Down in Heaton Mersey with that lost bleach works

The Bleach Works, date unknown

Now the thing about industrial archaeology is that it can turn up in the most unexpected places and be a surprise to many who have lived nearby for ages.

Sites which once hummed with purpose, employing hundreds of people with a history stretching back centuries can vanish leaving almost nothing while relatively new ventures also disappear and are lost forever.

The site in 2015

What they all have in common is that once gone pretty soon they are forgotten and their rediscovery can be a revelation.

What helps is to have someone in the know.

David Harrop is one of those people.  On an expedition around Heaton Mersey he came across that mystery bell which may have belonged to the bleach works.

And here I show my ignorance for I never knew that there were bleach works in Heaton Mersey.

An invoice rom the bleach works, circa 1890s

That said unless you knew of the existence of the Upper Bleach Works it is hard to picture what must have been a noisy and perhaps smelly industrial enterprise.

Today standing beside the cottages of Park Row and Park View it is hard to think that here was a little bit of the industrial revolution.

The bleach works were doing their bit by 1844 and I have no doubt that with a bit of research it should be possible to push this date back.

But the buildings and reservoir are gone and the site has grown back with a mix of bushes and trees.
Dig a little and I bet things will turn up.

The site today

In the meantime I was fascinated by this invoice from the Upper Bleach Works which along with David’s picture postcard from offers up a bit of its history.

Now there will be plenty who remember it as a going concern and some who may even have memories of working there and with luck they will come forward to tell a story.

All of which matters especially given the onward creep of new development which in time will cover the site with new buildings, but also because the stories of those who worked there and carried out a process which can be traced back to at least the start of the 19th deserve to be retained.

Of course some of those accounts may already exist safely and so my first port of call will be Stockport Heritage Centre.*

Pictures; postcard of the Bleach Works, date unknown, invoice from Upper Bleach works and the site today from the collection of David Harrop


*Stockport Heritage Centre, stockportheritage@gmail.com

A little mystery down in Heaton Mersey

The Wardle bell, 2015

Now here in lies a mystery.

The bell in the picture was discovered by David Harrop on one of his recent walks exploring the industrial archaeology of Heaton Moor.

The trip took him  from Didsbury Road down the side of the Crown Hotel along Vale Close to the cottages of Park Row and Park View.

It is a picturesque spot which belies its past, for here just to the north of those cottages was the Upper Bleach Works.

The works were in full swing by 1844 and I guess with a bit of digging I should be able to discover when they were opened and when they finally closed.

Park Row, the Bleach Works in Heaton Mersey, 1844

But for the meantime it’s that bell which according to David sits on its own along the footpath with no explanation for why it is there.

David assumes it may have come from the Bleach Works.

The name on bell is “Wardle Manchester” which is not much to go on but in 1911 there was an “Ernest Wardle & Co, Iron and Church Roof builders" who operated from the Derby Street Works in Cheetham.

It doesn’t appear to be a big concern and of course the date may all be wrong added to which it may have no

Park Row and Park Place, 2015

connection with the bleach works and instead just be one of those random objects that turns up for no apparent reason other than sheer chance.

That said the hunt for the bell led me to a wonderful site on “Walking from Stockport to Sale” along with more of David’s pictures.

And it precedes earlier  that trips taken by Andy Robertson highlight how little I knew about Heaton Moor and how much more there to discover.

Looking across to the site of the Bleach Works, 2015

Pictures; Wardle’s Bell & Park Row, 2015 courtesy of David Harrop, and detail of Heaton Mersey from the OS for Lancashire, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

* Walking the Mersey: from Stockport to Sale, August 15, 2012, https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/walking-the-mersey-from-stockport-to-sale/