Where was Newton?
In issue No.5 you posed the question, ‘Where is Newton?’ As a young lad before the war, I went to St, Augustine’s School and I used to wonder at the sign on the house in either Bush Street or Jocelyn Street which read ‘The Township of Newton’ so it must have been somewhere near that church. Although I have not lived in the area since before the war I am still proud to have been born on “The Plains of Platting” as we called it then.
C Morris

I have researched extensively on this subject and to put it simply Newton was the dividing border of Miles Platting between Junction Street and Lodge Street. The line runs down the River Medlock along Varley Street, halfway along Collyhurst Street, then it follows the railway lines back up to just beyond Wilson’s Brewery.
Please accept these maps for your interest. I hope they are helpful.
AJ. Shannon
Thanks for the maps. If readers would like to see them, feel free to call in at the magazine group on Monday mornings (Ed)
My father told me the area we lived in used to be known as Newton. We lived close to Bradford Road at the time. I always thought he meant the whole of Miles Platting. I have read somewhere that Newton was a separate township to Manchester, and its boundaries were the present Failsworth and Newton Heath boundary; follow this to the River Medlock, along the river to Varley Street, across to Collyhurst Street, beyond the railway lines, then back up to the Failsworth boundary.
Maggie Paul

I was born and bred in and around the bottom of Butler Street and lived there until my late “teens”. I do believe I can help answer where Newton was. Just before World War Two, some flats were being erected at Ravel Street, off Butler Street, straight through to the bottom of Varley Street. When I asked my mother what used to be there, she told me it was Newton, where my granddad had come from. Granddad was killed in 1918 during World War 1.
Irene O’Neill. (Nee Quinn)
Thank you for the stamps Irene, they were gratefully received. (Ed)
Thanks readers, for all your historical information. Did you know Oldham Road used to be called Newton Lane? And Varley Street used to be Cow Lane!

What’s In a Name? The exact origins of Manchester place names seem to get lost in the mists of time. Take for example the district of Ancoats. Through the years a number of theories have been put forward as to how it got its name, but there has never been any conclusive evidence. We know that ‘coates’ or cote(s) is Anglo Saxon for cottage or enclosure, and the prefix ‘an’ means ‘to give’. Put the two together and we get ‘given or gifted cottages’.
Alice Jackson