Fashion – Modern Mooch

Cheetwood Road Manchester

Posted on August 10, 2026August 10, 2026 by modernmoocher

1900

1920

1960

2026

I often wander these streets and write about the area’s history, or record the current state of affairs, then returning with 35mm film to photograph a black and white world.

On this occasion I am concerned with the tight little rectangle formed by Cheetwood Road, Broughton, Alison and Sherborne Streets.

Cheetwood Road is a postwar construction, a straight route replacing the meandering Cheetwood Lane. The road is lined with low level functionalist brick, steel and concrete industrial units.

Having fallen into disrepair they are now being renovated and reused.

In the early Twentieth Century the area was a mix of semi-derelict Victorian housing and industry.

Corner of Sherborne Street 1905

Cheetwood Lane 1917

The huge Holt’s Cheetwood Hotel has since been demolished, lasting until c1990.

Cheetwood Lane 1920

Images: Thomas Baddeley

Progress House 1969 – Domtar Howard Smith Ltd Paper Manufacturers.

Norweb Electricity

Images: Louis H Price Manchester Local Image Collection.

So here we are on Friday 7th August, taking yet another look.

The whole area and beyond is now the centre of a plan for regeneration.

Salford City Council and Manchester City Council have developed a joint Strategic Regeneration Framework to transform the Strangeways and Cambridge areas.

This plan addresses long-standing challenges such as counterfeit crime, poor-quality buildings, and flood risk, while creating opportunities for new homes, businesses, and green spaces.

Salford Gov

The Strangeways and Cambridge strategic regeneration framework sets out a vision to deliver around 7,000 homes in buildings up to 30 storeys and 3.1m sq ft of new or improved commercial space across 320 acres spanning both Manchester and Salford.

HMP Manchester & Jury Street: A catalytic neighbourhood at the heart of the SRF. Home of the existing HMP Manchester with potential for long term change subject to the relocation of the prison.

Derby Street: An intensified business district, supported to ensure the long-term preservation and evolution of the business base in the area.

Copper Park: A regional destination, multi-functional open space delivered to create positive amenity and biodiversity in response to future flood risk.

Overbridge: Gateway to Copper Park from the city centre, an area of significant residential potential – up to 2,000 homes – but with important economic assets and heritage.

Cheetham Park: A new urban-suburban residential neighbourhood of up to 1,000 homes, building on the heritage of the Victorian Cheetham Park and the nascent residential community around it.

Dutton Street: The Dutton Street area is a natural extension of the city centre. Subject to the existing Great Ducie Street SRF, it is identified as residential-led mixed use area – up to 4,000 homes – where significant development and investment is already evident. This part of the SRF could accommodate 1.75m sq ft of new commercial space

Lord Street: A transitional neighbourhood, connecting the residential-led change in Dutton Street with the economic focus of Derby Street to the north, and with Red Bank and Victoria North to the east.

Place Northwest

46 Marshall Street – New Cross

Posted on December 11, 2025December 13, 2025 by modernmoocher

In 1807 there is no Marshall Street, by 1813 there is.

Where it remains until this very day.

Manchester Historical Maps

This building has always intrigued me, its sits amongst what was formerly the heart of Manchester’s Rag Trade. It is an area of signs and lost industry, the comings and goings having been and gone.

It formed part of my Manchester Type Travel.

The surrounding buildings are gradually being refurbished or replaced, but somehow 46 Marshall Street is bucking the trend, though at some point someone somewhere will find over £750,000.

Gradually its wooden framed windows become the poked out eyes of its soul.

Light fittings hang limp and unlit, as the interior decor deteriorates.

The restless rust inhabits the lower metallic fenestration.

Block work blocks the blocked up entrances.

The ampersand can be traced back to the 1st century AD and the old Roman cursive, in which the letters E and T occasionally were written together to form a ligature.

Wikipedia

Humberston Fitties – 2025

Posted on August 7, 2025August 8, 2025 by modernmoocher

Well well here we are again, third time around following a visit in 2018 and later in 2021.

Almost inevitably, changes have taken place.

There is an almost constant tension between order and/or disorder.

Between those who prefer the shambolic aesthetic of the shotgun shack, and those whose hearts and minds are in the double spread of Homes and Gardens.

It’s also a question of economics, there are those with capital who may wish to make investments in property. Buy to let, second homes that yield a return above the current savings’ rates. Thus raising the cost of housing, both ordered and disordered.

There are fifteen offered for rental on airbnb.

The chalet is a unique wooden clad cabin painted in lovely complimentary colours of Cream and Seaspray Green. A porthole window peers into a generous open plan living room and adjoined kitchen with subtle seaside touches of stripes, driftwood, shells, all quality wooden furniture and large comfy corner sofa plus two relaxing reading chairs with plenty of blankets to snuggle up in.

So the march of big money heralds the arrival of complementary after dinner mints, uPVC cladding, tasteful nautical bric a brac, prohibitive signs, off road parking and a Hampton’s aesthetic – a little bit of New England inna little bit of England.

Despite the incursion of those folks on a week long excursion, there is still an air of lukewarm anarchy which pervades the Fitties. An array of wonky homemade fences constantly askew, refusing to be aligned to the orthogonal.

Mañana never comes here on this little stretch of the Lincolnshire coast, get it while you can.

Manchester Arterial – A 665

Posted on December 17, 2023 by modernmoocher

Cheetham Hill Road is part of the designated A665. Cheetham Hill Road starts at the junction of the A6042 Corporation Street and the A665 Miller Street. It crosses the culverted River Irk to the east of Victoria Station. At its junction with New Bridge Street, it turns north-northeast and is straight for 1 km, to the A6010 Queen’s Road . This stretch was called York Street until about 1900. Cheetham Hill Road leads from here to the community of Cheetham Hill, where at Bourget Street and Crescent Road – formerly Sandy Lane, Cheetham Hill Road becomes Bury Old Road.

Wikipedia

In 2014, having taken early retirement from teaching photography, I embarked on a series of walks along the arterial roads of Manchester.

Althea McNish – Whitworth

Posted on November 7, 2022 by modernmoocher

Oxford Rd Manchester M15 6ER

Recently opened and on for a while, I was here first thing Saturday morning – here are the details of Colour is Mine.

Althea McNish was the first Caribbean designer to achieve international recognition and one of the most influential and innovative textile designers in the UK. Drawing on extensive new research, this exhibition explores McNish’s extraordinary career and her transformative impact on mid-century design, along with her enduring influence today. Highlights include items from McNish’s recently uncovered personal archive – much of which has never been seen before. Also on display will be examples of McNish’s original designs alongside her most celebrated textile and wallpapers.

Althea McNish: Colour is Mine is a touring exhibition from the William Morris Gallery, London, and has been curated by Rowan Bain, Principal Curator at the William Morris Gallery and Rose Sinclair, Lecturer in Design Education at Goldsmiths, University of London. Althea McNish: Colour Is Mine is part of a three-year research, exhibition and archiving project generously supported by the Society of Antiquaries through its Janet Arnold Award.

An extensive biography can be found here.

Her work collided with new technologies in printing and fabrics, along with developments in design which were very much of their time: a freer more expressive approach to drawing and colour – using observational drawing from natural forms and geometric pattern

Typically employing the techniques of wax resist and a wandering Indian ink line.

Her work for the leading manufacturing and retail companies extended across fabric and dress design, wallpaper and accessories.

I urge you to go and see it – several times, the show is so wide ranging and joyous, a fitting testament to a creative life well-lived.

Fred Perry Way – 2009

Posted on July 28, 2020 by modernmoocher

Some time ago in Stockport Fred Perry was born, lived and moved away – in pretty rapid succession. Nevertheless the Borough claims him as their own and to celebrate the fact, they have devised a Way.

Not the way or an away day but a named way, the Fred Perry Way.

Stretching from North Reddish in the north to Woodford in the south – zigging and zagging through and across highways and byways, avenues and alleyways.

Combining rural footpaths, quiet lanes and river valleys with urban landscapes and park lands.

For the long distance walker it may be useful as a link route. The Fred Perry Way provides a link between the Bollin Valley Way, and through that, the North Cheshire Way, and via a short link between Mottram & Woodford, the Tame Valley Way and Etherow Goyt Valley Way at Stockport. A full crossing of historical North Cheshire could be devised, linking Black Hill & Crowden on the Pennine Way with Hilbre Island, utilising also the Wirral Way/Wirral Shore Way.

LDWA

Which seems like a whole heap of Ways.

Anyway this is what I saw way back when, but I’ll be back again in a bit!

Burton’s Moderne – Ashton and Beyond

Posted on February 28, 2019 by modernmoocher

In almost every town or city worth its salt stood a modern white tiled tailor’s shop, almost every man or boy wore a Burton’s suit.

Harry Wilson had become the company architect by the early 1920s, and was responsible for developing Burton’s house style. Montague Burton, however, maintained a close personal interest. The company’s in-house Architects Department was set up around 1932 under Wilson. He was followed as chief architect around 1937 by Nathaniel Martin, who was still in post in the early 1950s. The architects worked hand-in-hand with Burton’s Shopfitting and Building Departments, who coordinated the work of selected contractors. Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s they were kept phenomenally busy: by 1939 many of Burton’s 595 stores were purpose-built.

The very first made to measure gear I owned came from Burton’s in Ashton under Lyne – mini-mod aged fourteen in a three button, waisted, light woollen dark brown jacket, four slanted and flapped side pockets and an eighteen inch centre vent.

Just the job for a night out at the Birdcage, Moon or Bower Club

The story of the stores begins in the province of Kovno in modern Lithuania – Meshe David Osinsky (1885-1952), came to England where he initially took the name Maurice Burton.

The distinctive architecture stood out on the high street, Art Deco motifs and details abound – elephants chevrons and fans.

Topped off with the company’s distinctive logotype.

This example in Doncaster is one of the few remaining examples many having been removed – as the stores have changed ownership and usage.

This Neo-Classical Burnley branch is a rare example of a Burton’s which hasn’t gone for a Burton.

The group maintained a distinctive graphic style in labelling signage and advertisements.

Often including ornate mosaic entrances, ventilation covers and obligatory dated foundation stones – as seen in this Ashton under Lyne branch.

Stores often housed dance halls or other social spaces.

In 1937 Burton’s architect, Nathaniel Martin, collaborated with the architects Wallis Gilbert & Partners on a subsidiary clothing works on the Great Lancashire Road at Worsley, near Manchester. Conceived as a Garden Factory and built in a modern style, this was dubbed ‘Burtonville Clothing Works’. It opened in October 1938 .

Where machinists worked on Ashton built Jones equipment.

Time changes everything and the inception of off the wall unisex disco clothing saw the made to measure suit fall into a chasm of loon pants and skinny rib grandad vests.

The Ashton branch becomes a motorcycle then fitted kitchen showroom, topped off with a succession of clubs and various other modern day leisure facilities.

Currently home to the Warsaw Delicatessen and Good News Gospel Church

Formerly Club Denial.

This is the tale of the modern high street grand ideas, architectural grandeur, entrepreneurial immigrants, style and fashion – disappearing in a cloud of vinyl signage and fly by night operations. Though if you look carefully the pale white shadows of Burton’s are still there in one form or another, however ghostly.

A Short History Of The World – In Several Pairs Of Jeans

Posted on May 7, 2018December 12, 2023 by modernmoocher

Image: Mirrorpix

The Crazy Face shop at Tiviot Dale, Stockport, next door to Gareth and Colin’s Hairdressers, part owned by Gareth Evans who managed the Stone Roses. Two shops owned by legendary Manchester band managers side by side!

You see, the thing is, the Crazy Face factory is my story, my history, my childhood memoirs, the location of my earliest adventures. Crazy Face clothing was my Dad’s workplace, his shops, his factory, his vision and it was a real place, it was places, there were several factories and the ‘factory’ was the whole circus of creativity that surrounded him.

Of course Joe Moss was also the manager of The Smiths and latterly was managing Johnny too, in some capacity, in later years, but the Crazy Face story is a whole in which The Smiths are a chapter, so it feels strange to see the Crazy Face name associated with Johnny Marr in this way, as part of his marketing.

David Moss

This a tale of times long long ago – in the land that Levi Strauss forgot.

Of British boys and girls with – denim set on destruction.

Born in 1955 I was hurled into the turmoil of the Swinging Sixties, with little or no idea concerning style or fashion. Clothes were hand me down, home made accessories to a guileless life of pre-teen, jean-less hi-jinx.

The Beat Boom, that raging torrent that swamped the North West of England in a swirling vortex of raw R’n’B and indigo trousers changed all that forever.

I have no idea just here they came from, or any idea or where they eventually went, but my first pairs of jeans were Tek Sac and/or Jet.

A thin copy of their American cousins, cut and stitched with a casual carelessness from the pale blue gossamer that was Empire Brand cotton, they were pre-worn out, threadbare before you had actually worn them out. Designed to induce a distressed look in the wearer, years before the coming of the distressed look.

Jet seemed to have survived into the 70s – rich in Disco Chic, even warranting their own TV ad – get into Jet Jeans get into Jet.

As I remember the first pair of serious branded jeans were local – for famous local people – they were Liverpool made Lybro of Mount Vernon. A slightly heavier denim, styled to suit and fit the lower half of the upwardly-mobile, mobile teenage tearaway.

In 1963, a Liverpool jeans company, Lybro Limited, asked if The Beatles would advertise their jeans. The request may either have come through the group’s manager, Brian Epstein – or through their friend at the Cavern Club, DJ Bob Wooler. The advertising agency behind the campaign was Millican Advertising Limited, operating from Liverpool 3.

The original photos came to light in 2004, when photographer Richard Cooper unearthed the pictures in an old file and remembered the shoot on which he worked as a young 20-year-old apprentice at a photo studio in Liverpool’s African Chambers.

The photos formed the basis of drawings used on the final advertisements.

Lybro Jeans Shoot

Then along came came Brutus – possibly the first homegrown denim to challenge the American imports for distinctive style and quality.

By now flares had flared up like an unwanted rash on the face of the mid-seventies, whilst I remained in a parallel omniverse – constant and true to the parallel cut.

Beloved of the boot-boy and rampaging teenage togger hooligan alike, Skinners ran counter to the ever widening gulf between toe cap and jean hem. I had several pairs in the Seventies, indigo, white and corduroy – we were out, straight and proud.

Less enlightened times produced a rash of Skinner clad misdemeanours on the streets and terraces of this fair Isle.

Manchester United fans in Cardiff 1974

As the Seventies began to collide with the Eighties the upper half of the UK embraced the widest and wildest styles they could find, the northern soul danced to Northern Soul, as jeans, skirts and trousers wrapped and embraced their flailing all-night limbs.

John Bulmer – Manchester 1974

Blues & Soul August 1976

Blues & Soul January 1979

It couldn’t last, we had to take a narrower view in our strides.

The onset of Punk Rock heralded the inception of the skinnier jean – despatching the Hippy flare and Soul Boy bag, indigo to the bargain bins of history.

I then began to buy mine from Crazy Face – brainchild of Joe Moss, he had series of Stockport shops on Mealhouse Brow, Lower Hillgate and Tiviot Dale along with Chapel Walks in Manchester – Joe would later find fame managing Manchester pop sensations The Smiths.

Stuart Lee of Stockport County at Mealhose Brow

For years I would wear a wide variety of wide and not so narrow Crazy Face denim – served by fresh-faced, soon to be superstar DJ Jason Boardman.

Nothing last forever and my love affair with home grown denim eventually came to an end, Joe Bloggs, Hooch and Bench largely passed me by.

And so our story ends – a Storm Rider in a turn up, I began wearing Lee Jeans and I’ve never looked back, owning several pairs in various states of wash and wear loved, they are now no longer made.

So some ways down the line I’ll have to take a look at what’s shaking – shake down a pair of eBay Tek Sacs and start all over again.