Events
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Wythenshawe Hall - 
22nd February 2025 - AGM at Manchester Art Gallery
I hereby give notice that the ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the Society will take place on SATURDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2025 at 1 pm at the Manchester Art Gallery, following a talk by Hannah Williamson, Fine Arts Curator, about The Old Manchester Collection at 11am.
AGENDA
Annual General Meeting 2025
1. Apologies for absence
2. Minutes of the AGM 2024
3. Matters arising
4. Proposed changes to the constitution
5. Subscription rates for 2026, proposed increase of £5
6. Officers’ reports for 2024
6.1 President
6.2 Chairman
6.2 Transactions editor
6.2 Events organizer
7.
On Sunday 9th March at 12.30pm we are offering a private tour conducted by Kelvin Platt of the Museum and from LCAS, Andrew Frazer.
We are being given an opportunity to see how transport in Greater Manchester has changed through the ages from the horse drawn coach to more modern buses. That might just interest our male members but what about our female members?
I visited recently and took a trip down Memory Lane, all kinds of uniforms and ticket machines are on show, they even have some old office sets showing offices how they were in the fifties and sixties. Really fascinating stuff. Well worth the time for all members not just for the boys.
The fees payable on the day are £5 for members and £6 for non members, these will be subsidised fees.
I do need to give the museum an idea of how many will be coming along so please let me know as soon as you can.
Parking is possible on the road outside on Sundays or failing that at The Fort Shopping, local buses are also available.
The Museum has a shop selling souvenirs and a café for hot drinks and snacks. All in all a good afternoon out.
If you need any further information let me know and please check out their website.
12th March 2025 - Zoom Talk by Nicola Smith Nicola will give a zoom talk on her subject from our 2024 Research Grant
More details to follow
16.3.25 Local History Fair
As part of our 20th anniversary celebrations in 2025, Holcombe Moor Heritage Group are planning to organise a Local History Fair on Sunday 16th March 2025, at Greenmount Old School, Greenmount, Bury, BL8 4DS. The event will be a range of displays from various local history organisations and attractions and will be open to the public to find out more about the amazing local history groups, events and places in the area. We are planning for the event to run from 11.00am until 4.00pm. We will be serving light refreshments and are hoping to have a stall selling books about history. Exhibitors may also sell their publications if available. The event will be widely publicised and we are hoping it will attract a large number of visitors interested in finding out more about local history. We are hoping to have up to forty exhibitors.
18th March 2025 - Guided tour of Wardley Hall Unfortunately the tour on the 9th January was cancelled due to the weather.
The new tour is now Tuesday 18th March at 1.30pm
We are priveldged to offer thirty of our members a chance to go inside this historic building. Plese let me have your names well in advance to ensure your place on this tour.
Wardley Hall is the official residence of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford, which stands in a wooded estate in Worsley, six miles west of Manchester. The Hall has been home to the Bishop of Salford since 1930 when it was gifted to the diocese, after it purchased the surrounding land for a new Catholic cemetery.
The present Hall, built by Thurstan Tyldesley, during the reign of King Edward VI (1547–1553), stands on the site of a house dating from the year 1300. The house remained in the Tyldesley family until the late 1500s.
By 1601 the Hall and its surrounding estate had come into the possession of Rogers Downes, the first Lord of Wardley. Wardley Hall remained in the possession of the Downes family for three regenerations.
In the 1760 Francis, the third Duke of Bridgewater, known as the “Canal Maker”, bought Wardley and other estates in Worsley, Barton, Monton, Hindley, Westhoughton and Pemberton.
He died in 1803 and in his will left, in trust, part of the estates to his nephew the Marquis of Stafford and the remainder to the Marquis’ second son, Francis Leveson-Gower. He was created the first Earl of Ellesmere in 1846 and died in 1857. He was succeeded by his son George Granville Francis, who died only five years later in 1862. The third Earl was his son, Francis Charles Granville, who became owner of the Worsley part of the estates when the Bridgewater Trust closed in 1903 – exactly a hundred years after its creation.
In the meantime, the occupants of Wardley Hall had suffered changing fortunes and were guilty of acts of vandalism which, fortunately, were not as bad as those at many other ancient Halls. The Main Hall was divided to create smaller rooms and the ceiling was reduced by the addition of an upper floor, thus forming what is now known as the Upper Hall.
In 1894 a team of restorers carried out a cleaning-up programme. The east wing was, at this time, being used as cottages, stables, coal-house and workers’ rooms, but in 1903 the then Earl of Ellesmere had these removed to the nearby farmhouse.
In 1919 or 1920, Captain Thomas Nuttall, while still serving with the Royal Field Artillery in Germany, took over the tenancy of the Hall and in 1924 bought the Hall and estate for the sum of £5,000. However, he decided to move when the plans for the new East Lancashire Road, linking Manchester with Liverpool, showed that this pioneer motorway would cut through the estate.
When Captain Nuttall first offered the Hall and grounds to the Roman Catholics in 1928, it was felt that the finances of the diocese could not support such a transaction, but, when in 1929, it became know that the diocese was looking to buy land on the west side of Manchester for use as a cemetery, Captain Nuttall’s representatives reopened the negotiations.
Eventually, on 12th May 1930, the deal was completed, the diocese agreed to pay a price of £7,500 for the purchase of the land for the cemetery, and Captain Nuttall offered the hall and its surrounding land to the Diocese as a gift, on condition that it be maintained in keeping with its ancient and venerable state.
Since that time until the present day the Hall has been used as the residence for the bishops of the Diocese.
22nd March 2025 Fair at Central Library Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society - Annual Fair
9th April 2025 Zoom talk 3.00pm ‘I couldn’t get a job after that, so I started doing a lot of community work’: Reconstructing Working-class Women's Communities in new towns in Lancashire and Cheshire, c.1961-1989.
Eve is a fourth-year History PhD researcher at the University of Manchester, where she previously completed her BA and MA in History. Her doctoral project was funded by Economic and Social Research Council, and she currently holds a Royal Historical Society Centenary Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research. Her thesis is titled 'Women, the built environment, and life narratives: reconstructing the relationship between gender and state-led urban development through three new towns in North-West England, c.1961-1989'.
In this talk, Eve will explore the ways that working-class women's communities were constructed in Skelmersdale new town in Lancashire and Runcorn new town in Cheshire during the late twentieth century. Both these new towns were established in the 1960s to provide housing and jobs for people from Liverpool. To examine the new forms of community that emerged in Skelmersdale and Runcorn, Eve's talk will draw on archival material produced by local policymakers and urban planners, as well as oral history interviews that she has conducted with women who moved to the new towns during the 1970s and 1980s.
14th May 2025 Zoom Zoom talk b y Mike Nevell on Lindow Man
11th June 2025 3.00pm Zoom talk on Hoghton Tower
Hoghton Tower is an historic landmark in Preston, Lancashire. This talk given by Steve Spencer follows on from an aritcle he wrote in Transactions 114. Our Researtch Grant in 2024 was awarded to Jane Smith for her work on the project which saught to deepen our understanding of the North Entrance to the tower where it is believed a chapel predating 1565 once stood. The talk will report of the findings of that project.
We are hoping to follow on with a visit for members in Sewptember 2025.
15th October 2025 - Zoom Talk about Hoghton Tower Following on from our visit to Hoghton Tower we are hoping to arrange a Zoom talk.
12th November 2025 Zoom Talk Anne Charleworth Anne is a member of our society and has a published book Thomas Tyldesley and the Lancashire Plot. Details of the book can be found in our Publications section.
December
