Sharston Hall was a manor house built in Sharston, an area of Wythenshawe, Manchester, England, in 1701.[1] A three-storey building with Victorian additions,[2] it was purchased by Thomas Worthington, an early umbrella tycoon, and occupied by the Worthington family until 1856, when the last male heir died.[1] The hall was occupied by the Henriques family in the 1920s, but following their death in a motor accident in 1932 the house was converted into flats.[3][a] Manchester Corporation purchased the hall in 1926.[5] During the Second World War it was leased by the local watch committee for use by the police, civil defence and fire services.[6]

From 1941 until 1957 Sharston Hall's coach house served as Wythenshawe's fire station.[7] In 1948 the Sharston Community Association, founded that same year, was allocated part of the hall for use as a community centre. Two years later the association took over the entire house, expanding in 1957 to also occupy the coach house then recently vacated by the fire service.[8]

By the late 1960s the hall was in a poor state of repair and was boarded up.[6] Sharston Hall was demolished in 1986, replaced by offices in a sympathetic 18th-century style[2] – or what Pevsner's architectural guide calls a parody of it[9] – and houses.[2]


References

Notes

  1. ^ David Q. Henriques was a Manchester stockbroker and magistrate. He apparently lost control of the car he was driving in Hazel Grove and was involved in a head-on collision with a tram travelling in the opposite direction. Both Henriques and his wife died on their way to Stockport Infirmary.[4]

Citations

  1. ^ a b "Halls Farms & Cottages", Wythenshawe History Group, retrieved 21 November 2017
  2. ^ a b c Deakin (1989), p. 11.
  3. ^ Deakin (1983), p. 37.
  4. ^ "Man and Wife Killed: Motor's Terrible Crash with Tram". Hull Daily Mail. 20 June 1932. p. 6 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  5. ^ Cooper (2007), p. 158.
  6. ^ a b Deakin (1989), p. 115.
  7. ^ Deakin (1989), p. 121.
  8. ^ Deakin (1989), p. 132.
  9. ^ Hartwell, Hyde & Pevsner (2004), p. 505.

Bibliography

  • Cooper, Glynis (2007), The Illustrated History of Manchester's Suburbs, Breedon Books, ISBN 978-1-85983-592-0
  • Deakin, Derick (1983), Looking Back at Northenden, Willow Publishing, ISBN 978-0-946361-03-8
  • Deakin, Derick (1989), Wythenshawe: The Story of a Garden City, Phillimore & Co., ISBN 978-0-85033-699-3
  • Hartwell, Clare; Hyde, Matthew; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2004), Lancashire:Manchester and the South-East, The Buildings of England, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-10583-4

53°23′34″N 2°15′06″W / 53.3929°N 2.2518°W / 53.3929; -2.2518

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