Alport Works

Samuel Gratrix Junr & Brother was established in the Alport Town area of Manchester by the mid 19th century, their Lead Mills being just off Watson Street and adjacent to the Manchester & Salford Junction Canal. The business traded as lead, glass, oil, paint, and colour merchants, brass founders, metal workers, sanitary plumbers, and electrical engineers. The Lead Mills and most of Alport Town were swept away with the construction of the GNR warehouse between Watson Street and Deansgate in the early 1890s. This meant that Gratrix relocated to new premises; Alport Works on Quay Street, as illustrated on the letterhead. Compensation for the compulsory purchase of the Lead Mills amounted to £56,622 after arbitration. Photographs of Alport Works are hard to find and I have only seen images giving glimpses of the building which was demolished in the 1960s. By the 1960s the business seems to have become glass merchants Samuel Gratrix Ltd based in Trafford Park.