Whalley Range
Encyclopedia
Whalley Range is an area of Manchester
, England, about 2 miles southwest of the city centre
. It was one of the earliest of the city's suburbs, built by local businessman Samuel Brooks
.
as "a desirable estate for gentlemen and their families".
Brooks bought 63 acres (25 ha) of land, then called Jackson's Moss, drained it, and built villas for wealthy businessmen such as himself. He was born near Whalley
, Lancashire
, after which he named his own home Whalley House, which may be the origin of the area's name. A toll gate guarded this exclusive area and this place (where Chorlton Road and Withington Road meet) is still called Brooks's Bar (pron. Brooks Bar). The charging of tolls came to an end on June 10, 1896.
The residents never tried to incorporate the area as a separate local authority, as in the age of light-touch government they saw no need. The area was more or less equally divided between the Moss Side and Withington Urban Districts (Some existing street furniture remains from that period). The urban district councils in turn sub-contracted some functions to Lancashire County Council
, notably policing (see 'Murder most foul' below). Additionally the residents paid for a private police force, to collect tolls and protect property. This arrangement seemed to be quite effective, as the area rarely appears in Victorian and Edwardian crime reports, with the one exception below. The private police survived the elimination of toll-charging and incorporation into the City, only becoming defunct with the manpower shortages of the First World War. Residents to the south of the area could also call on the Cheshire Lines Committee
Police, and Manchester City Council maintained a Parks Police. The unique nature of the area has given rise to some myths, notably that no alcohol could be sold in the area. Brooks was a High Church Anglican, so there was no religious reason for any restrictive covenants, rather a desire to keep up the tone of the area. Whalley Range had several private members' clubs (see the Carlton Club below), as well as a Public Hall and a cinema in Withington Road, at the end of Dudley Road. Also in Withington Road was the 'Caught on the Hop' pub on Withington Road, as well as the much older 'Whalley' and former 'Seymour' pubs.
The original plans for the area envisaged it as much larger. For instance, Hough End Crescent was meant to be an arc of very large houses, linking the ends of Alexandra and Withington Roads. This idea was made impossible by the difficulty of draining the area, and the later building of the railway. Drainage difficulties are a feature of the area, as it was crossed by a large number of streams, some being notable as open sewers. Many roads are in fact culverts, notably Upper Chorlton Road and Brantingham Road. As late as the 1930s significant drainage work had to be carried out in the Manley Road area. Clarendon Road was built on the site of clay pits, and needed remedial work on gable-ends due to subsidence in the 1980s. Even today the remaining open streams are regularly worked on to prevent flooding.
Incorporation shrank the area considerably, thanks to ward and constituency boundary changes. West Point was lost to Chorlton, and Darley Park to Old Trafford, as well as the eastern side at the north end of Withington Road. Postcode changes, made necessary by the inter-war development of the Egerton Estate, meant that the southern end of the area was lost. By the 1960s the area became synonymous with bedsit-land, the encroachment of property developers, and gained a poor reputation as a red-light district
. Estate agents took to describing it as 'Chorlton Borders', and the City Council made a short-lived attempt to rename it as East Chorlton. Luckily the area had two redoubtable female defenders. Ingeborg Tipping, the Chair of the Residents' Association, made great efforts to ensure the area was properly policed, among many other matters. City Councillor the late Kath Fry was a highly pro-active champion of the area.
, closed in 1924. The station fell to Beeching's axe
, although it had a one-day reprieve as Chorltonville Station, for a Granada TV showcase of Blues musicians staged at the site.
Stretford horse-drawn trams had to terminate at their stables at the corner of Cornbrook Road and Chorlton Road, until Stretford built up to Brooks's Bar, when they were allowed to terminate at the Withington Road side of the Whalley Hotel. Manchester trams
ended at the Prince of Wales Hotel, at the corner of Moss Lane West and Upper Moss Lane, Moss Side. As Alexandra Road became an important shopping street, the trams terminated at their stables at the end of Range Road. By the 1920s, however, Whalley Range was fully served, and the Clarendon Road/Manley Park development had its own, eccentric, no. 86 motor-bus route. The area also had its own "ghost bus", which served the above station, timed to meet trains, for at least a decade after passenger services stopped. Taxi ranks were established outside the shops on Withington Road, as well as outside the Whalley and Seymour Hotels (the Seymour Hotel was at the southern end of Upper Chorlton Road).
's Wild West Show"
beat officer for the then sparsely populated Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Firs Farm areas. Around midnight on August 1, 1876 he was talking to a Whalley Range private policeman at the corner of Rye Bank Road and Trafford Road (now Seymour Grove). They heard a suspicious noise coming from the house of Samuel Gratrix, a wealthy member of the Manchester Exchange. They separated to investigate the outside of the property, and PC Cock was fatally shot, the bullet embedding itself in the boundary wall. (The building, West Point, was later substantially extended on its eastern side to become the 'Seymour Hotel', but the place in the wall where the bullet lodged was marked, and visible on Woodside Road. The wall has since been demolished with the rest of the building.) PC Cock (died 2 August 1876) was buried in Chorlton's Old Churchyard, although his elaborate gravestone, paid for by public subscription, was removed in 1956 to the Lancashire Constabulary
HQ at Hutton
near Preston.
Two local farm labourers, the Habron brothers, were suspected and William Habron (aged 18) was tried and condemned for the murder, although there must have been some doubt, as the sentence was commuted. Some years later, an infamous criminal, Charles Peace
, confessed to the murder before he was due for execution; because of this Habron was released on condition he returned to Ireland.
and, from 1918 seven other universities as the Combined English Universities
could vote in both local and national elections, in the constituencies specifically set aside for those institutions.
represented by Tony Lloyd
(Labour) and moved to the Gorton Constituency
for the 2010 elections and is now represented by Gerald Kaufman
(Labour).
A peculiarity of Upper Chorlton Road is that along most of its length the two sides of the road are in different metropolitan boroughs with the boundary in the centre of the road so going southwards the left side is in the City of Manchester and the right side in the Borough of Trafford. The street furniture is different: in the earlier 20th century the tramway systems were different so Manchester Corporation Tramways
designs were faced by those of Stretford Urban District. Boundary anomalies along the route were only corrected in the late 1980s. Upper Chorlton Road was laid out so that the classical doorway of Williams & Glyn's Bank
, on Chorlton Road in Old Trafford, was visible along almost all its length. The road had several drill halls on its length. The most obvious is the red-brick castellated building at the corner of Kings Road (in Old Trafford). It is dated 1903 and the design is influenced by Tudor architecture. It actually extended over a considerable area to the rear, (now occupied by the M16 Postal Sorting Office, some open land and derelict buildings). It housed a Military Police
unit and the Air Training Corps
, but in 2011 there is the 207 Manchester Field Hospital
there. The ATC has moved to Hough End in Withington, a relic of its time as Alexandra Park Aerodrome. The Yeomanry
had two depots on Upper Chorlton Road; one is now a housing estate, the other a Council depot. A largely redundant centre is still in partial use near the end of College Road, it formerly housed the Transport Corps (now in Weaste
), and the Royal Marines
.
The area also had a feature that appears in many Victorian and Edwardian large-scale developments in Manchester: the entirely private road. Some can still be seen off Wilbraham Road, and the best example elsewhere in the area is Green Walk off College Road. Wellington Road was only adopted by the highway authority within living memory, and the stretch between Alness Road and Alexandra Road is still wholly owned by St. Bede's College, as it bisects their campus. The area also has no 'streets', as these were a status indicator to Victorians. The few extant highways were renamed 'road' from 'lane', as this also indicated a certain status. This appears to be merely a fashion, however, as later Victorians appeared to favour the bucolic part of the 'rus in urbes' equation. Too bucolic, however, wasn't popular either: Doghouse Lane became Kingsbrook Road and Dark Lane became Clarendon Road.
Religion played a major role in Victorian life, and the size and number of religious buildings testifies to this. Even the non-Anglican Christian sects [Catholics, Non-conformists, Methodists] were able to buy and build on substantial plots, although these were on the fringes of the development. There are Anglican parish churches in Whalley Range: St Margaret's, significantly positioned in the heart of the original phase of development, on the corner of Whalley Road and Rufford Road, and St Edmund's on Alexandra Road South opposite Alexandra Park. The original St Edmund's Grade II listed building has been converted into apartments, and the church congregation now meets in the modern worship-centre next door. Also on Alexandra Road South is Manchester Chinese Church, and on Withington Road is Whalley Range Methodist Church. Manley Park Methodist Church is on Egerton Road North; the congregation began worshipping in a tin tabernacle
in 1905 and the present building was opened in 1910.
Near Hartley Hall is the English Martyrs Roman Catholic Church, built in 1895–96: the tall spire is its most remarkable feature. From the time of the school's move to Alexandra Road South, St Bede's College supported the nearby St Bede's Mission
, and priests on the school's staff worked to provide for the spiritual needs of the Catholic population in Whalley Range. In 1893 the Bishop of Salford
, John Bilsborrow
, appointed Father James Rowan, a former teacher at the college, as priest in charge of the district. The new church was consecrated on the Feast of the English Martyrs, May 4, 1922. Another Roman Catholic congregation meets in Deerpark Road.
There are also New Testament Church of God (in Upper Chorlton Road, formerly a Nonconformist chapel, and lacking the upper part of the spire which was deliberately removed), and Spiritualist (in Alexandra Road South) churches.
Other places of worship
The Minhaj-ul-Qur'an Central Mosque is on Withington Road and there is also a British Muslim Heritage Centre in College Road and a number of smaller mosques. There is a Hindu temple
in a former chapel on Wilbraham Road; on Upper Chorlton Road near Brooks's Bar is a Sikh temple. Currently a new £2 million Gurdwara
(Sikh place of worship) and cultural centre is under construction on Upper Chorlton Road. This will open on 14 March 2011.
used it to house refugee Czech academics and intellectuals. Ironically, in the German Invasion Handbook for Operation Sea Lion (Unternehmen Seelöwe) it was named as one of several large properties in the area suitable for use by the occupation authorities. It closed as a Congregational College in the late 20th century and has since been reused by the General Municipal and Boilermakers' Union (GMB) as a training centre for their trade union members. At the beginning of this century the union tried to sell it to developers. A successful protest movement was convened by Jeremi Palka-Zawadzki, a long-term resident, and others. It now operates as the British Muslim Heritage Centre (BMHC) and has undergone a multi-million pound repair and renovation. The centre held its first public outdoor event – BMHC Family Day – on Sunday 1 May 2011.
(in Springbridge Road) was established as an independent school in 1887, became a direct grant grammar school
in 1946, and returned to full independence in 1976. In 2007, the school rejoined the state education sector, scrapping its annual tuition fees and selective admissions test in exchange for funding as an academy
. The school's specialist subject is languages, and it will continue to select 10% of its pupils on the basis of their aptitude for modern languages.
St Bede's College, Manchester
(on Alexandra Road South), a Roman Catholic independent school, was originally built as an aquarium but this was not a commercial success. The college acquired it after having been established elsewhere (in Manchester City Centre). It is built of red brick and terracotta and the frontage is very ornate. If the building appears asymmetrical that is because the money ran out for a wing on the north side of the main entrance, built in the 1870s. It was only in the 1930s that the College gave up the land at the end of Mayfield Road, preferring to expand eclectically westwards toward Alness Road. At the same time it sold its playing fields which had been between College Road and Burford Road, where St Margaret's C.E. Primary now stands, and acquired the freehold of Whalley Farm. The area west of Withington Road became playing fields, the rest continued as a farm until the late 1960s, when it became the site of St George's R.C. High School. In the 1980s the Cenacle Convent's large red brick building on Wellington Road became part of the College's campus, along with the area freed by the demolition of several houses on that road.
Hartley College further down Alexandra Road South was built as a Primitive Methodist College in 1879: it is now an independent grammar school for Hindus.
Whalley Range 11–18 High School and Business and Enterprise College is a large non-denominational secondary school for girls on Wilbraham Road, where it moved in the 1930s from a smaller site on the corner of Burford Road and Withington Road (known then as 'Britannia Row', because of the large statue of Britannia
on its frontage) The anomalous bulge and bend in Withington Road at this point is explained by the need for a wide entrance to this building. Nowadays, the large majority of students is from minority ethnic backgrounds, many originating in Pakistan
. Almost all of the students in the sixth form are from minority ethnic backgrounds. The number of students whose first language is other than English is much higher than the national average, with the three most common languages spoken by students being Urdu, Somali
and Arabic
. The school has specialist status as a business and enterprise college, and since 2007 has also been a designated sports college. The school was assessed as "good" in its March 2007 Ofsted
report. Estelle Morris
, now Baroness Morris of Yardley, one time Secretary of State for Education and Skills
and Minister for the Arts
, is a notable alumna.
Our Lady's R.C. primary school on Whalley Road was partly housed, until the 1990s, in the former Imperial German consulate, seized during the First World War by the Custodian of Enemy Property.
Manley Park School. Originally there was meant to be a third parallel road to York Avenue and Cromwell Avenue,but the authorities noticed the large number of children now growing up in the area. The developer was therefore only allowed to build Bury Avenue, the rest of the plot was devoted to Manley Park County Primary, and a recreation ground, now known as Manley Park, [although colloquially known as 'the rec' until the 1980s].
After the phase of further developments on the Egerton Estate, the school expanded into the Crimsworth annexe, a large house and garden at the end of College Road. In the 1970s the school was famous for its' Steel Band.
lived for part of her life in Whalley Range. The writer Dodie Smith
spent part of her early life at Claremont, Wood Road, as she records in her autobiography Look Back With Love (1974).
The district also has a number of musical associations, including:
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England, about 2 miles southwest of the city centre
Manchester City Centre
Manchester city centre is the central business district of Manchester, England. It lies within the Manchester Inner Ring Road, next to the River Irwell...
. It was one of the earliest of the city's suburbs, built by local businessman Samuel Brooks
Samuel Brooks
Samuel Brooks was born at Great Harwood, near Whalley in Lancashire, England, the second son of William Brooks. In 1815 he became a partner in his father’s Blackburn-based business, Cunliffe Brooks & Co. This business supplied cotton and/or textile equipment, and also ran a bank as a sideline...
.
History
Whalley Range was one of Manchester's first suburbs, built by Manchester banker and businessman Samuel BrooksSamuel Brooks
Samuel Brooks was born at Great Harwood, near Whalley in Lancashire, England, the second son of William Brooks. In 1815 he became a partner in his father’s Blackburn-based business, Cunliffe Brooks & Co. This business supplied cotton and/or textile equipment, and also ran a bank as a sideline...
as "a desirable estate for gentlemen and their families".
Brooks bought 63 acres (25 ha) of land, then called Jackson's Moss, drained it, and built villas for wealthy businessmen such as himself. He was born near Whalley
Whalley, Lancashire
Whalley is a large village in the Ribble Valley on the banks of the River Calder in Lancashire, England. It is overlooked by Whalley Nab, a large picturesque wooded hill over the river from the village....
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, after which he named his own home Whalley House, which may be the origin of the area's name. A toll gate guarded this exclusive area and this place (where Chorlton Road and Withington Road meet) is still called Brooks's Bar (pron. Brooks Bar). The charging of tolls came to an end on June 10, 1896.
The residents never tried to incorporate the area as a separate local authority, as in the age of light-touch government they saw no need. The area was more or less equally divided between the Moss Side and Withington Urban Districts (Some existing street furniture remains from that period). The urban district councils in turn sub-contracted some functions to Lancashire County Council
Lancashire County Council
Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. It currently consists of 84 councillors, and is controlled by the Conservative Party, who won control of the council in the local council elections in June 2009, ending 28 years of...
, notably policing (see 'Murder most foul' below). Additionally the residents paid for a private police force, to collect tolls and protect property. This arrangement seemed to be quite effective, as the area rarely appears in Victorian and Edwardian crime reports, with the one exception below. The private police survived the elimination of toll-charging and incorporation into the City, only becoming defunct with the manpower shortages of the First World War. Residents to the south of the area could also call on the Cheshire Lines Committee
Cheshire Lines Committee
The Cheshire Lines Committee was the second largest joint railway in Great Britain, with 143 route miles. Despite its name, approximately 55% of its system was in Lancashire. In its publicity material it was often styled as the Cheshire Lines Railway...
Police, and Manchester City Council maintained a Parks Police. The unique nature of the area has given rise to some myths, notably that no alcohol could be sold in the area. Brooks was a High Church Anglican, so there was no religious reason for any restrictive covenants, rather a desire to keep up the tone of the area. Whalley Range had several private members' clubs (see the Carlton Club below), as well as a Public Hall and a cinema in Withington Road, at the end of Dudley Road. Also in Withington Road was the 'Caught on the Hop' pub on Withington Road, as well as the much older 'Whalley' and former 'Seymour' pubs.
The original plans for the area envisaged it as much larger. For instance, Hough End Crescent was meant to be an arc of very large houses, linking the ends of Alexandra and Withington Roads. This idea was made impossible by the difficulty of draining the area, and the later building of the railway. Drainage difficulties are a feature of the area, as it was crossed by a large number of streams, some being notable as open sewers. Many roads are in fact culverts, notably Upper Chorlton Road and Brantingham Road. As late as the 1930s significant drainage work had to be carried out in the Manley Road area. Clarendon Road was built on the site of clay pits, and needed remedial work on gable-ends due to subsidence in the 1980s. Even today the remaining open streams are regularly worked on to prevent flooding.
Incorporation shrank the area considerably, thanks to ward and constituency boundary changes. West Point was lost to Chorlton, and Darley Park to Old Trafford, as well as the eastern side at the north end of Withington Road. Postcode changes, made necessary by the inter-war development of the Egerton Estate, meant that the southern end of the area was lost. By the 1960s the area became synonymous with bedsit-land, the encroachment of property developers, and gained a poor reputation as a red-light district
Red-light district
A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...
. Estate agents took to describing it as 'Chorlton Borders', and the City Council made a short-lived attempt to rename it as East Chorlton. Luckily the area had two redoubtable female defenders. Ingeborg Tipping, the Chair of the Residents' Association, made great efforts to ensure the area was properly policed, among many other matters. City Councillor the late Kath Fry was a highly pro-active champion of the area.
Transport
Public transport was resisted until the whole area became incorporated into the City of Manchester. No railway line was allowed through: the nearest station was at the southern end of Alexandra Road South, designed to serve the aerodrome at Hough End. The aerodrome, along with its ancillary landing-field at Turn Moss in StretfordStretford
Stretford is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. Lying on flat ground between the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, it is to the southwest of Manchester city centre, south-southwest of Salford and northeast of Altrincham...
, closed in 1924. The station fell to Beeching's axe
Beeching Axe
The Beeching Axe or the Beeching Cuts are informal names for the British Government's attempt in the 1960s to reduce the cost of running British Railways, the nationalised railway system in the United Kingdom. The name is that of the main author of The Reshaping of British Railways, Dr Richard...
, although it had a one-day reprieve as Chorltonville Station, for a Granada TV showcase of Blues musicians staged at the site.
Stretford horse-drawn trams had to terminate at their stables at the corner of Cornbrook Road and Chorlton Road, until Stretford built up to Brooks's Bar, when they were allowed to terminate at the Withington Road side of the Whalley Hotel. Manchester trams
Manchester Corporation Tramways
Between 1901 and 1949 Manchester Corporation Tramways was the municipal operator of electric tram services in Manchester, England...
ended at the Prince of Wales Hotel, at the corner of Moss Lane West and Upper Moss Lane, Moss Side. As Alexandra Road became an important shopping street, the trams terminated at their stables at the end of Range Road. By the 1920s, however, Whalley Range was fully served, and the Clarendon Road/Manley Park development had its own, eccentric, no. 86 motor-bus route. The area also had its own "ghost bus", which served the above station, timed to meet trains, for at least a decade after passenger services stopped. Taxi ranks were established outside the shops on Withington Road, as well as outside the Whalley and Seymour Hotels (the Seymour Hotel was at the southern end of Upper Chorlton Road).
Manley Hall
Manley Hall was built by the wealthy businessman Samuel Mendel (near the present-day Manley Park) in the 1860s. It was very grand and contained a fine art collection; the gardens were extensive. The cost of building was £120,000. After Lord Egerton, the lord of the manor, and William Cunliffe Brooks, Mendel was one of the richer residents. A clue to his ultra-conservative personality might be gleaned from his bahaviour. He converted from Judaism to High Church Anglicanism, and with the above two grandees worshipped at the Old Church of St Clement, Chorlton. Along with Brooks he opposed the building of a new church for the expanding population. However the opening of the Suez Canal caused such problems for the Mendel trading business that he became a bankrupt and the hall was put up for sale. No buyer for something so grand could be found, [cf. the fate of nearby Longford Park, bought by the local authority], and it fell into disrepair. Until it was demolished in about 1905, it was used as a pleasure garden, its most famous visitor being "Buffalo BillBuffalo Bill
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...
's Wild West Show"
PC Nicholas Cock
A famous murder in the area occurred when it was at the height of its fashionable status, in the 1870s. PC Nicholas Cock was a Lancashire ConstabularyLancashire Constabulary
Lancashire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Lancashire in the North West England. The force's headquarters are at Hutton, near the city of Preston...
beat officer for the then sparsely populated Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Firs Farm areas. Around midnight on August 1, 1876 he was talking to a Whalley Range private policeman at the corner of Rye Bank Road and Trafford Road (now Seymour Grove). They heard a suspicious noise coming from the house of Samuel Gratrix, a wealthy member of the Manchester Exchange. They separated to investigate the outside of the property, and PC Cock was fatally shot, the bullet embedding itself in the boundary wall. (The building, West Point, was later substantially extended on its eastern side to become the 'Seymour Hotel', but the place in the wall where the bullet lodged was marked, and visible on Woodside Road. The wall has since been demolished with the rest of the building.) PC Cock (died 2 August 1876) was buried in Chorlton's Old Churchyard, although his elaborate gravestone, paid for by public subscription, was removed in 1956 to the Lancashire Constabulary
Lancashire Constabulary
Lancashire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Lancashire in the North West England. The force's headquarters are at Hutton, near the city of Preston...
HQ at Hutton
Hutton, Lancashire
Hutton is a village and civil parish in Lancashire, England. It is located south west of Preston, in the South Ribble borough and parliamentary constituency.-History:...
near Preston.
Two local farm labourers, the Habron brothers, were suspected and William Habron (aged 18) was tried and condemned for the murder, although there must have been some doubt, as the sentence was commuted. Some years later, an infamous criminal, Charles Peace
Charles Peace
Charles Frederick Peace was a notorious English burglar and murderer from Sheffield, whose somewhat remarkable life later spawned dozens of romanticised novels and films...
, confessed to the murder before he was due for execution; because of this Habron was released on condition he returned to Ireland.
Votes for Women!
Whalley Range had another unusual feature for Victorian times - enfranchised women. The Poor Law Unions linked representation with taxation: anyone with an interest in real property above a certain rateable value could vote on local matters, irrespective of gender. The successor Urban District Councils continued this rule. In Moss Side, for instance, of the 55,000 approx. population, about 3300 could vote. Married women could not vote, their property interests were subordinate to their husbands, but wealthy widows and single women (spinsters) could. This period of enfranchisement appears to end with incorporation. Women graduates of OxbridgeOxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...
and, from 1918 seven other universities as the Combined English Universities
Combined English Universities (UK Parliament constituency)
Combined English Universities was a university constituency represented in the United Kingdom Parliament . It was formed by enfranchising and combining all the English Universities, except for Cambridge, Oxford and London, which were already separately represented.-Boundaries:This University...
could vote in both local and national elections, in the constituencies specifically set aside for those institutions.
Political divisions
The area is represented on Manchester City Council by John Grant (now Independent), Mary Watson and Aftab Razaq (both Labour). Former councillor Faraz Bhatti was elected as a Liberal Democrat and became a Conservative councillor shortly afterwards before being suspended by the Conservatives following arrest. John Grant was suspended by the Liberal Democrats following a complaint from a male resident about explicit emails from John Grant sent from his Council facilities. The Whalley Range Ward includes parts of Chorlton. The ward was until 2009 in Manchester Central ConstituencyManchester Central (UK Parliament constituency)
Manchester Central is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election. The constituency has always been a safe Labour seat...
represented by Tony Lloyd
Tony Lloyd
Anthony Joseph 'Tony' Lloyd is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Manchester Central since 1997.-Early life:...
(Labour) and moved to the Gorton Constituency
Manchester Gorton (UK Parliament constituency)
Manchester, Gorton is a parliamentary constituency in the city of Manchester, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-1885–1918:...
for the 2010 elections and is now represented by Gerald Kaufman
Gerald Kaufman
Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman is a British Labour Party politician, who has been a Member of Parliament since 1970, first for Manchester Ardwick, and then subsequently for Manchester Gorton...
(Labour).
Topography
Whalley Range is characterised by large detached and semi-detached Victorian era houses, many of which have been converted into flats, intermixed with late 20th-century low-rise flats or apartment blocks, with some early 20th-century housing to the west. Many of the roads and avenues are lined with trees. The district has limited shopping facilities, as these were felt to be unnecessary for the class of person envisaged as a resident: these are predominantly found on Withington Road and on Upper Chorlton Road.A peculiarity of Upper Chorlton Road is that along most of its length the two sides of the road are in different metropolitan boroughs with the boundary in the centre of the road so going southwards the left side is in the City of Manchester and the right side in the Borough of Trafford. The street furniture is different: in the earlier 20th century the tramway systems were different so Manchester Corporation Tramways
Manchester Corporation Tramways
Between 1901 and 1949 Manchester Corporation Tramways was the municipal operator of electric tram services in Manchester, England...
designs were faced by those of Stretford Urban District. Boundary anomalies along the route were only corrected in the late 1980s. Upper Chorlton Road was laid out so that the classical doorway of Williams & Glyn's Bank
Williams & Glyn's Bank
Williams & Glyn's Bank Limited was established in London in 1970, when the Royal Bank of Scotland merged its two subsidiaries in England and Wales, Williams Deacon's Bank Ltd. and Glyn, Mills & Co...
, on Chorlton Road in Old Trafford, was visible along almost all its length. The road had several drill halls on its length. The most obvious is the red-brick castellated building at the corner of Kings Road (in Old Trafford). It is dated 1903 and the design is influenced by Tudor architecture. It actually extended over a considerable area to the rear, (now occupied by the M16 Postal Sorting Office, some open land and derelict buildings). It housed a Military Police
Military police
Military police are police organisations connected with, or part of, the military of a state. The word can have different meanings in different countries, and may refer to:...
unit and the Air Training Corps
Air Training Corps
The Air Training Corps , commonly known as the Air Cadets, is a cadet organisation based in the United Kingdom. It is a voluntary youth group which is part of the Air Cadet Organisation and the Royal Air Force . It is supported by the Ministry of Defence, with a regular RAF Officer, currently Air...
, but in 2011 there is the 207 Manchester Field Hospital
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
there. The ATC has moved to Hough End in Withington, a relic of its time as Alexandra Park Aerodrome. The Yeomanry
Yeomanry
Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Territorial Army, descended from volunteer cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units may serve in a variety of different military roles.-History:...
had two depots on Upper Chorlton Road; one is now a housing estate, the other a Council depot. A largely redundant centre is still in partial use near the end of College Road, it formerly housed the Transport Corps (now in Weaste
Weaste
Weaste is an inner city area of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It is an industrial area, with many industrial estates. The A57 road passes through Weaste, which lies close to the M602 motorway...
), and the Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
.
The area also had a feature that appears in many Victorian and Edwardian large-scale developments in Manchester: the entirely private road. Some can still be seen off Wilbraham Road, and the best example elsewhere in the area is Green Walk off College Road. Wellington Road was only adopted by the highway authority within living memory, and the stretch between Alness Road and Alexandra Road is still wholly owned by St. Bede's College, as it bisects their campus. The area also has no 'streets', as these were a status indicator to Victorians. The few extant highways were renamed 'road' from 'lane', as this also indicated a certain status. This appears to be merely a fashion, however, as later Victorians appeared to favour the bucolic part of the 'rus in urbes' equation. Too bucolic, however, wasn't popular either: Doghouse Lane became Kingsbrook Road and Dark Lane became Clarendon Road.
Demographics
According to the 2001 census- White British – 48.86%
- White Other – 4.43%
- White Irish – 3.39%
- Mixed Race – 4.23%
- British Asian – 28.48%
- Black British – 8.24%
- Chinese or Other – 2.37%
Location grid
Religion
Churches and chapelsReligion played a major role in Victorian life, and the size and number of religious buildings testifies to this. Even the non-Anglican Christian sects [Catholics, Non-conformists, Methodists] were able to buy and build on substantial plots, although these were on the fringes of the development. There are Anglican parish churches in Whalley Range: St Margaret's, significantly positioned in the heart of the original phase of development, on the corner of Whalley Road and Rufford Road, and St Edmund's on Alexandra Road South opposite Alexandra Park. The original St Edmund's Grade II listed building has been converted into apartments, and the church congregation now meets in the modern worship-centre next door. Also on Alexandra Road South is Manchester Chinese Church, and on Withington Road is Whalley Range Methodist Church. Manley Park Methodist Church is on Egerton Road North; the congregation began worshipping in a tin tabernacle
Tin tabernacle
Tin tabernacles were a type of prefabricated building made from corrugated iron developed in the mid 19th century initially in Great Britain. Corrugated iron was first used for roofing in London in 1829 by Henry Robinson Palmer and the patent sold to Richard Walker who advertised "portable...
in 1905 and the present building was opened in 1910.
Near Hartley Hall is the English Martyrs Roman Catholic Church, built in 1895–96: the tall spire is its most remarkable feature. From the time of the school's move to Alexandra Road South, St Bede's College supported the nearby St Bede's Mission
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
, and priests on the school's staff worked to provide for the spiritual needs of the Catholic population in Whalley Range. In 1893 the Bishop of Salford
Bishop of Salford
The Bishop of Salford is the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford in the Province of Liverpool, England.With the gradual abolition of the legal restrictions on the activities of Catholics in England and Wales in the early 19th century, Rome decided to proceed to bridge the gap of the...
, John Bilsborrow
John Bilsborrow
Rt Rev John Bilsborrow was bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Salford, in England, from 1892 to 1903.Bilsborrow was born in Singleton, Lancashire on 20 March 1836. He was ordained priest on 26 February 1865 at the age of 28. He went on to teach at St Joseph's College in Upholland, West...
, appointed Father James Rowan, a former teacher at the college, as priest in charge of the district. The new church was consecrated on the Feast of the English Martyrs, May 4, 1922. Another Roman Catholic congregation meets in Deerpark Road.
There are also New Testament Church of God (in Upper Chorlton Road, formerly a Nonconformist chapel, and lacking the upper part of the spire which was deliberately removed), and Spiritualist (in Alexandra Road South) churches.
Other places of worship
The Minhaj-ul-Qur'an Central Mosque is on Withington Road and there is also a British Muslim Heritage Centre in College Road and a number of smaller mosques. There is a Hindu temple
Hindu temple
A Mandir, Devalayam, Devasthanam, or a Hindu temple is a place of worship for followers of Hinduism...
in a former chapel on Wilbraham Road; on Upper Chorlton Road near Brooks's Bar is a Sikh temple. Currently a new £2 million Gurdwara
Gurdwara
A Gurdwara , meaning the Gateway to the Guru, is the place of worship for Sikhs, the followers of Sikhism. A Gurdwara can be identified from a distance by tall flagpoles bearing the Nishan Sahib ....
(Sikh place of worship) and cultural centre is under construction on Upper Chorlton Road. This will open on 14 March 2011.
Higher education
The Lancashire Independent College at College Road, 1840–43, was established by the Lancashire Congregational Union to train ministers for service. The architects were Irwin & Chester and the style is neo-Gothic. It is the area's best-known building, and has been in continuous educational use since it was built. Following the Nazi takeover of Czecho-Slovakia in 1938, the UniversityVictoria University of Manchester
The Victoria University of Manchester was a university in Manchester, England. On 1 October 2004 it merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology to form a new entity, "The University of Manchester".-1851 - 1951:The University was founded in 1851 as Owens College,...
used it to house refugee Czech academics and intellectuals. Ironically, in the German Invasion Handbook for Operation Sea Lion (Unternehmen Seelöwe) it was named as one of several large properties in the area suitable for use by the occupation authorities. It closed as a Congregational College in the late 20th century and has since been reused by the General Municipal and Boilermakers' Union (GMB) as a training centre for their trade union members. At the beginning of this century the union tried to sell it to developers. A successful protest movement was convened by Jeremi Palka-Zawadzki, a long-term resident, and others. It now operates as the British Muslim Heritage Centre (BMHC) and has undergone a multi-million pound repair and renovation. The centre held its first public outdoor event – BMHC Family Day – on Sunday 1 May 2011.
Schools
William Hulme's Grammar SchoolWilliam Hulme's Grammar School
William Hulme's Grammar School is an Academy in Whalley Range, Manchester, England.-History:WHGS was founded on 26 January 1887 as a grammar school. It ceased to be a direct grant school when the Labour government abolished the scheme, and was therefore forced to become private...
(in Springbridge Road) was established as an independent school in 1887, became a direct grant grammar school
Direct grant grammar school
A direct grant grammar school was a selective secondary school in England and Wales between 1945 and 1976 funded partly by the state and partly through private fees....
in 1946, and returned to full independence in 1976. In 2007, the school rejoined the state education sector, scrapping its annual tuition fees and selective admissions test in exchange for funding as an academy
Academy (England)
In the education system of England, an academy is a school that is directly funded by central government and independent of control by local government in England. An academy may receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind...
. The school's specialist subject is languages, and it will continue to select 10% of its pupils on the basis of their aptitude for modern languages.
St Bede's College, Manchester
St Bede's College, Manchester
St Bede's College, Manchester is an independent Roman Catholic day school situated on Alexandra Road South in the Whalley Range area of the city, and is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference....
(on Alexandra Road South), a Roman Catholic independent school, was originally built as an aquarium but this was not a commercial success. The college acquired it after having been established elsewhere (in Manchester City Centre). It is built of red brick and terracotta and the frontage is very ornate. If the building appears asymmetrical that is because the money ran out for a wing on the north side of the main entrance, built in the 1870s. It was only in the 1930s that the College gave up the land at the end of Mayfield Road, preferring to expand eclectically westwards toward Alness Road. At the same time it sold its playing fields which had been between College Road and Burford Road, where St Margaret's C.E. Primary now stands, and acquired the freehold of Whalley Farm. The area west of Withington Road became playing fields, the rest continued as a farm until the late 1960s, when it became the site of St George's R.C. High School. In the 1980s the Cenacle Convent's large red brick building on Wellington Road became part of the College's campus, along with the area freed by the demolition of several houses on that road.
Hartley College further down Alexandra Road South was built as a Primitive Methodist College in 1879: it is now an independent grammar school for Hindus.
Whalley Range 11–18 High School and Business and Enterprise College is a large non-denominational secondary school for girls on Wilbraham Road, where it moved in the 1930s from a smaller site on the corner of Burford Road and Withington Road (known then as 'Britannia Row', because of the large statue of Britannia
Britannia
Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...
on its frontage) The anomalous bulge and bend in Withington Road at this point is explained by the need for a wide entrance to this building. Nowadays, the large majority of students is from minority ethnic backgrounds, many originating in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. Almost all of the students in the sixth form are from minority ethnic backgrounds. The number of students whose first language is other than English is much higher than the national average, with the three most common languages spoken by students being Urdu, Somali
Somali language
The Somali language is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Its nearest relatives are Afar and Oromo. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies beginning before 1900....
and Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. The school has specialist status as a business and enterprise college, and since 2007 has also been a designated sports college. The school was assessed as "good" in its March 2007 Ofsted
Office for Standards in Education
The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills is the non-ministerial government department of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England ....
report. Estelle Morris
Estelle Morris
Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley, PC was a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley from 1992 to 2005, and served briefly in the Cabinet as Education Secretary.-Early life:...
, now Baroness Morris of Yardley, one time Secretary of State for Education and Skills
Secretary of State for Education and Skills
The Secretary of State for Education is the chief minister of the Department for Education in the United Kingdom government. The position was re-established on 12 May 2010, held by Michael Gove....
and Minister for the Arts
Minister for the Arts
In the United Kingdom government, the Minister for the Arts is a ministerial post, usually a low to middle-ranking minister to the much senior Secretary of State, who runs the entire department and is ultimately responsibility for the department's brief....
, is a notable alumna.
Our Lady's R.C. primary school on Whalley Road was partly housed, until the 1990s, in the former Imperial German consulate, seized during the First World War by the Custodian of Enemy Property.
Manley Park School. Originally there was meant to be a third parallel road to York Avenue and Cromwell Avenue,but the authorities noticed the large number of children now growing up in the area. The developer was therefore only allowed to build Bury Avenue, the rest of the plot was devoted to Manley Park County Primary, and a recreation ground, now known as Manley Park, [although colloquially known as 'the rec' until the 1980s].
After the phase of further developments on the Egerton Estate, the school expanded into the Crimsworth annexe, a large house and garden at the end of College Road. In the 1970s the school was famous for its' Steel Band.
Hospitals
In Russell Road is the Spire Manchester Hospital (private) offering a range of services.Cultural associations
The poet Jane CrewdsonJane Crewdson
Jane Crewdson , poet, was born at Perran-arworthal, Cornwall, on 22 Oct. 1808, being the second daughter of George Fox of that place , and was married at Exeter, in October 1836, to Thomas Dillworth Crewdson, a Manchester manufacturer...
lived for part of her life in Whalley Range. The writer Dodie Smith
Dodie Smith
Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith was an English novelist and playwright. Smith is best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Her other works include I Capture the Castle and The Starlight Barking....
spent part of her early life at Claremont, Wood Road, as she records in her autobiography Look Back With Love (1974).
The district also has a number of musical associations, including:
- Whalley Range is home to Extraordinary Rendition Manchester Musicians' Collective (aka EXR) which is based at the Carlton Club, Carlton Road, Whalley Range, Manchester M16 8BE. EXR comprises upwards of 100 Manchester bands and acoustic performers. EXR records, established during 2007 released its first compilation album in December 2007.
- Steve Hopkins, record producer and keyboardist of John Cooper ClarkeJohn Cooper ClarkeJohn Cooper Clarke is an English performance poet who first became famous during the punk rock era of the late 1970s when he became known as a "punk poet"...
, Nico, The Invisible GirlsThe Invisible GirlsThe Invisible Girls were a British rock band, formed in Salford, Greater Manchester in 1978, to provide a musical backdrop to the recorded output of Salford punk poet John Cooper Clarke...
, and the Archangel Orchestra, lived in Whalley Range and has an art studio there.