South Yorkshire Group of VS for a the first part of St Martin’s church in station (trains from Piccadilly). Across long time. A historian by training, 1870. It addresses the ecclesiastical the road (Brabyns Brow) from the she was a civil servant for 30 years background (the Oxford Movement station car park is a free car park and then ran her own education and the ritual revival in the Church (turn next to a little Indian restaurant, and management consultancy. Now of England) and the architectural the Purple Pakora) which should ‘retired’, she is active in heritage background, showing how J.D. have plenty of space on a Saturday. conservation across South Yorkshire. Sedding, a second-generation Gothic A little further downhill is a small mu- Revivalist, brought a new sensitivity nicipal car park (free), and across the Cost: £20 excluding travel costs, after the vigour of the first generation. road from this a road leads to a free including donations Sedding also fostered the Arts and car park in Brabyns Park. Crafts Movement, and his successor Please complete the booking form on in practice, Henry Wilson, brought 7 pm at page 17 of the newsletter new influences to the Movement, St Martin's Church which are strikingly evident in his 15 Brabyns Brow additions to St Martin’s. Marple Bridge SATURDAY 22 AUGUST 2015 Stockport An Excursion by Train to Hull Anthony Burton worked as a curator SK6 5DT with David Neave, historian and at the Victoria and Albert Museum, lecturer, and Mark Watson from 1968 to 2002, in the Library Cost: £5 including tea and biscuits and the Directorate, then as head Starting at the fine Victorian Paragon of the V&A’s branch, the Bethnal Please book a place by contacting Railway Station we will explore the Green Museum of Childhood, and Mark Watson buildings of Queen Victoria Square latterly in the Research Department. Email: [email protected] including the inside of the former His interest in Victorian architecture Tel: 07831267642 14 SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER 2015 TUESDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2015 LATE NEWS The first Manchester Alfred An illustrated talk Ancoats Dispensary Trust has Waterhouse Lecture The Early Nursery Trade in received some much longed-for Manchester and the North-West news from the Heritage Lottery Fund. An illustrated talk and visit 1750-1900 The HLF now feel confident that the Imperial Gothic: William Butterfield with Joy Uings, garden historian Transfer of Lease from Urban Splash and the Development of Colonial to ADT will take place very soon and Ecclesiology From the mid-1750s onwards the so have decided to grant Permission with Alex Bremner Architectural number of plant nurseries around to Start. This means that the Trust Historian, University of Edinburgh Manchester gradually increased to can finally begin to safeguard the meet the demand from the growing Dispensary and prepare for the current In this talk Alex Bremner will consider number of middle-class homes. scaffolding to be replaced by more the contribution William Butterfield Ardwick, Salford, Cheetham, appropriate scaffolding support before made to the rise and development of Chorlton Row and then Moss Side the restoration of the building actually Anglican church architecture in and Rusholme, were places where begins. Britain's empire during the late nine- the well-to-do could escape into teenth century. He will discuss the country and create their own If you haven’t seen the on-line MEN Butterfield's colonial designs in the little piece of paradise. As time article the link is context of contemporary passed, these sylvan retreats http://www.ancoatsdispensarytrust. ecclesiological theory and the condi- largely disappeared, victims of the co.uk/permissiontostart-205.html tions, both social and material, for demand for homes for the escalating which they were intended. What is re- population. Along with the garden- Another piece of good news is that the vealed is an approach by Butterfield owners, most of the nurseries Spacehive crowdfunding initiative has that consciously engaged concerns moved ever outwards and by the been given a month’s extension which over cultural and environmental latter part of the 19th century they gives more time to reach the target of adaptation, leading to an experimen- were mostly to be found along £55K. tal form of architecture that pushed the corridor of Stretford, Sale and the boundaries of Anglican architec- Altrincham. In Knutsford the nursery ADT wishes to thank all those tural convention. owned originally by John Nickson members who have already made and then by six generations of donations and pledges to the Alex Bremner is Senior Lecturer in Caldwells, supplied the nurserymen Spacehive site. Architectural History at the University of Manchester as well as its garden of Edinburgh. He specialises in the owners. A handful of Caldwell’s http://www.ancoatsdispensarytrust. study of British imperial and colonial business ledgers dating back to co.uk/ architecture, particularly during the 1789 provide an interesting glimpse Victorian era, and has recently of the trade between these different published a book with Yale University nurseries. The talk will include friends meeting house Press entitled Imperial Gothic: vignettes of a few of these and Illustrated talks will normally take Religious Architecture and High An- also look at the changing demand place on the third Tuesday of each glican Culture in the British for plants as the 19th century month at 7pm for 7.15pm at the Empire, 1840-1870 (2013). progressed. Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester, M2 5NS 1.30 for 2 pm Following her retirement, in 2006, Saint Cross Church, as Head of Finance for a Housing Clayton, Association, Joy enrolled at NEWSLETTERS BY EMAIL Manchester M11 4UA Manchester Metropolitan University. Two minutes walk from the Clayton Her thesis Gardens and Gardening in Thank you to those members who Hall stop on the new Metrolink line to a Fast-Changing Urban Environment: have agreed to receive the Manchester Ashton. Manchester 1750-1850 was awarded Newsletter by email. This has allowed us a PhD in 2013. Joy was a founder to reduce postage and copying costs. Cost: £10 including tea and biscuits member of the Cheshire Gardens and donations Trust. She has a particular interest A pdf of the Newsletter can also in the history of nurseries and has be found on the Manchester page of Victorian Society’s main site at Please book a place by contacting been part of the Caldwell’s Nurseries victoriansociety.org.uk/manchester/ as Mark Watson Project Group. can the current talks and visits. If you Email: [email protected] would like to receive an email version Tel: 07831267642 7 pm for 7.15 pm Friends Meeting House of the Newsletter please email beryl. Cost: £5 [email protected]. No need to book in advance

15 MANCHESTER GROUP The next Manchester Group Newsletter will be published in November 2015 . If you wish to make a contribution to the Newsletter, such as an article, news item or event review, please email [email protected]. compiler of this Newsletter

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16 Booking form : Manchester Victorian Society - Hull saturday 22 August 2015 An excursion by train to Hull led by David Neave and Mark Watson. Buy your tickets in good time to catch the 08.41 from Manchester Piccadilly Rail Station to Hull. If joining in Hull, meet at the station concourse at 10.32. Cost, excluding train travel but including donations, £20. We shall allow 1 hour 30 minutes for lunch We expect to be back in Manchester by 6.45 pm. (times subject to timetable changes).

CLOSING DATE FOR BOOKINGS: 12 AUGUST 2015

First name...... Surname...... Address...... Postcode...... telephone numbers*...... *mobile number preferable - please switch on your mobile and bring with you to the event email address*...... *please add your email address if you have one; this will be used for confirmation of booking and receipt of payment

Names of others attending First name...... Surname...... First name...... Surname...... First name...... Surname...... Enclose your completed form, a stamped self-addressed envelope (if no email given) and a cheque for £20 per person made payable to: The Victorian Society to: Mark Watson, 18 Thomas Telford Basin, Manchester M1 2NH. Tel 07831 267642 Email [email protected] Disclaimer: You participate in Victorian Society events at your own risk and neither the Society nor its officers or servants accept any liability of any kind whatsoever, howsoever arising. The Victo- rian Society reserves the right to cancel, alter or postpone events if necessary. Victorian Society Manchester Group Committee Secretary email:[email protected]

Booking form : Manchester Victorian Society - Sheffield saturday 18 July 2015 An excursion by train to Sheffield led by Valerie Bayliss and Mark Watson. We will travel on the 09.43am train from Manchester Piccadilly Rail Station to Sheffield If joining in Sheffield, meet at the station concourse at 10.34. Cost, excluding train travel but including donations, £20. We shall allow 1 hour 45 minutes for lunch and expect to be back in Manchester by 6.30 pm (times subject to timetable changes).

CLOSING DATE FOR BOOKINGS: 8 JULY 2015