Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive

Postcard view above of Wilmslow Rd between Dickenson Rd & Rusholme Grove is dated Sept 1904. Most notably the tram is a single decker for this particular route, Brooks Bar to Belle Vue.
See 'A Tour of Wilmslow Rd' for a detailed description of this photograph.

This website is about a history of Rusholme & Victoria Park.
The archive has initially been compiled by a Rusholme resident who has been collecting old postcards, photos, books and other memorabilia which illustrate the ways in which the area has changed over the past 100 years.
You can search the website by entering a keyword in the search box at the top of each page
Rusholme is now considered an 'inner-city suburb' some 2+ miles south of Manchester, a city in the North-West of the UK. Rusholme is immediately south of the Manchester Universities and straddles the Wilmslow Road, now popularly known as 'Curry Mile'
The 1873 Post Office Directory refers to the acreage of Rusholme as being 1480, (including Birch-in-Rusholme).
Up until the early part of the 19th century Rusholme was a village lying in the countryside to the south of Manchester & dominated by the two large estates of the Birch & Worsley families. Gradually as Manchester industrialized the simple village occupations of weaving, farming inevitably gave way to the earnings in the huge mills, engineering works & other chemical works which lured people away from the Village Green.
On page 3 of the website, 'Rusholme a century ago' there is more about the history of Rusholme.

'Iconic' views' of how this junction looked at the beginning of the 20th century. Platt Lane to the left, Dickenson Rd to the right in the photographs above. Birch Villa Inn, (Hardy's Well) on the right hand side, is still in business, having been on this site since the 1830's. The Congregational church, on the left by Alfred Waterhouse, now demolished but in 1909 the spire & clock was a notable landmark. In the top photograph the gardens of the houses on the right have been replaced by Finglands Garage.

John Jones, builder, Greenheys.In the photograph below the builders and their cart are looking a little surprised at the camera taking the photograph. They are certainly dressed for work - note the clogs they are wearing. Although Greenheys is just on the border of Rusholme the telephone number painted on the cart must be one of the earliest Rusholme Exchange numbers, 'Rusholme123'