Belthorn, Davenport Park: A Postcard from
Davenport No.6.
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Davenport ParkThe map extracts show Davenport Park in maps dated 1898 (above) ... ... and 1910. 'Belthorn' marked in orange on a modern plan. The area was, until 1877, owned by the Davenports of Bramhall Hall, and had for many years been part of Mile End Farm, the farmhouse being near what became the junction of Davenport Park Road and the Manchester - Buxton road in the top corner of the extracts. The Davenports had been selling parcels of land in the area since the railway had cut across it in 1857, and John William Handley Davenport, the last of the family to live at Bramall Hall, determined to sell off all the remainder and leave away from the area. Early in 1877, in advance of the sale of the remainder of the estate to the Freeholders' Company of Manchester later that year, Mile End farmhouse, and the area which became Davenport Park was sold, for £5,500 by John William Handley Davenport to to a John Simpson of Stockport, who is listed in an 1878 directory at Mile End, although he is not listed in the 1881 census. The Land Registry documents, and a plan which accompanied the indenture, reveal that the land came complete with a layout of the streets, and an obligation to maintain the streets and build only houses approved by the Davenport family, although there is no evidence that any houses has been built at that time. The plan, which can be viewed on the Davenport Park website, includes some streets which were never completed. 'Stanley Road' would have run across from Kennerley Grove Lane (now Kennerley Road) to Clifton Road, and turned back to meet the far end of Clifton Road. Station Road was to connect Devonshire Road direct the station, and a short street called Egerton Road from part-way along Devonshire Road (later Devonshire Park Road) towards the railway. Perhaps there was an intention to make a railway crossing and meet the existing Egerton Road at The Crescent on the other side; if so, this ambition was never achieved. There did exist an underpass originally provided by the railway to allow the movement of stock between the two parts of Mile End Farm, but this vanished in the course of housing developments on both sides. 'In the early days, individually-designed were mostly built around the perimeter of the Park, as shown in the 1898 plan, leaving the Centre plot, with its greenery, its fine avenue of noble trees, and its grassy banks ablaze in the springtime with broom and gorse [was] a very pleasant and agreeable feature of the Park' in the words of a 1916 report which looked back at 20 years of the Park. It would seem that this central area was originally intended to remain as parkland. However, this did not last. It would appear that John Simpson may have been unable to repay a loan used to buy the land, as it was the the Union Bank of Manchester which in 1899 sold the land including the site of 'Belthorn' to William George Ward and Edwin Forbes Ward, Stockport, hat manufacturers who at the time were investing in a considerable portfolio of land in the area. In 1903, the Wards leased a plot of land at a perpetual yearly rent charge of £54.0s.0d to a local builder, Arthur Boon, who built 'Belthorn' and its neighbours, to a very spacious design, on the former parkland. The Braggs' share of this annual ground rent was £7.10s.0d. Although mostly standard in general layout (apart from 'Belthorn') care was taken by the builder to include varying details in the houses such as the patterns of the decorative half-timbering of the gables. The 1979 designation leaflet on the Conservation Area refers to the pair of houses 41/43 Davenport Park Road as of particular interest, as 'key historic buildings'. Arthur Boon's houses were built to last, and today command high prices: No.43 changed hands in 2006 for £500,000. Contributions are very welcome: info@davenportstation.org.uk |
This much-travelled postcard was
commissioned circa 1905 by Alexander Wisely
Bragg and his wife Ellen Sarah (Elsie) Bragg,
apparently to send as a Christmas Card to the friends
and relations from their new home, 'Belthorn', 43
Davenport Park Road. Sent to Alexander's brother Harry
in Canada, it somehow found its way to England to be
traded a century later.
No stamp has survived: perhaps the card
was enclosed with a letter. Alexander Wisely Bragg
was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1848, the son of
John Bragg, textile manufacturer and his wife Anne
Wisely Bragg (née Unwin). Anne was born in 1847 in
the village of Belthorn, Lancashire where her father the
Reverend John Harding Unwin was Minister of the
Congregational Church. It was common practice in
those days for the wife to choose the name of a new
house, as she clearly did in in this case. Indeed she
was the legal owner of the house; this was often
arranged to ensure that the widow would not lose
the house on the death of the husband under
old-fashioned rules of inheritance.
Mr Bragg had qualified as a Chartered
Accountant, and practised in Blackburn, before
re-locating to Stockport by the time of the 1891 census
which records the couple at 120 Northgate Road,
Edgeley. They had no children, but living with
them at that time was a 75-year-old Welsh-born blind
lady, Mary Davies. Northgate Road is lined with
small Victorian houses, suggesting they were not
especially prosperous at that time. In 1901 the couple,
now on their own, were at 61 Bloom Street,
Edgeley. The business must have eventually been
successful (or perhaps they inherited some money) as a
few years later in 1905 they were able to purchase this
large (12 rooms plus bathroom and scullery) newly-built
house in the Davenport Park private estate.
The 1911 census
shows that they could afford a live-in general servant.
33-year-old Emily Lewis, born near Wellington,
Shropshire. In 1913 Alexander would have been 65 years
old, and it appears he decided to retire. The 1912-13
electoral register, the last one before World War I,
lists him at 'Belthorn' but then the couple vanish from
British records. Fortunately we know what happened next,
thanks to the on-line records of the Protestant Cemetery
in Rome, which include a photograph of their grave.
(Famous poets Keats and Shelley are also buried in the
Cemetery.) Ellen Sarah Bragg died in Rome on 12
January 1916; her husband also died in Rome, in May
1928, at the Calvary British Hospital in Via San Stefano
Rotondo, Rome, an institution founded by a British Nun
to care for British visitors.
The Daniell family
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