Tuesday 28 February 2012

Horse drawn delivery vans, gas lights, coal fires and net curtains, North Meade 1914


Here is another of those occasional pictures celebrating just over one hundred years of Chorltonville. It was taken not long after the “ville” had been built and is looking out from Claude Road along North Meade towards the Meade.

In some ways it is a scene that has not changed much. The trees have now matured and the passage of time has made it necessary to replace the wooden fences, but essentially it is almost the same.

But what it reveals is a world remote from our own. The horse drawn delivery vans of which there are two in the picture hark back to a time when local shops however local made house calls. So on this quiet day as one plies his way onto North Meade, another has taken to stop on the island, which would sit badly with the generations of residents who have told children off for playing on the grass.

Nor does it stop there. Behind those front doors there was gas lighting, coal fires and the regulation style window nets. And a total absence of cars.

The roads in the “ville” are narrow but then when no one had a car it didn’t matter over much. It was perhaps fortunate that in planning the front gardens the design allowed for a drive and garage to be added later in mid century.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

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