Clayton is a suburb of the city of Manchester, in North West England. It is situated about 3 miles east of the city centre, on Ashton New Road. Clayton takes its name from the Clayton family[citation needed] who owned large parts of land around the area, including Clayton Vale, through which the River Medlock flows (separating Clayton from neighbouring Newton Heath). Clayton was once under the township of Droylsden up until around 1890 when alterations to the Manchester boundary took place. Other towns added to Manchester around this time were Blackley, Crumpsall, Moston, Openshaw and Gorton.[1]
Clayton was home to Manchester United F.C. for 17 years from 1893 to 1910. As Newton Heath L&YR F.C., they played at North Road in Newton Heath from their formation in 1878 until 1893 when they moved to a ground on Bank Street, before moving to Old Trafford in 1910. Just after United vacated the Bank Street stadium, it was severely damaged in a storm and the remains were demolished soon after.[2]
The club was renamed Manchester United in 1902 and they moved to their present ground in Old Trafford, just outside Manchester, in 1910.[3]
Manchester Velodrome opened at Clayton in September 1994 and a car park serving it was constructed on the site of Manchester United's old stadium.
Less than 700 yards away from the original home of Manchester United in Clayton, Manchester City F.C. moved into their new 48,000-seat stadium in 2003, which is situated approximately one mile away from the area where Manchester City first formed as St. Mark's, in west Gorton.
Philips Park is on the south side of the River Medlock and Philips Park Cemetery is on the north side. The park has the distinction of being Manchester's first public park and Mark Philips, who was the Member of Parliament for Manchester, opened it in 1846.
It was the first of its kind in the whole of the then Great Britain and Ireland and it set the standard for many others that soon followed in towns and cities throughout Britain. It was designed to have walks, expansive lakes and glasshouses for exotic plants. It is also famous for its annual Tulip Festival, which is still held every year. Philips Park Cemetery was opened in 1863.
The majority of houses in Clayton are council homes. The first council (or then known as corporation) homes to built took place around the late 1920s, building near the border of Droylsden (Bristowe Street and South Crescent, followed by North Crescent).
Many more homes were to be built afterwards, building on a brick works surrounding Clayton Street, a golf course off what is now Folkstone Road West and East and cricket & football grounds off North Road and Vale Street, now known as Lingfield Road. The building associated with the cricket and football grounds still stands today, now used as a boxing club.
Frank Pritchard, on recalling his memories of living in Clayton as young child during the 1920s in his book East Manchester Remembered, says "... Clayton was rather a posh area. Beyond Bank Street one rarely saw children bare-footed, or with their breeches' behind torn and tattered which were common sights in the streets round where I lived."[7]
After a period of general decline from around the mid to late 1980s to around 2004, Clayton residents have since seen some improvements along its main routes, both in terms of housing repairs/modernisation and road reconstructions. In 2009-10 these improvements have been extended to some of Clayton's back streets; more notably in the Stanton Street and surrounding area.
Bank Street, known for a time as Bank Lane,[1] was a multi-purpose stadium in Clayton, Greater Manchester, England. It was used mostly for football matches and was the second home ground for Manchester United Football Club (known as Newton Heath Football Club when they took up tenancy), following North Road, which they left in 1893. The stadium had an eventual capacity of around 50,000 spectators, but the club moved to Old Trafford in 1910 because club owner John Henry Davies believed he could not sufficiently expand the ground to his liking.
The stadium was in poor repair towards the end of its life and, shortly after the club moved out to Old Trafford, the main stand at Bank Street blew down in a storm.[2] The site is now occupied by the car park of the Manchester Velodrome, with a plaque on a house wall on Bank Street indicating the presence of the former ground.[3] Coincidentally, this site is very close to the City of Manchester Stadium, the current home of Manchester City.[4]
Information Care of wikipedia.com
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