Route 356 …. if you ever plan to travel east ……

Well, if you ever plan to travel east, take my way, it's the highway that's the best and get your kicks on route 356.

Route 356, 2025

It runs from Oldham, up to Denshaw, down to Delph and all the way to Ashton.

The Angel Hotel, Ashton, 2022

Taking in stunning landscapes, and heaps of places from Dobcross, to Diggle, to Upper Mill, Greenfield, Grasscroft, Miclehurst, Mossley, always heading south, until it twists west from Stalybridge to end 80 minutes later after 14 major stops at Ashton Under-Lyne.

Now, I think there is a book to be written which tells the story of this part of Greater Manchester by bus, with tales from all 14 stops, with pictures, maps and some original paintings by Peter Topping.

So, I am throwing down the challenge. “Peter meet me in Oldham on a day and time of your choosing and we’ll motor south, stopping off as we choose and like Toad of Toad Hall discover adventures along the way”.

The White House, Ashton, 2022

Market Place and Town Hall, 1950s

And because we can we will do it for free, courtesy of that nifty little concessionary bus pass.  

Other bus tickets are available, but none will cost more that £3.

Leaving me just to say that other seats will be vacant but we will have nabbed two at the front on the top deck.

And … dear reader you have been present at the dawn of another great Simpson Topping idea.

Pictures; Route 365, courtesy of Google Maps, The Angel Hotel and The White Horse, Ashton-Under-Lyne, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Market Place and Town Hall from the series Ashton-U-Lyne, issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of TuckDB,  http://tuckdb.org/history

The Penny -a-Week Fund …… the Ashton-Under-Lyne Committee .... and a neglected history book

Now the Tiger Kills, was one of the books I bought from Bryan the Book on Beech Road sometime in the 1980s.

It was already almost 40 years old and was one of a series published by HMSO telling the story of the Second World War.

Soldiers of the Indian Divisions, 1944

A modern historian may be careful about their lack of objectivity and the accuracy of some of the detail given wartime censorship, but they remain a fascinating contemporary insight into those six years.

I have a few, but despite their length in my custody, I have to admit to never reading them, and only writing about one.*

But today I brought down The Tiger Kills, which came out in 1944, and was “The story of the Indian Divisions in the North African Campaign”.

‘The first formations to go overseas from India were the now renowned 45y and 5th Indian Divisions.  The story of their deeds up to the destruction of Italy’s East African Empire and the expulsion of the Vicy French from Syria was told in the Tiger Strikes which was published in India in 1942.  [while] the Tiger Kills tells the of the fighting against the Germans by Indian and British soldiers who together composed the formidable fighting formations which went from India to the Middle East.  

The story is one of further successes, of desperate defence and then final victory in North Africa,  [with] their dash and courage in attack, and their steadfastness and tenacity in defence.’”**

So I rather wish I had read it earlier, not least because of its emphasis on the contribution made bu soldiers of whay was then the Empire and now the Commonwealth.

The Penny-a-Week- Fund, circa 1944

Nor is that all, because just inside the book were three sheets of headed note paper for the Penny-a-Week- Fund, H.R.H., The Duke of Gloucester’s Red Cross and St. John Appeal.

According to one source, "it was launched in September 1939 to raise funds for those affected by the Second World War. By 1946 the appeal had raised £54,324,408, which is the equivalent of £7,700,000,000 today, making it the largest charitable fund ever raised in the UK. The proceeds of the fund went to the Red Cross and St John War Organisation.

The fund committee decided to run appeals targeted to particular sections of the community.

The penny-a-week fund was a scheme created with the co-operation of the TUC and Employers’ Organisation to collect a penny week from workers, which was deducted from their wages. The fund raised £17,663,225 (£2.5 billion today) – all in pennies. Its success was credited to the idea of collecting a small amount of money from a large number of people. 

Detail of the Penny-a-Week-Fund, circa 1944

The amount did not make a significant difference to the donor’s weekly budget but the pennies added up to raise more than one third of the entire Duke of Gloucester’s Appeal. 

This was the precursor to payroll giving as we know it today. In 2011/12 £118 million is donated through payroll giving in the UK currently 2, a mere 34 per cent of what the penny-a-week fund collected annually during the war years.”***

I must confess  to having come across it before, and having read about the Spitfire Fund, but like the Great War charities raised vast amounts of money during the six years of the war.

But I am drawn to the Ashton-Under-Lyne Committee, partly because I lived in Ashton in the early 1970s, and so went looking for 51, Hutton Avenue which was home to Jim Timperley, who was the Honourable Secretary of the branch.

Into Battle- British and Indian Together, 1942

He was living in Hutton Avenue by 1939, described himself as a “shop manager, tailoring” had been born in 1910 and was active in the Auxiliary Fire Service.  He was married but as yet the name of his wife has yet to be discovered.****

And the house is still there just up from Beaufort Road a short walk from Stamford Park close to the Sycamore pub, a place we regularly visited.

So that is about it, but presents more research opportunities connected with the Ashton Committee, and The Penny-a-Week Fund, along with anafternoon reading about the contribution of the Indian Divisions.

*The book and the personal story …..... Greece in 1941, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-book-and-personal-story-greece-in.html

**General Sir Claude Auchinleck, G.C.I.E, C.B., D.S.O., A.D.C., Commander-in-Chief in India

*** British Red Cross: the £7.7 billion appeal that changed British fundraising forever, SOFII,  https://sofii.org/case-study/british-red-cross-the-7.7-billion-appeal-that-changed-british-fundraising-forever

****1939 Register

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 4 on discovering coal mines by our front door and a dreadful pit accident

Now if I am honest they were just a bit further away and had long ago been abandoned.

I shouldn’t have been over surprised.  After all we had started our life together in the shadow of Bradford Colliery which despite having closed in1968 still maintained its surface gear as a reminder of what had been.

And of course on that long bus ride from town there was always the Snipe to pass.  Added to this Kay was from a mining family who were still working the coal when we met and married.

So coal and all that went with it was pretty much part of the backdrop of our lives.

But that said no one expects to walk out of the house onto Whiteacre Road and be confronted with a coal mine.

This was not in the surveyors report or in the happy helpful comments of the estate agent when in 1973 we became house owners.

In fact the first I knew about it was when I idly thumbed through a copy of Victorian Ashton.*

There on page 89 in the chapter on the Industrial Archaeology of Ashton-Under-Lyne were the coal mines laid out on a map both to the north east of our house and a little to east.

Of course they had long since been closed and capped and all that remained was an open space.

Given of course the history and geography of the northwest it was an obvious discovery, but a little unsettling.

That said my curiosity didn’t last too long and only 40 years after I made that discovery have I decided to dig deeper.

The shafts are clearly marked on the 1853 OS for Lancashire and appear fifty years later as “Old Pits, 1, 2 and 3” and belonged to John Kenworthy and Brothers.

Pits no 2 and 3 were on that stretch of land between Whiteacre Road and Cricket’s Lane while just across Mossley Road was  pit number 1.

This was Heys Colliery and it was here that in the March of 1851 an underground explosion resulted in the deaths of five men.

James Ogden “was killed by the explosion on Monday last, and the others have since died from the effects of the injuries which they received.”**

These were James Wright Andrew, John Booth and William Joule.

The inquest heard that the airways were not kept open and this led to a build up of gas which should not have happened.  Mr Miller, the underlooker who was responsible for this had been warned in the past but chose to ignore the warnings.  "He knew that William Joule worked with his naked lamp, and where [Joule] worked the air should be pure.”

On his own admission the Mr Miller knew that to clear the air roads would “have taken two men a fortnight to have cleared them properly” and this was not done.

Witness after witness pointed to the negligence of Mr Miller and after a short deliberation the jury decided that “these men came by their death by accident; and it is the wish of the jury that a government inspector be requested to examine the mine; and the jury consider the underlooker has neglected his duty”

So far that is about it.  Of the five who died William Joule aged 33 left a widow and three children, the historical record has yet to shed anything on James Ogden who whose only official entry is his death certificate.

That said both James Wright Andrew, and John Booth can be found in the 1841 census returns for Ashton and maybe I will return to follow them up.  As for Mr Miller and the colliery company they have  passed into the shadows.

All of which I knew nothing of until fired by the memory of those disused pits I began looking for their story.

Pictures, from the OS for Lancashire 1841-53 and the OS for South Lancashire 1888-94 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and extract from the Manchester Guardian March 22, 1851, courtesy of  Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*Victorian Ashton, Ed Sylvia A Harrop & E A Rose, 1974

**Manchester Guardian March 22, 1851

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 1 washing up on Raynham Street

Whiteacre Road and the corner of Raynham Street

Now if you have to start off your life together at the tender age of 23 and 21 respectively then Ashton in the mid 1970s was a pretty good choice.

We had begun by renting just off the Old Road opposite Grey Mare Lane Market and when we started on the property ladder it seemed natural to start looking around there.

But the houses were not available and bit by bit we moved up Ashton Old Road and finally in 1973 crossed the municipal border and washed up in Raynham Street.

A two up two down down, close to the town centre and it even had a small Corporation allotment directly opposite.

Of course the downside was that I worked in Wythenshawe and travelled on public transport which meant that during the winter I only got to see Ashton in the daylight at the weekend.

Raynham Street

But that still left plenty of time to explore the town, the surrounding districts and to venture out into the countryside.

Not that this is some nostalgic trip seen through a rosy coloured perspective, but just an occasional piece reflecting on what the town was like for two young people who had been born at opposite ends of the country.

Raynham Street was just what we wanted and for me it was just a matter of exchanging one terraced house for another .

There was also a  sense of community which appealed to us.  We both came from close knit areas, me from south East London and Kay from a mining village in the North East, and having done our three years of rootless living in south Manchester student land we were ready for something different.

We got to know our neighbours, found our favourite stalls in the covered in market and having transferred our membership to the Ashton Labour Party made new friends.

Some were like us, first time buyers straight out of grim multi occ properties in Withington, Fallowfield and Longsight and others could count their family generations back to an earlier Ashton.

We regularly attended meetings in the old PSA building with Glyn and Hazel, introduced our families to the delights of Stamford Park and the Sycamore and occasionally managed to entice friends out of the city to come and stay.

Penny Meadow & Whiteacre Road, 1972

I could never quite understand why they thought it was such an adventure, to us it was a comfortable and easy place to settle.

And even now on those rare occasions I come back the place still has an effect on me.

It begins as the tram pulls up just short of the town centre and extends as I wander through the market place and up to St Michael’s.

That said I can’t quite get my head around the new retail park and I miss the Arcadia along with the PSA building and wonder when the mural to the jubilee in 1977 painted on the gable end of the butcher’s shop on the corner of Whiteacre and Egerton Road vanished.

All of which smacks of the nostalgic trip I promised not to take.

Instead I shall ponder for a future post on the Ashton I remember from the 1970s.

Pictures; Raynham Street, date unknown, t03175 and t03175, and Penny Meadow at the junction with Whiteacre Road and Crickets Lane, 1972, t01388, courtesy of Tameside Image Archive, http://www.tameside.gov.uk/history/archive.php3

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 3 on coming across Stamford Park and the Sycamore

Now it is all a bit different when you don’t grow up in a place, so when we discovered Stamford Park one Sunday it was special.

And given the size of our house on Raynham Street the open spaces just fitted the bill.

Now “the original park, south of Darnton Road, was opened in 1873 on land purchased for £15,000. 

The money was raised by public subscription together with a gift of 30 acres from the Earl of Stamford. The park was enlarged in 1891 by acquisition of Chadwick's Dam reservoir, the southern part of which was made into a boating lake and the northern part into a feeder lake and fishing lake. 

The last major addition was in 1929 with the donation of 4 acres which was devoted to a children's playground. The park was run by a joint committee from Ashton and Stalybridge until 1974, when it passed to Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council.”*

Now I knew none of this at the time and in fact only came across its story recently.
Back then, the walk in the park was a prelude for an evening in the Sycamore which became a favourite haunt of ours.

All of which just leaves me with the postcard which was produced by Tuck & Sons around 1909.

It was part of a set of six published by Whittaker & Sons of Stalybridge.

Sadly the card does not have a message on the back but other’s in the collection do and I rather think I shall return to these if only to report more fully on young Pattie who sent a card of Stalybridge to Miss Mary Jameson in the USA on April 25th 1909.

Pictures; Stamford Park, from the series Stalybridge, by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

*Ashton-Under-Lyne, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Ashton-Under-Lyne

**Parks and gardens UK, http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/3045

Ashton Market gives up its past …….

 It will be sometime after 1978, and I was back in Ashton wandering the market and snapping away with my new camera.

Now I know it was 1978 because that was when I bought the new camera and this was the first visit back after I had left for south Manchester two years earlier.

Of course it might have been a tad later, and there will be someone who can pinpoint exactly when by the stage of the building development which appears in some of the pictures.

I won’t be the only one who has a fascination for markets …. And not the twee ones that pop up every month in the well-heeled suburbs, where you can buy “interesting hand-crafted gin”, perfume using natural herbs and fragrances, and outrageously priced cakes, sausage rolls and speciality bread.

Nope, I mean the old fashioned, happy with no frills markets, dealing in everything from household products, shoes, dresses, and kid’s toys.

Along with heaps of fruit, veg and all sorts for the fridge and larder.

When we lived in Ashton, off Penny Meadow it was just part of what we did on a Saturday, followed by a trawl of the indoor market buying the cheese, fancy cakes and much much more.

And of course, the market was the place for those three screws and a wing nut which now come in packs of twenty at eye watering prices.

A few years earlier we had lived opposite Grey Mare Lane Market and it too provided everything we needed and while almost everything we bought there has gone I do still have a series of LPs which are still in the collection.

Nor have I exhausted my market memories, because growing up in Eltham there was the market in Woolwich, where stalls spilled out onto the highway forcing buses to creep gingerly along between tables piled high with underwear, heaps of different fish and shell fish and of course cheap versions of all sorts of stuff.

But while I did take a few of Woolwich, most were taken wandering the stalls in Ashton in the late 70s, early 80s and again at the turn of the century.

And that is about it other than to remember the vibrancy, fun and characters you encountered from the stall holders shouting out their wares to the customers.

Now there are fewer of those traditional markets and the stalls you can find in them have shrunk to a sad few.

Still, I have the memories.

Location; the open air market in Ashton Under Lyne, 

Pictures; busy day at the market, circa 1978, early 1980s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

As others saw us, travelling across the North West in 1792, part 1 Ashton Under-Lyne

Now something new was happening in the North at the end of the 18th century and it was attracting the interest of the rest of the country as well as from further afield.

Just 40 years after our tourist visited Ashton

These visitors marvelled at the new technology, shuddered at the awful conditions and to use that much used phrase confidently proclaimed they had seen the future and it worked.

Their observations have been collected, repackaged and represented in numerous books about the period but there are still plenty who have lain forgotten.

So here is the first of a series representing the experiences of the less familiar starting with an unknown tourist from Worcestershire who made his way across the North West in 1792.

And by 1853 this was the centre of Ashton

On the way he encountered bad food, dangerous roads, dubious resting places but also the wonders of that new technology.

“Friday morning went to Ashton-under-Lyne to see Mills & Machine for Carding & Spinning of Cotton; which is very curious & Surprising to see The Spinning Mules & Jennys, as they call ‘em, Spin 144 threads at once, & will spin one Pound of Cotton to so fine a thread that it will reach – according to Calculation -168,000 Yards or 95 miles &½.

Then its weav’d into Aprons, Handkerchiefs, & c.

Likewise saw the Iron works where they Cast Iron Rolls & Cylinders & Bore thro ; an Iron Pipe, the same as we Bore a Pump.

It goes by Water, & the Wheels as Large as our Mill wheels-all Cast Iron Except the Water wheel.  They likewise turn Large Iron work in a Lathe, the same as our Carpenters turn a Piece of Wood.

Very wet this Afternoon.”

Picture; Ashton-Under-Lyne, from the Map of the inland navigation canals and rail roads with the situations of the various mineral productions throughout Great Britain from actual surveys projected on the basis of the trigonometrical survey made by the order of the honourable the Board of Ordnance, John Walker, Richard Nicholson and Joseph Priestley, 1830, and detail of the town centre from the OS map for Lancashire, 1841-53,  courtesy of Digital Archives. Association,    http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*A Tourist’s Diary, Countryman sees the Sights, Mills Quays, and Prisons, from ‘A Journey to Manchester and Liverpool from Broadway’ 1792, published in the Manchester Guardian, July 16. 1936

Sammy and Alice Dransfield of Mossley and their twisty turning story

Now, I have the postcard, a possible address for where it was sent and a family who may have received it but matching all three has not quite worked.

The card in question is one of those “silks” which were popular either side of the Great War.

Many were a product of a cottage industry based in northern France, and I guess that was why so many were sent home from the Western Front.

Often the cards feature the names and badges of British Regiments while others have a variety sentimental message.

And because they were made of silk and delicate, they tended to be sent in an envelope, which probably explains why this postcard bears no stamp.

That said “Sammy” who sent it provided the destination address, and Wyre Street still exists, although sadly the row including number 17 was demolished long ago.

But they were there in 1894 close to a school and the disused graveyard of St George’s Church.

I can’t yet match the house with a family from the census return but I am fairly confident that Mr and Mrs Dransfield who were living on Oldham in 1911, are our people.

His middle name was Samuel and in the middle of the Great War he would still only have been in his mid-40s and so within military age.

But and it is a big but, I can’t find anyone in the family whose first name might have begun with an S.  Mrs. Dransfield was an Alice, their two daughters were called Elizabeth and Alice and their son was a Joseph.

To which some will murmur “pretty much a non-story …. having taken us halfway up the hill you abandon us with no end to the tale".

And yep that is how it goes sometimes.

Location; Mossley

Picture; a silk postcard, date unknown, from the collection of David Harrop

Ashton-Under-Lyne Market on a sunny day in the 1950s

This is another of those cards for which I don’t have a date, but judging by the clothes and the vans we are sometime in the 1950s.

So this is the market place in Ashton-Under-Lyne a full twenty years or so before I knew it.  

The impressive Town Hall is still covered in a century of soot and grime, the market stalls are positioned differently from where I remember them but the place still looks familiar.

Like all market places there is a bustle and purpose to what you see. The merchandise is piled high and you have a choice ranging from fresh food to clothes, and novelty goods and toys.

So in that respect not a lot has changed.  The last time I was there the stalls of vegetables and fruit competed with plastic toys, dubious electrical goods and all manner of fashions.

And on the periphery are the ice cream vans and fast food businesses, offering tea, coffee and sandwiches with of course the attractive looking but often slightly stale cakes and buns.

All a lot different from the designer markets which regularly appear in the city centre and on the village green.

These remain a bit of a novelty, but all too often there is little to choose between Italian week and that German experience, and I rather think that in many cases the produce is exactly the same.

As for bargains I don’t know.

All of which is a bit different from the old Grey Mare Lane Market opposite where we lived and the Ashton market.

I still remember that wonderful bright marbled sponge cake in layers you buy in slabs and the record stall from which I bought a treasured Marvin Gaye, Tammy Tyrell LP which over thirty years later I still have.

But enough of such memories.

Instead I shall add those of Margaret Gain who posted that she was "born and bred in Ashton and that is exactly as I remember the market. 

My mum shopped there every other day. 

The ice cream vans were Fairclough's and Howard's. Kelly's salad stall, Latus for fruit and veg, the dolls hospital, the roundabouts and the swings. 

It was a real delight to go to the market. 

There's an excellent book called 'to market, to market' in the Local Studies Library all,about Ashton Market."

All of which leaves me to hope there will be plenty more memories from Margaret and others who remember the scene.

Location; Ashton-Under-Lyne, Tameside, Greater Manchester

Picture; Market Place and Town Hall from the series Ashton-U-Lyne, issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of TuckDB http://tuckdb.org/history

Walking away with a bargain ...........in the market in Ashton on a Tuesday in February

I had forgotten how much I like Ashton and in particular the market.

We had taken the tram up from Chorlton on a bright sunny day which was perfect for a wander around the town.

The plan had been to visit the museum down at the Portland Basin and as you do we took a slow walk back along Stamford Street and by degree ended up in the main square.

Now the open air market is still in the process of being redone but there were still plenty of the old stalls along with the temporary pitches for our Jill and Geoff up from London to look for bargains.

And Geoff did just that coming away with two very nice shirts a couple of CDs and something for the kitchen.

Jill had debated on whether to buy a couple of pies from the indoor market but didn’t reckon they would survive the journey back.

So instead we wandered off again and explored some of the streets close by and unlike great chunks of south Manchester there are still lots of small interesting shops which offer everything from balls of wool and knitting patterns to fire grates, and fish food.

Location; Ashton-Under-Lyne, Tameside




Picture; the open air market, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

In Ashton-Under-Lyne with James Butterworth in 1823

Now I made a terrible mistake some years ago and got rid of loads of old history books.

I reasoned as many dated from the late 1960s fresh research would have made them obsolete.

And of course within two years I regretted the act and had bought two of the books all over again.

I should have known better after all I still collect old school history texts just because they tell you so much about what society deemed was important history when they were published.

Usually these meant telling the story from the top down, ignoring the contribution of women and anyone who was not born from a certain class or part of Britain.

The same is also true of many of the history books produced in the 18th and 19th century and aimed at the serious adult reader.

They can be shot through with the same class prejudice but in doing so reveal much about the period in which they were written which of course makes them valuable in their own right.

So here we are with A HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN AND PARISH OF ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE AND THE VILLAGE OF DUKINFIELD, written by James Butterworth in 1823.

Like many books from the 19th century it  is available as a free download from Google Books.

I often go back to it as a source not only for the history of Ashton but also for the contemporary descriptions, which are themselves a wonderful record of the past.

So for the time being I shall just point you in the direction of the book and let you wander over its pages discovering as I have done some fascinating stories, made all the more so because Mr Butterworth was there.

Pictures; from A History and Description of the Town and Parish of Ashton-Under-Lyne and the Village of Dukinfield, James Butterworth, 1823

Remembering the eight children of Charles, Elizabeth, and Hannah Sharp ....... Ashton under Lyne in the 19th century

It will have been sometime in the summer of 1979 that I came across this grave stone in the parish church in Ashton-Under-Lyne.

The gravestone, the parish church yard, 1979

I had wandered past it for years and never really noticed it, but on that day by chance I stopped and looked at the memorial to the eight children of Charles, Elizabeth and Hannah Sharp who all died between 1839 and 1843.

Of the eight, only one reached the age of 18 with other seven dying between the ages of 2 months and one year and a bit.

It is a powerful reminder of the level of infant mortality in the not so distant past and is one that I have used over the years to illustrate just how uncertain were the chances of surviving to the age of 5.

And while I had transcribed it and included it in stories and articles, I have never reproduced the original memorial stone or gone looking for the family.

But today I have done just that and it has been a slow process taking up a big part of a morning and even now I have not got very far.

I know that Mr Sharp was married three times, and that his wives were Elizabeth, Hannah, and Sarah.

His marriage to Hannah took place in what is now Manchester Cathedral in June 1834 and he married Sarah in 1851 in Ashton-Under-Lyne.

This third marriage was sometime between January and March, and in April they are recorded as living at 10 Old Cross which was close to the parish church.  He described his occupation as “Hair  dresser and seedsman”, which chimes in with an earlier reference in 1828 to him in a directory as living on Old Street and earning a living as a “seedsman”.

In 1861 they had moved to the small village of Hotham where he continued to describe himself as a “seedsman” but also as a “Lodge Gate Keeper”.*

The children

Of his children I have so far only come across a reference to the baptism and death of Charles Slater Sharp, which occurred in 1843 but in time the others may come out of the shadows.

As it is, the death of Thomas aged 18 in 1839 might offer a clue as to his father’s marriage to Elizabeth which must be sometime at the start of the 1820s if not earlier.

I doubt we will ever know why Charles and Sarah moved to Yorkshire.

Places the Sharp's would have known, Ashton-Under-Lyne, 1854

It may be that they were returning to his birth county or perhaps the tiny rural village offered job opportunities and a quality of life which was no longer the case in Ashton.  Mr Piggot’s Directory for 1828 had commented that “its new streets are well built and contain many good and some elegant residences; but the old streets are narrow” and while in 1826, “the number of steam engines in Ashton was thirty-four, ..... at this period [1828] the number and power has greatly increased”, which was to continue into the 1860s.

By comparison, Hotham in 1825 contained just 62 houses and 203 inhabitants, which by 2011 had only grown to 233.**

Of course there is that darker and sadder explanation which falls back on the need to move away from such a litany of tragedy.

Location Ashton-Under-Lyne

Picture; the gravestone of the Sharp family, 1979, parish church, Ashton-Under-Lyne, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Old Ssquare, close to where the Sharp's lived, from the OS, Lancashire, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Pigots Directory, 1828, Census Enu 1s 2 Ashton-Under-Lyne, Hotham Yorkshire, 1861, page 214

**A Topographical Dictionary of the United Kingdom, Benjamin Pitts Capper, 1825, page 432

Back on the streets of Ashton-Under-Lyne in the 19th century

Victorian Ashton, 1974

I have fond memories of Ashton-Under-Lyne.

It was where I lived for three years in a small terraced house off Penny Meadow and it suited me just fine.

It was after all about as far away from south Manchester as you could go and the life of a student which had been my lot for four years.

But above all for someone interested in 19th century history it had the lot.  Here were the mills, a canal and a fine market hall and the old PSA building.*

Now I know that if I had washed up in Oldham, Rochdale or any one of a number of the mills towns in the region I would have found something of the same, but Ashton was where we lived and it was Ashton’s industrial and social past that we explored in the mid 1970s.

It was a place which really came into its own during the 19th century.  So while it had been a market town since 1284 it remained a small place until the Industrial Revolution.

Its population in 1775 was about five thousand and according to one account the town was contained in “four narrow dark streets formed by mean looking dwellings.”**

But during the last quarter of the 18th century and the first four decades of the 19th it rapidly expanded as the textile industries were developed.

So the population increased and in just fifteen years from 1827 “the place has been rapidly augmented; .... the banks of the canal and the Tame are now lined by numerous streets; the area betwixt Old Street and Charlestown is nearly built upon, and a portion of it forms  a spacious Market-place, on the north side of which is erected an elegant Town Hall; the fields formerly bordering on the north of the Old Cross have been transformed into street avenues; the east side of the Rectory has received a large accession of habitations, the west side of Oldham Road is become a portion of the town; and the vicinities of Henry-square and St Peter’s Church abound with edifices.”***

Ashton, 1841-54

It is a story which has been told in part but for me one of the most excellent and enduring accounts is that of Victorian Ashton which as the Preface says, is not so much a history of Ashton in the 19th century but “a collection of essays dealing with aspects of life at the time, and a record of what remains of the period today.”****

I bought it back in 1974 when it was first published and regularly go back to it. It includes articles on 19th century housing, the Churches and Chapels, leisure and Industrial Archaeology along with descriptions of Chartist activity and individuals like Hugh Mason.

Ashton in 1834

In the almost forty years since the publication of Victorian Ashton, the town has changed a lot and some of the places featured in the book will have gone.

Rereading the section on the Industrial Archaeology of Ashton-under-Lyne by Owen Ashmore is to be reminded of just how much of the economic and industrial landscape has altered in the last four decades.

Likewise the account of the town’s 19th century housing by Sylvia A. Harrop is a wonderful record of what was and still is.

Ashton in 1821

So I am rather pleased that I still have my forty year old copy of Victorian Ashton, and equally pleased that it is still available from Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre.*****

What is all the more remarkable is that while I paid 75p for it in 1974, it still retails for just a £1, which I reckon has got to be a major incentive to get a copy.

Pictures; Victorian Ashton, courtesy of Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre, population increase taken from Nineteenth Century Housing in Ashton, Sylvia Harrop, Victorian Ashton, and detail of the town centre from the OS map for Lancashire, 1841-54, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ extracts of Ashton in the 1830s from Butterworth Edwin, A Historical Account of the towns of Ashton-Under-Lyne, Stalybridge and Duckinfield,


*Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/tram-and-pleasant-sunday-afternoon.html
**Butterworth Edwin, A Historical Account of the towns of Ashton-Under-Lyne, Stalybridge and Duckinfield, 1842, page 52
***ibid Butterworth, page 54
**** Victorian Ashton, Ed by Sylvia A. Harrop and E.A. Rose, Tameside Libraries and Arts Committee 1974
*****Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre, Central Library, Old Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, OL6 7SG, http://www.tameside.gov.uk/archives

Warm days in Ashton Market .... no.3

Now I don’t make any claims to the quality of the pictures.

They were taken in the days of smelly photography and sat as negatives in the cellar for 40 years.

This year I began to convert them into electronic images.

They were taken sometime around 1978 into 1980 and capture an Ashton which has changed.



Location; Ashton-Under-Lyne

Picture; Ashton Market, circa 1978-80, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 5 looking for what has been lost

Out with the Pit and Nelson, date unknown

I went looking for that Herbalist shop on Old Street recently, and followed it up with the Deli which from memory was almost opposite, and of course both had gone.

Which I guess is the biggest confirmation you can have that going back to a place where you were happy is a mistake.

I spent three very happy years on Raynham Street and have occasionally returned since I left.

For people like me Ashton will always be frozen in a time around the long hot summer of 1976, when the streets seemed to shimmer in the mid day heat and the hills above the town appeared burnt brown.

And of special memory were visiting that old Herbalist and buying the Polish bread from opposite.  Not that I ever got to like sarsaparilla despite trying on a number of occasions.

Now I am no romantic and can also remember those cold wet days when the wind down Penny Meadow could slice through even the thickest overcoat or the mornings when you opened the front door to six inches of snow.

That Herbalist's

That said those were magic years which I guess were as much to do with being young and starting out together in a new place as they were about the town.

This seemed like one of those transitional moments when we had crossed from being students and irresponsible to becoming grownups.

All the more so because to get home meant that long bus ride from the city out along the Old Road or squeezed in with the commuters on the train from Victoria.

So having arrived in the town you had physically shed the city.

And what a time we had.

We tended to go to the Lord Napier, or the Pit and Nelson, and when we really wanted to impress family and friends it was up to the Collier’s Arms with that wonderful view from the Pike.

Looking back we never really did explore Ashton’s history, although through the Labour Party there were plenty of stories from those who could speak of family memories stretching back beyond the 1930s to the early years of the last century.

And the Deli

Even now I carry the sad after comment from Sylvia who reflecting on her teenage years during the last war did not come up with the usual mix of fond tales of American servicemen and Vera Lynn.

Instead she quietly spoke of the lost years which were pitched against the death of loved ones and the wish not to get to close to people who might never return.

They were she said “the stolen years” and that was the end of the conversation.

Not that I shall now indulge in what Ashton has become which for most people is just how it is, for when you live in a place it changes and you with it, but I do miss the Moss, the PSA and the old newsagents on Penny Meadow.

But nostalgia is no substitute for real history which is and has always been my passion, so I am off to look for the old coal mines which stood close to our house on Whiteacre Road.

Pictures; along Old Street, date unknown, t01422, t01690, t01691courtesy of Tameside Image Archive, http://www.tameside.gov.uk/history/archive.php3

Ashton-Under-Lyne, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Ashton-Under-Lyne

Warm days in Ashton Market .... no.2

Now I don’t make any claims to the quality of the pictures.

They were taken in the days of smelly photography and sat as negatives in the cellar for 40 years.

This year I began to convert them into electronic images.

They were taken sometime around 1978 into 1980 and capture an Ashton which has changed.

Location; Ashton-Under-Lyne

Picture; Ashton Market, circa 1978-80, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Warm days in Ashton Market .... no.1

Now I don’t make any claims to the quality of the pictures.

They were taken in the days of smelly photography and sat as negatives in the cellar for 40 years.

This year I began to convert them into electronic images.

They were taken sometime around 1978 into 1980 and capture an Ashton which has changed.

Location; Ashton-Under-Lyne

Picture; Ashton Market, circa 1978-80, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Dark Tunnel ……. Ben Brierley Terrace and more than one puzzle

I went looking for the Dark Tunnel in Daisy Nook last week, inspired by a picture postcard which showed the tunnel sometime around 1900.

The card was one of a handful, some of which were addressed to Mrs. Robinson at 16 Ben Brierley Terrace, Daisy Nook, Ashton Under Lyne.

But a search for the tunnel and the terrace proved a failure.

Nor were the maps of the period much success.

Eventually I found a reference to the Tunnel which was known as Boodle Tunnel was opened out in the 1920s and offers up the strong possibility that I did walk its route.

Photographs from the 1940s and early 1960s show the opened up route and I guess it is back to the maps to plot its position.

But of Ben Brierley Terrace, have found nothing.

And as I don’t have access to the directories for the area I will be forced back on interrogating the census returns for the terrace unless someone can help out.

Location; Daisy Nook

Picture; The Dark Tunnel, circa 1900, from the collection of David Harrop