EPW017449 ENGLAND (1927). Manor Farm and the Hale Road area, Altrincham, 1927

This photo shows Timperley, with two small areas of Baguley and a small section of the Well Green area of Hale, rather than Altrincham.

"Hale Road" has been the name of the A538 between Altrincham and Halebarns for well over sixty years. The ordnance survey maps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries also, and rather confusingly, attribute the name "Hale Road" to the northern part of Brooks Drive, which I imagine is the reason behind the caption of this map.



When Samuel Brooks planned and built the road in the 1850s - his plan (only partly successful) being to attract wealthy Mancunians to build country villas following the opening of the Manchester-Altrincham railway in 1849 - he may have called it Hale Road; but pragmatic locals apparently preferred to avoid confusion by naming it after its builder. Certainly it was known as "Brooks's Drive" or, later, simply "Brooks Drive" throughout the 20th century,



Except for the most northerly bit which, even in 1875, was already known as "Brooklands Road", a name which came to be applied both to the railway station which Brooks persuaded the company to build and to that entire area. Nothing to do with the brooks - simply a reference to the rich speculator (corn merchant turned banker) who owned the land.



The southern section of Brooks Drive, between Davenport Green and Prospect House which once stood on the A538, was marked on the earlier OS maps as "Ashley Road" - odd, as it didn't go as far as Ashley. Did Brooks initially plan to extend it further, beyond Prospect House and the A538 and across the Bollin to Ashley?



If so, it never happened. Maybe "owd Stink o' Brass", as he was known by his tenants, reckoned he wasn't flogging enough plots on the bit he had built to make a further extension worth while. He was a great believer of the need to speculate in order to accumulate; but he was a hard-headed Lancastrian who probably knew when to stop throwing good money after bad!

Interesting caption - Manor Farm in centre .... but Clay Lane / Dobbinetts Lane along the bottom. Large amount of 'urban infill' these days!