Didsbury, United Kingdom

A charter granted in about 1260 shows that a corn-grinding mill was operating in Didsbury, along the River Mersey, but the earliest reference to Didsbury is in a document dating from 1235, recording a grant of land for the building of a chapel. The church was named St James Church in 1855. It underwent major refurbishment in 1620 and again in the 19th century, although most of the stonework visible today dates from the 17th century. A parsonage was built next to one of the two public houses that flanked the nearby village green, Ye Olde Cock Inn, so-called because of the cockfighting that used to take place there. The parsonage soon gained a reputation for being haunted; servants refused to sleep on the premises, and it was abandoned in 1850. Local alderman Fletcher Moss bought the house in 1865, and lived in it for more than 40 years. In 1902, he installed a gateway complete with wrought iron gates which he purchased from the soon to be demolished Spread Eagle Hotel in central Manchester which he once owned, at the entrance to the parsonage's garden, which, because of the building's reputation, became known locally as "the gates to Hell". The parsonage is now open to the community and used as exhibition rooms for various forms of art. The gardens are still open to the public. The area around St James' Church has the highest concentration of listed buildings in Manchester, outside the city centre.

Didsbury was one of the few places between Stretford and Stockport where the River Mersey could be forded, which made it significant for troop movements during the English Civil War, in which Manchester was on the Parliamentarian side. The Royalist commander, Prince Rupert, stationed himself at Didsbury Ees, to the south of Barlow Moor. A section of the Jacobite army including the Duke of Perth crossed the Mersey at Didsbury in 1745 in the Jacobite march south from Manchester to Derby.

Jewish immigrants started to arrive in Manchester from the late 18th century, initially settling mainly in the suburbs to the north of the city. From the 1890s onwards, many of them moved to what were seen as the more "sophisticated" suburbs in the south, such as Withington and Didsbury. The influx of Jewish immigrants led to West Didsbury being nicknamed "Yidsbury" and Palatine Road, a main road through West Didsbury, "Palestine Road".

A growing population of German merchants and industrialists in the mid-19th century earned Manchester the nickname of "the German city". In the Didsbury area, the Souchays were a well-known merchant family of Huguenot descent with connections to Germany. John D. Souchay built Eltville House, a large residence on the corner of Fog Lane and Wilmslow Road (a site bounded today by Clayton Avenue and Clothorn Road). The house, named after Eltville in Germany, had a pair of gate lodges at its Wilmslow Road entrance and the Ball Brook ran through its large garden. Other members of the family, Charles (or Carl) and Adelaide (or Adelheid) Souchay, lived nearby at Withington House on Wilmslow Road (the present site of the telephone exchange at Old Broadway). The Souchays were related to Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy, wife of the German composer Felix Mendelssohn. In the 1840s, Mendelssohn made several visits to Britain and stayed with the Souchays; he wrote a number of letter to friends with "Eltville House, Withington" as the return address. The Souchays were members of St Paul's Church, Withington; Mendelssohn gave a recital on the newly installed pipe organ there in 1847, and the first wedding to take place there was that of John Souchay's eldest daughter in 1850. The Souchays are buried in St Paul's churchyard. Eltville House was purchased by Jame Clayton Chorlton in 1888 and he renamed it Didsbury Priory. The Chorltons often opened their private garden to the public during springtime.

Among the other German industrialists in Didsbury was Johann Georg Silkenstadt, a cotton merchant who moved to the area from Bremen in 1865. He and his wife Josephine Helene built Rose Bank on Palatine Road in West Didsbury in 1872. Their only daughter, Marie Louise, married William Murray Caldwell Greaves Bagshawe of Ford Hall in Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire. The Silkenstadts built for Greystoke Hall as a wedding present for them next to their family home. Marie Louise died of peritonitis in 1891, and her father died the following year. The grieving Josephine Silkenstadt created a 5-acre (20,000 m2) public botanical garden opposite their house, named Marie Louise Gardens in memory of her late daughter, and bequeathed it to Withington Urban District Council. The gardens and the Lodge were designed by the civil engineer Joshua Cartwright, and were formally opened in June 1903 by James Kenyon.

The German industrialist Henry Gustav Simon migrated from Prussia to settle in Manchester. He and his family lived on Palatine Road in West Didsbury, before building Lawnhurst, a large house on Wilmslow Road. One of Simon's sons was Ernest Simon, who with his wife Shena Simon became established as noted social reformers in Manchester.