Night-soil Information shared at Abbey Leys Farmer's Market

On Sunday we had an interesting morning talking to people at the Abbey Leys Farmer's Market about the availability of locally grown food for the City's markets. 

There was lots of interest in the role of the canal and a good deal of disgust at the thought of using the returning night-soil boat for the transport of farm food to the city!

A busy Sunday morning at the Market

We would like to know more about the locally grown vegetables that were carried via the Bridgewater Canal from market gardeners such as Mr Jackson at Lime Tree House at Dunham Massey whose field backed onto the waterside. I'm told that his vegetables were loaded from the wooden pier there for transport into Castlefield.

Not really directly related... but amusing nonetheless: a resident of Stockton Heath retold his childhood story: 

Making the connection with Kindling's current growing initiatives.

''My grandmother, Marjorie Coombes, (born around about 1916) lived at Greenhalls Avenue, Stockton Heath...told me that in some of the houses, (I don't know if it was hers or her neighbours).... that didn't have ginnels, the night-soil men, to get through to the back to the night soil, had to come through the house to empty the pan, to carry it back through to empty it into the cart!

The other story that I remember, she told me when I was very young...when she was a little girl just after the first world war...the night soil man who drove the cart, he had one arm - he lost one arm in the first world war she said that one day the horse got startled by...and I think she said it was the swing bridge in Stockton Heath...I don't know what startled her but the horse either reared or bolted and the night soil men in the front of the cart ended up in the back of the cart covered in whatever was in the back!''