visited the Blue Bell Inn on Barlow Road which shares the name of his birthplace. There has been an inn on this site for 700 years. The current pub was built after the previous Blue Bell Inn was destroyed during a German bombing raid in the Second World War. Levenshulme, a dependency of Withington, was once feudal land held by the Lord of the Manor of Levenshulme. In 1319, possession was given to William Legh of Baguley by his grandfather Sir William de Baguley of Baguley in Cheshire. William Legh's descendants continued to hold the Manor until the 17th century. In 1917, the McVitie & Price biscuit factory was opened. Housing The typical housing of Levenshulme consists of terraced houses, the majority of which were built circa 1880–1890. The style of houses are what are known colloquially as "two up-two downs". With a bedroom above each lower room, the house is bisected by a steep, narrow staircase. A kitchen was to the rear. Right up to the 1980s it wasn't uncommon for the original outside toilet (to the rear of the kitchen) to still be present, and some houses still had no bathroom or central heating. The layout of the streets which contain these terraces are typical of the area and consist of grid layouts intersected with wide back entries which run the length of the terrace blocks at the rear and at each end of the block. This alley/back-entry layout is supposed to be because of an old by-law of the Levenshulme local authority that every terraced house had to have a front garden and allow access to the back door by a horse and cart to enable rubbish to be removed without the need enter the house. These back entries are now generally considered to be a threat to home security. Accordingly Manchester City Council has, over recent years, helped residents by funding a "gated alley" response to the threat. When the majority of affected residents of a particular entry are in agreement the entries have iron gates set up at all ingress and egress points with all affected residents being issued a key. Governance Manchester and its districts had developed into what were referred to as the "Thirty Townships". Levenshulme was one of them and in 1865 got its own 'board' which shortly thereafter developed into an urban district council. Prior to the turn of the 20th