Co-Op Farms

The Co-operative magazine for all members arrived yesterday. I think it is published quarterly. An easy light read of recipes, offers, and travel. This one had an informative article about Co-operative Farms, all 50,000 acres of them.

I was surprised that the biggest crop was wheat. Also that half the rapeseed crop is used for bio-fuel to heat the head office in Manchester. How long has this been going on?

This is big scale agriculture but it was interesting to see where the produce that is clearly labelled British in the Co-operatives 2,801 stores.

Pictures are from the magazine, and as ever they have been uploaded to Flickr.

The Green Fields Pass

Chorlton still has a slice of greenery and position yourself at the right spot it can be a bucolic scene. There is always someone who can remember when all this was fields, the more contemporary version for Manchester is someone who can remember when all this was factories employing thousands when all you have now is another industrial age relic converted to the ready-meal appartment lifestyle, another museum and a visitors centre....

But that rural aspect to Chorlton-cum-Hardy wasn't so long ago. The newspaper report is from 1929 and is entitled "The Green Fields Pass".

"There used to be some pleasant countryside lying alongside Barlow Moor Road between Chorlton-cum-Hardy and West Didsbury. Last year travellers on the "circular route" looked down upon fields of oats ripening in the sun. There was a farm with beasts in the pasture. A lane ran down to the river and a footpath followed by the hedges, both being much esteemed locally as lovers' walks.

Farm Gate

Just off Hardy Lane on The Meadows is this old steel gate. It stands forlonely in an open green space with its 6 bars and a spot of rust. Is it a relic of Hardy Farm which stood behind that fence in the photograph? Why is it still here? You could think you were deep in the countryside but walk two minutes from here its back to suburbia.

Mystery Buildings

A little intrigued by some buildings that marked on some old maps. Above is Johnson's map of 1819 and if you look at Hardy Lane there are two buildings at the westerly end before it disappears into a footpath that's not shown. They also appear on the 1848 Ordnance Survey map, but not in their 1884 map. Lots of speculation can be made - another farm maybe? I love a good mystery if I had a metal detector I'd be over there scanning around.
Seriously thinking about making some diving rods out of metal coat hangers and doing a bit of dowsing the site, marked red on the aerial view. I've done it before just for fun but I don't think they can taken as a serious archaeological tool.

Exploring Hardy Lane

The weather was beautiful bright spring sunshine and still cool enough for a light jacket. Got the old mountain bike out to explore the original route of Hardy Lane. It still runs as footpath from Jackson's Boat to the abandoned UMIST sports building though the route wanders in places from the original way . I was using a copy of the 1905 Ordnance Survey map as a guide. Wish I had taken my compass so as make more accurate alignments instead of guessing.

There is a steep bank near the sports building and a fair amount of stones and bricks been chucked into the low ground below. Beyond that is the metal fence that surrounds Chorlton Golf Club. At the junction of Hardy Lane and Barlow Moor Road you can still make out some old Manchester Corporation gully covers set in the pavement on the north side. That's opposite side to the Co-op. This is probably the original start of Hardy Lane before it was re-aligned to face Mauldeth Road.

Certainly more exploring to be done, especially down the embankment. Might find some old farm relics from Hardy Farm which stood nearby.

Pictures are of the end of Hardy Lane at Jackson's Boat, and something I spotted down the said embankment.