This is a page for bits of interest that people send in, usually about Cheshire.

Vernon Mill  Stockport Fire   ( See David Hulme's excellent book  )

The Evening Telegraph and The Devon and Exeter Gazette and many more newspapers in November 1902 carried a report of a terrible fire that occurred in Stockport in 1902. The fire broke out at the extensive premises of Vernon Cotton Mills Company. There were 3 mills close together and the outbreak occurred in the centre of Mill No 2 and was caused by an electrical wiring fault.

The company employed over 500 workers and had hundreds of thousands of spindles. Most of the workers who could, made their escape by the nearest exits. The fire brigade arrived but the fire was so serious it filled the building very quickly. The workers on the upper floors were unable to escape because the fire stairs on the outside had been removed and many were overcome by smoke . Some of them lowered themselves down by ropes and dropped into sheets held by the crowd below.

Relatives of the workers arrived and were standing outside watching in distress. An escape ladder was brought but it was to short to reach the upper floors where many were trapped. A longer ladder was brought and 50 people escaped and were taken to Stockport Infirmary.

The fire brigade supported by colleagues from Manchester concentrated their efforts into saving the third mill.

The Manchester Evening News reported that the fire started shortly before 4pm. The fire took hold rapidly and many workers escaped the building. John Hampshire of Edgeley , a mill worker, told reporters how they broke windows and slurred down ropes as well as they could, getting terrible friction burns on their hands. Some men slurred down the ropes to the third storey where they were able to descend by a ladder. A spinner from the upper floors said that when they broke the windows they managed to get hold of a rope known in the mill as a rim band. They attached it to one the machines and used it climb down the rope to safety .

9 men were killed and many were injured and taken to hospital with burns, cuts and bruises. Some were allowed to go home and were treated as outpatients.

The fire continued to be newsworthy for many weeks. A charity football match was held near Stanbridge Terrace , near the home of mill worker Joseph Adshead. Joseph of 10, Stanbridge Terrace Heaton Norris escaped by means of a horse ladder and was admitted to hospital with burns. He did n't die immediately but never recovered from his injuries and died three years later in 1905 aged 23, leaving three children under the age of 5 - Joseph, Mary and Agnes . Thomas Hipwell died when the rope he was lowering himself on snapped and he fell to the ground .

There were collections for aid from all over England and even enquiries from King Edward VII himself. The Manchester Evening News reported in Feb 1903 that the mill was to be rebuilt and on May 8th 1903 that there were claims from the families for compensation.

Vernon Mill is now full of small retail outlets and still stands close to the River Goyt in Stockport.

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The Henshaw/ Brown  Smithy, Hulme Hall Road, Cheadle Hulme .

I am hugely grateful to Kay Brown, an intelligent, funny and very talented Cheadle Hulme local historian for sending this in. Her family were one of the Blacksmiths in Cheadle Hulme in times gone by. Read on for a superbly researched family account . Thank you Kay for your wonderful article and photos! 

THE HENSHAW & BROWN SMITHY, CHEADLE HULME, CHESHIRE

18th Century

Henry Henshaw was born in 1773, the eldest of the nine children of Daniel Henshaw and Mary Ashton. His parents were married in Mobberley in 1772 and were living in Hough, Wilmslow at the time of their deaths. Daniel was a blacksmith and Henry followed his father’s trade and also became a smith in Cheadle Hulme. He is recorded as having a Smithy in Occupation Road since 1812. This road is now known as Billy’s Lane and is off Heathbank Road leading to the allotments and playing fields. He lived in Heathbank House and was a small landowner as shown on the 1844 tithe map.

Henry married Hannah Woodall on the 17th December 1799 at St. Mary’s Church, Alderley. They had ten children Mary, Daniel, Ann, William, Thomas, Harriet, Elizabeth, Henry, Emma and James.

19th Century

Henry died in 1849 and left his property to his wife for her lifetime and upon her death it was to be sold and divided amongst his surviving children. Hannah died in 1857 and the property was sold per Henry’s wishes.

Both Henry and Hannah were interred in Edgeley Wesleyan Chapel which was later pulled down and is now the site of Somerfield’s car park on Castle Street, Edgeley. 

All the five sons became blacksmiths or wheelwrights. Daniel was the smith in Didsbury village; William and Thomas founded a successful business on Wellington Road South, almost opposite Georges Road, called The Stockport Lorry Works. Apart from the work associated with blacksmiths such as shoeing horses and wrought iron work, they became builders of tradesmen’s vehicles.

Henry and James became blacksmiths in Cheadle Hulme. Henry lived on Hulme Hall Road in the area known as Smithy Green although the exact location of the Smithy is not known. He was married to Mary Ann Robinson and they had four children, Beatrice Ann, Thomas, Daniel, William Henry and Susan. As he outlived his wife and children he left his estate to his Grandson Thomas Henry Kitchen, the only child of his daughter Susan Kitchen.

James the youngest son bought the four cottages and Smithy on Hulme Hall Road from his brother Thomas in 1857. It is almost opposite Pinfold Farm. He was married to Jane Fallows on the 19th February 1844 at Manchester Cathedral. They had four children, Sarah, Eliza, John Henry and Daniel. James died in 1869 and Jane in 1887. Both are buried in All Saints Churchyard, Cheadle Hulme along with their children John Henry, Eliza & Daniel. Their granddaughter Sarah Jane is in the same grave.

The four cottages and Smithy were willed to the four children and as Daniel was a blacksmith like his father, he naturally was given the cottage that was attached to the Smithy. He died in 1933.Only Sarah was to marry and that was to Thomas Brown, a silk weaver born in Handforth.

Sarah’s cottage was leased as she and Thomas lived at Nos. 102 and 104 Hulme Hall Road in the area of Smithy Green. One of the cottage’s front rooms became a grocer’s shop. This was probably a more profitable occupation with the decline of the silk industry. Aunt Edith remembered visiting them as a small child and seeing the loom upstairs in a back room. She also recalled that they used to walk the 8 miles to Macclesfield for their materials and back again with the finished cloth.

Thomas was the son of James Brown and Ellen Bibby of Handforth. He was born in 1821 and had four older brothers, William, James, John, Joseph and Henry and two sisters Hannah & Harriet.

IGI

According to the International Genealogical Index (IGI) now familysearch.org. members of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) filmed the registers at Dean Row Unitarian Chapel and the first four sons were baptised there. I have been unable to find records of the baptisms of the other children. I cannot trace William after the 1841 census.

James was married to Ann Wright and they had six children, Mary, John, Ann, Margaret Ellen, James and John. The family lived on Grove Lane and James was a handloom weaver. 

John was also a weaver and he was married firstly to Esther Brown by whom he had five children, James, John, Margaret, Thomas and Ann. They lived in the area known as Lane End. James married his second wife Mary who gave him another two sons, Samuel and Joseph.

Joseph was employed as an agricultural labourer and lived in Adswood with his first wife Sarah Bancroft. They had three children, Ellen, Joshua and John. His second wife was Hannah Isherwood, a widow, with a daughter called Betty. The family had now moved to Smithy Green and Joseph was a silk weaver. At the time of the 1971 census Joseph had married his third wife Martha Bancroft and was now a gardener by trade living at 100, Hulme Hall Road. 

When Sarah Henshaw married Thomas Brown on the 4th July 1864 at St Thomas’s Church, Heaton Norris, he was a widower having been previously married to Sarah Bancroft (another well known local family) and by whom he had three daughters, Emma, Sarah Ellen and Ruth. Sarah Henshaw was twenty-three years younger than Thomas. He was a good friend of Henry Henshaw, Sarah’s uncle, so that it probably how they met. Thomas & Sarah had three sons, James Henry, Tom and Arthur. James Henry became a schoolteacher and moved to Kings Lymm. Tom died in infancy and Arthur became a Master Plumber with his own business in Manchester Bradstock & Brown.

Arthur married Edith Cadman and had five children, Tom, Frank (who died in infancy), Leonard who joined the 11th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment and was reported as missing in action in Belgium during the 1914-1918 war, Edith and Alice both now deceased and buried in the family grave with their parents in All Saints churchyard. Unfortunately, Arthur’s wife Edith had a severe stroke and was bedridden for seventeen years so he had to sell his part of the business to look after his wife and children and also pay for nursing care.

Thomas Brown had built two houses next to the cottages ( above right ) in 1901. His son Arthur lived in no. 11 (now 31) with his wife and daughter Alice. When Thomas died in 1902 he left these two properties along with nos. 102 and 104, Hulme Hall Road to his wife Sarah.

I assume that 102 & 104 were sold as they were not included in Sarah’s will. Prior to the 1930’s this part of Hulme Hall Road was a cart track with fields opposite and as there were so few houses along the road the cottages and the two houses were originally numbered 11 to 19. Because more houses have now been built from the traffic lights at Albert Road, the properties were re-numbered 31 to 41.

Eliza Henshaw had an illegitimate daughter Sarah Jane and when Eliza, John Henry and Daniel died they all left their property to her. As she never married she in turn willed it to her friend and relative Tom Brown.

Tom Brown was also a Master Plumber and his business was run from his premises in the Smithy workshop. He employed two men, Geoff Burgess, whose son Robert was one of our local postmen and William (Bill) Green who was well known for his excellent paintings of Cheadle Hulme buildings and scenery.  Tom and his wife had two children and the houses and cottages are still owned and lived in by three generations of the Brown/Henshaw family. 

The Smithy was pulled down in 1960 and a garage built in its place. The original anvil from the Smithy is still in one of the gardens.

I find it strange that our cottages and in particular the Smithy are not mentioned in any local history books bearing in mind that the property is shown on the 1844 Tithe map and is also shown on an 1909 OS map.

If you have any information or want to comment, please contact me on here and I shall forward it to Kay Brown.

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Traditional Cheshire Recipes

Egg dropped in cheese

A very good way to eat your left over bits of cheese .

1  egg

bits of cheese

milk

Place the bits of cheese in small a pan and just cover gently with milk.

When milk boils drop an egg in and poach the egg in the cheese mixture.

Eat with a slice of bread.

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Cheshire Cheese Soup

1 pint of chicken stock

1 lb potatoes, diced

2 leeks chopped

1 tbsp oatmeal

4 oz Cheshire cheese,

Season to taste

Bring all the chopped vegetables to the boil in the stock and simmer for 20 mins.

Liquidise or sieve if you want to be traditional.

Add 1 tbs oatmeal and simmer for five mins . Add the crumbled cheese before serving.

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Cheshire Cheese and Asparagus Charlotte

Ingredients

 • 4 Slices of buttered bread

 • 298 g 10oz fresh Cheshire asparagus spears, cooked

 • 175 g ( 5 oz) Cheshire cheese

 • 2 large eggs

 • 568 ml (1 pint) milk

 • Salt and black pepper

Method

Cut the crusts from the buttered bread

Place a layer of bread in a buttered dish . Layer with asparagus spears and half the grated cheese.

Cover with remaining bread and cheese and season.

Beat together the eggs and milk . Pour over the bread in the dish and leave to stand for 15 minutes. Top with grated

cheese  and bake 180°C (375°F) or Gas 4/ 5 for about 50 minutes or until set .

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Cheshire Lamb Crumble

1 lb minced lamb

 1 medium onion,

 1 tbsp tomato puree

 1/2 pt veg stock or water

 salt and black pepper

 2 oz hard margarine

4 oz flour

 2 oz Cheshire cheese, crumbled

Cook the minced lamb with onions and puree in the stock in a pan for about 15 mins .

Transfer to an oven proof dish

Rub the fat, flour and seasoning together to make a crumble topping. Add crumbled cheshire cheese

Cover the meat mixture with crumble topping and bake for about 30 mins 180 C gas 4/ 5

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Cheshire potted pigeon

3 pigeons

seasoning

melted butter

Clean pigeons

Boil in a pan until the meat leaves the bones

Mince the meat finely

Season and moisten with stock

Press into pots and cover with melted butter to seal .

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Cheshire Fidget Pie

6 ozs pastry

1lb cooking apples

8 ozs chopped onions

12 ozs bacon chopped

Black pepper to taste

4 oz water

Line the dish with pastry

Cook the bacon and onions quickly

Add to the dish with the apples and season . Add the water.

Cover with pastry

Cook on 180C gas 4/5 for about 30 35 mins til pastry is brown.

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Swede and Cheshire Cheese bake

1 ozs plain flour

seasoning to taste

1 lb diced swede ,

1 oz margarine or butter

6oz Cheshire cheese, crumbled

1 pt single cream

Coat the diced swede in the chosen seasoning and flour

Place alternate layers of swede and crumbled cheese in a dish dot with marg or butter and cover with cream

Cover with foil

Bake for 75- mins  on 160C gas 3/4

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Cheshire Rabbit Brawn

1 large prepared rabbit

 2 pig’s trotters

seasoning to taste

 water

Boil the trotters for 2 hours

Add the rabbit and cook for another 2 hours

Remove all the meat from bones and cool

Save the stock

Place all the meat into a mould

Cover with stock and set

Eat cold.

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Cheshire Parkin

8 oz oatmeal

3 oz SR flour

2 oz sugar

1 tsp ginger

8 oz syrup

4 oz margarine

3 fl oz milk

Mix the oatmeal, flour sugar and ginger together

Melt the fat and add to the mixture

Add the milk and syrup and mix together

Put in an 8 inch tin . Cover the top with baking paper

Cook on 180 C gas 4/5 for about 75 mins

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Cheshire Apple Shortbread ( any fruit can be used )

4  medium size Cheshire cooking apples

4 oz caster sugar

squeeze  of lemon juice

10oz flour

7 oz unsalted butter

3 oz icing sugar

Peel and slice the apples and layer in a dish covered with caster sugar and lemon

juice

Beat butter and icing sugar together and add flour. Gather  together in a plastic bag and press the mixture out inside the bag to fit the  top of the dish.

Cut the plastic bag and ease the shortbread out and lay it top of the apples.

 Cook

Elec 180C Gas 4/5 for about 40 mins or until cooked and golden brown

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The Stockport Riots of June 1852 made national and international news.

The riots started as an attack on the Irish Catholics of the town by the local community and resulted in one death, an Irishman named Michael Moran, 23, several injuries, the destruction of 2 catholic chapels and several arrests and subsequent jail sentences. Michael Moran had left his brother in law's, James Hannigan, house supposedly under police protection and been hit on the head with a piece of wood. It was later discovered he had been killed by a fellow Irishman.

There was much discontent in the town when Irish families, starved in the famine, had come to Stockport looking for work in the mills. Their hard work was resented by the local community and there were many jealous disturbances.

At this time, religious processions which used icons or clergymen in vestments were banned. But each year, the Irish community held a legal procession, with no icons or clergy in vestments, for the children in the three local Catholic schools.

The Sunday before the riots, the 17th annual catholic procession had taken place amidst the usual verbal attacks on the children by the community. The following afternoon, the local Protestant Association had held a procession carrying an effigy of a priest and anti -catholic placards. The Freeman's Journal July 3rd 1852 in an investigative report on the riots found that the children's procession was not the cause of the riots but that it had started as an attack on Irishmen in the Bishop Blaise ( Lower Hillgate ) pub the previous evening.

The Glasgow Herald of July 2nd 1852 however states that, a young Englishman shouted abuse at the Catholic priest watching the Catholic procession and when this young man went into the Bishop Blaise ( then called The Gladstone ) pub the following night he was a 'marked man.' This was the start of the riot but it seems that the town was a powder keg waiting to ignite. The Irish and local community were set for battle. Many buildings were destroyed, Irish homes on Rock Row were destroyed, Catholic churches were looted and destroyed. There would appear to be many causes; poor social conditions, racist Anti-Irish feelings, employment problems, political agitation, fear, alcohol and an ignorant misunderstanding of what constitutes a legal procession.

The rioters marched on the Catholic chapel at Edgeley intent on murdering Catholic Canon Randolph Frith who had to take refuge with protestant friends in the town. The house and the chapel were totally destroyed, and alcohol stolen before the rioters then marched on to destroy St Michael's Catholic chapel in the Park, a few hundreds yards from the police station. The military were called and The Riot Act was read. The Irish community had to leave their homes in Rock Row and camp in Crookilley Woods in nearby Brinnington for safety after this destruction of their church, and worshipped in the ruins of the Catholic Chapel at Edgeley. The Church registers before this time were destroyed.

The Daily News in 1852 found that there was no provocation on the part of the Catholics. The procession held no sectarian symbols and was an expression of justifiable pride of the Catholics in the tidy and intelligent appearance of their children attending the schools. It was a display which in a free and enlightened state, all have a right to make.

The Derby Mercury reported the trials. George Pell, William Buttery and Mark Gleave received the largest sentences for incitement and attacks on Catholic chapels receiving between 18 months and two years hard labour between them.

The Freeman's Journal reported in 1852 that Canon Frith had arrived in Dublin with a letter from The Bishop in Shropshire asking for financial help to build a church to help the Irish Catholics of Stockport. With his usual zeal and enthusiasm, he had rebuilt the church named St Philip and St James within a year. The church is now called Our Lady and the Apostles and stands at the top of Greek St, Shaw Heath and Castle St at the roundabout.

The names Philip and James were retained for future Catholic ventures in Stockport namely St Philip's Church and St James School