Southeastern Longsight

Technically, Longsight extends as far south as a line drawn along East Road, Pink Bank Lane and Nutsford Vale. Beyond that line is Levenshulme but I don't think that the residents, especially former residents of the area, would look at it that way. For many of the people who inhabited those streets in the block of land south of Stanley Grove and between Stockport Road and Pink Bank Lane their school was Crowcroft Park Primary and their recreation centered around Crowcroft Park and Longsight Cricket Club. So for the purposes of this site I'm setting the southern border as Mathews Lane.

I did not live in this part of Manchester so I'm not going to presume to describe it in the way I did for the north-eastern section. I will point out its prominent features and take you on a virtual trip down some of its streets. If you want a taste of what it was like to live here, read Graham Todd's memories of Longsight on the Memories Page.

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Kirkmanshulme Lane marks the northern edge of this area. This road has changed very little over the years. At the western end, where it meets Stockport Road, houses line the southern side of the road.


A terrace of homes with extremely long narrow rear gardens reaches as far as the access road to the Longsight Centre parking lot. In the fifties this road did not exist but it is located at the point where the terrace of houses along the road ends and a second terrace set back from the road begins and runs to the railway tracks. 



As you can see from this post card (generously donated by Dr. C. P. Stewart.) the houses along Kirkmanshulme Lane have stood in their present form for many years. 




After you drive under the railway bridge, Kirkmanshulme Lane used to bear to the right.


Today it involves a right turn.




On the corner with Pink Bank Lane in the 1950s stood Greenwood House. These flats were probably built in the 1930s.



You can see the flats on the right of the photograph below, donated by Les Cotton. They are in the background rising above the Longsight Entrance to Belle Vue. This picture was taken in the 70s.

Greenwood House Flats © Les Cotton
You can see them below in these images donated by Phil Auld. These photographs were taken in 1977 just prior to demolition. 


 
The small building in the centre of the complex is the washhouse.




In 2014 this corner is occupied by St. Peter's Catholic High School. 



This part of Longsight has a long industrial history dominated by Jackson's Brickworks and a number of other smaller operations.  Only fragments of them remain.  Further down Pink Bank Lane you will discover Gorebrook Works, once home to an engineering company but today occupied by Papyrus, a company dedicated to solving people's marketing problems.




The factory gets its name from the small river that flows through Longsight for the most part invisibly in a system of culverts.




There is little evidence of the presence of Jackson's Brickworks these days.  Houses have been built on the claypits and most of the buildings are gone.  However, tucked away at the bottom of Pink Bank Lane where it meets East Road the company's office still remains.



East Road is also home to Bickerdike Court, the only high-rise residential block in the district.  It has been recently refurbished and landscaped.




Almost next door is the Longsight Cricket Club or at least what is left of it.  The site used to be home to a cricket pitch and a lawn bowling club.  In recent years the cricket pitch was used for a new housing development and at the same time the bowing green was preserved and a new "pavilion" was built.




At the heart of this part of Longsight is Northmoor Road and the prominent feature of that road is the spectacular Beswick Co-op Building which features retail units on street level and an assembly hall above.  Among the occupants of the retail units is the Northmoor Community Centre




In the vicinity of the Co-op there is a collections of small shops.






This is an area where terraced housing predominates.  Here the strategy was to improve the housing stock not demolish it as they did north of Kirkmanshulme Lane.  Extensive work has been done to make these streets safe again for children to play outside with a variety of traffic calming strategies.
A short walk away at the corner of Parry Road and Rushford Street stands Stanley Grove Primary Academy School - formerly known as Stanley Grove School.
Its neighbour to the north on Rushford Street is the United Church of God which occupies a site that was once home to St. Cyprian's Church.
If you turn around and head back south to the corner of East Road and Northmoor Road, you encounter Northmoor Church, founded originally in 1911 and refreshed with a new building in 1959.






If you cross over East Road you encounter Crowcroft Park and beyond it Crowcroft Park Primary School.
At this point we have almost reached the furthest point of my study area.  However, a little diversion eastwards along Sutcliffe Street takes us past St. Richard's Catholic Church, founded in 1936 and still going strong.
If you turn right at the corner with Hemmons Road, you will see ahead of you the remnants on the United Coop Laundry.  The building is truncated from its former size and today it is home to a number of small businesses.




From here my tour heads back to Stockport Road and north again.  Just before we reach Crowcroft Park there is a large building called the Jain Community Centre which is home to the Jain community in Manchester and beyond.




Exposing the fact that we have in fact strayed into Levenshulme at this point, this was once the site of the Levenshulme Palais de Danse, shown below before its demolition.




A little further along the road, beside the park, you will encounter a small single-storey building that has had a number of commercial occupants over the years but was in fact originally occupied by the Manchester Police because it used to be the Crowcroft Park Police Station.  You see it below in April of 2014 when it was not at its best.




Beyond Crowcroft Park you enter the retail section of Stockport Road.  In the 1950s this was a busy area of large and small shops intermingled with pubs and cinemas.
 


The Queens cinema once stood at this point beside the open Gore Brook.





(The photograph above shows the Queens cinema.  It is displayed here with the permission of the Manchester Archives and Local Studies Department)

A side road leads to the pedestrian tunnel under the railway.




As you approach the junction with Stanley Grove, you pass "farmfoods" which occupies the former Woolworth's store.  You can see the art-deco facade behind the modern extension.




Today a Lidl store occupies the corner with Stanley Grove ....




..... which contrasts dramatically with earlier views of the junction.







Moving on towards Kirkmanshulme Lane you pass the former Church Inn (far left) .....



 .... a local government building that occupies the site of the former King's Opera House / Cinema ...






.... Longsight Library ....




.... and finally the Pakistani Cultural Centre.