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Sharing our memories of Heald Green
Last Updated 9th Feb 2025
Heald Green Farm
By Helen Morgan
First Published on Facebook 15/11/2024
Last Updated 02/02/2025
This was part of the Heald Green Estate comprising of Heald Green House, the farm with its land and the cottages on what is now Irvin Drive.
Back in 1839 Heald Green House was already built. The house and many acres around it were owned and occupied by Mr John Walker Knight. Directly behind the house and its driving lane were three acres of meadow called Barnfield, in plot number 160. It was here that the farmhouse and its buildings would later be built probably around c.1850/60.
Fig. 1 Tithe Map 1839
© Cheshire Tithe Maps
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This shows the old Styal Road, now Irvin Drive.
Heald Green House is the red building at the bottom with the driving lane and stables side on to it.
The square red building above was the beautiful Pear Tree Cottage.
To the right of that at an angle were cottages for the poor (not the ones there today).
The top red building was another house that stood where the entrance to the car park is now.
I believe that this house and Pear Tree Cottage housed farm workers too.
Fig. 2 Painting of Pear Tree Cottage
© Margaret Burns
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Fig. 3 The house stood where the car park entrance is now, off Irvin Drive.
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By 1851 John Walker Knight was in a debtor’s prison in Chester and Heald Green House lay empty. Farm labourers Joseph Moult and Peter Holbrook lived alongside.
On the 1851 census John Royle was farming 60 acres of land here. He and his wife Ellen, both 39 years of age, lived with son Charles aged 7 and 1 year old daughter Charlotte. William Cowsill aged 30 was an agricultural servant, along with 12 year old Joseph Moult.
By 1861, the census noted the name of “Heald Green Farm” and the Royle family was now farming 62 acres, employing two men and one boy. Farmer’s son Charles, now 17 worked alongside 23 year old James Hankinson, a carter. The boy was 12 year old farm servant James Harrison. 12 year old boys do a hard day’s graft in all weathers.....such hard times.
An ordnance survey map of Cheadle Hulme and District, surveyed in 1871-1872 and revised in 1907, showed the farm there.
On the 1871 census at “Heald Green Farm”, Peter Holbrook aged 63, still a farm labourer, lived with his wife 55 year old Ann. Around them another Moult family was grinding out a living from a hard day’s toil. 70 year old Jonas Moult and his 45 year old wife Sarah were farming “17 Cheshire acres and employing 1 man.” They lived with sons, 16 year old Edwin and 7 year old William and daughter Sarah aged 5. They employed 14 year old indoor farm servant, Samuel Mottershead.
By 1881, widower William Hudson aged 62, farmed 16 acres and lived with a domestic servant, Elizabeth Moult aged 29. Thomas Royle aged 43 was a farmer and hay dealer of “40 statute acres” (this means an acre as laid out in the law). He lived with his 46 year old wife Elizabeth, 16 year old daughter Ednor and farm labourer servant, 17 year old Henry Rogerson.
The Moult family was now farming 32 acres. Jonas had only aged 6 years in 10 years! Son William was a clerk to a gas company. Daughter Sarah was now 15 and they employed 17 year Sam Dearden as an indoor farm servant. Their granddaughter Lucy Dearden was 2 years of age and Charles Wilson was a 36 year old boarder.
All these farming families appear together on the census, so I am assuming they all lived on or around the farm and worked their respective holdings.
Fig. 4 Ordnance survey map 1888-1915.
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The Moult Family.
Whitsuntide church celebrations are a Manchester tradition from around 1801.
Children would dress up in new clothes, if parents could afford them. A new white dress for the girls and new trousers and shirts for the boys.
Parades behind church banners and bands, holding ribbons and flowers would follow around local streets, in the hope of new pennies from your neighbours would be given to you as you passed.
I can remember walking around Peel Hall in the 1960s with my nanna.
These adverts show what fun awaited the children attending a Moss Side church ... a ride out into our glorious Cheshire countryside no less.
Fig. 6 Manchester Evening News 6.6.1881
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Fig. 5 Manchester Evening News 2.6.1879
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Tragedy struck in 1883 when Jonas died in a freak accident, this is what happened.
Fig. 7 Northwich Guardian 3.10.1883
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Sarah his wife saw the whole thing unfold. Upon his arrival at the farm, he had asked her to get a beer for the driver. On returning with it she saw him fall headfirst. He was carried into the farm by the cart driver but had already died.
An inquest followed at the farm. It was made clear that Jonas had NOT been under the influence of drink and his death was misadventure. The accident was reported across the country in many local newspaper reports. It has to be remembered he was into his 80s by now and that was very old by the standards of the times.
What followed next was even worse. With her husband gone and no social safety net, Sarah spiralled into ill health and depression. Her family rallied around to try and help until a fateful day in 1884.
Fig. 8 Manchester Evening News 8.7.1884
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I have little doubt that the fact that the farm and all its belongings were going up for sale just a few days later, due to Jonas’ death, was the final straw. An inquest followed at the farm and was reported in the Stockport Advertiser and Guardian on 11th July. Sarah had been staying with her daughter on a farm in Hale, where she had been attended to by a doctor. Once home the daughter visited her every week and although she was low in spirits she was not thought to be in a state of mind to do any harm.
Sarah, the younger daughter, had a friend, called Louisa, visiting from Cheadle who had stayed overnight. She said that Mrs Moult appeared poorly on the Sunday, walking about in low spirits. She was worse on the Monday, staying in all day. Around 6pm that evening daughter Sarah left to visit a sick friend, leaving her mother with Louisa and her grandson who was in the back garden weeding. Louisa went out to help, leaving Sarah alone.
Within a ten minute window, Sarah had committed suicide and was found by her 6 year old grandson. Neighbours did what they could, but it was all in vain. The coroner recorded a verdict of “committed suicide whilst in an unsound state of mind.”
Then ... 17 year old Sarah was brought before the inquest’s jury, at the request of the gentlemen there and callously spoken to. The coroner spoke of her negligence for leaving her mother to “only see a sick friend”. Had she remained and “attended to her duty”, her mother’s life may have been spared. Sarah spoke up for herself although clearly affected. She told the coroner that her mother had kissed her goodbye in the usual manner and told her to go. Her brother had been due at the house that evening, shortly after she had left. She stated that “she had nothing to blame herself for and the jury were wrong if they thought she had been guilty of any neglect to her mother.”
Well done Sarah, that must have taken a lot of guts to speak to men like that in 1884 at such a tender age. Shocking times. Our social history at its worst.
Within a few days the farm, land and the house with all its furniture went up for sale.
Figs. 9 & 9A Runcorn Guardian 26.7.1884
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I know the text is not fabulous but everything is detailed from the farm equipment and the produce still growing in the fields to the items of furniture in the farmhouse. Hay, oats and potatoes in the fields, carts and wheels, pony and trap, superior land roller, turnip slicer, harnesses, weighing machine, mowing machine, wheelbarrows and other items too numerous to mention.
Antique mahogany chairs with hair seats and Prince of Wales feathers carved backs, pianoforte six octaves in a rosewood case, rocking chair, sofa, mahogany dining table, beds, mattresses, bolsters and pillows, clocks, sewing machine, carriage lamp ...
The Brock Family.
Although not a farming family, the Brocks lived here for a few years, before moving out to Cheadle by 1901. The son later returned to move into Brock Hurst, number 229 Finney Lane, where the Premier Inn now stands. Frederick Charles senior aged 33, was a jute and linen maufacturing agent. He lived at the farm with his 30 year old wife Margaret, their 4 year old son, Frederick Charles junior and 3 year old Margaret. Eleanor Horton, Margaret’s widowed mother at 63, also lived with them.
He may not have been a farmer but it looks like he had a sheep dog called Shep!
Fig. 10 Manchester Evening News 19.7.1893
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Tragedy hit this family too, what miserable times they were. Clara died aged 33.
Fig. 11 Stockport County Express 7.3.1896
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The Morrell Family.
On the 1901 census there were a lot of people at the farm, both family and servants. William Morrell was the head of the household at 52 years of age, along with 19 year old Arthur his son, 25 year old daughter, Jane Ellen Betsy and 16 year old nephew William Winkle Morrell, who was a farm labourer.
There were five servants. James Kent aged 17 was also a farm labourer. Widower Martin Rafferty, aged 68 from Ireland, was the horse keeper. 50 year old Ebenezer Swift was the cow keeper assisted by 30 year old Johnny Conway. 80 year old Richard Ratchford was a workman! Daughter Jane must have been run off her feet looking after all those men.
Tragedy also struck this family with a fire at the farm that they were not insured for.
£400 is about £60,000 today.
Fig. 12 Manchester Evening News 17.8.1903
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The farm, still in beautiful Cheshire countryside and in the middle of nowhere, attracted many there.
This is from an outing to the farm by Stockport Field Club, it sounds idyllic.
On leaving the tramcar at Gatley terminus, they walked through field paths and country roads to Peel Hall, which still had a house and moat at this time, before moving on for a “bountiful tea” at the farm.
Fig. 13 Cheshire Daily Echo 1.9.1904
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The Clarke Family.
By 1911 the Clarke family had arrived from Waterfall farm in Gatley. There, Samuel had been a farm bailiff, but now he was a farmer in his own right. Aged 57 he was assisted in the business by his wife Ann, also 57. They had 4 sons. James Alfred aged 29 and Robert Percy aged 28 worked on the farm. 22 year old Joseph Booth was a house painter and 14 year old John George was a gardener.
James Webster was a 29 year old servant. George Thomas Joseph Taylor aged 28, was a boarder and a station master. (Perhaps for Heald Green station that had opened in 1909 or somewhere on the Styal line?). The census noted that the farmhouse had seven rooms.
In 1913 the whole estate was put up for sale by trustees. This included Heald Green House, Heald Green farm and its land and the three terraced cottages on Styal Road. The sale would be in lots, if it did not all sell in one go.
Fig. 14 Northwich Guardian 13.6.1913
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These cottages, now on Irvin Drive, replaced the “poor houses”. Again, I do not have a definite date, but they were on an ordnance survey map surveyed in 1871-72 and revised in 1907.
Fig. 15 Brook, Fern and Rose cottages. © H Morgan 16.1.2023
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The “moneyed” Linney family bought Heald Green House but I am not sure about the cottages or the farm. In 1914 Samuel decided to leave farming and put the stock up for sale. He probably rented the farmhouse and land but what he produced or owned was his to sell. Had the farm been sold and he had to leave?
Fig. 16 Nantwich Chronicle 25.12.1914
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Whatever happened in the intervening years, the property came off the market in 1921.
Fig. 17 Stockport Advertiser and Guardian 15.4.1921
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Another Clarke Family.
From the 1921 census, I thought that Charles Clarke would be related to Samuel Clarke but I could not find a connection. I would have thought there would be one, especially as both spelt Clarke with an E, but Samuel was from Cheadle Hulme and Charles from Cranage. He was neither his brother nor his nephew.
Charles was a 41 year old farmer who along with his wife Emma, aged 34, lived at the farmhouse with their two sons. There was 5 year old Sidney and new baby Charles Stanley was just 6 months old. 19 year old William Whipp, what a name for his profession, was their horseman servant from Hulme.
This Clarke family would still be living there in 1939. However, there seems to have been other families there too.
Fig. 18 Stockport Advertiser and Guardian 9.9.1932
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Fig. 19 Wilmslow and Alderley Advertiser 15.5.1936
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In 1937 Emma died aged just 50.
Fig. 20 Alderley and Wilmslow Guardian 26.3.1937
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Fig. 21 Ordnance Survey Map Lancashire CXIA.6 Revised 1936 published 1937
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The 1939 register brought up a puzzling conundrum. I know that birth dates can be wrong and ages too, but this is an odd one.
Father Charles was now a widow and doing heavy work on the farm. His oldest son Sidney was a cabinet maker born in 1916. Another son Stanley was noted with green pen on the register as being Charles Stanley, born 14th September 1918 and was a ploughman also doing heavy work, now aged 21.
On the 1921 census Charles Stanley was noted as 6 months old, so he should be 18!? There was also another son called Eric who had been born in 1923 and was a farm worker too. Widow, Mrs Mary Bennett was their housekeeper. On this register the farm is called Heald Green House Farm. The Clarke family were at the farm over the WWII years.
Fig. 22 Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser 8.3.1940
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Fig. 23 Manchester Evening News 16.7.1943
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Charles Clarke died in 1948 no longer living at the farm. Probate was awarded to his youngest son Eric who was now a stonemason.
During those war years and into the late 1960s, Heald Green Nurseries was a business operating around the house and farm area. Residents recall beautiful carnations being sold there but it seems it was for tomatoes during the war.
Fig. 24 Stockport Advertiser and Guardian 13.3.1942
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Fig. 25 Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser 17.9.1948
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Note it is now classed as in Wythenshawe.
Fig. 26 Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser 14.4.1967
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“I remember the nursery, that was a short distance past Heald Green House, that was run by Mr Grainger? who lived on Rosslyn Road. I remember he grew chrysanthemums with other cut flowers. Walter Slack had the land in the 70s, so he may be of assistance."
- Phil Jones, Messenger 2024
Fig. 27 Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser 27.1.1950
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​Rhubarb was grown in Heald Green at Robinson’s farm and Matthew’s farm on Styal Road, not on Heald Green Farm. I am therefore assuming that this was just an auction at the farm.
Manchester Corporation and the 1950s.
Lord and Lady Hamilton owned Heald Green House and in 1958 sold it to the corporation to turn into old people’s flats, along with two acres of land and the outbuildings. For this they received half the proceeds and the release from a restrictive covenant.
The farmhouse and buildings may have been left to wrack and ruin after that, or pulled down, as I can find nothing in any newspapers after that time.
By 1984 there were still legal ramifications over this deal.
Fun Fact!
During the war rhubarb was used to make jam. Unbelievably swedes were also used to make jam with a bit of fruit flavouring!! Rhubarb was called “Baguley Beef” because a lot of money could be made by growing it.
In conversation with Walter Slack
The 1970s.
“I rented a field from Manchester Corporation from around 1974. Heald Green Nurseries had been there earlier, but the buildings were all derelict. I took over the field from potato merchants who had been there a while. The last of the greenhouses were pulled down just before I moved in. The only building I can remember behind Heald Green House was a brick outbuilding, like a big barn, side on to the house."
- Walter Slack, in conversation, 2024
The 1980s.
It seems the fields was being used for horses by the Wainwright family.
Fig. 28 Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser 20.11.1980
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Legal wranglings were to follow over the land, leading to a court case in 1991 that went on and on with a company called Norglen Ltd, against a company called Metier Property Holdings Ltd. I refer you to the article on Heald Green House for that.
The residents of Heald Green House were evicted in September 2022, to make way for more airport parking where the house stood and the land around that had been the farm. The house demolition has stalled for a while, becoming more of an eyesore as the months go by, with vandals and squatters. However once down, the land parallel to Styal Road up to the Hungry Horse pub will become rows of cars.
Now and then.
The corner of Irvin Drive/the Old Styal Road and Finney Lane.
Fig. 30 Styal Road 1962
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Fig. 29 Irvin Drive corner 2 3.2.2023
© H Morgan
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