BOOK REVIEW - FATHER BRIAN SEALE THE MOSTON STORY 1983 Self Published.
A comprehensive
beautifully illustrated history of Moston, where I live myself, in North Manchester, from Roman times
to the 1980’s. This is a lavish labour of love. The Town On The Moss, (as
Moston means) has played its part in history in more ways than one. Seale
Centres first on the early tenants of Moston Hall, who included the Byrons,
(Forbears to the poet Lord Byron, ). Sir Ralph de Moston first inherited the
Moston estates as early as c.1200. The main village hall occupied high vantage
ground fed by moss-streams, with access to Blakely to the North and Manchester
itself, three miles South. There were deer in the park now called Boggart Hole
Clough nearby. Moston often gets easily confused with neighbouring Nuthurst,
now often called New Moston, though in settlement terms it predates Moston
itself. Some of Moston’s history has been turbulent and tragic. Thomas Chetham
who inherited Moston Hall was a staunch Roundhead in the Civil War, fighting
against the Royalists in the 1642 Siege Of Manchester. The Lightbownes who came
to the house a little later were related by marriage to Oliver Cromwell’s
Favourite poet, John Milton (through Elizabeth Minshall). . Coal was mined here
as early as 1615, and rich deep seams run for miles under the district. The pit
was the scene of two tragic disasters. In 1884 a flood filled a major section
of the pit, and though it killed or injured none, it proved disastrous in other
ways. The pumps supplied by Matther & Platt nearby failed to drop the water
levels, so four hundred men and boys lost their jobs. The tools of a Miner’s
trade were acquired as they learned their craft, rather than easily shop
bought. Now most picks and hammers were underwater. Despite hardship funds and
charitable donations, the community was pushed literally to the brink of
starvation before everyone could find employment again. In 1940, a coal truck
brake failure pitched a truck and the men on board into a high-speed
derailment, which killed nine men and injured many more. The Moston Pit itself
closed in 1950, though miners continued to maintain it as a venting shaft site
for the nearby Bradford Colliery until 1968. A group of houses built for the
pit crews and families is still known as the Moston Miner’s Estate to this day.
The Great Flood of 1872 floated coffins and corpses right out of the ground in
Philip’s Park, in the Bradford District; many were reinterred in a stretch of
consecrated open ground in Moston. This was the beginning for St. Joseph’s
Cemetery (sometimes called Moston Cemetery). Another claim to fame for Moston
is The Alexian Brother’s Nursing Home. The Monastic Brothers had helped wounded
dispossessed veterans from the crusades. With the Reformation conflict between
Catholic and Protestant, they migrated across Europe, and the Nursing Home is a
legacy of their ongoing settlement in Moston. Protestant. / Catholic has made
its mark on Moston too. The establishment of St. Luke’s Church in proposed and
successful launching of the Lightbowne Diocese created much tension. This moved
to farce with several thefts of the church’s large brass central altar cross.
Eventually, the priest glued it down in a storage room, but the congregation
prised it up with crowbars and restored it to the altar. It was stolen again in
1970. The church settled to a more relaxed history, serving proudly as a
barrage balloon station during the Blitz. A startling history that deserves
wider attention.
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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