Welcome to Chorlton-on-Medlock Life Manchester

Historically a part of Lancashire, the northern border of Chorlton-on-Medlock (a former township) is the River Medlock which runs immediately south of Manchester city centre. Its other borders roughly correspond to Stockport Road, Hathersage Road, Moss Lane East and Boundary Lane. Neighbouring districts are Hulme to the west, Ardwick to the east and Victoria Park, Rusholme and Moss Side to the south.

A large portion of the district along Oxford Road is occupied by the campuses of the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, and the Royal Northern College of Music. To the south of the university's Oxford Road campus a considerable area is occupied by a group of contiguous hospitals including Manchester Royal Infirmary, to the west of which is Whitworth Park.

From Medieval times the district was known as Chorlton Row and was a township of the ancient parish of Manchester in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire. Towards the end of the 18th century it was developed as a residential suburb of Manchester and in the extreme north of the township a number of cotton mills were established: in 1820 the parish church of All Saints was built. Development began in 1793–94: most of the important streets were given impressive names, Oxford Street, Cambridge Street and Grosvenor Street being three of these.

Kro Bar, 325 Oxford Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock

Over the next thirty years residential development spread southwards as far as Tuer Street: and by the mid-1840s to High Street. Very few dwellings of that period remain today: they include Waterloo Place, 323, 325, 327 & 333 Oxford Road, and Grove House (316–324).^[1]

In 1830 the town hall on Cavendish Street was built to the designs of Richard Lane (see below). On the creation of the municipal borough of Manchester in 1838 the township was absorbed into the borough. At this time the southern area was still partly rural with some larger dwellings of wealthy people (e.g., John Owens in Nelson Street).

After the Poor Law Reform of 1834 the district became part of the Chorlton Poor Law Union and the offices of the Board of Guardians were built in Cavendish Street (these are now the Ormond Building of the Metropolitan University). The arrival of Owens College in 1873 was the beginning of a different kind of development leading to the academic campus of today.

Though most of the township was originally middle class in character by the early 20th century it was very much a working class district. The housing conditions were described in 1931 by the Manchester and District Social Survey Society.^[2]

The front of the former Chorlton-upon-Medlock Town Hall can be seen at its original location on Cavendish Street at All Saints. The building, with its Doric portico, dates from 1830–31 and was designed by Richard Lane.^[3]

The original interior was removed and a new structure added to the rear in 1970. A red plaque on the building commemorates the Fifth Pan-African Congress, which was held there from 15–21 October 1945. Decisions taken at that conference led to independence for a number of African and Caribbean countries.

In Nelson Street the former home of the Pankhurst family is now the Pankhurst Centre. The Ormond Building of the Manchester Metropolitan University was originally the home of the Chorlton Union Board of Guardians (responsible under the 1834 Poor Law for most of what is now south Manchester).

Next to the town hall building is the original building of the Manchester College of Art (1880–81: architect George T. Redmayne) in a Gothic revival style.

Further down Oxford Road are the University of Manchester (frontage built 1888–1902), the former Manchester Royal Eye Hospital (1886), Manchester Royal Infirmary (1908) and the Whitworth Art Gallery (1898–1908).

Information Care of wikipedia.com