Floods & Puddles

It's not called Chorlton Ees to give it a fancy name, apparently it is suppose to be an old English word for a low lying water meadow. But you won't find the word ees in the Scrabble dictionary though.

Over the years the banks of River Mersey have been raised and raised again to prevent it flooding and so ending the centuries of the meadows being being under water for weeks in the winter time. However you can see from the picture that heavy rains alone can make the fields waterlogged. Essentially no drainage systems have ever been constructed, and they now are unlikely ever be to put in. Drainage doesn't come cheap and there are no economic benefits to construct them. This is the field east side of the long cobbled road that runs from Brookburn Road. The road has no name but was possibly called Sewage Lane when it was built by Withington Urban District Council in the 1890's for their new sewage farm. Now don't wince when you read the word sewage, it was a fantastic Victorian engineering achievement to ship it out of our towns. The sewage has now gone elsewhere but the ancient flooded fields of Chorlton still return every winter.