Didsbury building's reputation, became known locally as "the gates to Hell". The parsonage became a museum, now closed, but 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. It
Peter Didsbury Peter Didsbury Peter Didsbury (born 1946) is an English poet who was born in Fleetwood, Lancashire but lived most of his life in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. There, he has worked as an archaeologist and creative writing tutor. Didsbury's poetry collections, all published by Bloodaxe Books, are "The Butchers of Hull" (1982), "The Classical Farm" (1987), "That Old-Time Religion" (1994) and "A Natural History", incorporated in "Scenes from a Long Sleep: New and Collected Poems" (2003). Didsbury appeared in the 1982 Bloodaxe anthology, "A Rumoured City", edited by Douglas Dunn and featuring other Hull poets such as