epw017410 ENGLAND (1927). The River Mersey at Didsbury Golf Course and Millgate Farm, East Didsbury, 1927

The Towers, which was designed by Thomas Worthington and built between 1868 and 1872, it still very much in existence, and most certainly has not been demolished.



The original building is clearly visible on Google Earth.

I don't remember Willow Bank Farm when it was still standing, but I lived in Didsbury between 1997 and 2007 and grew up on the borders of Baguley, Brooklands and Timperley in the '50s and '60s, so even back then I knew the Didsbury area vaguely.



But I still have a collection of local maps which I bought in the 1950s, as well as a number of even older ones that I picked up one way and another. That's one way of identifying farms and houses long gone. The other is the Chester Record Office's superb website - search "Cheshire Archives and Local Studies" and then click "Tithe Maps Online" - designed to make the Tithe Maps of the 1830s and '40s accessible, but which also has the 1875 and 1910 OS maps on line, and all can be compared with a modern street map, on parallel panes. Didsbury's not Cheshire, of course, but several of the on-line maps cover areas on the Lancashire side of the Mersey for a mile or two north, including the whole of Didsbury.



I'd recommend the site to anyone interested in the local history of the area which is so fascinatingly brought to life by the "Britain from Above" photographs.

Will also become Didsbury Teachers College in the 1960's, 70's and 80's together with land to it's right.

Also the setting for the early part of Howard Spring's "My Son, My Son"

This is Kingston Road. Parrs Wood Road wasn't built until the 1930s

the original A34 was Wilmslow road,through Cheadle, up Schools Hill and through Long Lane etc past Cheadle Royal Mental Hospital which is also featured on this site. Kingsway Extension which was the bit from Parrs Wood ( The Gateway pub) to the river, ended in a roundabout, but was always intended to be part of a trunk road to the south ( some of which has finally happened!) the bridge over the mersey and the extension through Gatley to schools hill (Cheadle By Pass) opened in 1959. saw my first road accident on the bridge on the first day!