Contents
Cale Green Park
Cale Green
Farm
Cricket
Lacrosse
Heath House
Bramall Mount
The Farmers
The
Davenport Club
'Wellington's Stables'
Heathfield
The Homestead
The Cottage
Carrington's
Hats
Stockport
High School
Joan
Bakewell's schooldays
Bell's Brewery
Cale Green Park
Cale Green Park is, in the wise words of Stockport Council.
'a formal Victorian style park enjoying close proximity to
public transport making the park available to a wide
community.' It owes its existence to a succession of
Stockport's wealthy public-spirited businessmen: Hatter
Samuel Ratcliffe Carrington, brewers Henry Bell senior and
junior, cotton waste dealer Samuel Rigby, not to mention
Stockport's twentieth-century councillors.

The pavilion
The name 'Cale Green Park' came into use in 1883 after Henry
Bell (senior) purchased the lease of the farm. He
immediately donated a large western section of the farmland,
alongside the railway line, to the Stockport Cricket and
Lacrosse clubs, on condition that the clubs pay for the
conversion. A pavilion was built, in the 'arts and
crafts' style of the period, and in enlarged form still
served in 2018.
Cricket

Stockport Cricket Club was founded in 1855. Its first
ground was on land off Hillgate, owned by Lord Vernon and
formerly farmed by John Bardsley who lived in nearby Cooper
Street; he later gave up farming and became an estate
agent. The farmland was covered by buildings, mostly
terraced houses on a new street named Charles Street.
A memorable match at the Hillgate ground took place in July
1878 between a Stockport team and the first Australian
touring team to visit Britain. A Stockport Cricket Club
history records a move to a ground on Greek Street, although
it is hard to see from maps of the time where this might
have been, before settling in 1883 at its current (2018)
home in Cale Green. Two bowling greens were created
alongside the pavilion.
Over the years the club has moved through a number of
leagues including the Manchester Association, Central
Lancashire league, Derbyshire and Cheshire League and the
club is currently a member of the Cheshire Pyramid System.
Some famous players mainly in the Central Lancashire days,
including Indian all-rounder Vinoo Mankad, who was
accommodated for the season in a caravan by the ground. He
became notorious for breaking the wicket at the bowler's end
with the ball if a batsman had moved too far down the pitch,
resulting in a 'run out' which many considered
unsportsmanlike.
England fast bowler Brian Statham also played for Stockport
before moving on to the Lancashire county team and test
match fame with England.
Cheshire County cricket club, founded in 1908, also used the
ground for some of their matches, between 1895 and 1953.
At the corner of the ground stands a memorial to the
eighteen members who lost their lives in the two world wars.
Lacrosse
Stockport Lacrosse Club, which was founded in 1876 as a
result of an exhibition tour organised by the Canadian
"founding father of the modern game', William George
Beers, also moved to the Cale Green site in 1883.,
with their own ground adjacent to the cricket ground.
Founded in 1876 it can claim to the oldest lacrosse club in
the world still in existence. Over the years lacrosse has
been a popular game in the area south of Manchester, being
taught in a number of schools.
The public park

The public part of the the park came into being in 1902,
inspired by Henry Bell junior (pictured above, as Mayor in
1908) who donated the land to the Council.
(The photograph used on Council information boards and
leaflets appears to be of an un-related Henry Bell who lived
in West Kirby.)

Mrs Emily Beatrice Bell, 1908

The stone in Cale Green Park commemorating Henry Bell's
gift.

Among the trees at the north end of the park stands a small
building, an original 'lodge' for the park-keeper, now
serving as an electrical substation.

The other original building in the park is a
shelter-cum-bandstand, seen above in an extract from an
early colour postcard printed in Germany before 1914.

The shelter remains an important feature: the picture above
shows it following refurbishment in 2018. The park,
which also includes a recently refurbished children's
playground, is supported and cared for by the very
active Friends
of Cale Green Park, who hold several events there each
year.
Heath House

Some time around 1950, a house was constructed by the
council in the park, near its northern edge, for a resident
park-keeper, and given the name 'Heath House'', despite the
existence of a house of that name in nearby Heath Road
and the supposed former name of 'Heathfield.'
Arguably, building a house was in contravention of Henry
Bell's conditions, but it served its purpose for many years.
Its final occupants were the family of a 'Council employee
associated with the management of Cale Green Park' in the
words of a Council report of 2014, by which date the house
had become empty.
Reportedly, the building had suffered from lack of
maintenance, but it was proposed to offer it for sale.
However, the sale never took place, the house remained
safely sealed against vandals, and in a Council plan for
2017-2010 it was slated for demolition, which was finally
carried out in 2018. The land is to revert to part of
the public park; a published plan proposes a wildflower
meadow.
Bramall Mount
The park was enlarged in the 1920s by the addition of part
of the grounds of Bramall Mount (118 Bramhall Lane), a large
villa built for the Rigby family, which had been donated to
the Council.
The land for the house, a corner of Mile End Farm, was
purchased by James Webster Rigby in 1851 from Lady Maria
Davenport; at that time it was part of Bramhall township and
adjoined the old route of Garner's Lane which formed the
boundary with Stockport until 1901. Further land was
purchased in 1860, after the original field had been
bisected by the railway in 1857.
James Webster Rigby was a cotton waste dealer, with premises
in Spring Bank Mill, a former cotton-spinning mill adjacent
to Stockport Edgeley station. He died in 1868, and the house
and firm passed down to his son Samuel Rigby (1846-1935),
who moved with his mother to a smaller house in Nursery
View, on Buxton Road in Great Moor, and later to 'The
Pines', Cornwall Road, Harrogate, Yorkshire where he died in
1935.

From c. 1923 to 1934 the occupant of the house was Edward
Hardcastle, a Stockport chemical manufacturer who may have
been a relative of the Rigbys, as the name Jonathan
Hardcastle appears on a document recording the 1851 sale.
On the death of Samuel Rigby the house with its land was
passed to Stockport Council, including the plot on the other
side of Bramhall Lane later known as 'Davenport Green'.
Bramhall Mount became the official residence of Stockport's
Parks Superintendent, while part of the land, including the
coach house adjacent to the railway was added to Cale Green
Park.
By 1939, the householder, and Parks
Superintendent, was Leslie Edgar Morgan (1897-1983),
who lived at Bramhall Mount with his wife Amy E. Morgan and
his father, the eccentrically-named Morgan Morgan
(1869-1941), who had been the Parks Superintendent for the
town of Crewe. Leslie had grown up in a house in that
town's famous Queens Park. He went on to join the Civil
Service as a Horticulturist on the Highways Engineering
Staff, Ministry of Transport. He was awarded the OBE in
1960.
By the late 1950s, the house had been converted to four
dwellings, and two additional buildings in the rear garden
added another six homes, still occupied in 2018.
The frontage of the house, apart from the elaborate
entrance, appears to have been altered from is
original, which was probably 'rendered' white in the same
way as Heathfield and had a different window layout. The
current brickwork of the house frontage is certainly modern,
not of the style used in the 1850s. Unfortunately,
although many photographs can be found of the view down
Bramhall Lane towards the house, in none of them is
the house visible. A search of the Council
archives may be in order.

The coach house became a base for Park staff, including a
mess room which is also used by the Friends of Cale Green
Park to serve refreshments on the special event days.
A large part of the newly-acquired grounds was developed for
sporting activities including a bowling green and tennis
courts, which survive in 2018, unlike a putting green which
long-time residents have recalled. In the 1990s, a
hard court for netball and similar sports was created, in
conjunction with Oriel Bank School which at that date
operated in converted houses in nearby Davenport Park. The
school closed in 2005, after which the court has seldom seen
use for its original purpose.
The Farmers
Cale Green Farm was principally a dairy farm, all its fields
being listed as grassland, the milk being sold around
the local area. The 1841 census indicates that the
tenant was Joseph Mayer, born in Stockport c. 1775.
The Mayer family were established in Cale Green; there is a
reference to a sermon by a 'Mr M. Mayer of Cale Green' in a
newspaper dated 1786.
Joseph gave his occupation as Cotton M[anufacturer]
suggesting that farming was something of sideline for him.
He lived on the farm with a housekeeper, Mary Downham, and
two domestic servants, as well as three agricultural
labourers: George Barlow (age 25), Isaac Barlow (14) and
Joseph Dykes (25).
Joseph Mayer was a person of some note in Stockport. He was
a part-owner, with Alexander Rooth and John Middleton, in
Hope Hill Mill, a spinning mill dating back to the late
eighteenth century. (An earlier partner had been Alexander
Bury). The mill, which stood on high ground, in an area
known as Hope Hill, at the junction of Georges Road and
Travis Brow, was demolished for the building of the Cheshire
Lines railway - which has itself since disappeared leaving
few traces - in the 1860s. The area is occupied in
2017 by a car showroom and some small business units, but
Rooth Street and Bury Street survive on the site as a memory
of the mill. (Meyer Street in Cale Green is spelled
differently, but there may be a connection.)
Bury, Rooth, Middleton and Mayer were all staunch
Methodists, and Joseph Mayer was much involved in the Sunday
School movement, as a teacher and founding father of the
large Stockport Sunday School building, which could
accommodate 5000 pupils, and was said to be the largest
Sunday School in the World. By 1851, Joseph Mayer had
retired and was living, with his faithful housekeeper Mary
Downham, and two other servants, Sarah Brandreth and Sarah
Ann Robotham, at 31 Hall Street in Stockport. He died in
1857.

An enlargement of the Tithe map shows the farmstead, with
the farm pond to the north; the building to the east, on the
same plot appears to be the house named 'The Homestead'.
The 1851 census records the tenant of Cale Green Farm as Charles
Robert Brady, aged 56, with wife Anne, and five
children, his mother-in-law, a governess and two
servants. Unusually for the time, he was not a
Stockport native, having been born in Orford, Suffolk.
The family had arrived in the Stockport area in 1837 when
Charles obtained a post as agent and farm manager for Thomas
Legh of Lyme Park. After a few years Charles took on a far
of his own, Castle Farm on Mile End Lane.
Charles described himself in 1851 as a farmer of 42 acres
employing two labourers, land agent and auctioneer. They had
a large family: the 1861 census for Cale Green Farm lists
their sons William Hollinshead Brady (age 27), Charles
Alldis Brady (26), and Charles Robert Brady junior (14) and
daughters Katherine Parr Brady (22), Helen Margaret Brady
(21), Sarah Barbara Brady (19), and Anne Elizabeth Brady
(17). The three elder girls were all described as
Governesses. At this time, Charles was 'Auctioneer, Valuer
and Farmer of 38 Acres'. The difference in acreage
perhaps reflects the fact that the building of the
railway, opened in 1857, had cut across the south-west
corner of the farmland.
Charles Robert Brady died in 1864; his widow Anne died in
1868. By 1871 their son Charles Alldis Brady
was the tenant. He gave his details as Land Agent,
farmer of 42 (?) acres, employing four men. With him was his
wife Harriet Holt Brady, children Charles Robert Brady
junior (aged 4) and Edith Mary Brady (aged 2).
The Brady family was well-established in the area by this
time as 'auctioneer, valuer, surveyor estate agent, and
dealer in agricultural implements, seeds, &c',
their office address - 17 Warren Street in the centre of
Stockport - appearing many times in newspaper
advertisements for house sales and similar. Charles Alldis
Brady eventually moved with his family to the adjacent farm,
known as 'Slain'. at that time in Cheadle township.
The tenant at Cale Green in 1881 was George Swinburne,
occupation 'farm bailiff', born in East Drayton,
Nottinghamshire c. 1832, with his wife Mary, daughter Lucy,
and a servant. By 1891 he had left the area to become
a farm labourer near Wath, Yorkshire.
In 1883 Henry Bell (senior) bought the farm and some of its
land from the Carringtons, by which date some of the
original farmland had already been used for the building of
the Stockport - Whaley Bridge railway (opened in 1857), and
for housing and sports use,
An auction notice lists the stock:
13 grand dairy cows in full profit,
two draught horses, two pigs, poultry, two stacks and shed
of excellent meadow and clover hay (about 40 tons), six
tons oat straw, six tons swede turnips, and an assortment
of modern agricultural implements.
The farmer in 1891 was Scottish-born John Gemmell, by
which time the acreage was very much reduced, but the dairy
farm selling its milk locally would still have been
viable. He was still there according to an 1896
directory, but by 1901 Samuel Taylor and his second
wife Hannah had taken over, destined to be the last farmers
at Cale Green. The Taylors had moved to Stockport from
the village of Butley Town in Cheshire with their daughter
Mary.
Samuel Taylor died in 1908, around the same time that
the farm site was earmarked for the construction of the new
High School. However, Hannah and Mary continued
farming, as a new farm was established as part of a housing
development in Davenport, in the triangle formed by
Oakfield, Beechfield and Elmfield Roads. The farmhouse,
named 'Oakfield' is listed in 1911 with Hannah as farmer,
daughters Mary and Jane as dairymaids, and a farm worker
Isaac Timperley. Jane had moved to Stockport from
Butley Town to help her mother. One imagines them
making the rounds of homes around Davenport, perhaps
dispensing it from churns carried on a yoke. Farming at
Oakfield did not last long, as more houses were built, but
the farmhouse, and an outbuilding which would have been its
shippon, survive in 2018.
Auction at Heathfield, 1944
From a Stockport newspaper correspondent:
On Tuesday afternoon I wandered into "Heathfield", Cale
Green, where an auction sale of the residue of household
furniture and outside effects was being conducted by Mr.
Marshall Bateman. It was not with the object if making
purchases that I paid this call, but rather to revive
memories of this residence and grounds so long the home of
Mr. Henry Bell, whose beneficence to the town will keep his
memory fresh for many years. The high wall surrounding the
spacious grounds and the emergence of the the owner's
handsome carriage and pair used to provide "Heathfield" with
a mysterious interest to us small boys of Cale Green. And
when subsequently I was permitted to enter the sylvan
enclosure the experience filled me with awe and envy for the
privileges which accompany wealth. The added years have
removed such foolish thoughts.
Now "Heathfield" belongs to you and me, through the gift of
Mr. Bell, and it remains only for our representatives on the
Borough Council to out it to such use as would please the
donor and the majority of the townspeople.
As to the auction, being the residue of the contents, there
was little of interest to be obtained. Perhaps the most
valuable article was a particularly handsome billiard table,
which I am told cost £300. Clubmen will be surprised to hear
that it was knocked down for £45 - and no purchase tax.
From the auction announcement on 15 February 1944:
Full size billiards table in magnificent carved oak frame,
by Waring & Gillow; 6ft 6in burr walnut sideboard;
oriental rosewood screen with silk work panel; two
couches in tapestry; mahogany dining table ; mahogany and
carved teak pedestals, carved oak side table; walnut toilet
stands; chest of drawers, brass and iron bedsteads;
toilet ware; adjustable bedside table; bed rest; mahogany
display and occasional tables; curbs; decorative ornaments;
mirrors; oak case mantel timepiece; baragraph by Thomas
Armstrong; a few pieces of solver and electro plate; bronze
figure ornaments; small quantities of glass, china and
dinner ware; kitchen utensils; food safe; ice chest;
pitch-pine cupboard; two Green's mowing machines; garden
roller; garden forcing frames and lights; T. and G. lean-to
shed with corrugated iron roof, ten garden seats,
approximate 2,000 plant pots, sizes 3in. to 24in; iron
2-wheel dandy and other items.

'Wellington's Stables'
The white-painted house which in 2018 is numbered No. 5 Cale
Green was originally a terrace of three cottages, Nos. 3, 5
and 7. The building possibly dates from the 1790s; the Land
Registry records that Joseph and John Carrington (members of
the Carrington hatting family) leased the land from William
Nicholson of Springfield House, Liverpool in 1799. The
Nicholson family had been landowners in the Stockport area
since a much-earlier William Nicholson purchased Wood Hall
in Reddish in 1551.
Lady McDougall was Hannah Roe, whose first husband was
William Nicholson and her second husband, from 1844,
was Colonel Sir Duncan MacDougall (1787-1862). The two
men were acquainted through their involvement in
the creation of the Lancashire Militia.
The tithe records of the time show the owner as 'Lady
McDougall' and the 'Occupier' as Samuel Christy.
At some stage, the Carringtons transferred the lease
to Samuel Christy, who was the head of the Christy's hatting
firm, based on a works on a site in Hillgate which was
also leased from Lady McDougal.
The cottages, like others in Cale Green were rented by
workers in the local hat industry. Samuel Christy lived in a
large house in Poynton, several miles from Stockport.

At some time, probably in the 1930s, No.3 Cale Green
was altered to include a tobacco and confectionery shop,
which became a popular 'tuck shop' for the pupils of the
nearby school.
The picture above dates from 1980, by which time the two
other cottages had fallen into disrepair, and the Council
was proposing to compulsory purchase the whole terrace, and
replace it with new flats.
However, Mrs Mary Bird, who ran the shop, objected strongly
to the proposal, invoking the legend that the historic
building was once used as stables for the Duke of
Wellington. The Local History Librarian was consulted and
suggested that there was a fashion for naming buildings
after Wellington, but doubted whether the great general ever
visited Cale Green.
With support for retention from local community groups, the
decision was passed to a Department of the Environment
inspector who ruled that Nos. 3 and 5 should remain. as they
'form an attractive part of the street scene ... well worth
attempting to keep and enhance'.

The whole building was retained, but without Mrs Bird's
shop. We understand that there was a fire during renovation
work. Close inspection of the building shows 'stretcher
bond' brickwork on part of the frontage, merging with the
old brick on the ends. Stercher bond was never used for
buildings in the 1790s, suggesting a drastic rebuild recent
times.
The building was sold in 1985 and by 2017 (above, from
Google streetview) it had become three homes, with access to
the outer two through doors in the end gables, but the row
is still very much recognisable and does indeed enhance this
historic area.
The Davenport Club

The building just visible behind the tree in this postcard
extract of the northern corner of the Park was the
home of the Davenport Club on Heath Road, which was built in
the Edwardian period, as a meeting place for the businessmen
of Davenport to meet, play snooker, and listen to
educational talks. Can any reader tell us more?
The Club was still operating in the 1980s, but by 1992 the
building had been demolished, replaced by a new
purpose-building for Happy Day Nursery, a business formerly
in a converted house at 136 Bramhall Lane which had been
operating since the 1970s. In 2017 the business was
purchased by the Kids Planet chain of nurseries.
Joan
Bakewell on Stockport High School, 1940s:
The rules were relentless, dragooning us in every
particular of behaviour ... Uniform even meant the same
indoor shoes for every pupil; hair-ribbons had to be navy
blue.
The heaviest burden was the no-talking rule: no talking on
the stairs, in the classroom,in the corridors, in assembly -
anywhere, in fact, except the playground. Each whisper in
the corridor, each hist of communication on the stairs was
quashed, conduct marks apportioned and lines of Cicero
copies out in detention.
(From Joan Bakewell, The Centre of the Bed: an
Autobiography. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1994.)
Note about Henry Bell in Old
Trafford
The 1891 census lists Henry Bell senior living at 470
Stretford Road, Old Trafford.
It was the house later numbered 472, one of a semi-detached
pair of houses known as 'Farnham Place'. The
neighbouring house was the home of a doctor, John
Kennedy. By the 1930s the two houses had been converted to
three shops - by 1961 no. 472 was Hullard Hall post office -
and were demolished in the 1980s, replaced by a new housing
development. The reason for the number change is that
in the late 1890s a new row of shops was built on an empty
plot alongside, numbered evens 456 to 470. (The new
no. 470 was form some years a cycle shop which also acted as
an office for the Manchester Clarion Cycle Club.)
Sources
Stockport
Library image archive
Cheshire
Tithe Maps online
Stockport Heritage Library press cuttings, ans files on the
Carringtons, Henry Bell, Highfield and the High School.
The British
Newspaper Archive and Ancestry.co.uk
websites
Terry Drabble. 'Hope Hill Mill'. comment on Rhodes
Family Website.
Mike Ogden. A History of Stockport Breweries. Neil
Richardson, 1987.
Penny McKnight. Stockport Hatting. Stockport MBC,
2000.
'An Old Felt Hatting Company'. Stockport Advertiser
Centenary Number, 31 March 1922.
List
of nineteenth century University of London examinees,
University of London Archives.
Josephine Sanderson. Stockport High School for Girls
1894-1974. Photocopy on file in Stockport Heritage
Library.
Stockport Cricket Club history website on archive.org
Manchester Mercury, 1 August 1786.
Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed
Gentry, Volume 2, London: Colburn, 1847 (Google books).
Thanks
This piece could not have been completed without the help
of:
Harold Cataquet of Friends of
Cale Green Park
Staff members of Heathfield: Richard Barraclough for
allowing a visit to the building, and Lynne Oversby for her
encouragement and the excellent photographs.
Colin Wilks of Stockport Cricket Club who kindly shared with
us the Club archives; also Peter Chappell and David Alison
for Cricket information.
Michael Brady for assistance with Brady family history.
Contributions
are very welcome:
info@davenportstation.org.uk
|

The Edwardian park which is such a welcome feature
of the Davenport / Cale Green area once was part of a
working farm. In this feature we tell some of the
story of that farm, its families, and the development of
today's landscape.
The is more to be told about this area: contributions
are very welcome.
Cale Green Farm

The area of Stockport known as Cale Green is said to be
named after a John Cale, who built the first house there,
but information about that gentleman is hard to locate. A
large part of the area was occupied by the pastures of Cale
Green Farm, whose farmhouse was on the site of the large
school building which stands there in 2017. The
Tithe Map extract above dates from the 1850s; the extent of
the farm at that time is marked in red. Bramhall Lane
runs north to south on the right-hand edge of the extract,
with the the original course of Garners Lane at the bottom.
Note the small triangular area to the east of Bramhall Lane,
which can still be traced by the back garden walls of
119-155 Bramhall Lane.
Historically, Cale Green lay on the southern edge of the
township of Stockport, adjacent to the boundary with
Bramhall which until 1901 followed the line of Kennerley
Road and the original route of Garner's Lane. To the
west was the boundary of Cheadle Bulkeley township. This
farm would been worked for centuries: some sources say
it was once part of the lands of the Davenports of Bramhall
Hall, but by the time of the tithe record, holdings of
the Davenport family within Stockport township had been
sold. We have not traced any pictures of the farm buildings,
although some surely must exist, even if only from the time
of their demolition. The farmhouse was probably a
much-altered timber-framed structure. For more history of
the farm, see The Farmers below.
At the time of the tithe survey the owner of the farm was
listed as 'Trustees of Dr Thompson'. Thomas Thompson had
recently purchased the farm on behalf of the Carrington
family, possibly the previous owner was local landowner Lord
Vernon, but we are not certain. In 1883 ownership of some of
the land passed to the Bell family, as we explain in the
sections that follow.

This map dated 1910 shows (under the words 'Cale Green Ward'
and south of the railway) what little remained in
agricultural use by c.1905, following the intrusion of the
railway in 1857, the creation of the lacrosse and
cricket grounds in the 1880s, the network of new streets,
and the opening of Cale Green Park in 1902. The small area
including the farmhouse, between the new streets Beech Road
and Beech Avenue, was earmarked as the site of the Stockport
High School for Girls, and an isolated area to the south of
the railway later became part of a council housing estate.
At the top of the extract, north of Cale Green, and never
part of the farm, is the large villa 'Heathfield' surrounded
by its extensive range of conservatories. The pond (said to
have been the site of 'ducking stool' punishments) has been
filled in, but the two pairs of semi-detached houses on its
site have yet to be built.
The old boundary of Stockport is marked, but since 1901 it
had been simply a ward and constituency boundary as the
Davenport area to the south had been absorbed into
Stockport. Garners Lane had been diverted in the 1880s
to cross the railway by the station bridge; its original
course, which followed the Stockport / Bramhall boundary,
ran behind the gardens of Heath Crescent. The triangular
area between the boundary and the railway formed the grounds
of Bramall Mount - see left-hand
column.
Heathfield

Across the road from the farmhouse stood - and still stands
in 2019 - a large villa shown on an 1870s map as as 'Heath
House' but always listed on census records as 'Heathfield',
built circa 1848-50 for Samuel Ratcliffe
Carrington, born in Marple in 1811, partner in the
nearby hat works. He leased the land from Lloyd Hesketh
Bamford Hesketh, whose family, related by marriage to the
Davenports, owned much land in the area.
The house is not shown on the Tithe map, but its plot is
described as 'house and pleasure garden.' Carrington lived
there in style with his large family and servants, and
became the owner of much land in the Cale Green area,
including eventually the whole of Cale Green Farm.
Samuel was a significant figure in the history of
Stockport, especially the Cale Green area. He and Thomas
continued to develop the firm with became 'S & T
Carrington.' He was a religious man; he attended the Hanover
Congregational Chapel in Stockport, and in the words of his
obituary, he 'took the greatest interest in the charitable
and benevolent institution of the town ... his purse was
always open to the demands of religion or philanthropy.' He
was one of the founders of the Stockport Town Mission, whose
members engaged in house-to-house visits, as well as
attending the Infirmary and Workhouse.
In 1848 he married Christiana Thompson in Taunton,
Somerset. Christiana was a daughter of Thomas Thompson
(1785-1865), a wealthy London stockbroker who had retired
early to live in style in a sixteenth-century manor house,
Poundisford Park, Somerset. Born in 1823, Christiana was one
of eight children, including her twin sister Elizabeth, and
Jemima Thompson who under her married name Jemima Luke wrote
a famous hymn 'I Think When I read that Sweet Story of Old'.
Thomas Thompson was a devout Congregationalist Christian,
heavily involved in missionary work; his life and work is
documented in a biography by his daughter.
Perhaps the old Carrington residence was not considered
appropriate by Thomas Thompson for the life-style of a
member of his family, as it was on her marriage to Samuel
that the large villa 'Heathfield' on land across the road
from the factory site was commissioned. In addition, it
seems that Thomas Thompson purchased for the couple the land
and buildings of Cale Green Farm, which is listed in the
1850 Tithe records as owned by 'Trustees of Dr Thompson'.
This would, as well as being a significant 'wedding
gift', provide an income from rental and a 'country
estate' safe from housing development.
Heathfield appears in the 1851 census with the family in
occupation: Samuel (aged 39), his wife Christiana (25),
daughter Charlotte Ellen Carrington (1) and son William
Edward Carrington (2 months), plus servants Sarah Hamilton
and Maria King. Samuel's mother Ellen continued to live on
the factory site in Cale Green; she was still there, aged
83, in 1861. The 1861 census for Heathfield records Samuel,
Christiana, sons Walter Thomas Carrington (7), Samuel
Herbert Carrington (5) and James Yates Carrington (4),
daughter Julia Christiana Carrington (infant), Cook Jane
Bagnall, Housemaid Martha Jones and two 'under-nurses' Mary
Anne Leigh and Elizabeth Dale.
The household in 1871 was Samuel Ratcliffe Carrington (age
59), Magistrate and Hat Manufacturer employing 259 hands;
son Walter Thomas Carrington (17), scholar; daughters Julia
Christiana Carrington (10) and Mary Elizabeth Carrington (7)
and son Cephas Howard Carrington (5). Serving them
were Sarah Plant (41), Head Nurse; Sarah Ninil (?) (36),
Cook, Esther Rutter (28), housemaid; Sarah Evans (27),
Waitress; Emma Stead (17), Under Nurse. Son William
Edward Carrington (20) was, on the Census day, staying at
the Palace Hotel in Buxton along with his sister Charlotte
and their mother Christiana.
The Carrington family dispersed: Samuel Carrington was
living at 'Eskdale' in Ainsdale near Southport when he died
in 1883.
By 1881 'Heathfield', and a large part of the farm, had been
sold to Henry Bell, a wealthy local brewer, but the
Carrington family continued to commission housing on the
parts of the farm adjacent to Bramhall Lane, and Beech Road,
Heath Road, and Heath Crescent came into being. The name
'Heath Crescent' for a short, straight, road seems to imply
an intention to extend, but this never happened.

Henry Bell, who was a sports enthusiast and
philanthropist, purchased the western part of the farm after
Samuel Carrington's death in 1883, and donated land to
Stockport Cricket Club and Stockport Lacrosse
Club. The portrait reproduced here, dated 1878,
is owned by Stockport Council, credited to local artist
Allan H. Fox, but it may be by his father Augustus Henry
Fox. Both lived and worked in their home at 36 Adswood
Lane West, a short distance from Heathfield. See also our Tasmania
Cottage feature. Henry Bell senior died in 1891.
Henry stayed in Heathfield until his death in 1943, and was
the originator of the public Cale Green Park as we know it
today. (See Bell's Brewery
below for more about the Bells.) He also continued to sell
land for housing, including an new street created in 1900
which became Heathfield Road.

The view of Heathfield from the drive on a winter's day.
Above c. 1910. Below, March 2018.
Henry Bell junior made over Heathfield to Stockport Council
in 1936 with a proviso that after his death it must be used
for educational purposes. Following his death in 1943,
there was some discussion between Council departments about
its future use, until it was decided to adapt the school as
an annexe to the nearby Stockport High School for Girls. It
opened in its new role in December 1946.
Additional buildings were erected in the grounds: a kitchen
and dining room in place of the orchard, and to the north
what appear to have been pre-fabricated classrooms on the
same T-shaped plan like those built on the playground of
Cale Green Primary School nearby. A sports field was
developed in the grounds, between the house and Bramhall
Lane; old maps and aerial views show that even before
the School took over the house it featured a running track,
which has since disappeared.
The field has never been built on, even along its frontage
to Bramhall Lane, according to the terms of Henry Bell
junior's gift. An open area on the opposite side of the road
known as Cale Green was also part of Heathfield's estate,
and has been retained for the benefit of the community, and
is known as Bell's Paddock, an area of mature trees with a
profusion of flowers in the spring. An unlikely local legend
has it that the horses which pulled Bell's brewery 'drays'
were buried there.
In 1974 a reorganisation of secondary education led to the
merger of the school with another girls' school, Fylde
Lodge: see the section on Stockport High
School below. Heathfield was then used, along
with the main school building, as Davenport Lower School and
later as an annexe of Stockport College of Further
Education. When no longer needed by the College the
Council looked for another use compatible with Henry Bell's
bequest. By the 1990s the National Health Service were
looking a replacement for the 'Darwen Wards' in the old St
Thomas's Hospital where conditions for recovering mental
health patients were described as 'gloomy' and 'prison-like'
with patients sleeping in open wards. The under-used
Cherry Tree Hospital was considered, but in 1995 the
decision was taken to take over Heathfield from the Council
and transform it into an 'oasis of calm' with individual
bedrooms for the patients.
The NHS took on the building in 1997 and transferred it to a
Huddersfield-based property company in a 'lease-back'
arrangement. It was re-built, involving considerable
alterations to the buildings, as a rehabilitation centre for
mental health patients as part of Stockport NHS Foundation
Trust; in 2006 its management was transferred to the
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, which provides mental
health and other specialist services across the Manchester
city region. As Heathfield
House Mental Health Rehabilitation Centre it still
flourishes in 2018.

The remaining original part of the main house is as
administration offices. Most of the interior is much
altered, the buildings themselves have been modified and
extra buildings have been added, but the room pictured
above, attached to the main house, which is used by
the Centre as a dining room, retains its original features
including wood carving and an elaborate plaster ceiling
including relief portraits of famous figures of the past
such as Shakespeare and Demosthenes. The room gives no
clues to its original function. Was it perhaps a
billiards room? A full-size billiard table was among the
items auctioned when the house was cleared.
To quote from a 2015
brochure:
Heathfield House is a mental health recovery and
rehabilitation unit that opened in 2006 and offers 19 beds
and three self-contained two studio flats. It is based in
a residential area of Stockport. The unit provides
intensive mental health rehabilitation and recovery in a
community based step-down environment. It is for men aged
18 to 65 years, who have a severe mental illness, such as
schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder, and who have been
difficult to engage in the past. The unit offers a two
year pathway and service users are discharged into
appropriate community-based supported accommodation or
independent living.
The Council have retained ownership of the playing field,
along with what was originally Heathfield's stable block and
coach house, which has its own driveway from Adswood Lane
East, and also two cottages adjacent to the drive which were
also part of the gift. In the 1990s there were
suggestions that it could be converted to housing, but it
was pointed out that this would meet Henry Bell's conditions
requiring community use. The building, which had suffered
much vandalism, was repaired for use by community groups,
and in 2018 is the base of SPARC - Stockport Progress and
Recovery Centre (formerly Stockport Day Centre). This
is a local voluntary organisation providing support to
adults in the Stockport area who experience mental health
problems.

Per Laborem ad Honorem: Through work to honour.

Aerial views: 1927 (above) and 2017 (below). The
main house was once twice its present size.

The modern buildings are the residential accommodation. A
single-storey block replaced the rear part of the house, we
believe this work was done when the NHS took over.
The Homestead

In 1872 a plot of land immediately south of the farmhouse,
containing a three-storey Georgian-style house named
'The Homestead', was sold (or perhaps leased) by Samuel
Ratcliffe Carrington to a Henry Smith. We cannot be certain
of his identity, due to the common nature of his name,
but he was probably Henry Smith, brewer, of the
Waterloo Brewery in Hall Street. The house was surely
extant before 1872, as it appears on the Tithe map, but its
history before 1872 is obscure. Perhaps it was used by
members of the Carrington family, or was included as part of
the farmstead in earlier records? A note with the photograph
says it was 'the first house in Cale Green, the home of John
Cale' but we cannot find any evidence that such a person
existed.
By 1881 the resident was Thomas Kirk, born in Epworth,
Lincolnshire, who in 1878 had lived nearby at Beech House in
Adswood Lane West. He is recorded in 1883 as a shirt
manufacturer. He died there in 1899; the next resident was
an electrical engineer, John W. Fletcher.
In 1911 the house was empty, but by 1914 the householder was
a Robert Hunt, and a directory for 1923 lists Mrs Hunt
- presumably his widow - as occupier. He may
have been Robert Hunt (1849-1920) the head of a
lithographic printing firm, who had previously lived in
Acomb Street. Manchester. The photograph
above is dated 1924; by the 1930s the house had
disappeared from the map, leaving an empty space which
remained for many years, used for a while as a
playground, before it was re-used in 1994 by the
nearby school for a new sports hall.

The gateposts remain as a reminder of the lost house. The
Homestead was the precursor to many more houses which in the
following decade were to cover much of the eastern part of
the farm. In 1889, a section of the original plot was
sold to builder Henry Wild, who erected two pairs of
semi-detached houses, 10-12 Heath Road and 14 Heath Road/26
Beech Road. A resident of note at no.10 in 1902
was the Reverend Benjamin Charles Constable, Minister
of Stockport Unitarian Church. No. 12 in 1911
was a boarding house for two of the teachers at the Girls
High School; by the 1950s 10 and 12 had been purchased by
the neighbouring school and combined into a school clinic;
later they were used as a sixth form common room with two
classrooms, but were eventually demolished to make way for a
new Preparatory department. No. 14 was also a boarding
house in 1911.
The Cottage

Although it is very much still in existence and occupied,
the little house known as 'The Cottage' or 'Hillcrest
Cottage' tucked amid the school buildings on Beech
Avenue has proved hard to research.
The name 'Hillcrest Cottage' post-dates the arrival of
Hillcrest School in the 1980s, whilst the name 'The Cottage'
does not appear on maps until the 1950s. The 1911 census
lists a 'Lodge to Girls High School' in its position on
Beech Avenue, although a building in the same location is
shown on a map dated 1910 alongside the farm buildings,
pre-dating the school. The occupants of the 'lodge' in 1911
were Edward Perkins, school caretaker, and his wife Clara.
Could it be that it was built to re-house the Taylor family,
before their farm was moved to Beechfield Road? Any
information about the history of this house would be very
welcome.
Carrington's Hats
Stockport was known for many years as a centre of the
hat-making trade. There are records of hatting in the town
as early as 1650, as a small-scale cottage industry. It is
claimed that the town's first hat factory was set up in 1710
by Anthony Carrington, born in 1679 at Bugsworth Hall Farm
in Derbyshire. As the youngest son of his father James, he
left home to 'seek his fortune' and set up as a hatter in
premises in Adlington Square, Stockport, an area since much
altered and absorbed into the Merseyway precinct as
Adlington Walk. How he learned the trade does not seem
to be recorded. He certainly seems to have found his
fortune, as by 1731 he was Mayor of Stockport, although the
office of Mayor in those days was rather different to today.
Anthony died in 1762 and the business was continued by his
'kinsman' William Carrington (1738-1800) who was
followed by another William Carrington (1769-1832) who
bought land in Cale Green and built a house there. it
is said that the cellars of the house were initially used
for hat-making activity, and as business developed, a
factory was created on the adjacent land. An 1842 plan shows
the house and factory occupying the area bounded by Shaw
Heath, Mayer Street, Wood Street (later renamed Lytham
Street) and Adswood Lane West (described as Cale Green.) The
works never expanded beyond this area. He brought into the
firm into the firm his son by his first wife, another
William Carrington (1795-1835). By his second wife he had
two sons, Samuel Ratcliffe Carrington (1811-1883) and Thomas
Carrington (1813-1873) who became partners in the firm.
After his brother Thomas Carrington died in 1873, Samuel
took for partners his sons William Edward Carrington and
Walter Thomas Carrington, and carried on the business as
S.R. Carrington and Sons, which became a limited company in
1908, after the death of Walter Edward Carrington that year,
with William Edward Carrington as Managing Director.
William Edward Carrington (1851-1930) was, like his
father, a man of many parts. Educated as various private
schools, including a short time in Paris, followed by study
at Owens College, Manchester, which at that period was not
awarding its own degrees, but was approved as a provincial
examination centre for matriculation candidates of the
University of London; he matriculated in 1868 aged just 17.
A life-long bachelor, he had an interest in scientific
matters, and was an early pioneer of cycling; in 1880 he was
reported to have travelled from Stockport to Chester on a
'velocipede'. He served as a Magistrate, a Councillor, and a
Committee member of Stockport Infirmary, A
Congregationalist like his father, he served for 35 years as
Superintendent of the Cale Green Institute and Sunday School
in Meyer Street which had been built by his father and
uncle, eventually donating the building (which survives in
2017 in an altered form) to the Church.
He lived in the old house at 8 Adswood Lane West until his
death in 1930; the 1901 Census catches him in the Tudor
Hotel, London, but 1911 census lists him in Cale Green with
a cook / housekeeper, Elizabeth Smyth, and a
housemaid, Florence Jones. On his death, the
management of the hat factory was carried on by men outside
the Carrington family.

This winter scene is the only known clear photograph of the
Carrington house in Adswood Lane West. The address of
the works was 4-6, Adswood Lane West, and the house
was apparently no. 8. It was demolished at an unknown date
after W.E. Carrington's death in 1930. The photograph
suggests that there was another house in the foreground, but
a 1931 aerial view shows the house closely surrounded on two
sides by factory buildings.
The 1851 census has Ellen Carrington's house as '18 Cale
Green' which would possibly match this house if addresses on
the part of Adswood Lane West next to the factory were
classed as 'Cale Green' at that time.

The Grenville Series postcard above, from c. 1910 looks
towards Cale Green from the corner of Adswood Lane West and
Lytham Street. The Carrington house can be glimpsed beyond
the tree. The two buildings in the centre are clearly very
old...

... they have survived, in much-altered form, into
the twenty-first century. This picture shows Adswood
Lane West in 2017. The tall office building of Travis
Perkins builders' merchants stands on the site of the
Carrington house.
Walter Thomas Carrington (1854-1908) who managed the
firm jointly with his brother William, served in the 20th
Rifle Volunteer Corps, rising to the rank of Colonel in 1889
as the commanding officer of the 4th Cheshire Volunteer
Regiment. He also studied at Owens College for a
University of London qualification. In 1893 he married
Lucy Ellen Battersby. Battersby is the name of a famous
Stockport hatting firm, but Lucy was born near Liverpool and
before her wedding and move to Stockport she was living with
her widowed mother, also called Lucy, in Wolverhampton, in
the same Tettenhall Road district as his sister
Charlotte. Perhaps the sisters were friends with Lucy.
Walter was involved in Stockport local politics as a
committed supporter of the Free Trade movement, although he
never achieved his ambition to be an MP.
Their married home was the western of the two very large
semi-detached houses known as 'Cale Green Villas' which had
been constructed in 1869 on land at the corner of Cale Green
and Adswood Lane West. In a separate feature, Cale Green Villas: a house history,
we trace the complex history of these buildings. It seems
likely that they were commissioned as homes for the two
brothers and their families, but William didn't want to move
from the old family, while Walter waited until
he married in 1893. The houses were rented to a series of
tenants.
In 1901 the household included their daughter Joan
Shelley Carrington (age 5), Georgina Ratcliffe
Carrington (4), Nurse Annie Sykes (36),
Under-nurse Lenora Kitchen (18), waitress Agnes
Davenport (20) and cook Lily Meachin (18).
After Walter's death, Lucy Carrington moved to Malvern
Wells, Worcestershire, where she lived with two
servants while the two girls attended the Abbey school
there. Joan Shelley Carrington stayed at Malvern,
where in 1934 she married Richard D.B.W White; the 1939
register found them in London where he was a Musical
Director. She died in London in 1958. Georgina also remained
in Malvern, marrying a 'dental mechanic', Joseph Russell,
also in 1934.

An (over) enlargement of a 1920s aerial view shows
Carringtons' factory, the old cottages and the Carrington
house, with its tall chimneys, nestling between factory
buildings.

Carrington's remained a relatively small business, employing
no more than 240 people and specialising in quality felt
hats. As the industry contracted and companies merged, the
Cale Green factory was abandoned in 1955 in favour of a
share of the Sutton and Torkington factory in Lord Street,
near Stockport Town Hall. Happily, a stone from the original
works lodge can be seen in the rebuilt brick wall near the
corner of Adswood Lane West and Shaw Heath.

Various buildings on the Cale Green site survive in
industrial use.; the picture above is from 2018. Part
of the site is used by builders merchant Travis Perkins,
whose modern administration building stands on the site of
the Carringtons' eighteenth-century home.
As mentioned above, from the 1950s onward, the public demand
for felt hats declined, with drastic effect on Stockport's
hatting industry. In 1959, Carringtons purchased the hatting
firm James Bevan & Co. based at Pitt Street works in the
Manchester area's other hat-making centre, Denton, and
appear to have transferred their manufacturing there. The
shareholders of Bevan & Co received £25 per share,
valuing the firm at £25,000. The firm was renamed
Carrington-Bevan, which itself was later merged into the
Joseph Howe and Sons hatting business in Amelia Street,
Denton. Both companies went into liquidation in 1975.
Sutton and Torkington moved into the Hillgate premises of
Christy's, who took over the company in 1964. The Lord
Street site was cleared for the erection for
Stockport Council of 'Stopford House', a concrete office
building in the 'brutalist' style, completed in 1975.
In 1966, five surviving firms - Battersbys, Lees and
Christy's of Stockport with Wilson's and Moore's of Denton
- merged as Associated British Hat Manufacturers, but
decline continued until in 1997 the Hillgate works closed
and felt hat manufacture in Stockport ceased. Its golden age
is commemorated by a Hat Museum in a former hat works on
Wellington Road South.
Samuel and Christiana Carrington's other children
Charlotte Ellen Carrington (1849-1905) married John
E. Morris, of a firm of Manufacturing Chemists in
Wolverhampton, where they were living in 1881, sharing a
house at 83 Tettenhall Road with Charlotte's sister
Julia Christiana Carrington. (John E. Morris was a son
of Sir John Morris, who founded the chemical firm and while
Mayor of Wolverhampton was knighted by Queen Victoria in
1886. The family home was a large mansion called Elmsdale
Hall
Samuel Herbert Carrington (born 1856) followed his
brothers to Owens College for a University of London
qualification, then emigrated to America where he died at an
early age
James Yates Carrington (1857-1892), Samuel's fourth
son, is another member of Stockport's artists to be
chronicled on our site, although he mostly worked at his
London studio in Hill Road, St John's Wood. he studied
under Stockport's best-known art teacher of the time,
J.H.E. Partington, and thanks to his father's devotion to
the best education for his sons (if not his daughters) went
on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. His
ambition was to be a landscape painter, but he accidentally
achieved fame with a portrait of a dog - his fox-terrier,
Teufel - which was followed by many more, along with
stories of Teufel's activities which appeared in various
magazines. He died in London aged just 35.
Julia Christiana Carrington (1860-1913) moved with
her sister to Wolverhampton where she married John
Perks, 'edge tool manufacturer' of John Perks &
Sons, Monmore Green Works, Wolverhampton. They raised a
family with the help of two servants at a house in Clifton
Road, and later in Old Hill, Tettenhall.
Mary Elizabeth Carrington (1864-1936) married Walter
Lawrence Swithenbank, Wimbledon-born son of a hat-trimming
merchant, a in Stockport in 1896; in 1911 they were living
at 'Greenhill' in Bramhall with their two daughters. All the
family attended William Edward Carrington's funeral in 1930.
Cephas Howard Carrington (1865-1896) was named after
Cephas Howard, husband of Samuel's sister Mary. He
appears to have had artistic leanings ,
describing himself in 1891 as 'Superintendent, Decorative
Arts Guild.' Educated at boarding school Leamington College,
his life was tragically short: he died in 1896.
Bell's Brewery
Henry Bell (1825 - 1891), head of the second family
to reside at Heathfield, was not a self-made man from
a poor family; he was a member of the 'landed gentry',
being the son of Henry Wade Bell (1793-1855) of
Portington Hall, near Howden in the East Riding of
Yorkshire. The family were Conservative in their
politics, and Methodist in their religion. Henry Wade Bell's
father inherited 1/3 of the Manor of Portington from his
father (211 acres and Portington Grange). This was sold
after his death in 1841 with Henry Wade Bell renting the
Caville Hall farm where he died in 1855.
'Our' Henry Bell - Henry Bell senior for our purposes - gave
his birthplace as Spaldington, a hamlet not far from
Portington, but by the 1841 census he was living at
Portington with his father Henry. His Stockport
newspaper obituaries suggest that he grew up at Caville
Hall. Later, he was awarded his own farm and estate,
Milford Hall in North Milford, in the North Riding of
Yorkshire, where he was recorded in 1861 with his wife Mary,
his one-year-old son Henry, three farm labourers and three
domestic servants. Milford Hall, now known as North
Milford Hall, is a Georgian building now Grade II as a
historic structure.
Meanwhile, in Stockport, a brewery was established on site
alongside Hempshaw Lane, making use of the water from the
adjacent brook, in 1835 by Avery Fletcher, a brushmaker of
44 Great Underbank. By the 1840s it had become a large
operation, but for some reason Fletcher gave it up, and by
1850, following the sale of the shares a sort of lottery
(see the press cutting in the left column), it became the
property of Joseph Smith of the Eldon Brewery and Henry Bell
'of Portington, Yorkshire', and by 1851 was trading as Smith
& Bell. A record in the 1851 census suggests that Henry
Bell was living in the house at the Brewery; also
listed there was Thomas Fearn, an associate of Smith's from
Sheffield, with his wife Elizabeth and son George.
In 1872 Joseph Smith retired, and Thomas Fearn's son George
joined the firm which came Bell & Co., with Henry Bell
as Chairman. By then Henry had left his Yorkshire farming
life and relocated to Stockport to be close to the brewery,
setting up home at 37 Greek Street, a fashionable Victorian
semi-detached which can still be seen in 2019,
recently converted to ten bed-sitting-rooms after a
long period of business use. By 1871 he had three sons:
Henry (aged 11) and Alfred (9) born in Yorkshire, and Thomas
(7) in Stockport. His wife Mary had died in 1863, and
two servants - a cook and a general servant - provided for
the family.
The business prospered and by 1881 the family had taken on
the Carringtons' villa in Cale Green, 'Heathfield', and
gained several more servants. Henry was a Conservative
member of Stockport Council from 1868 to 1883,
and served as Mayor for two years from 1878. He stood for
Parliament, but Stockport's voters and two MPs remained
staunchly Liberal. He was also a Justice of the Peace.
Henry's eldest son, also named Henry Bell,
continued to live in 'Heathfield' with his wife Emily
Beatrice Bell and a team of servants, including two
'under-gardeners.'
The 1911 census records Jemima Ashurst, cook (aged
44), a parlour maid, and four housemaids as well as
Henry's cousin Alice Mary Bell (born in Eastrington,
Yorkshire) and niece Gladys Mary Gandy, born in
America; Henry and Emily did not have children. Emily died
in 1919.
Alfred Bell married Annie Hunt in 1888
and moved to Beech House, 35 Adswood Lane West, a short
distance from Heathfield. They later purchased
Bramhall Lodge, the large villa on Buxton Road which later
became a Convent School and by 2018 was part of Stockport
Grammar School; the main buildings of the Grammar
School, opened in 1916, stand in what were once the
grounds of Bramhall Lodge. However, the 1901 listing
shows just a housekeeper and a servant in residence at
Bramhall Lodge. Alfred was living in retirement (aged 39)
with three children (Alfred William, Phyllis Mary and
Henry) and a comprehensive team of nine servants including
butler, governess and 'sick nurse' at 'Marina' in Parkhill
Road, Torquay, Devon. In 1911, the arrangements were
much the same.
Thomas Bell married Louisa Thorp, also in 1888, and
left the brewing industry to become a solicitor.
Their first home appears to have been a now-lost 'Adswood
House' (also known as 'Adswood Cottage') on Adswood Lane
West adjacent to the Adswood Inn, but by 1901 they had set
up home with their servants and children in a large villa
- 'Alma Lodge'. Alma Lodge, named for a famous
1854 battle in the Crimean War, later became a hotel, and
in 2019 remains a well-known landmark on Buxton Road. In
1902 Thomas and his family left Stockport to enjoy the
healthy air of Buxton, Derbyshire, where they lived with
their three children and a full complement of servants at
'Branksome' on St John's Road, which still exists in 2019
as a care home. He died there in 1916.
In 1886 Thomas Fearn died. In the same year Henry Bell
senior retired, and moved away from Cale Green, handing over
Heathfield to his son Henry. the 1891 census tells us
he was residing at 470 Stretford Road, Old Trafford, in an
area known as Hullard Hall after the farm on which it was
built, with his second wife, Elizabeth, born in Stockport,
and two servants. Old Trafford seems an unlikely place to
live in retirement; earlier in the century it had been
developed as a middle-class suburb, which later proved to be
too close to the smoke of Manchester and the wealthy moved
further away from the city.
Henry Bell Senior died in August 1891, in the coastal resort
of Blackpool; perhaps he was there on holiday in the hope of
improving his health which had been poor for some time;
newspaper obituaries mention that he also had a home in
another seaside town, Southport. An 1895 directory
lists Mrs. Bell still present in the Old Trafford house, but
by 1901 she had moved out; she appears in the 1911 census
living in a boarding house in London.
A new partnership to run the company was created: Henry's
three sons plus George Fearn, son of Thomas; on 29 November
1898 the firm became a limited company with Henry Bell
junior as Chairman. Henry Bell junior also involved
himself in local politics, becoming a JP like his father,
and serving two terms as Mayor of Stockport, 1906-7 to and
1907-8. He also served as a Deputy Lieutenant
for the County of Cheshire. Both father and son were
supporters of Tiviot Dale Methodist Chapel, and apparently
contributed much money towards the organ that Henry Junior
played. Unfortunately the original chapel has since been
replaced by a modern building, and the family vault is
now under the A560.
The profits to be made in the brewing industry
at the time are perhaps illustrated by the fact that
George Fearn financed the building, on land donated by hat
manufacturer Wakefield Christie-Miller at the corner of
Bramhall Lane and Buxton Road, of local landmark St
George's church, opened in 1897, and its adjacent school
and vicarage. The church, a late example of the Gothic
style of architecture, is one of the largest parish
churches in the country. George is buried in the borough
cemetery opposite the church, and a miniature replica of
St. George’s church stands over his grave.
Bell's brewery opened a new brewery on the same site in
1930, after several years of planning. Henry Bell
junior died in 1943, having arranged for Heathfield to be
transferred to the ownership of Stockport Council on his
death. The remainder of his estate was divided between
his nephews and nieces, three from Alfred Bell, three from
Thomas Bell and two from his wife's side of the family via
Gladys and Enid Gandy.

In 1949, Bell's was taken over by Stockport brewer
Robinson's. Hempshaw Lane Brewery and continued in use
until the 1970s, after which the buildings were taken on by
European Colour Pigments, who moved out around 2008.
The company, now a multinational called European Colour
Limited, still operates in 2019 from a site in Great
Budworth, Cheshire.
Following an archaeological survey ordered by the Council,
all the buildings were demolished in 2011, but not before
they were captured by the aerial camera of Bing Maps. (The
picture shows the yard stained by the last user's products).
In 2017 the site found a new use, as a Lidl supermarket,
despite objections from some locals and from businesses
operating in Stockport town centre.
Stockport
High School for Girls

By the late 1890s there was a movement in Britain towards
more education for girls, traditionally destined to find a
husband and raise children; it was said this change
was partly driven by a statistical realisation that there
were more females than males in the population. Stockport's
first secondary school for girls was founded in 1894 as a
private enterprise - Stockport High School for Girls
Limited - at 1 Longshut Lane West, at the corner of Longshut
Lane West and Wellington Road South. It seems to have
expanded to include No. 3 Longshut lane West and 216
Wellington Road South.
A directory of 1896 shows Miss L. L. Johnson as head
mistress, but by 1902 she had been replaced as head by Miss
Edith Mary Sewell, born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1869,
daughter of John Sewell who was the first headmaster at
Middlesbrough High School for boys which which opened in
1870, and by 1901 was living in retirement with his wife
Hannah at North Langrigge, Bowness-on-Windermere. The 1911
census has Miss Sewell living and 54 Edenhurst Road, Mile
End, Stockport with her housekeeper Mabel Annie Dewdney,
daughter of a Solicitor's Clerk from London. She served as
headmistress until her retirement in 1925, when she moved to
Switzerland, reportedly living in a house once used by
famous art critic John Ruskin. She later returned to
Britain where she died in Hastings in 1955.
Stockport Council took over the school in 1903, and plans
were made for a new purpose-built school on a larger
site. The site chosen, purchased from Henry Bell for
£2457, was the last remaining part of Cale Green Farm,
including the site of the farmhouse. The traditional
'cutting the first sod' ceremony took place in the field
adjoining the old farmhouse on 27 March 1909, conducted by
Edith's father John Sewell assisted by six-year-old Phyllis
Thornely whose grandmother Sarah Barbara Thornely was a
daughter of Charles Robert Brady, and had lived in the
farmhouse fifty years earlier. ( Note: the spelling of the
name Thornely is given as Thorniley or Thornley in some
records. We have used the version written by Mrs Thornely
herself in the 1911 census.)

The new school building in red facing brick and Darley Dale
stone, which cost £14,561 plus £1,160 for furniture, was
designed by London-based architects Spalding and Spalding,
who specialised in school work. The partners were
Henry Spalding (1839-1910) and his son Reginald H
Spalding. Henry Spalding, with an earlier partner
Alfred William Stephens Cross, had designed the Technical
School building in Sackville Street, Manchester, which later
became the main building of UMIST. The private
Stockport Grammar School on the Buxton Road in Davenport,
opened in 1916 to replace an older building Stockport town
centre, was also a Spalding and Spalding design. Henry
Spalding never saw either school building completed as he
died in 1910. A young architect, Ernest Theakston of London,
was also involved in the work at Cale Green.

An advertisement in the Stockport Advertiser of 3 August
1910 announced that the new building would open in the
Autumn Term, and the headmistress would be at the school
from 17 September to admit new pupils. A formal
opening ceremony took place on 13 October; Henry Bell
junior, described as 'one of those connected with the early
history of the ... school' was there to make an encouraging
speech. Although a council-run school, parents were required
to contribute financially. The school operated
successfully for many years; 'Heathfield' and its playing
fields were added to the school in 1946. A pupil who became
something of a celebrity was Joan Bakewell, later a TV
presenter, who served as Head Girl. She told the press in
2012: 'The school was staggeringly strict, with many rules,
so I wasn’t much of a rebel. I was once given detention for
talking too much, and had to write "I must not talk in
class" 100 times.' Memories of life at the school in
wartime inspired her novel All the Nice Girls whose
plot is inspired by the true story of how. during World War
II, the school 'adopted' a ship.
By the 1970s, however, with the so-called 'post-war
boom' over, and grammar schools no longer in
fashion, it was decided that the Cale Green school would be
merged with Fylde Lodge school.
Fylde Lodge had originally been founded as a
private school in 1893 by the Misses E.J. and L.H Sales in
a house of that name which stood on the corner of
Priestnall and Mauldeth Roads. and It was taken over by
Stockport Council in 1922. Over the years extra buildings
were built in the grounds. In two phases, between 1959 and
1966 a completely new school was built on a 'green
field' site to the west, north of Priestnall Road,
part of which had been used for allotment gardens.
Its history is well chronicled in
a website maintained by former pupils.
In a booklet prepared for the 1974 departure from Cale Green
there is mention of a table, still in existence at that
time, in the school which was 'made from a pear tree that
had grown on the old site, incorporating timber from the old
farm'. Could it be that this table has survived?
The Cale Green site was then used as Davenport Lower School.
It housed the lower forms of Davenport School, which was
built on Highfield Close, Davenport in the 1960s on a site
which is now a housing estate.
An advertisement for a 'Head of Lower School' published in
1975 states that 'Davenport Lower School is
three-quarters of a mile from the Upper School [in Highfield
Close]. The head of the Lower School will be completely
responsible for the day-to-day running of the Lower School,
and will be a member of the school policy-making
team.' The post was to commence in September 1975.
That was the era of the so-called post-war 'baby boom' and
it would seem that even the brand-new Davenport School had
proved inadequate. It appears that a few years later,
the division became unnecessary and the school operated
solely at the Highfield Close building, which itself became
redundant and closed in August 1989.
The Davenport (Upper) School building on
Highfield Close was then taken over by Stockport College,
its 1960s fabric slowly deteriorating, before final
abandonment and demolition c. 2000. The site of the
buildings was sold for housing, raising money for a extra
building at the College's main site in Stockport which
opened in 2005. The extensive playing fields at Highfield
Close were retained for public use.
In 1983 the main High School buildings at Cale Green were
sold to Hillcrest Grammar School. Hillcrest was
originally a preparatory school for boys, established in
1940 in a house, no. 15 Hillcrest Road, Bramhall, which
gained large extensions to the rear over the years as it
became an fee-paying co-educational grammar school in the
1950s. (The original house, was returned to
residential condition, and in 2018 bears the name 'The Old
School House.')
The school flourished for a while in its new much larger
home, expanding into the area between the school and Heath
Road, including the site of the lost house 'The
Homestead' and four other houses which were bought and
demolished; a sports hall with four badminton courts was
built in 1994 and a pre-preparatory department in 2003. A
new Preparatory Building with facilities for the Nursery was
opened by Olympic Swimmer Michael Rock in October 2009.
However, turbulence in the country's economy and changes in
the provision of education in the new century, including the
appearance of state-funded 'free schools' and 'academies'
led to financial problems for privately-run schools as
parents' willingness to may up to £3000 per term
declined. Nearby Oriel Bank School closed its doors in
2005, and by 2014 Hillcrest was in trouble. Attempts were
made during 2014 to register it as a 'free school' which
would be funded by the government, while still
describing itself on its website as 'one of the strongest
small Schools in Stockport.' Free school status was
not granted, however, and an option was explored to merge
with another privately-run Independent, Hulme Hall Grammar
School in Cheadle Hulme, the merged school to operate from
the Cheadle Hulme site. The press were told that
Hillcrest’s site will be sold and money raised will be
invested in the new school' but although some pupils
transferred to Hulme Hall the merger idea foundered and
Hillcrest closed its doors, with the loss of 26 Jobs. A
factor may have been that the building is a locally-listed
building in a Conservation area, and permission to sell for
housing would have been hard to obtain.
Meanwhile, in 2013, further education
establishment Stockport College had created its own Free
School called Stockport Technical School, with a
mission to 'offer vocational and academic courses for
students aged 14 to 19'. Initially it operated in an
office building, while preparing a plan to take over the
Hillcrest site, with Government funding. In 2015
the site and buildings were bought by the Department of
Education for two million pounds. However, the
Technical School had failed to attract a viable number of
pupils, and instead it closed in 2015, leaving the Cale
Green site still 'mothballed. ' Finally, in 2016, the
management of Hulme Hall Grammar School decided to leave the
Cheadle Hulme buildings and move their operation 'lock,
stock and barrel' to the Cale Green site, a move
completed in September 2017. The school was officially
opened on 8 September by the most famous pupil of the Hugh
School for Girls, Baroness Joan Bakewell.
The name 'Hulme Hall' comes from an old timber-framed
building on Hulme Hall Road opposite the school's former
Cheadle Hulme site, the oldest parts of which have
been dated to the fifteenth century. It was an
ancestral home of the Vernon family, and later the Moseleys.
There are, or were, several other Hulme Halls in the
Cheshire and Lancashire area. Unfortunately none of them are
connected with the author of this article.
Written by
Charlie Hulme, March 2018. Last update February 2022.
Comments welcome at info@davenportstation.org.uk
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