Other Aspects
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Ford Lane, looking south-west towards the river, about 1910
Note the brick walls on both sides of the lane and the lodge in the distance.
Ford Lane, looking north-east towards the village, about 1910
The tall, mature trees on both sides of the lane add to the rustic character of the area.
Didsbury Show, 1910
The first modern agricultural show in Didsbury took place in 1901, but there were advertisements for agricultural shows in the area in the early nineteenth century. The Didsbury Show was organised by a society known as the South Manchester Show and the event was held on land owned by Lord Simon, free of charge, on the first Monday of August. A postcard, which, regrettably, I am unable to include, shows such an event in 1910 and features the judging of one of the events: namely for horse and carriage. In the background can be seen some of the large crowd which attended the event and a large tent. Access to the field would have been via Ford Lane, Stenner Lane and, for people from Northenden, Simon’s Bridge. The Didsbury Show ceased after 1966 when Manchester Council took over the fields and refused to allow them to be used for the Show on August Mondays.
Coronation Festivities, Stenner Lane Fields, 1911
Maypole in field
Sports – featuring the sack race
Memories of Whit Week Walks
Mrs Hilda Stellfox, born a few years before World War 1, has given a written account of one aspect of her childhood memories:
“After tea [after our Whit Week walk] we marched back along Wilmslow Road to the Whit Week fields at the side of Ford Lane. Here we played games and there was music and dancing.
The Whit Week field belonged to Heald’s farm. They were open all the week to the poor children from all over Manchester, who were brought in horse-drawn lorries (wagonettes). Shopkeepers set up stalls in Ford Lane and you could buy sweets, ice-cream and fruit. A penny went a long way then.”
G.L. Bromley, in his book A Didsbury Lad, recalls the Whit Monday Walks thus:
“… headed by the Didsbury Band we walked all round Didsbury and finished at a large field belonging to Mrs Agnes Heald, of Ford Bank farm, mother of the founders of Heald’s Dairies. The farm was situated somewhere about three-quarters of the length of the present Dene Road, and the entrance to the field was somewhere near where the present Harefield Drive [Fordbank Road?] and Ford Lane meet.
Facing the entrance to the field along Ford Lane on the left was a very long brick wall of Broomcroft House and every day during Whit Week this would be lined with stalls selling sweets, mineral waters, fruit, ice-cream, cakes, paper streamers, squeaker toys, and paper hats. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, hundreds of poor children were brought to the field from all parts of Manchester on flat horse-drawn lorries [wagonettes] with wooden forms to sit on, and for most of these children it was their only holiday of the year.”
Day-trippers
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Didsbury, like Northenden, was a popular destination for day-trippers, especially on Bank Holidays and at weekends. Droves of wagonettes used to arrive from Manchester. Their occupants picnicked on the river banks, walked, cycled, or carried on to Northenden where small rowing boats could be hired. Some people enjoyed the countryside in the Bradley Fold area, picking bluebells and generally relaxing. In fact, “Bluebell Hill” was the nickname given to a small hill at the back of Bradley Fold, which was very popular with visitors. When poor children from Manchester came, they were said to have been “looked after by the good people of Didsbury”. Stan Mottershead, a long-time resident of Didsbury who lived into his nineties, vividly remembered these occasions around 1929-30.
A wagonette
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