Chorlton-on-Medlock

Kro Bar, 325 Oxford Road

In medieval times, the district was known as Chorlton Row and was a township of the ancient parish of Manchester in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire. Towards the end of the 18th century, it developed as a residential suburb of Manchester and in the extreme north of the township a number of cotton mills were established. In 1820 the parish church of All Saints was built. Development began in 1793–94 and most of the important streets were given impressive names, Oxford Street, Cambridge Street and Grosvenor Street.

Over the following 30 years residential development spread southwards as far as Tuer Street: and by the mid-1840s to High Street. Few dwellings of that period remain today apart from Waterloo Place, 323, 325, 327 & 333 Oxford Road, and Grove House (316–324).[1]

On the creation of the municipal borough of Manchester in 1838 the township was absorbed into the borough. At this time the southern area was still partly rural with some larger dwellings of wealthy people (e.g., John Owens in Nelson Street). After the Poor Law Reform of 1834 the district became part of the Chorlton Poor Law Union and the offices of the Board of Guardians were built in Cavendish Street (these are now the Ormond Building of the Metropolitan University). The arrival of Owens College in 1873 was the beginning of a different kind of development leading to the academic campus of today.

Though most of the township was originally middle class in character by the early 20th century it was very much a working class district. The housing conditions were described in 1931 by the Manchester and District Social Survey Society.[2]

Between the arrival of Owens College in 1873 and the 1940s the college and the university it became slowly expanded into the adjacent residential areas which had by then a mostly working class population including many of Irish descent. However, during the early years of the 21st century the University of Manchester undertook an extensive Capital Development Project which was followed by a partnership with the city council and other bodies called Corridor Manchester. Together these have changed the face of Oxford Road to a remarkable extent.[3]

The M13 postcode district includes both Ardwick and Chorlton on Medlock, although the area east of Boundary Lane and west of the Dental Hospital has a Hulme (M15) postcode, and Greenheys is now in Moss Side ward rather than Chorlton on Medlock. The River Medlock is the boundary with Manchester city centre, which includes the Sackville Street campus of the University of Manchester (or "North Campus" rather than "South Campus"). A large area of Chorlton on Medlock south-west of this is occupied by the Manchester Metropolitan University.

Upper Brook Street in 1966

Chorlton on Medlock is crossed by the Mancunian Way (opened 1967), running west to east through its northern part. The main routes through the suburb to south Manchester are (west to east) Cambridge Street (leading to Higher Cambridge Street, Lloyd Street North and Upper Lloyd Street), Oxford Road (leading to Wilmslow Road; the busiest route, both for private and public transport), and Upper Brook Street (dual carriageway continuing from Princess Street and leading to Anson Road).

Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, 1886–2009

Chorlton New Mill

The façade of the former Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall can be seen at its original location on Cavendish Street. The building, with its Doric portico, dates from 1830–31 and was designed by Richard Lane.[4] In Nelson Street the former home of the Pankhurst family is now the Pankhurst Centre. The Ormond Building of the Manchester Metropolitan University was originally the home of the Chorlton Union Board of Guardians (responsible under the 1834 Poor Law for most of what is now south Manchester). Next to the town hall building is the original building of the Manchester College of Art (1880–81: architect George Tunstal Redmayne) in a Gothic revival style.

Further down Oxford Road are the University of Manchester (frontage built 1888–1902), the former Manchester Royal Eye Hospital (1886), Manchester Royal Infirmary (1908) and the Whitworth Art Gallery (1898–1908).

Welsh Baptist Chapel, Upper Brook Street

The parish church of All Saints (1820) and the earlier Church of St Luke (founded before 1804 but a new church was built by John Lowe in 1865; part of Old Chorlton Hall was used as the rectory)[5] (to the east) have been demolished as have several other Anglican churches in this area. Anglican churches which are disused include St Stephen's (E. H. Shellard, 1853), St Paul's (Clegg & Knowles, 1862), and St Ambrose (H. C. Charlewood, 1884):[5] these have all been demolished apart from St Ambrose which was used by the University of Manchester as an Islamic prayer room but the prayer room is now elsewhere. In Greenheys there was formerly an Anglican church of St Clement on Denmark Road (architect Henry R. Price, 1881, decorated by John Lowe, 1886[5]).

Brunswick Parish Church

St Augustine's Catholic Church

The oldest Roman Catholic church in Chorlton-on-Medlock was the Church of the Holy Name on Oxford Road (built between 1869 and 1871), a fine example of the work of the architect Joseph Aloysius Hansom. St Augustine's, Granby Row (demolished in 1908 to allow expansion at the Municipal College of Technology) was replaced by a second St Augustine's in York Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock (ruined by German bombing in 1940 during World War II):[6] its successor is at Lower Ormond Street on the Manchester Metropolitan University campus in a building which serves also as a chaplaincy to the University. This church was built in dark brick to the designs of Desmond Williams & Associates in 1967–68.[7] It replaced an earlier church of the Holy Family which was at first a chapel-of-ease to St Augustine's, then an independent parish, but a chapel-of-ease again from 1908 to 1940 when it became the parish church of St Augustine's parish.[8]

The Armenian church in Upper Brook Street was the first purpose-built Armenian church in Western Europe. It is dedicated to the Holy Trinity and opened at Easter 1870. The architects were Royle & Bennett, 1869–70, and they chose an eclectic neo-Gothic style. At the east end is a rounded apse and the interior is simple though the altar is elaborate.[9][10]

There were also many Nonconformist chapels (most of them now demolished) such as the Cavendish Street Congregational Church, Cavendish Street (architect Edward Walters, 1847–48), the Union Chapel, Oxford Road and a Presbyterian chapel at All Saints. The chapel in Cavendish Street was a particularly fine neo-Gothic building but was demolished in the early 1970s to allow expansion by Manchester Polytechnic. It has replaced an earlier chapel in Mosley Street. The Welsh Baptist Chapel, on Upper Brook Street, was designed in the early 19th century by Sir Charles Barry, who designed the Palace of Westminster shortly afterwards, and in Greenheys there was a German Protestant Church in Wright Street (ca. 1871).

The Salvation Army's Manchester I corps is based at Manchester Temple, Grosvenor Street. It was founded in 1879 and a modern Salvation Army building stands on the site of the original one, and is called Manchester Central.

There are two mosques in Chorlton-on-Medlock, the Salimiya Mosque and the Islamic Academy of Manchester, Upper Brook Street (in the building of the former Welsh Baptist Chapel). The former church of St Ambrose was used by the University of Manchester as an Islamic prayer room for several years. There are prayer rooms at the University of Manchester and at the Manchester Metropolitan University in Oxford Road.[11]

See also List of people from Manchester

84 Plymouth Grove, home of William and Elizabeth Gaskell, from 1850

Swinton Grove Park, near 84 Plymouth Grove

• Listed buildings in Manchester-M13
• Listed buildings in Manchester-M15
• New Broadcasting House (Manchester)

• Kenyon, Margery Memories of Chorlton-on-Medlock. Radcliffe: Neil Richardson ISBN 978-1-85216-179-8
• Makepeace, Chris (1995) Looking Back at Hulme, Moss Side, Chorlton on Medlock & Ardwick. Altrincham: Willow
• Potts, Bob (1997) The Old Pubs of Hulme and Chorlton-on-Medlock. Radcliffe: Neil Richardson