SALFORD HUNDRED 



MANCHESTER 



the Irwell by Prince's Bridge. The London & North 

 Western Company's Exchange station, Manchester, 

 lies in Salford, in a bend of the Irwell. From this the 

 line runs south-west, mostly on arches, to Ordsall 

 Lane station, at which point it is joined by lines from 

 Manchester, and then proceeds west by Cross Lane 

 station to Liverpool. There are large goods yards at 

 this part of the line. The Lancashire and Yorkshire 

 Company's line from Manchester to Bolton and Bury 

 funs parallel with the other as far as Salford station," 

 jituated to the south of Chapel Street, on the road to 

 Albert Bridge ; it then proceeds west and north to 

 Pendleton, having large goods yards along the south 

 side, as well as a cattle station. There is a branch 

 line to the Ship Canal docks. 



Some Roman and other early remains have been 

 ■discovered at various times." 



Woden's Ford was 'a paved causeway across the 

 Irwell from Hulme to Salford.' " 



The oldest part of the town is the triangular area 

 formed by Chapel Street, Gravel Lane, and Green- 

 ^ate ; much of it is occupied by the Exchange station. 

 Greengate was continued north by Springfield Lane. 

 In the centre of Greengate, near the junction with 

 Gravel Lane, stood the Court House, with the cross 

 at the east end. The Hearth Tax return of 1666 

 records a total of 312 hearths liable. The largest 

 house was Ordsall Hall, then Colonel John Birch's, 

 which had nineteen hearths, and there were a 

 number of other considerable mansions." A plan of 

 the town in 1740 shows a line of houses along the 

 west side of Cross Lane ; also the mill and kiln to the 

 north-west of Ordsall Hall. 



The present St. Stephen's Street, which was not then 

 formed, may be taken to represent approximately 

 the western boundary of the town a century ago. The 

 New Bailey prison, built in 1787-90 and taken down 

 in 1 87 1, near the site of the Salford station, was at the 

 ■edge of the town. The plan of 1832 shows a con- 

 siderable development to the west of Ordsall Lane, 

 between Chapel Street — then known as White Cross 

 Bank, Bank Parade, and Broken Bank — and Regent 

 Road. Houses also stood by the Irwell, between 

 Adelphi Street and the river. The Town Hall and 

 market had been built ; there were numerous churches 

 -and schools, also an infantry barracks, which stood till 

 about ten years ago to the south-west of the junction 

 of Regent Road and Oldfield Road. There is no need 

 to dwell on the later history ; new streets have been 

 ■opened out and lined with houses and business pre- 

 mises, and a great improvement was effected by open- 

 ing the straight road above-mentioned from Blackfriars 

 Bridge to Broughton Bridge. 



Railways and docks now occupy a considerable 

 share of the area. There are also numerous factories 

 -and mills, many large engineering works, breweries, 

 jnd other very varied industries. 



Salford retains very few old buildings of any archi- 



tectural interest, the only one necessary to mention 

 here being the Bull's Head Inn in Greengate, a 

 picturesque timber-and- plaster building on a stone 

 base with four gables to the street. It has suffered 

 a good deal from restoration and alterations, how- 

 ever, and the roofs are now covered with modern 

 slates. The south gable is built on crucks, an in- 

 teresting survival in a wilderness of brick and mortar. 

 The house, once the abode of the Aliens, has lost the 

 projecting porch and gable, which formerly gave it an 

 air of distinction, and has fallen on evil days. 



The town can boast no public buildings of archi- 

 tectural importance. The Town Hall in Bexley 

 Square, of which the foundation stone was laid by 

 Lord Bexley in August 1825, is a plain building with 

 a rather dignified classic front of the Doric order, 

 erected in 1825-7, but now found entirely inadequate 

 for the purposes of the borough. It was extended in 

 1847, 1853, and i860, but in 1 908 a proposal for 

 the erection of a new and adequate building was 

 put forward. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of 

 St. John is a good specimen of the decorated Gothic 

 style of the middle of the last century (1855), and 

 contains some fine work by E. W. Pugin. At the west 

 entrance to Peel Park are the handsome wrought-iron 

 gates formerly belonging to Strangeways Hall, and bear- 

 ing the arms of Lord Ducie. A great number of good 

 well-built early I gth-century brick houses yet remain 

 in the town, many of them with well-designed door- 

 ways, but the majority have now been abandoned as 

 town residences, and are occupied as offices and for 

 other business purposes. 



Henry Clarke, LL.D., a mathematician, was born 

 at Salford in 1743 ; he became professor in the 

 Military Academy, and died in 1818." William 

 Harrison, a distinguished Manx antiquary, was born 

 at Salford in 1802 ; he died in 1884." Richard 

 Wright Procter, barber and author, who did much to 

 preserve the memories of old Manchester, was born in 

 Salford in 1816, and died in 1 8 8 1 .'* James Pres- 

 cott Joule, the eminent physicist who determined the 

 mechanical equivalent of heat, was born at Salford in 

 1818. He died in 1889." Henry James Holding, 

 artist, was another native, 1833-72." Joseph Kay, 

 economist, was born at Ordsall Cottage in 1821 ; he 

 was judge of the Salford Court of Record from 1862 

 till his death in 1878." William Thompson Watkin, 

 born at Salford in 1836, became an authority on the 

 Roman remains of the district, publishing Roman 

 Lancashire in 1883 and Roman Cheshire in 1886. He 

 spent most of his life in Liverpool, where he died in 

 1888.'" 



Before the Conquest SALFORD was 

 MJNOR the head of a hundred and a royal manor, 

 being held by King Edward in 1066, 

 when it was assessed as 3 hides and 12 plough-lands, 

 waste, and had a forest 3 leagues square, containing 

 heys and eyries of hawks.*' The manor was thus 



'" This station was the terminus of the 

 line when first formed in 1838 ; the ex- 

 tension to Victoria Station was effected six 

 years later. 



" Watkin, Roman Lanes. 38 ; Lanes, and 

 Ches. Antiq. Soc. v, 329 ; x, 251. 



12 Thus Barritt the antiquary, who in- 

 vented the name. The ford is marked on 

 ■the plan of 1740. 'Woden's Cave,' in 

 Ordsall, was near the Salford end. See 

 Manch. Guardian N. and Q. no. 749 ; 

 Hibbert-Ware, Manch. Foundations, i, 5-7. 



18 Subs. R. 250-9. Dr. Chadwick 

 had 12 hearths, Robert Birch and Alexan- 

 der Davie 10 each. Major John Byrom 9, 

 Richard Pennington and Hugh Johnson 

 8, William Tassle 7, Joshua Wilson, Wil- 

 liam Higginbotham, James Johnson, Mr. 

 Hewitt, and Dr. Davenport 6 each ; there 

 were four houses with 5 hearths, ten with 

 4, and fourteen with 3. 



1'' There are notices of him in Baines' 

 Lanes, and in Diet. Nat. Biog. 



205 



•' There is a notice of him in Diet, Nat, 

 Biog. 



1^ His works include Mem. of Maneb. 

 Streets and Bygone Manch. To the posthu- 

 mous edition of his Barber's Shop (1883) 

 is prefixed a memoir by Mr. W. E. A. 

 Axon ; see also Pal. Note Bk, i, 165, and 

 Diet. Nat, Biog. 



17 See Diet. Nat. Biog. 



13 Ibid. " Ibid. 20 Ibid. 



" V,C,H, Lanes, i, 287. 



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