After writing my previous post about Kersal Moor the brief story of Roger Aytoun, gambler, fighter and habitual drunk who married a widow much older than himself intrigued me enough to want to find out more about him though it took quite a bit of digging.
The only son of John Aytoun of Inchdairnie, Fife, and his wife Isabel, daughter of the 4th Lord Rollo, Roger was born in March 1749 and in 1766 entered the army at the age of seventeen. As a junior officer in the Marquess of Lothian’s regiment he was sent to Manchester in 1769 as part of a recruiting party to raise a new regiment and it was after taking part in a mens’ race on Kersal Moor, which was traditionally run naked, that he met the very wealthy 65-year old widow Barbara Minshull. Barbara’s late husband Thomas had been a very successful apothecary and she had inherited all his monetary wealth, three properties and extensive land in several areas of Manchester.
The mens’ races on Kersal Moor were looked on as opportunities for females to ‘study the form of prospective mates’ and while Barbara was instantly attracted by the strong physique of the 6ft 4ins Scot he was more attracted to the wealth and status of a very rich woman. In spite of the huge 45-year age difference and the shock and disapproval of Barbara’s friends the pair were married within days at the Collegiate Church (now Manchester Cathedral) though it must have been a sign of things to come when Roger was so drunk on the day of the wedding that during the ceremony he had to be propped upright by some of his army friends.
Barbara lived at Chorlton Hall in the Chorlton-on-Medlock district of Manchester but as a wedding present to her new husband she gifted him another of her properties, Hough Hall in the suburb of Moston, and they moved in there together after the wedding. Already known for his heavy gambling and drinking it wasn’t long before Roger turned the Hall into a den of iniquity and his profligate lifestyle soon cut into Barbara’s wealth. By 1774 he had squandered most of her fortune and being the master of the house and undisputed controller of her property he sold Chorlton Hall, Garrett Hall and much of her land for £70,000, equivalent to around £14 million in 2024. The sale provided him with enough cash to clear his debts, continue his extravagant lifestyle and to give his wife an annual allowance of £60 – just over £12,000 today.
Not only was Roger a big gambler and drinker he was also addicted to fighting and used his size and bare-knuckle skills in a unique way of gathering recruits for his new regiment. After downing a few pints in a pub he would challenge other pub goers over 5ft 6ins to either a fight or a drinking contest and if he won, which he usually did, the loser would have to join his regiment. Those who chose the drinking contest would find themselves up against a man with a legendary capacity for booze while those who chose to fight would literally be on a hiding to nothing. Either way it would invariably be a victory for Roger – he bulked up the ranks of his new regiment quite considerably and it was his skill with his fists that was the origin of his nickname, ‘Spanking Roger’.
The 72nd Regiment of Foot (Royal Manchester Volunteers) was officially raised in December 1777 and after a final recruitment drive in March the following year the regiment was deployed overseas in June to serve in defending Gibraltar from Spanish attack during the American Revolutionary War. Roger’s love of drinking didn’t stop him from being a good soldier however and he distinguished himself greatly during the Siege of Gibraltar which lasted from 1779 to 1783, although details of his participation are very hazy.
Copy of a Royal Manchester Volunteers recruitment poster
Having gained the rank of Lieutenant in 1770 and Captain in 1778 Roger emerged from the Siege of Gibraltar in 1783 with the rank of Major. The 72nd Regiment of Foot returned to Manchester where he was hailed a hero and according to the Manchester Mercury newspaper ”Soon after his arrival bells were set in motion and joy glowed in every countenance”. Following much feasting on roast beef, plum pudding and strong ale the regiment was disbanded and his regimental colours were deposited first in Manchester Cathedral then in Chetham’s College but unfortunately were lost sometime later.
Not long after Roger’s return to Manchester his wife Barbara died aged 79 and was laid to rest in Manchester Cathedral, then after selling his one remaining property, Hough Hall, and quickly squandering most of the proceeds he moved back to Inchdairnie in 1784. That same year he met and married Jean Sinclair, daughter and heiress of Sir John Sinclair of Balgregie, and went on to have six sons, one of whom died in infancy, and four daughters of whom one died at the age of only seven.
In 1794 Roger gained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel followed by Colonel in 1798 and finally the rank of Major-General in 1805, the same year that the War Office put him on half-pay. He died at the age of 61 in October 1810 with his widow Jean surviving him by twenty six years; presumably he hadn’t squandered Jean’s fortune in the same way as he did Barbara’s as following her death in 1836 at the age of 79 his descendants inherited the Balgregie estate.
1797 engraving of Roger Aytoun by artist John Kay – photo credit People of Gibraltar
As for Roger’s connections to Manchester, his and Barbara’s names live on in Aytoun Street and Minshull Street not far from Piccadilly Station, in an area of land which he developed prior to selling it in 1775 to fund his extravagant lifestyle. In more recent years a pub in the Miles Platting area was named after him though it was closed down and demolished in 2012 as part of a housing development scheme. Further afield, and inspired by Roger’s unique army recruitment methods and his participation in the Siege of Gibraltar, the Gibraltar Distillery Company created an export-strength Spanking Roger London Dry Gin and a Spanking Roger Pink Gin, both with a suitably pugilistic logo and both available in Gibraltar and the UK.
Photo credit Bill Hyde, Manchester Evening NewsPhoto credit The Brand FarmMinshull Street and the Crown Court building on Aytoun Street
Some say that Roger Aytoun died a bankrupt, others that since his marriage to Jean Sinclair and inheriting the Inchdairnie estate from his own father he died a rich man, but whichever version is true his disruptive and chaotic character certainly made him one of Manchester’s most glorified villains and a larger than life personality in more ways than one.
Manchester’s neighbouring city of Salford isn’t the place one would expect to find sand dunes but in one of the outlying northern districts just four miles from Manchester city centre is Kersal Moor, a ridge of land formed when glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age, leaving a subsoil made up of sand and gravel with a thin topsoil. At one time – and not really that long ago – the moor would have been just rough grassland but now it supports a range of heathers, ferns, mosses, broom and gorse along with several species of broad-leaved trees. I’d never heard of the moor until just a few days ago and with an interesting, unusual history and an area of 20 acres it sounded like a good place for a dog walk, so as it wasn’t too far from home and the late afternoon had turned out to be rather nice I decided to go and take a look.
The moor originally covered a much larger area than it does now and although not actually in Manchester it was the site of the first Manchester Racecourse which existed between 1687 and 1846. Part of the course can still be seen as a wide well-worn path stretching from east to west along the northern side of the moor. Across the road from the south side of the moor is Salford City football club and the stadium entrance is where the racecourse starting post and grandstand were once situated. On the outer perimeter of the track would have been small betting and entertainment booths and in 1841 the census for that year recorded them as being used by homeless people for housing.
Map of the racecourse pre-1846 – photo credit Confidentials Manchester
The racecourse’s location, south of the Lancashire mill towns and just four miles from Manchester, made it a popular destination on race days. The main race meets took place over three days around Whitsuntide, the seventh Sunday after Easter, and brought huge crowds with some events attracting as many as 100,000 people. As early as 1687 race winners at these meets were often given prize money of £40 which was quite a princely sum at the time. Along with much drinking and various forms of entertainment racegoers could also purchase ‘obscene prints’ and participate in gambling with dice, while the huge crowds provided great opportunities for pick-pockets.
One strange custom on the moor during the 18th century was naked male racing, events where females had the opportunity to ‘study the form of prospective mates’. After one such race in 1769 Roger Aytoun, a 6ft 4ins Scot – later to become Major General – was chosen this way by Barbara Minshull, an extremely rich 65-year old widow. While she was attracted by the physique of a kiltless and very much younger man more than 40 years her junior he was no doubt attracted by her status as one of the richest women in the North; they were married within days and her wedding present to him was Hough Hall in the suburb of Moston.
Aytoun had moved down from Scotland to Manchester to recruit soldiers for what was to become the 72nd Regiment of Foot, also known as the Royal Manchester Volunteers. He was a massive gambler and drinker addicted to fighting, earning him the nickname ”Spanking Roger”, and after downing a few pints would regularly challenge pub goers to a fight – if he won, which he usually did, they would have to join his regiment. It was said that on the day of his marriage to Barbara Minshull he was so drunk that during the service he had to be held upright by friends.
Derelict Hough Hall in 2012 – photo credit Tricia Neal, Wikimedia Commons
In 1790 a huge crowd witnessed the unusual occurrence of a public hanging on Kersal Moor when James McNamara was executed for his part in a string of burglaries and robberies in the area. Normally such executions took place in Lancaster, the county town of Lancashire, but a decision was made to make an example of McNamara and as a warning to other criminals he was hanged in front of the crowd on the hill close to the grandstand. It didn’t seem to make much difference however as several people standing within sight of the gallows had their pockets picked and the following night a house in Manchester was broken into and robbed.
Horse racing wasn’t the only sport to take place on Kersal Moor. From the late 18th century the Broughton Archers practised their sport there until 1847 when the archery ground became Kersal Cricket Ground, and in 1818 a group of wealthy Manchester businessmen, some of whom had moved down from Scotland, founded the Manchester Golf Club with a 5-hole golf course. It was only the second course to be built outside Scotland and on May 7th that year they played their first ever game, though fairways and greens were non-existent as the land was often used by grazing animals
The club was very exclusive and by 1825 a club house had been built on nearby Singleton Road. Over time the course increased to nine holes with the rough nature of the ground being reflected in the scores – the highest score ever recorded at Kersal was in 1846 when it took Malcolm Ross 160 strokes to complete the course.
Club members would meet every Friday, play golf on the moor then sit down to a lavish meal. Champagne was imported from Paris for their meals, which typically consisted of a couple of pheasants, three or four salmon and a gallon of port but on one occasion in 1858 Malcolm Ross was the only member who turned up. He played the course, ate all the food – ‘a large cod, a saddle of mutton, a goose, two brace of partridge and all the puddings a man could desire’ – drank three bottles of port then recorded the minutes of the meeting. Members continued playing on Kersal Moor until 1862 when a new course was built a few hundred yards away at Kersal Vale.
The Old Manchester Golf Club still exists today though it hasn’t had a clubhouse or course of its own since 1960, however its 40 members continue to meet and play three times a year on local courses and to mark its 200th anniversary in 2018 members teed off again on the rough ground of Kersal Moor for what was probably the most peculiar round of golf in England, with some members wearing the fashions of the early 1900s.
Kersal Moor was also a focal point for political and social upheaval. In 1818 a protest meeting was held there by coal miners demanding better pay because of the dangers they faced at work, and on September 24th 1838 a crowd estimated by the Manchester Guardian to be 30,000 attended a Chartist rally to protest for political rights for the working classes. The Chartists were active for the next eight months but a second rally, held on the moor on May 25th 1839, unfortunately coincided with a racing fixture and was very poorly attended which led to the end of the movement, though most of the Chartists’ demands were eventually met by Parliament.
As Manchester and Salford became heavily industrialised during the 18th and 19th centuries Kersal Moor became an oasis of interest to amateur naturalists, one of whom collected the only known specimens of a now extinct moth species. In 1829, during several consecutive visits to the moor, Robert Cribb collected around fifty small yellow and brown moths from a rotting alder tree growing by the brook. Unable to identify his specimens he consulted fellow collector, R. Wood, who suggested that Cribb should give him a specimen to send to expert London entomologist John Curtis for identification; Cribb also gave two specimens to another collector, Samuel Carter. The moth turned out to be a previously unknown species but mistakenly assuming that R. Wood had discovered it John Curtis classified it as Pancalia Woodiella in Wood’s honour.
Understandably angry by this, and by subsequent accusations of fraudulently passing off foreign moths as British ones, Cribb gave up collecting and pawned the rest of the specimens for five shillings to the landlady of a local tavern. The debt wasn’t repaid on time however and when Cribb eventually went back for the moths, which he had drunkenly agreed to sell to Samuel Carter, the landlady had already destroyed them. Subsequent efforts by other collectors to find more of the moths proved unsuccessful and the three specimens left in existence – one held by the Manchester Museum, one by London’s Natural History Museum and the third in the Curtis Collection at the Victoria Museum – are thought to be the only representatives of an extinct species.
Manchester moth – photo credit Reach Publishing Services Ltd
Towards the mid 19th century the Clowes family who owned Kersal Moor grew tired of the noise and decadent behaviour at the racecourse and in 1846 Colonel Clowes decided not to renew the lease; the racecourse closed and races were moved to a new track at Castle Irwell across the river. In 1888 the moor was leased to Salford Council who turned the area north of Moor Lane, which cut across the centre of the old racecourse, into a recreation area which included a small pavilion and a drinking fountain established for the benefit of walkers. The pavilion was eventually burnt down but previous to that it was the location of a very sad incident.
Edward Laffa from Pendleton was sitting in the pavilion one day when he heard moaning coming from nearby and a man asking for help. When he looked he found Arthur Young from Broughton trying to commit suicide but somehow finding it difficult to use the gun he held; he said he had felt lost since his wife had died and just wanted to end everything. Laffa went to get help but when he rushed back with the police they found Young was dead; in his possession was a letter for his daughter Martha, signed ‘’From your broken-hearted Dad” – Martha was found in Crumpsall Hospital, where she had been for 32 years. Following this incident the pavilion on Kersal Moor became a place to be avoided and it was eventually burnt down.
In 1936 the Clowes family put the moor up for sale and after a public petition it was purchased outright by Salford Corporation for £7,000, with the cost being added to the rates as a 30-year mortgage. In 1973 the Government-sponsored national campaign Plant A Tree In ’73 was applied to the land, with the council planting a ring of trees around the perimeter while keeping the centre of the moor as an open space. In the late 1970s the history of Kersal Moor was added to when three-times Grand National winner Red Rum paid a visit and trod the sandy soil of the first Manchester Racecourse after attending the nearby Littleton Road Carnival as guest of honour.
Photo credit Reach Publishing Services Ltd
Designated as a Local Nature Reserve in 2007 Kersal Moor is now classed as a Site of Biological Importance. Recently the trees have been thinned out to allow light to the ground in the hope of encouraging the growth of woodland flowers, with the removed branches being stacked into ‘dead hedges’ as shelters for small creatures.
Just outside the eastern boundary of the moor is Grade ll listed St. Paul’s church, built in 1851/52 with an odd double spire, and a convenient roadside parking area was a good place to start my exploration. A wide tree lined path took me a short distance to the open land of the moor and it wasn’t long before I came to the sand dunes although there isn’t a great lot left of them compared to what would have been there many years ago.
Wandering around the various paths eventually brought me to Sandy Hill, the highest point of the moor. During Victorian times local builders would dig sand out of the moor to use in their various trades and this eventually reduced the height of Sandy Hill. Two benches facing east and west now sit on top of the hill and it’s said that from there it’s possible to see the hills of Derbyshire to the south and the Pennines to the north though I couldn’t see anything above the trees other than the top of St. Paul’s spire.
The moor supports a flourishing bird population which includes robins, blue tits, long tailed tits, coal tits, blackbirds, finches, treecreepers, goldcrests and kestrels, though apart from blackbirds I couldn’t really identify the song of any others. Surrounded on all sides by residential areas the moor is an oasis of peace and tranquility and my first visit to a previously unknown area had been very enjoyable. I didn’t explore all the paths around the moor but I did find the sand dunes, and with a drive time of less than thirty minutes from home there’s every probability that I’ll return in the not-too-distant future.
Life In The Mouse House 