A Fine Collection of Racing Tickets and Passes, the Property of a North Country Collector

LANCASHIRE, Irwell, Manchester New Race Course Association, Established 1847, a uniface oval silver pass by I. Simons, legend on and within buckle, hallmarked Sheffield 1846, 49 x 39mm, 25.34g (W –; D & W –). Tiny piercing for suspension, otherwise about extremely fine and toned, of the highest rarity; in all probability the only surviving example £800-1,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Racing Tickets and Passes, the Property of a North Country Collector.

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Racing was held intermittently on a course at Kersal Moor from 1687 to 1847, when the Manchester Racecourse Committee’s lease on the land expired. In that year racing moved across the river Irwell to Castle Irwell, rented for £500 per annum from John Fitzgerald, MP. A 1,000-seat grandstand was built and racing endured until the lease expired in 1867, when racing was transferred to a new course at New Barns, Weaste, now part of Salford (see Lot 3225). With the acquisition of the land at Weaste by the Manchester Ship Canal Co in 1902 racing moved back to Castle Irwell after the race committee purchased that land from the executors of John Fitzgerald’s son. The last racing at Manchester was in November 1963