The way we were ............. just 50 years ago

Now it is easy to forget that well within the living memory of most of us the City was still full of tiny workshops which wouldn’t have been out of place in the mid 19th century.

When we first moved to east Manchester in the early 1970s, the pit head gear of Bradford Colliery was still there, as were countless little iron works, steel manufactures and other businesses, employing a handful of local people.

They nestled beside the giants like Clayton Aniline, and the big engineering factories on the Old Road.

The images of the United Steel Works on Ashton Old Road are fascinating, partly because I would have passed the place and because of the detail they reveal.

In particular it is the belt driven machinery which is essentially no different from that which you could have seen in a factory in the 1850s or even the later 18th century.

Back then they would have been driven by steam power but otherwise there is very little difference.

Nor would the actual buildings themselves have changed much over two centuries. They were made of brick to a simple design with wooden beams and cast iron pillars supporting the roof.

Most will have had a varied industrial use over the years and were an essential part of the community.

Picture; inside the United Steet Works, Ashton Old Road, 1970, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass