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Hardy Lane, MANCHESTER, M21 7BL

Numbers 57-69 Hardy Lane. To the right is a small cul-de-sac - Burleigh Mews - with more small detached and semi detached houses of the same style. This development was built in the 1980s on the site of Hardy Lane cottages. These were a block of nine late 19th century cottages, dating from the time when Hardy Lane was a rural country lane. The cottages were the subject of a slum clearance dated 1969 and demolished in 1972. http://hardylane.blogspot.com/2009/11/slum-clearance-order.html

St Barnabas’ Church, was built in the 1950’s and is part of the Parish Church of St Clement (CofE). The church provides a worship and community facility for the people of the estates off Hardy Lane and Darley Avenue. The Church is located at the corner of Hurstville Road and Hardy Lane.

Looking from the junction with Hardy Lane. The house here were built by Manchester Corporation in the late 1920s / early 1930s.

A small mission church within the Church of England parish of St Clement, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the building appears to be used for occasional worship and more frequent community use.

These private houses were built sometime in the late 1930s. They are the very last houses on Hardy Lane. Prior to the 1920 Hardy Lane was a quiet rural lane leading to Hardy Farm and a handful of cottages on the edge of the floodplain of the Mersey. The road was substantially widened when Manchester Corporation built houses in the area in the 1920s/ 30s, with a small area of speculative private development near Hardy Farm. Hardy Lane is unusually wide, although at the Hardy Farm end the carriageway narrows, with a large area of verge in front this last block of houses. The planners had in mind a future extension across the river to Sale in mind, to form a significant arterial road. When the M63 Sale Eastern Bypass was being designed and constructed in the 1960s proposals were in place for a new link road, to be carried across the low lying land at Hardy Farm on a 20ft high embankment. This was never built, although the motorway junction (now M60 J6) was built with this in mind. Although spare from thundering traffic passing their front doors, these houses will in future have the frequent swish of trams, as the Metrolink line to Manchester Airport will run along Hardy Lane - the barriers seen here relate to works to move utilities in advance of the start of construction proper.

Hardy Lane's width gives a clue to the original intent to create a dual carriageway link through to Sale, across the River Mersey and originally in a different county. All the M63 (now M60) junctions were built on that assumption, hence today's impossibility of exiting the M60 northwards from the west and the pain of getting across the Mersey from Sale Moor.

The #84 bus from Withington Hospital does a three-point-turn near the end of Hardy Lane. Photograph taken through the side window.

When Hardy Lane was widened from a narrow country lane in the 1920s, the planners had in mind an extension across the Mersey to form a significant arterial road. This explains the exceptional width of what is essentially a cul-de-sac. (The Hardy Lane Extension was still being seriously considered into the late 1960s / early 1970s when the M63 was being designed and built, with junctions set out with this link in mind). This view is set to change substantially in coming years as the Metrolink line to the airport is due to be constructed along this road, continuing towards a river crossing near Jackson's Boat.

The Hardy Farm hall of residence was built by UMIST in the very early 1970s adjacent to their Hardy Farm Sports Ground. The sports pitches were ultimately abandoned due to subsidence, but the student accommodation remains. As of February 2012 a room in an 8 bed house costs £325 a month.