I've been greatly enjoying my subscription to the British Newspaper Archive. It's great for research. But I came across a snippet which Oldron and others might find interesting.
In August 1956, four schoolboys - Brothers David (12) and John (10) Lucas of Boyle St., Cheetham and brothers Leonard (9) and Eric Stapleton (6) of Temple Square, were playing on Barney's Croft when they came across and old sofa dumped there. They jumped up and down on it and out fell a bank pass book containing banknotes amounting to £1,300. They dutifully handed these over to the police.
Investigation revealed that the bank book belonged to a gentleman named Mr Myer Horowitch. Horowitch was a Russian émigré who had come to Manchester at the turn of the 20th century and had never learned English or become naturalised but had made a small fortune running a scrap rag and metal business at 25-31 Mary Street, Strangeways. He had gone missing from his home, 1 Brunswick St., Cheetham in 1939 whilst his family were out at the theatre, and he was never found. He was declared dead in 1954 and his estate, valued at £10,000, was inherited by his three children. Following his disappearance, his children had sold the sofa for £6. It had passed through several owners until eventually, it had been bought by a Mrs Webster who lived in a caravan parked on Barney's Croft. She had subsequently bought a new sofa and chucked out the old one onto the croft. She was kicking herself to think she'd been sitting on £1,300 for six months and hadn't known anything about it!
Barney's used to have a great many circus, show folk and travellers camped on it, and birth records show a lot of children were born on the croft over the years. It became not only a dumping ground, often for hazardous waste, but was a place local prostitutes took their clients. During my childhood, I recall reports of highly exotic plants found growing there, the seeds having been thrown out as kitchen waste from local Indian restaurants. There was also cannabis growing there, from the birdseed in discarded budgies cage litter. What a place. Anyone know if Barneys has been built on now?
