Rediscovered past of a reborn suburb
TREASURES OF THE PAST UNCOVERED ON SITE OF DEVELOPMENT
UNTIL just a few years ago, it was simply an unassuming patch of empty grassland in east Manchester. But it was when the latest development work started on turning it into Abbey Hey, Gorton, that clues of the area’s fascinating history truly came to life.
Now, the area is home to a £17m, state-of-the-art retirement village with a well-used community cafe and hair and nail salon which been hailed by residents. However, the finds that were discovered during excavation work gave a timely reminder of the fascinating history that the site known as Bellamy Court had.
The area first sprung to life in the early 19th Century, when a series of three sprawling cotton mills opened in 1825 during the ‘Cottonopolis’ boom - where Manchester became the global centre of textile manufacturing and in turn the world’s first industrial city.
The mills were bought by legendary Mancunian entrepreneur John Rylands, who would go on to become the city’s first multi-millionaire.
Eventually employing around 5,000 people, the Gorton mills which was later renamed Rylands Mill - was the first site he owned in his own right, independent of his family’s business, and was key to him subsequently becoming the biggest and most successful cotton merchant in the country.
At its height, there was a school, library, and shop onsite to serve its huge workforce, hundreds of whom were children. It survived a huge blaze but Gorton Mills eventually closed and the site was cleared in the 1930s.
However, by the 1960s, the area was home to a hive of activity again when a new estate containing six blocks of council-owned and run maisonettes, of varying sizes, were built. This is where the name Bellamy Court was born.
For more than 30 years, before they were flattened in the late 1990s, they housed generations of local families with the estate facing Abbey Hey Primary School on Abbey Hey Lane.
Anthony Lyons moved to a threebedroom maisonette in Bellamy Court with his parents and four siblings in 1972 when he was just two weeks old and remained there until 1989.
“It was just the best times,” Anthony, now 50, said. “It was kind of looked down on by the rest of Abbey Hey. But I bet it was the happiest place in Abbey Hey. “My childhood was amazing. All my friends lived there and everyone was really close. All the elderly people were looked after and respected”. Clearance of the site, for the second time in its history, began in the late 1990s. Following the demolition of the maisonettes, the land lay dormant, and the corner of Abbey Hey Lane was nothing but ‘neglected’ open grassland until Didsbury-based Southway Housing were tasked with regenerating it.
They brought forward plans for 106 ‘low carbon’ apartments for social rent for people aged 55 and with care also provided for people with a variety of needs. They named the development Gorton Mill House in honour of its history.
Before building work began an archaeological survey was carried out by experts from the University of Salford. And they unearthed buried foundations and other structures from the original mills, including walls, entrances, and flues.
They also recovered several dozen artefacts left behind by workers such as beer and medicine bottles and ceramics.
Southway Housing Chief Executive Karen Mitchell said: ““This scheme was born from a great need and demand for With Care housing in this area and we are grateful to all our partners for helping us to realise our vision of transforming this historic but neglected site.”