Down on Burnage Lane with an uncertain future for one of the big old houses

“If you go down to the woods today, You're sure of a big surprise” .......... which of course is just as it should be, but in the case of Andy Robertson  it was Burnage Lane,  and less a bunch of Teddy Bears and more a house waiting a future.

At present I don’t know what the future will be and have yet to go digging into its past.

Until recently it was called Santaidd Manor and Andy seems to think it was once called Shawbrook.

In 1911 it was occupied by the Cohen family.  Mr Max Edward Cohen had been born in Germany and described himself as a shipping merchant.

And Shawrook was a 16 roomed mansion as befitted a wealthy merchant.

Equally impressive was Burnage House which during the first decade of the 20th century was home to Mr William Charlton who was certainly wealthy enough to live a very comfortable life and on his death in 1918 left£10,464 and according to one researcher had been a JP, Free Mason, Church Warden and a member of the British Numismatic Society who by 1911 aged 73 described himself as of “private means.”

Now there will be someone out there who knows the story of Santaidd Manor and may well save me looking back through the rate books to establish when it was built and what happened to it.

By 2003 it was an “Education centre for overseas students,” was still occupied in September 2012 but was closed and empty by the August of last year.

All of which leaves me to say watch this space because I have every confidence more of its story will emerge along with a series of pictures from Andy chronicling the progress of the site.

And yes sometime today I will go looking on the Council's online planning application site for news of its future.

Pictures; Santaidd Manor, 2015 from the Burnage collection courtesy of Andy Robertson