Dan Antion

More From Manchester

Welcome to Thursday Doors! This is a weekly challenge for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post each (or any) week and then share a link to your post in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you like, you can add our badge to your post.

Other than a few leftovers, I think I’ve exhausted the doors from the Cheney Brother’s Silk Mills. However, before taking the easy way out and serving you those leftovers, I thought I’d finish with some official-like doors. Today’s gallery includes Manchester government buildings, town supported buildings and a church.

There is an interesting Cheney Brothers connection with the church in the gallery. Today, this is St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. In the 1860s, it was a Roman Catholic church. As the silk business was beginning to boom, the Cheney Brothers hired many immigrant workers from England and Ireland. The Irish workers settled in the south end of town, near the only Roman Catholic church in Manchester at the time. Most of these people walked to work, but it was a hike. The Cheney Brothers build a 2.2 mi (4 km) railroad, to connect with the railroad going through Manchester, on which their employees could travel. Still, they would prefer if the employees could live closer to the mill district. They donated the land on which St. Mary’s was built, in order to encourage future Irish immigrants to live in the mill district.

I’ll let the captions explain what I know about these buildings (there isn’t much), because I have two announcements.

First, the Thursday Doors Writing Challenge is going well. As of yesterday, we had twelve entries, and they are all quite good. There are still almost two weeks remaining in the challenge, so you have plenty of time to cook up a story, or a poem, or whatever you like as an entry. I will say that it seems like this challenge is a good place to have your writing seen. On Sunday, between the doors from last week and the writing entries WordPress recorded just under 200 clicks on the links on that page.

Second, I want to remind you that there will be no Thursday Doors on Thursday June 2nd, and no Recap on June 5th.

Town of Manchester education center. The reflection shows that it was a rainy day.
The stone reads, “Eighth School District”
Whiton Memorial Library from the side parking lot.
Whiton Memorial Library – the library is bigger than this entrance suggests.
This is part of a town supported recreation center.
The “Community Y” a recreation center.
The “Old Manchester Museum”
The “Old Manchester Museum”
The “Old Manchester Museum”
And we have a flag :-)
Academy entrance
This is a private academy today. I think it was previously one of the town schools.
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
St. Mary’s Parish center and offices.
Entrance door to St. Mary’s.
St. Mary’s Episcopal church

If you are in a hurry and don’t wish to scroll through the comments, click to Jump to the comment form.

128 comments

  1. Dan, the Manchester buildings are awesome. Seeing the New England architecture makes me homesick for my old hometown in CT. Churches are my favorites. And, of course, the history is very interesting. 📚🎶 Christine

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    • I’m glad you enjoyed these, /Christine. Sorry to make you homesick, but this part of Manchester hasn’t changed much, The churches from the 19th century are amazing structures. I hope you’re having a great week.

      Liked by 1 person

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  15. The Episcopal church with its fabulous red entrance door and beautiful arched windows is a real eye pleaser. But the tower looks a bit out of place. Like it was taken out of a Harry Potter movie and plopped on the church! 🤗

    The Old Manchester Museum has been nicely maintained. But the red door with no step is a hoot!

    The Whiton Memorial Library has a nice entrance and I love the arched windows.

    Another nice collection of doors, fine old buildings and interesting architecture. Thanks for the tour.
    Ginger

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Hi Ginger – The tower on that church is a bit of a mystery. It certainly looks out of place. I do think the big red doors make up for it, but still…

      I really liked the Old Museum. I had pulled in there to get directions to the Dressing Mill that was featured last week.

      I’m glad you enjoyed the tour. We are having a wet day here. I hope you and Murphy can stay dry.

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  17. Two red doors! A bonus morning! Such differences in building personalities — I definitely want to see the inside of that church; the outside makes me curious about the inside. Hmmm…maybe that’s its intention.

    Liked by 1 person

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  22. So the Episcopal Church was once a Catholic Church? That is interesting. I like the round stained glass window, but what is the louvered window on the left–next to one of the spires?

    Liked by 1 person

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    • You are in a small group of people who like that steeple. It is an odd bit sitting on a stone church.

      I have already read the Steffie Story – Yay! Good job on that and the other 18 story-a-day stories you have notched on your quill this month.

      Liked by 1 person

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  25. Ohh, St. Mary’s! Such a beauty. Other buildings are interesting too. I’ll post my door story next week. Going on a little half break after blogging daily for a year.

    Here is the second half of my green doors from Slovenia and Trieste, taken in only one year. Imagine how many more there are in my archives. https://manjameximexcessive6.wordpress.com/2022/05/19/thursday-doors-19-5-22-green-doors-from-slovenia-and-trieste/#greendoors#Slovenia#Trieste#oneyear

    Liked by 2 people

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    • You deserve a break – that was a lot of work. I love your doors today, and I look forward to your writing challenge entry. I hope you have a relaxing weekend now that you can breathe a little easier.

      Liked by 1 person

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    • We don’t get many elephants here, but I was curious about the size of that arch. When I first saw the building, I didn’t realize it was a library, so I thought the high arch served some purpose. Now I’m not sure.

      Thanks for another great post!

      Liked by 1 person

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  35. Another delightful door post, Dan. The yellowish brick church with the great red door looks like the brick we see here in Texas a lot (around Austin). you show great angles here. Just heard from my son in law this week that his family was Scottish and considered in the beginning years of this country the lowest of the lowest, and his family changed their name to an English one!

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    • Thanks Denise. Those big red doors do get your attention.

      I really liked your contribution to the writing challenge. It made me think.

      As for the click, I think people know they can find good stuff at the other side of those links.

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    • I took about a dozen pictures of that door. If it hadn’t been raining, I would have gotten out to get a close-up of those hinges.

      Your doors are so bright and colorful.

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    • Thanks Teagan. That church entrance is a beauty. I’m not surprised it seems to be the running favorite.

      Thanks for adding another entry to the writing challenge. I really enjoyed that story. I hope to create another one, but I am running behind in multiple races at the moment.

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      • Thanks for letting me know, Dan. It’s a the box compared to our regular doors and it seems a lot of people love Australia and our beaches.
        BTW I was quite intrigued by the red Church doors. They’re not something I’m familiar with here in Australia and I’m going to keep my eyes peeled and put some feelers out. Stay tuned.
        Hope you have a great weekend. We have voting for our Federal election today, which now more than ever, seems a massive farce. They seem to work so hard and generally I think with integrity at an MP level but something goes awry as they go higher up the ladder.
        Before that, we’re off to the dance studio again to watch a singing performance this time.
        Lastly, I’m reading a very good good…”The Paris Bookseller” by Kerri Maher, which is based on the story of Sylvia Beach who founded “Shakespeare and Company” the English-speaking bookshop in Paris. I gave a solo reading there in August 1992 as a 23 year old. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it seems to be the pinnacle so far of my public standing as a writer. (Then again, the blog is doing alright overall.)
        Best wishes,
        Ro

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        • I was surprised to learn that red church doors aren’t common everywhere. They are very common here. I dread election years in this country – we’re angry enough. That book, and tht experience sound great. Have a good weekend, Rowena.

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  50. I’m curious and may just be exposing my ignorance here, but are the Cheney Brothers any connection to Dick Cheney? The church is beautiful I love red doors, but the pointed arch makes it stand out even more. That door alone would draw in the fun-loving Irish. My door for this week is very different. It will post at 9:00 on Friday, so I can’t include the link in this comment. Glad your writing contest is doing so well. :)

    Liked by 1 person

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  51. WP notifications must have taken a walk to go look at the doors. And I got distracted too. Good collection of doors Dan. Interesting that on some of those square windows keystones were required decorations. The spire for St Mary’s is interesting even if it does drift in the same direction as the square windows with keystones. Some days bric-a-brac follows custom rather than form follows function.

    Liked by 1 person

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      • The Reader notifications are transversing several almost parralel universes with disturbing regularity of late. If I did not have my own cheat sheet I would be nowhere at all. No doubt the Vogons are building a new entrance ramp…

        Liked by 1 person

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    • Thanks Natalie. I really enjoyed reading your post today. I may have seen one of those round houses when I was in Toronto in 2003 but not from very close. I was there for a business conference and didn’t have a lot of free time.

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  54. Hi Dan – I enjoyed the link to the Cheney Bros’ history … very interesting and informative. I can see the Catholic connection via the immigrants – and the Cheney’s were philanthropic, even though they obviously benefited too. Interesting buildings too – enjoy some time away or off the blog in early June – cheers Hilary

    Liked by 1 person

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  55. Dan, I have two challenges for the TDWC. One is the writing itself, which I’ve been working on, and the other is the technical stuff. You say easy-peasy; I say HELP. I am using the photo with the lighthouse as prompt, but I can’t figure out how to copy it into my post. How do I do this?

    Liked by 1 person

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  56. I was just starting this reply when your link came through. I didn’t know about the right-click! THANK YOU! I got it, and it is now in my post! I have hopes now of getting it all done!

    Liked by 1 person

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  59. Some great pics here, Dan. I especially like the red doors of St. Mary’s. They really pop with the rounded shape and the iron-work accents, not to mention the sandy-colored bricks of the building itself. Nice work!

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