Situated a mere five-minute gentle jaunt from Didsbury Village lies Fletcher Moss Park. It is a bonny spot with walking and cycle paths leading you down to the River Mersey where a left turn takes you on a five-mile journey to Stockport town centre and the opposite direction rolls you through to Chorlton and Sale and their corresponding water parks. Within the park is the Alpine Tearoom which relocated itself to an outside location during the pandemic and provided much needed solace and a meeting place during that fraught period, where you could speak to actual real people face to face whilst devouring your Lemon Drizzle Cake!
Nearby lies the Northern Lawn Tennis Club which for a golden period staged the Manchester Trophy which was a perfect grass court warm up for Wimbledon until it ended in 2009. In the tail end of last century stellar players such as Goran Ivanisevic, Pete Sampras, Stefan Edberg, Pat Rafter and John McEnroe graced the courts of Didsbury!
When I first relocated over to Manchester almost five years ago, I picked up on an article at the time and began to uncover the remarkable lesser-known history of Fletcher Moss. Emily Williamson, a middle-class wife of a solicitor resided in the Croft, now the above-mentioned café, in the 1880’s.
She was horrified by the existing brutal act of millinery which harvested feathers from live birds for the pure vanity of embellishing fashionable bonnets, so much so she garnered local support which directly led to the creation in 1889 of the now world-renowned Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds (RSPB). This subsequently resulted in the Plumage Act to ban the importing of plumage coming into force in 1921.
To mark this centenary a commissioning of a statue of Emily was instigated which will result in a monument being in situ in the park by 2023. There is already a plaque in place on the side of the Croft building.
Since 2009, there has been a novel event called the Guitar Trail held in the park in aid of charity and organised by the Didsbury Art Network. The concept in actuality being rather simple by setting up impromptu ‘stage’ points as you walk around the paths of the gardens where suites of local guitarists would strum away.
In 2018 on a reasonably warm Sunday afternoon in July I traversed the 10-minute commute from the current rental to go and have a peruse. There was one main stage on the flat area with a few stalls and food and drink options available and a reasonable turnout of punters. On the main Manchester Guitar Trail Main Stage I witnessed the following local acts, Nick Wilkinson & Lorna Agua, Chris Lathie and Michael Walton.
As I wandered around the trail which weaved you down through the gardens, I encountered other pop up ‘stages’ resulting in seeing the Green Day Combo at the Manchester Guitar Trial Garden Stage and then Frets at the Manchester Guitar Trail Corner Stage.
The stages or gathering areas were endeavouring to elicit a San Francisco/Woodstock vibe and despite the fact that at times I felt the whole set up was a tad earnest and bearded, it remains an interesting fun event.