Duckweed Rescue!

In the 19th Century the Manchester region seems to have been well served by botanists. There were three local floras (annotated lists of plants) published during that century: ‘Flora Mancuniensis’ by John Bland Wood (1840), ‘A Botanical Guide’ by Richard Buxton (1849) and ‘The Manchester Flora’ by Leo Grindon (1859). These three books contain many records from Chorlton. One group of plants which were well represented were those which grew in water: Five Pondweeds (Potamageton sp.), eight Sedges (Carex sp.), two Water Milfoils (Myriophyllum sp.) and three Duckweeds (Lemna and Spirodela sp.) were listed, as well as plants such as Floating Club-rush (Eleogiton fluitans), Bog Myrtle (Myrica gale) and White Water Lily (Nymphaea alba) – which are all now locally extinct.

In those days Chorlton was well provided with brooks, ponds, pits and ditches, where all of these choice plants could grow. There were Chorlton and Longford Brooks and several large ponds, such as Sally’s Pond, adjacent to Hawthorn Lane, which was filled in within living memory. The Meadows were also dissected by numerous drainage ditches which were probably associated with directing the water (with its burden of rich silt) from the river and on to the Meadows during winter floods, and off again during the spring.

One area which seems to have contained many flooded pits was that known as ‘The Isles’. This roughly corresponds to the district now centred on the long roads of Nicolas, Newport and Longford and bounded on the south by Edge Lane and Wilbraham Road, on the west by Longford Park, on the North by the Manchester/Trafford Boundary and on the east by Manchester Road. This area seems to have been quite damp – probably because of an underlying layer of clay. It’s highly likely that the numerous pits, marked on the old maps of the area, were created by digging for ‘marl’ (calcareous clay used for liming fields). Later the clay was used for brick making and there were once brick pits and a brickworks in the vicinity of St. John’s Primary School and Ryebank Fields.

Recently, it was announced that a new branch of the Metro Link Tram System would be built along the old railway line which runs from Wilbraham Road (near Morrison’s Supermarket) to Old Trafford (this old track, of course, skirts the eastern edge of the ‘Isles’ district). This line has had forty years in which to develop into a sort of linear nature reserve and wildlife corridor. Mindful of this, GMPTE and their contractors have put mitigation plans in place to ensure that as much of the line’s biodiversity as possible is conserved. Alison Hunt, of West Didsbury Resident’s Association, and I have shared our thoughts on this mitigation, with GMPTE and the contractors, and have been listened to sympathetically.

On Sunday 19th October I thought that, as clearing of the track bed was to start the next day, I would take one last look. It was very hard going – a dense, secondary woodland, mainly of Ash, Sycamore, Willow and Birch had developed along with numerous bramble patches. In addition long sections of track bed were flooded and industrial quantities of fly-tipping had accumulated (especially near bridges). It occurred to me that if this had been an ‘official’ nature reserve it would be long overdue for some management!


In one of the flooded areas I spotted something that I had not seen before. It turned out to be Ivy-leaved Duckweed (Lemna trisulca), which had been listed in all three 19th Century floras. It was a member of Chorlton’s ‘missing’ suite of water plants!
It is not particularly rare nationally but it is a bit unusual and atypical for a Duckweed. Unlike Common Duckweed (Lemna minor), which floats on the water’s surface and can form a dense blanket, L. trisulca floats just below the surface film. I like to imagine that this plant was once common in the flooded pits of the Isles and had somehow managed to cling on to life on the old railway line (well, I suppose it’s possible …).

With some trepidation I rang Katie White (GMPTE Environmental Manager). I knew that the project timings were now getting very tight, and that they were unlikely to be very happy with my request, but asked if I could rescue some of the Duckweed? Katie said that she would get back to me.

Next day I got a phone call from Peter Jones, Project Manager with Laing O’Rourke (part of the MPT consortium building Metro Link), inviting me to the MPT offices in Old Trafford. The day after that I found myself, dressed in hard hat, fluorescent jacket and steel toe-capped boots and armed with a plastic vessel and my trusty ‘Duckweed scoop’ (a suitable kitchen utensil), trudging along the track with Katie, her colleague Vivien Lees and MPT Engineer, Peter Statham. They were all very helpful and remarkably good humoured about it!

We rescued some of the Duckweed and it is now in a plastic washing up bowl in my back garden. I spoke to Alex Krause (MVCWS) about it and she suggested that we quarantine it, for a few months, just to ensure that it doesn’t contain any invasive ‘nasties’ like Azolla (Water Fern) or Crassula (Australian Swamp Stonecrop) – then we can probably introduce it into some of the (newish) ponds in the Mersey Valley.

This has been a very interesting and heartening experience for me. Just a few years ago the old track would just have been bulldozed and my Duckweed, and everything else, would have disappeared. Now there appears to be a genuine willingness to do the right thing and to conserve and enhance local biodiversity as much as possible. GMPTE and the MPT contractors are to be congratulated.
Just think, we’ll soon have an enhanced, ‘state-of-the-art’ public transport system, a functioning wildlife corridor and Chorlton will still have Ivy-leaved Duckweed in its flora.

Dave Bishop, 29th October, 2008

Caucasian Wingnut Tree - Beech Road Park

Here's a note from FoCM Committee Member, Dan King on an unusual tree in Beech Road Park.

The Caucasian Wingnut tree in Beech Road Park is a particularly fine example of this specimen tree. It is sometimes characteristic of the trunk of this species (Pterocarya fraxinifolia) to divide into two main branches not far off the ground. It belongs to the walnut family (Juglandaceae) and is native to the eastern Caucasus, northern Iran and eastern Turkey. In its native habitat it can reach nearly 100 feet in height, but in northern climates it reaches about 80 feet, with a branch spread of 70 feet. Because of these nearly square proportions and because it is relatively fast-growing, it is prized as a shade tree. In a good year, the tree in late summer or early autumn is a strikingly decorative sight, festooned with its long, pale-green strings of seeds - the fruiting catkins can be from 12 to 20 inches long. Unfortunately, our spring and summer of 2008 weren't conducive to catkin and fruit formation, so this year the strings are fairly few on our Beech Road Park tree. It is also unfortunate that the tree is now overshadowed by having been planted too close to the surrounding horse-chestnuts. If you're planting a tree, make sure you give it plenty of room - think 20 or 30 years ahead! (Caucasian Wingnuts aren't thought to be suitable for most gardens - they get too big.) The species was first brought to Europe by André Michaux, a French botanist and statesman, in 1782, and can be found in many parks and botanic gardens.

Dan King, October 2008

Manchester Parks Survey - have your say!

Manchester City Council are conducting a large scale survey of their parks until 31st October 2008. Many Chorlton Meadows sites are included in the survey, including Chorlon Ees, Hardy Farm and Ivy Green.

Please see this news item for more information:

“Have your say on local parks

Residents from across the city are invited to have their say about Manchester’s parks and could win £100 of supermarket vouchers by doing so.

Manchester City Council are embarking on a large-scale survey, asking people about their local parks and green spaces; if they use them, what they think of them and how they can be improved?

Residents are invited to share their opinions in a short online survey running until 31 October 2008.

Councillor Mike Amesbury, Executive Member for Culture and Leisure at Manchester City Council said: "The city's parks are often the first experience of landscape and nature for those growing up in urban areas and it is a major priority for us that people see them as places to relax and to enjoy leisure activities. We welcome any feedback good or bad as despite having more green flags than anywhere else in the country, we are determined to improve our parks even further and strive to ensure that more and more members of the local community can make use of and benefit from their parks."

The questionnaire can be accessed at
www.manchester.gov.uk/parksurvey until 31 October and everyone who takes part will be automatically entered into a prize draw for £100 vouchers for a supermarket of their choice. Reponses can be submitted anonymously.”

FoCM Winter Programme 2008

As you may know we’ve still got some of the money from the Breathing Places grant for Hardy Farm left over, and we’ve got to spend it by the end of December. Luckily we can find lots of things to do so spending the money won’t be a problem.

Sunday 12th October: Tidy up & removal of summer overgrowth

Sunday 2nd November: Scrub control *

Saturday 8th November: Tool handling course & scrub control **

Saturday 22nd November: Scrub control & fruit tree pruning **

Wednesday 26th November: Scrub control & fruit tree pruning **

Sunday 30th November: Scrub control & fruit tree pruning *

Saturday 6th December: Scrub control & fruit tree pruning **

Time (all tasks): 10:00 am - 3:00 pm except for 12th October task which starts at 10:30 am

Meeting Place (all tasks): Jackson's Boat Bridge


*We will be working with the Sale & Altrincham Conservation Volunteers (SACV) on these tasks. Contact: Julian Fox on 07957355468

**We will be working with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) on these tasks. Contact: Katie Lowry on 07740899539

IMPORTANT: Car parking at Jackson’s Boat is for pub customers only, so, if arriving by car, please park at Mersey Valley Visitors’ Centre car park and walk down Rifle Road to the meeting point.

Teas and coffees will be available for all tasks but you will need to bring a packed lunch. You will also need to wear suitable footwear (boots or wellies) and dress for the weather.

If you need any further clarification on any tasks please contact Alex Krause (MVCWS Ecology Warden) on 0161 881 5639 or email a.krause@manchester.co.uk.


OTHER CONTACTS

Mersey Valley Countryside Warden Service

Website: http://www.merseyvalley.org.uk/
Email: info@merseyvalley.org.uk

Chorlton Water Park: tel. 0161 881 5639
Sale Visitors’ Centre: tel. 0161 905 1100

Dave Bishop (FoCM Chair): 0161 881 6276

Chorlton's History - From Agricultural Village to Suburb - by Andrew Simpson

I've known Andrew Simpson for many years now. Recently, we were having a chat in Morrison's and he told me of his interest in Local History. Subsequently, Andrew has shown me what he has learned so far and I'm very impressed by the depth and ambition of his research. In the article below he introduces his project and its objectives:

It takes very little in the way of imagination to place Chorlton in a rural setting. Stand on the Green and all the features of a country village are there. At one end is the lych gate and graveyard, opposite is a half-timbered pub and on the remaining two sides are the old school and a farmhouse.

But the timbers on the Horse and Jockey are no more than 100 years old, and the farmhouse had been the office of a garage for most of the last half century. Even the lych gate only dates from 1888. And yet despite this, the fact remains that for perhaps a thousand years Chorlton was a village which became a suburb of Manchester in less than forty years.

It is difficult today to picture a landscape dominated by farms, fields and open land, but that landscape is only just passing out of living memory. It is this transformation and the story of the people who lived through it that I set out to record.

During the last half of the nineteenth century Chorlton changed from rural village where people farmed the land to a Manchester suburb. What is remarkable is how late the transformation was in happening. There were working farms around the Green till just before the beginning of the twentieth century. The blacksmith on Beech Road continued to serve their needs well after 1900 and in 1907 it was still possible to stand at the corner of Beech and Cross Road and look across fields to the River Mersey.

In 1845 there were 490 acres of arable land, 680 acres of meadow and pasture and 10 acres of woodland. To the north in what is now Whalley Range there was Holt Wood and to the south there were Barlow Wood and Holland’s Wood. Along the river where the land was low lying and liable to flooding the area was mainly given over to meadow. To the east where today the long roads of Longford, Nicholas and Newport run out towards Stretford the area was full of streams and lakes. This area was known as the Isles and provided more meadow and pasture land. Twenty years later there were still eighteen farms, as well as market gardens and orchards.

And this has been the starting point of my story. What was daily life like for the people of Chorlton? And how did a way of life which had lasted for a thousand years end in such a short period of time? Moreover who were these people who saw their village change but who have been lost to history?

In the last few months their lives have become clearer. There was for instance the Nixon family who from the 1840s ran pubs around the village and looked after the post office in what is now Marmalade. They married into the Gresty family who made their living as farm labourers and lived in one of the last wattle and daub houses close to the old parish church. There were the farming families like the Higginbothams, the Whiteleggs and Haysons who ran farms of varying size. Dominating all of them were the two large landowners who between them owned 80% of the land. Our farmers and indeed all the villagers paid them rent and lived on their land.

We can see the same rural pattern of life as elsewhere. Many farm labourers were hired by the year, lived with the farmer and some were prone to persistent drunkenness that eventually cost them their jobs.

Outside the hours of work the villagers engaged in the village brass band, played on the various bowling greens visited the Reading Room and kept older traditions going till the last quarter of the century. The Brundrett family along with the Hollands, Baguleys and Lunts built the Wesleyan Chapel on Beech Road and sang in its choir. George Whitelegg, publican of the Horse & Jockey was a Poor Law Guardian, who administered those “Poor Law Bastilles” so hated and feared through out the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth.

John Gresty was another of these people whose life is slowly coming to light. He was born in the village in 1817 and worked as a farm labourer until his death sometime before 1885. He had been born during a period of economic hardship, reached manhood at a time when agriculture was still the main occupation and entered old age as farming went into decline. As a boy he might have played beside the canal at Stretford and watched the barges heading towards Manchester. In his thirties he could have worked along side the notorious and much feared navvies in building the railway which cut across the fields and ran beside the canal. And in old age he would have talked with villagers who worked in the city and owed their living to manufacture and commerce.

In 1848 it would have been possible to leave the village and walk by the way of farm tracks past fields and the odd house all the way to the far edges of the township. A farm labourer making that journey just before the turn of that century might try hard to remember the landscape and rural features which would have been familiar to him as a child. Much of the agricultural land beyond Chorlton Cross towards Whalley Range was now terraced housing and shops.

But so much has survived. We can trace the changing landscape through pictures, and postcards, the lives of the people through the census material, parish records and land documents and above all by talking to people who remember the last farms and fields.

The next task will be to interview the people who remember this transition. To this end I would welcome any suggestions of people to talk to and nay material whether it be pictures or written records which will help.

Andrew Simpson
andrewbeechroad@tinyworld.co.uk
September 2008

September by Roger Barnes

Here's a poem from local poet, Roger Barnes. Roger tells me that he derives much inspiration from the Meadows. We share a common interest in the Valley's plant life and we often phone each other with news of new finds.




This poem is from Roger's first collection, 'Some Seasonal Sonnets' (2007).

September

First fieldfares fly in to find their winter room
pickings a plenty tumbling round the town
fresh fallen apples tempting rosy bloom
one bite and spit and quickly throw it down!

hops high lanterns hanging in their hundreds
where the new green berried bryony grows
hedges hips and haws yellow orange reds
golden rod plumes and Michaelmas daisy shows

mosquitoes and gnats knit days end in dance
thermal thousands throng translucent light
crane flies take their tentative tremulous chance
crows cavort commune with flashy flight

So much manna this mellowing month contains

September salad days are here again!

copyright R.H. Barnes, 27th Sept 2006

30th Anniversary Celebrations at Chorlton Water Park

As reported previously, The Friends of Chorlton Water Park and the Warden Service celebrated the 30th Anniversary of the park last Sunday (21st September) - and what a splendid event it was! Well done to everyone involved for a great day out for local families!

For a start the weather couldn't have been better. The warm September sunshine could not have provided a greater contrast with the damp gloom of the last few weeks. A variety of stalls were present, representing everyone from Red Rose Forest and the BTCV to local businesses selling everything from tasteful items with a 'green hue' to food and drink.
During the day lots of small children, and quite a few adults, got to bang drums - which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy. I'm sure that many listeners enjoyed it as well ... possibly ... ?

Moving swiftly on, boat rides were also available on the lake and, judging by the queues, these too were very popular.

Situated at various points round the lake were a series of boards on which were posted information and photographs relating to the history of the site and anecdotes and stories from local people related to their experiences there over the years. One lad actually recalled kicking a football around with George Best and other Man. Utd. players, on the field that was there before the lake!

During the day Mrs Durrant, who had been a GMC councillor in 1978, and had actually opened the park, was given a tour around the lake.

I left the event thinking that the whole day had had a great community feel to it and reflecting, not for the first time, on what a great place Chorlton is to live!