By Susanna Yeomans Like Heaton Chapel station, the now disappeared Heaton Mersey train station stood as a symbol of wealth and progress for Victorian Heatonians. Idyllic in style, its station cottage, awnings and platform waiting rooms rose above function, speaking of the awe local residents felt for this new addition to local life. After all, [...]

By Susana Yeomans On the 25th April 1912, The Heatons Recreational Grounds Committee met to discuss the possibility of establishing a second haven of green space in their semi-rural community. Houses seemed to be popping up in the area by the minute, and the committee saw that preserving areas of open land was vital to [...]

By Susanna Yeomans It’s hard to believe that Heaton Moor Park was once just an expanse of open land. It is as much a part of the hubbub of local, and increasingly urban, social life as it ever was. But when its borders were first laid down in 1894 the area was predominantly rural, composed [...]

Moor Top hardly existed in the 1860’s, being on the edge of the new fashionable area of Heaton Moor and the well-established village of Heaton Mersey. Earlier Maps show just a rope-maker’s premises and a few humble dwellings with the picturesque name of Owler Nook. As housing development crept further from the two main areas, [...]

Heaton Moor was agricultural land in Heaton Norris, until the opening of Heaton Chapel railway station changed everything. In 1837 Parliamentary approval was given for the railway to be built by the Manchester and Birmingham Railway, the first section from Heaton Norris to Manchester opened in 1841. Heaton Chapel Station was built in 1851 close [...]

St Thomas’s was the chapel from which the district of Heaton Chapel got its name. Before it was built, there was no church anywhere in the Heatons and people were expected to walk to Stockport, Didsbury or the centre of Manchester to attend weekly service. For people living in the east of the area this [...]

 Until the late 1980’s, when the last Heatons farm was sold as housing land, there were several well-established small farms in the area, usually run by generations of the same family over many years.  As well as the farms shown here, there were farms at Grundy Hill and Underbank in Heaton Mersey, Shaw Fold (on [...]

    As the second part of our History of Barnes Home we look at the stories behind some of its residents Robert Barnes was born 11 July 1800 on Bloom Street, Manchester. He died 25 Dec 1871 and was interred in Didsbury Churchyard When Barnes Home was opened on 2 August 1871 it was [...]

By Phil Rowbotham. Heaton is derived from the Anglo Saxon Hetton, Heyton or Heton, where Hea means high ground and ton a defended settlement or farm. The designation Norrey or Norres in 1384 came from the family name of Norreys. Heaton Norris was part of the Manchester baronry of the Grelley family, but between 1162 [...]