420 



GROWTH OF MAXriIKSTKH. 



PART V. 



the English opium-eater, who was brought up in Ohorlton 

 Row. De Quincey describes the home of his childhood 

 as a solitary house, " beyond which was nothing but a 

 cluster of cottages, composing the little hamlet of Green- 

 hill." It was connected by a winding lane with the 

 Rusholme road. The house, called Greenheys the nu- 

 cleus of an immense suburban district built by De 

 Quincey's father, " was then," he says, " a clear mile from 

 the outskirts of Manchester," Princess Street being then 

 the termination of the town on that side. 1 Now it is en- 

 veloped by buildings in all directions, and nothing of the 

 former rural character of the neighbourhood remains but 

 the names of Greenhill, Rusholme, and Greenheys. 



Coming down to the second expansion of Manchester, 

 as exhibited on our plan, it will be observed that a con- 

 siderable increase of buildings had taken place in the 

 interval between 1770 and 1804. The greater part of 

 the town was then contained in the area bounded by 

 Deansgate, the crooked lanes leading to Princess Street, 

 Bond Street, and Dand Street, to the Rochdale Canal, 

 and round by Ancoats Lane (now Great Ancoats Street) 

 and Swan Street, to Long Millgate, then a steep narrow 

 lane forming the great highway into North Lancashire. 

 Very few buildings existed outside the irregular quad- 

 rangle indicated by the streets we have named. The 

 straggling houses of Deansgate, which were principally 

 of timber, ended at Knott Mill. A few dye-works stood 

 at intervals along the Medlock, now densely occupied 

 with buildings for miles along both banks. Salford had 

 not yet extended to St. Stephen's Street in one direction, 

 nor above half way to Broughton Bridge in another. 2 

 The comparatively limited spaces thus indicated sufficed, 



1 De Quincey's ' Autobiographic 

 Sketches,' pp. 34, 48. 



2 The corner of Irwell Street, Sal- 

 ford, as recently as 1828, was occupied 

 by an old canal " flat," tenanted by an 

 eccentric character, after whom it was 



designated " Bannister's Ship." Op- 

 posite it was a row of cottages with 

 gardens in front. Oldfield and Ordsall 

 Lanes were country roads, and fhc 

 streets adjacent to them were not as 

 yet in existence. 



