Meeting Pat at Trafford Local Studies and Archive

1930 map of White's Bridge and wharves

Met Pat Coulburn at Trafford Local Studies and Archive Centre in the Waterside library at Sale yesterday... She's a mine of information... and what  a memory! Pat has been really useful as we have been trying to work out which nurseries and farms the night soil went to in Sale and Dunham.
It would be great to find some people who remember this process...I may need to revisit some old friends from our Timperley food heritage calendar work... Sonny Poyner and Barbara Shaw. http://www.forgottenfields.org.uk/content/heyes-lane-timperley-2011-calendar

The toll traffic books 1928 recorded night-soil going to W. Walkden and J. Whitehead from White's Bridge...
We looked at the 1923 Kelly's Directory of Cheshire and found:
Joseph Whitehead and a Jason Whitehead, market gardeners, Gratrix Lane, Northenden Road
The 1908 Slater's Directory of Altrincham shows a Thomas Walkden at Moorside, Marsland Road.
Pat believes that Thomas was survived by his son Harry, who gave the Nursery over to become Walkden Gardens and wonders if W Walkden was his brother, who may have worked at the same address. We need to investigate further so any further knowledge gratefully received.

1923 Kelly's Directory under a description of Sale states:
A scheme for the purification of Sale Sewage was carried out in 1892 on the Banks of the Mersey, about one mile north of the town, where the sewage, amounting to 750,000 gallons per day (dry weather flow) is purified by chemical preparations, the purified effluent passing into the Mersey; the sludge is sold to farmers; the works, constructed from plans by A.G. McBeath of Sale, have cost over £20,000

Photocopied some lovely big maps from the archive (1930's, so out of copyright) for the event that we are planning at Dunham Massey on 8th Sept.