Page 9 - Churches Chorlton

Sample Chapter.
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images drawn from picture postcards, and family albums.
And this was to have been the end of the introduction, but
then just as we were ready to go to print, I came across the
“battle of the trees”, in the garden of the catholic Priory, and
because the story has a contemporary ring to it and also
included St Peter’s Priory and a lost building, it had to be added
to the introduction.
In the April of 1897, more than a few residents of Chorlton
were moved to write to the Manchester Guardian, in defence of
a row of trees which were in danger of being demolished.
One correspondent described the plan to cut them down as
an “act of vandalism”, while another argued that the loss of
“the plantation of well grown trees which now graces the
garden adjoining St Peter’s Priory” highlighted a trend where
“Chorlton is growing so rapidly that green acres are
disappearing almost under the pressure of bricks and mortar,
and it seems more than a pity, nay almost a crime, to cut down
a single tree unless absolutely imperative”.**
The trees in question ran parallel to Barlow Moor Road, in
the garden of St Peter’s Priory, which had once been known as
Oakley, and even earlier as Oak Bank, and had been built in
the early 19th century as the home of William Morton.
Oak Bank was a
substantial building
standing in its own
grounds, close to the
modern junction of
Barlow Moor and
Wilbraham roads.
Nothing now exists
of the house but the
path leading to it,
which is now Needham
Avenue.
The house was
situated in a garden,
which covered the
area running on either Oakley 1894
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