Here are some general views of the area, mainly taken in March 2010, together with some historical notes. There is a section on Withington Green and the Cotton Lane area.

Click on each image for a full-size picture.

St. Paul's Church, Withington (1841)	Lych gate, Withington
Old cottages, Ladybarn	An old stable-yard in Withington
Withington Library was opened in 1927. It is one of the many "Carnegie libraries" in the UK. The area in front of the library was once the site of the village stocks.	There are a number of small Victorian public houses in the area. This is "The Orion", taking its name from a nineteenth-century HMS Orion. See the Village history for more details.
Withington Baths, designed by Henry Price (1867-1944), as was Withington Library. Above the right-hand door is a stone inscribed "1911". See the Village history for more details.	Baths - windows detail
Withington Green as it was in the Springtime of 2012.	Plaque (erected 1896) commemorating the old parish school in Withington. See the Village history for the history of the school.
Cotton Lane - an old thoroughfare to the south of the village centre. The Cotton Tree public house, shown here, was demolished in 2011. The area, east of Wilmslow Road, was once called Cotton Tree Field, or Cotton Field. See below for more details.	A carved-wood statue in Old Moat Park.
Christie Hospital was founded 1892, and moved to this site in 1932, bringing together the Christie Hospital (named after Sir Richard Copeley Christie) and the Holt Radium Institute (named after Sir Edward Holt).	The Red Lion. The present building is believed to be at least 200 years old and the site possibly older. It was the location of the Withington Court Leet until 1841, and the meeting place for the Trustees of the Turnpike Trust for (what is now) Wilmslow Road. The Red Lion also used to be the focus of the Rush Cart procession on St. Oswald's Day. See the public houses and the Village history pages for more details.
Ladybarn Park: the Poplar Walk in winter.	Fog Lane Park in the fog. Fog does tend to linger in this area. Development of the 48 acre park began in 1926. [Feb 2012]

Withington Green

Withington Green is a roughly triangular piece of land at the junction of Wilmslow Road (one of the principal roads south from Manchester and once a turnpike road) and Cotton Lane (an old thoroughfare from the east into Withington). Cotton Lane is marked on William Johnson's Plan of the Parish of Manchester (1820) leading to Cotton Tree Field, and the settlement at this junction is named "Withington Green", suggesting that the Green itself is considerably older. Withington Green is marked on the Withington Tithe Map of 1845-48, occupying the same land as now and recorded as "public land".

In the Victorian period and later, ornamental trees and flower beds were introduced with variety of designs over the years. Old photographs and postcards record many of these designs. For most of the 20th Century and early 21st, the Green was a landscaped area of ornamental trees and flower beds. More recently, it has become part of The Christie development and undergone a redesign.

Cotton Lane

The area to the east of the Green, variously called Cotton Tree Field, Cotton Field or Cotton Doles, is a remnant of one of the open fields of the ancient open field system for Withington. The origin of these names is not clear. Kenneth Whittaker (in A History of Withington) suggests the name probably comes from "co-town strips making up the fields at the far end [of Cotton Lane]" - part of the old open field system. (This may well be correct, but "cotton tree" suggests poplar trees which are occasionally known as "cotton trees" ("cottonwoods" in the US) from the downy covering of the seeds.) See the Old Maps page for maps of this area through the ages.

Pictures below of the Green are mainly from January 2012, before the recent redesign. Click on the images for enlarged views.

The Green in Winter, looking north.	Tulips and cherry blossom - the Green in Spring (April 2012).
Landscaping on the Green.	Winter bedding, looking east (2010).
Application for Village Green Status (January 2012).	View of the Green across Wilmslow Road.