On the cusp of change ……… Oldham Road

We are on Oldham Road, standing midway between Addington Street and Marshall Street as the area continues to undergo a period of regeneration.

Oldham Road, and Marshall Street, 2021

Most of the buildings are pretty new, but there are still a handful left  from the last century and just maybe the odd one which was built during the reign of Victoria.

I don’t suppose many of these period buildings will see the decade out.

But that is pretty much what you would expect for an area which was transformed by industrialists and speculative builders who in the space of thirty years filled the fields with factories, foundries, and terraced houses during the Industrial Revolution.

Oldham Road, and Marshall Street, 1851

So that when Mr. Adshead made his map of Manchester in 1851, our spot was densely packed with textile mills, and timber yards, the odd  sawmill and heaps of houses, some of which were back to back and locked away in a series of open and closed courts.

Nor would you have wanted for pubs, because on the corner of Addison Street was the Robin Hood, with the St Vincent Tavern on the next corner, and away  back from Oldham Street there were another six including the Hat and Feather which was yet to expand from Mason Street on to Marshall Street where it remained until 2005.

Added to these there were countless beer shops, which opened and closed depending on the fluctuating economic climate.

Oldham Road, and Marshall Street, 1951

Fast forward one hundred years from Adshead’s map and the area shows the devastation wrought by enemy bombing during the last world war, with large open plots of land along both Marshall Street and Addington Street, including the corner to the right of the building with the mural.

All of which now appears to be changing, and leaves me to think that within the next fifteen years the remaining historic bits of Marshall Street and Addington Street will be lost.

Location; Oldham Road

Pictures; Oldham Road, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, the same area, 1851, from Addison’s map of Manchester, 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and in 1951, from OS of Manchester and Salford, 1951