Where is the area called Waterside?

[watersider]

My ancestor Samuel Campbell was the illegitimate son of Nancy Campbell, who had him baptised at St Michaels Ashton Under Lyne on 17 July 1825, when she was recorded in the register of baptisms as a single woman of Waterside.

I have spent many years trying to find out more about Waterside, and find other relatives for Nancy. We now know that she was a.k.a. Agnes Campbell (sometimes Agnes Young Campbell), she was born in Scotland around 1800, and she married Abraham Mills on 25 May 1829 at Manchester Cathedral.

Does anyone have any suggestions for locations of Waterside? There are 2 possibilities that I am aware of ... 1: on the Medlock, in Audenshaw somewhere near Woodhouses or Waterhouses; 2: on the banks of the Tame in Dukinfield.

All suggestions gratefully received!

[Woody]

Hi Watersider

I was in the library looking for something else today and had a q

[Woody]

Hi Watersider

Ooops. Just pressed the wrong key !!

I was in the library looking for something else today and had a quick look for Waterside. There was a Waterside Mill built next to the river Tame around the 1850s but that's too late for your question.

The only other pure 'Waterside' I could find was in the Greenfield area of Saddleworth at the junction of the A669 (Chew Valley Road) and the A 635 (Manchester/ Holmfirth Road). In 1861 the neighbouring Streets were Waterside Cottages, Nook Street, Nook Wood, Valley Cottages, Birches Clough and there still is an adjacent 'Waterside Mill'. If you know the area, Greenfield Mill round the corner used to be Fletcher's paper mill. Waterside is still marked on the current A-Z streetmap on pp61, square 5-G.

It proved more difficult to find Waterside near Audenshaw because I suspect that might have been the mill built in the 1850s.

Waterhouses could be found on the banks of the river Medlock close to Woodhouses. Its more modern name is Daisy Nook and the site of the hamlet (only a few cottages) is more or less where the Daisy Nook Garden Centre now stands. If you look at the A-Z streetmap, it's between the motorway and the river Medlock at the point where the Hollinwood Branch Canal and the Medlock run closest to each other (pp 86/87 square 6B). The route to follow is the A627, Newmarket Road to the junction with Lumb Lane, then the Stannybrook Road branch.

The surrounding farms in the 1820s were Boodle, Well Style, Medlock Bank, etc. Winifred M Bowman, more famous for writing 'England in Ashton under Lyne', also wrote a privately printed volume entitled '5000 acres of Old Ashton:a history of the Limehurst Rural District' which has 25 pages on the locality.

[Woody]

Curiosity got the better of me and I couldn’t resist trying to find Agnes Campbell and husband Abraham Mills in the 1851 census. I was looking for their place of birth and it proved a fairly straightforward search but from the stained original, it looks highly likely that this record was part of the hitherto lost batch of 1851 census records, recently restored and published.

In 1841 the couple were living at Edge Lane, Droylsden (at that time part of Manchester). Subsequently, all the successive addresses were in the St Peter's Ward of Ashton under Lyne.

Agnes always gives her birthplace as ‘Scotland’ but Abraham gives his variously as ‘Medlock Vale’ (1851), ‘Ashton under Lyne’ (1861) and ‘Gorton’ (1871). The children’s birthplaces are equally variable.

Whatever, the evidence now seems stronger for ‘Waterhouses’ than for Greenfield, particularly since Medlock Vale still appears on the modern A-Z streetmap less than a quarter of a mile distant from the site for Waterhouses I mentioned yesterday.

You probably already know this but I suspect that Agnes died at Ashton in 1869, aged 69. Abraham ended up living at 6 Hindley Street, Ashton under Lyne and with him are his married daughter, Frances (Bates) and three Bates grandchildren.

Also living there is Alice Mills, age 14, born at Droylsden and she’s listed as Agnes’ granddaughter in 1861. She’s probably linked to Frances but it’s still a bit of a mystery.

[watersider]

Hi Woody, thanks very much for replying to my question. Yes, I have found Agnes and Abraham in various censuses and other records, they are usually easily identifiable!

Back to the question about Waterside, I wonder if you would be so kind as to study the contents of this link to the National Archives www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=055-ddx144&cid=-1#-1.

It contains a mind-boggling wealth of information about the chain of ownership of a property referred to as Waterside, for example ...

DDX 144/4 14/15 May, 1731

Contents:

Assignment of mortgage; for £280: (i) Joseph Buckley of Waterside, Ashton-under-Lyne, yeoman, eldest son and heir of James Buckley, late of Werneth, par. Stockport, co. Chester, yeoman, deceased, (ii) Jane Buckley, now of Waterside, widow of James B. (iii) Samuel Ellis of Meddope Hall, par. Eccleston, co.York, farmer -- messuage called Waterside in Woodhouses and 15 closes. (25 ac.)

Does this confirm or consolidate any of your previous suggestions?

[Woody]

Hi watersider

I had a bit of unexpected spare time this weekend so looked through the Archive material. It’s certainly fascinating and the spelling errors make it quite entertaining in parts – Ashton Underline and Wedlock Vale, for example.

It’s possible to locate some of the people named in the transactions but putting it all into the context of Agnes Campbell’s known history is difficult because apart from thye name 'Waterside', there are no obvious connections. I’m therefore still not sure how much closer to the verified fact it gets us so I’d vote for consolidation but not yet confirmation.

With so many references to Woodhouses and Medlock from differing sources, I’m pretty sure we should be searching in the Droylsden area rather than anywhere else. Of course, one primary question is whether the Waterside to which Agnes refers in Samuel’s birth registration is a messuage (a dwelling and the adjacent land appropriated to its use) or a discrete hamlet lying within the Droylsden boundaries.

In the Archie, the term Waterside messuage is first introduced in 1731 and in 1739 we have 15 closes (enclosed parcels of land surrounded by either visible or invisible boundaries), 25 acres in all, together with 19 deeds of property. In 1742, 19 deeds pass to Thomas Walton of Dunham Massey. After his death in 1757, the Dunham Massey estate is acquired through marriage by the Earl of Stamford who already owns much of the land in the Ashton under Lyne parish.

The property in Woodhouses has become Waterside House by 1837, and it seems to have grown into a mansion. The final reference, again as a mansion, is in 1857. Consecutive transactions all place the property firmly in Woodhouses and list a succession of yeomen as tenants (prosperous farmers who, one step down from the landed gentry, could afford to invest in expensive building work).

After 1857, the trend seems to be towards commercial enterprise with various parcels of land across Doylsden being sold in combinations – for construction of a bleachworks and land for Droylsden Sewerage works, for example

By the early 1900s Waterside doesn’t get a mention and whichever tract of land we are now talking about is collectively owned by a group of London-based bankers, lawyers and businessmen seemingly trading under the banner ‘Medlock Vale Estates’. The probate records show that each of their individual estates at death averaged over £5,000,000 at today’s value.

On the other side of the coin however, there is also evidence in a historical text pointing to Waterside as a discrete location. In his 450-page volume ‘History and Descriptive Notices – Droylsden‘ published in 1859, John Higson makes three references to Waterside although it’s not clear whether these references are to a messuage or a locality. The inference is a locality.

The most pertinent might be as follows:

,,,,, ‘Formerly the boundary line across the Moss, before its reclamation and allotment to adjoining estates, was indicated by long oaken poles, fixed upright at distances of from twenty to thirty yards apart. Traversing the northern boundary, Droylsden is still divided from Audenshaw by the Lum, or Lumb Brook, until it arrives at Waterside.

Hence the river separates the township, first from Failsworth, and then from Newton Heath as far as Bankbridge, where Droylsden crosses the river, and is separated from the same township by the footpath leading towards Philip's Park’.

From that description, perhaps referring to old maps might help you pinpoint Waterside. There are a few map inserts and photos of Waterhouses on the Hollinwood Canal Society website www.hollinwoodcanal.co.uk

You can google an on-line copy of Higson’s volume ‘History and Descriptive Notices – Droylsden

There’s information about land ownership in Droylsden at www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41423

There’s a Pigot & Slater’s 1841 Directory of Manchester and Salford which from page 439 provides information about principle towns and villages in the area - on-line at www.historicaldirectories.org.uk -

There's too much more to include here so I'll send a personal message with the rest.