Death in the Pavilion...
The Moor belonged to the Clowes family until 1888 when Salford Council took over its management. It then became a quite different site, no longer the Racecourse which it had been for two hundred years. The Council wished it to become a place of leisure with the north side of Moor Lane, being a recreation area.
For the benefit of the walkers, a drinking fountain was established. There was a urinal also, but nothing for women! To give it a really leisurely look a bandstand or pavilion was erected, which was eventually burnt down. However, before this, a really sad incident occurred.
Edward Laffa, from Pendleton, was sitting in the sun house and heard a man moaning from the opposite side, asking for help. When he looked, he found a man, Arthur Young from Broughton, trying to commit suicide but he couldn't use the gun he held. He said he had been lost since his wife had died and wanted to end everything.
Sadly, when Laffa rushed back with the police, they found the man, sunk over and quite dead. He carried a letter for his daughter Martha, 'From your broken-hearted Dad.' The daughter Martha was found in Crumpsall Hospital, where she had been for 32 years! What a very sad story.
One wonders if poor Arthur was looking for his daughter as he wondered the Moor and if his sad, weary body still wonders there now a-days. Suicide was then a sin so he wouldn't be buried in the church yard near where he died. The pavilion then became a place to be avoided and maybe that was why it was finally burnt down, to rid it of ghosts. A sad, but not an angry ghost.
Next week I focus on the Racecourse and the sound of beating hooves...
See the previous 'episode' Why Is The Moor Not A Moor?...click here
Words by Alice Searle – the author of two books on Kersal Moor, A Celebration of Kersal Moor and More Moor Tales
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