Rochdale

Paul Rowen. Liberal Democrat MP

2008-03-05T07:36:00.001-08:00

This is Paul at work in the House of Commons Tuesday March 4th 2008 listening to the Minister answer a question about Transport in the Greater Manchester Area.

He has a website

He has just returned from Bangladesh where he met British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury who was educated at Greenhill (now Falinge Park) School.

He presented him with a Rochdale AFC shirt in recognition of his Rochdale roots. Anwar Choudhury was born in Sylhet, Bangladesh but came to Rochdale as a child with his parents living on Brunswick Street.

Paul invited him to Rochdale later in the year when his term as High Commissioner is completed. I also raised with him issues relating to visas and work permits which had been raised by several constituents."

Tesco Trolleys

2008-02-19T09:46:00.001-08:00

Tesco on Silk Street (named after a Silk Hat factory - which produced the industrial fortune used to build Rochdale Infirmay) provided a pleasing image on a freezing but brigt winter day.

A Curious restriction notice at entrance to Queens Park , Heywood

2008-02-19T09:41:00.001-08:00

Queens Park has been enormously improved after the expenditure of squillions by the EU heritage Fund.

This sign is an odd mixture of restrictions.

Tattoos or is that Tattoo's ? Drake Street

2007-03-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

The Britannia, Hamer

2007-03-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

Littleborough Railway Station

2007-03-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

Stone Flag Wall. Broadfield Park

2007-03-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

2007-01-01T11:08:00.000-08:00

These are the steps up to the empty Syke Resevoir accessible from the public road past Syke ponds and Syke Common.

And this is the empty Syke resevoir which leaked from the get go. Home of orchids and in the spring some welcome duck.

Turner Brothers Asbestos, Spotland

2007-01-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

The site of the old Turner Brothers asbestos textile factory at Spotland upon which plans for developing a housing estate of 650 houses is currently being considered.

These are some of the iron boundary railings.

Turner Brothers Asbestos (TBA) were pioneers of asbestos material fabrication, and developed spinning and weaving processes. Production commened in the early 1870’s, and it ended in the Spodden Valley in the mid 1990’s.

The world’s first death known to be due to Asbestosis was young Rochdale TBA worker - Nellie Kershaw in 1924. TBA recognised that asbestos worker William Pennington died of mesothelioma in 1936.

Save Spodden Valley is a website created to promote the welcome safe, responsible development of the site.

This is a picture of the site in it's heyday ...

Zion Terrace Old and (relatively) new - Norden

2006-12-23T14:09:00.000-08:00

Signs of the Times

Hope Street Sunday School

2006-12-23T13:55:00.000-08:00

These 150 year old buildings have been very effectively converted into housing.

Pre fabs at Foxholes

2006-12-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

Estates of Prefabricated housing sprung up after the war to accomodate the homeless and a program of slum clearance. Designed for a 5 / 10 Year life these are at Foxholes and in perfect working order.

Typically such a house had an entrance hall, two bedrooms (parents and children), a bathroom (a room with a bath) — which was a novelty for many British at that time, a separate toilet, a living room and an equipped (not fitted in the modern sense) kitchen. They also included a hot water system with a back boiler open fire. Construction materials included steel, aluminium, timber or asbestos, depending on the type of dwelling. The aluminium Type B2 prefab was produced as four pre-assembled sections which could be transported by lorry anywhere in the country

The Burt Committee was established in 1942 as a interdepartmental Committee to act on housing shortages caused by wartime damage. This resulted (eventually) in the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944 the responsibility of the Ministry of Reconstruction.. Whole estates of prefabs were constructed to provide accommodation for those made homeless by the War and ongoing slum clearance Almost 160,000 had been built in the UK by 1948 at a cost of close to £216 million. Reports of the time show the costs of buildings rose £914 to £1,365 between 1945 to 1947.

It must be remembered that between 1939 and 1945 enemy action destroyed about 200,000, made unhabitable some 250,000 and severely damaged a much larger number.

Red sky at night

2006-12-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Traffic lights on Edinburgh Way approached from the Sandbrook Retail Park. Today.

Persimmon Homes, Newbold Way, Belfield

2006-11-29T09:04:00.000-08:00

Persimmon Homes are building houses at Newbold. The sign tells the tale. What is basically a terrace house with a parking spot sells for about £165K.

A detached house sells for about £240K upwards.

This is modern housebuilding, low energy, (double glazed, low ceilings, well insulated, built on concrete rafts). The price (paid for on a mortgage) clocks up when you start specifying kitchens, bathrooms, conservatories.

Increasingly Persimmon have been peddling a form of 3 story ersatz vernacular architecture to build up density to meet the requirements for new houses. The front of this house with it's stuck on door is a mess with windows dottted about of different sizes.

Buersil War memorial

2006-11-12T05:01:00.000-08:00

At the entrance to Balderstone Park, this was being cleaned and shading trees removed and trimmed by a tree surgeon contractor when this photgraph was taken. RMBC have been very busy cleaning up War memorials this year.

There is a small memorial garden behind it.

War Memorial at St Chad's Parish Church

2006-11-12T04:54:00.000-08:00

The Eagle Hotel

2006-11-12T04:50:00.000-08:00

The Eagle Hotel on Rochdale Road.

ST Chad's Parish Church

2006-11-12T04:46:00.000-08:00

Tandle Hill War memorial

2006-11-12T04:41:00.000-08:00

An impressive and commanding obelisk with a disappointing tablet - presumably vandal proof.

Well worth a visit, stunning views as far as Jodrell Bank on a good clear day. Take a look at the Roman Catholic Copper dome on Maclure Road and the adjoining foil of the Italianate Fire Station Tower.

Your opportunity to see this dominant feature of the Rochdale landscape is limited, the crumbling Fire Station tower assualted by decades of high pressure hoses needs repair or demolition.

Guess which is cheapest ?

Remember the whole of Tandle Hill Park was given in deliverance for the memory of those who died in the First World war. The gify was so deeded that it is impossible to ever build on it.

Rochdale Town Centre Fire Station

2006-11-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

Built by A & T Howarth in 1933 when Maclure Road was unpaved.This included a small estate of house for Fire Station staff.

The plaque or cartouche has amusing sculptures of engines and ladders / appliances which the casual observer woul miss.

The Ex Two Ships Hotel

2006-11-05T12:48:00.000-08:00

The two Ships Hotel,Hope Street, opposite the Methodist Chapel, previously of the now defunct Bury Brewery Company is now a private house. The stone carved bading bearing the pubs name and the brwery have been roughly ground off with a grinder as have some of the details on the ceramic plaque by the door.

Architectural vandalism. cf the John Willie Lees sign at the Blue Pits, Castleton

Town Crest on Fire Station

2006-11-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

Regrettably like many such crests, they are out of reach and almost out of site.

The Commercial, Castleton

2006-11-04T04:38:00.000-08:00

The Commercial on Manchester Road, Castleton with rosy fingered dawn casting it's glow on the curtained windows. Just how many TV aerials does one pub need ?

Ex- Castleton Police Station

2006-11-04T04:30:00.000-08:00

Castleton Police Station. A typical mid war Acccrington Brick and dressed stone Public Building, which is now owned by a Housing Association.

The inset shows a heraldic plaque inset in the front gable. Presumably the 3 English Lions puissant (?)

John Willie Lees Wall Plaque

2006-11-04T04:13:00.000-08:00

This beautiful ceramic tile display is on the south wall of the Blue Pits Inn at Castleton. The Blue Pits relates to the blue marl pits in the area from which nutrient rich clay (marl)was dug and used as an agricultural fertilizer. Marl pits date to the post-medieval period and their existence is often evident through field and place names.

J W Lees beer , although endorsed as "real ale" by CAMRA is vile stuff.

St Chad's Vicarage (original)

2006-11-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

Samuel Dunster, built what is now the old Vicarage, in 1726 - currently it houses the Rochdale Business Bureau, although at great cost it temporarily held the Museum, which was moved at even greater cost to the Touchstones Centre, which was th Libarray which was moved at great cost and inconvenience to the Wheatsheaf Centre where it is impossible to find.

William Hay was appointed Vicar in 1819 after he, as the Salford Hundred's principal Magistrate had sent in the Cavalry to quell what he saw as a riot in Manchester. It was afterwards called the Peterloo Massacre. This so called riot was a meeting about the lack of jobs for men. Machines had meant a reduction in the work-force and yet large numbers of men had returned from the war with Napoleon.

ST Chad's Church

2006-11-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

St. Chad's parish Church, Rochdale with one of the gargoyles.

There was, the site indicates, a Church on Sparrow Hill long before 1194. A wall, reputedly of Saxon origin, still stands to the north of the present edifice. Legend insists that Rochdale was a town visited by St. Chad in 669 or 670 and to whom the Church has ever been dedicated. It is a legend unsupported by historical evidence, but it is not improbable: Rochdale was a town of some importance in the Middle Ages, as is evidenced by the establishment of a market in the year 1251. The local references to a Castle both in site, and in names like Castlemere and Castleton, indicate an importance for Rochdale that was not insignificant, and when the town expanded in the time of the Industrial Revolution, it remained one of the most important in this part of Lancashire.

The bottom of the Church tower together with the alternating round and octagonal pillars in the Nave date from the time of the first Vicar, Geoffrey of Whalley who was Vicar in the year 1194. He owed his appointment to the local de Lacy family, powerful representatives of the King.

The Church is known as a 'Double Apostle' building due to the number of arches, its size was doubled in the 1880's being completed in 1888 during Canon Maclure's incumbency. This had the effect of making the section alotted to the Choir slightly larger than that allotted to the congregation, the intention being to adopt the style of a Cathedral. The clerestory windows picture the Apostles.

The older parts of the church is built in millstone grit while the extension is of Yorkshire sandstone.

The Octingentenary (800 year anniversary) was marked on December 1st 1994 by a visit from Her Majesty, The Queen and His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh.

Bet Lynch was married here.

Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Boundary Stone

2006-11-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

This Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Boundary stone is on Royton Moss near Shaw and Crompton Station and probably dates from about 1880.

The gatepost / Boundary Stone (?) may have been moved to stand next to it ?

Orange Peel Fungus

2006-11-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

The orange peel fungus (Aleuria aurantia) . Very distinctive fungus which fruits in the Autumn comprises a wavy-edged, saucer-shaped disc, whose upper surface is bright orange and smooth while the lower surface is greyish orange and rather powdery.

This example on bare ground in Queens Park Heywood, fruits in the Autumn.

The spore bearing structure is on the upper surface, unlike most mushrroms whose spore are borne on the lower surfaces.

Crimble Mill

2006-11-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

Still operating as a textile coating mill, a great deal of the building is derelict.

The Datestone shows 1886 but mills have operated at this site on the River Roch before that date.

Would make an ideal conversion to flats, but would require substanbtial sums just to make the building waterproof.

Rochdale Flats for the pixies

2006-10-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

Hygrocybe Sp ?

The Ink Cap fungus in Rochdale cemetery

2006-10-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

Coprinus atramentarius (Bull.: Fr.) one of the Ink cap fungi growing in Rochdale cemetery today. (Polish czernidłak pospolity)

Common, spring-fall, clustered in forests, gardens, parks in places rich with organic debris; always? connected with decayed wood. This was found clustered in a flower bed recently covered with freshly cut woodchippings.

Although edible it is not advisable to eat it. The mushrooms contain coprine, a toxin similar to disulfiram, [bis(diethylthiocarbonyl)disulfide] the ingredient in the drug Antabuse, given to alcoholics. Coprine is unusual amino acid, a derivative of glutamic acid, which converts to cyclopropanone hydrate in the human body. Like Antabuse, the Ink Cap produces no ill effects -- unless one consumes alcohol, which will trigger nausea, vomiting, rash, dizziness, and so on.

So in theory , the Ink Cap is a safe to eat if no alcohol is consumed for about 5 days. However, alcohol "consumption" can be as little as smelling rubbing alcohol or perfume! Best advice is not to eat it.

A great deal of information / photographs to help identification / sightings / records are available at Rochdale Field Naturalists website.

Rochdale Cemetery Gatehouse

2006-10-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

This is one of the 2 Gate Houses of Rochdale Cemetery which has been greatly neglected.

Blocked gutters, leaking downspouts have led to water penetration, rotten window frames, and barred windows add to the gloom.

Basically a fine and sound building which would have been a house when the Cemetery was formed in the mid 1800's (see panoramic view on display at the entrance - pic here).

This is the last impression a visitor has as they leave the main entrance.

Sixteen founder members of the Co-op movement, including the first shopkeeper, Samuel Ashworth, are buried in Rochdale Cemetery. The council operates a museum on the site of the original shop at Toad Lane, Rochdale. Visitors to the museum may also be conducted to the cemetery to inspect the graves and memorials of the original pioneers.

The graves and memorials of the 16 original pioneers were restored in 1994 as part of the Co-op celebrations to mark their 150-year history.

An expensive toilet ... only fit for dogs

2006-10-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Increasingly parks are used as dog toilets, slightly improved by penalties as advertised. If one of the joys of dog ownership is scrabbling around collecting dogshit .... count me out.

Denehurst Park

2006-10-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

This handsome house was donated to the Borough by the Turner Famil along with extensive grounds. The maniacs who do these things are building a nasty galvanised steel railing guarded wheelchair ramp at the front of the building.

A building much vandalised by mindless, drug and alcohol crazed youth and by Borough Engineers.

Falinge Park Gatepost

2006-10-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

Falinge park (13 acres)given to Rochdale by Alderman Samuel Turner (Mayor 1901-3) in commemeoration of the Coronation of King Edward VII on 5th August 1905.

He spent £3,500 on walkways, flower beds , and landscaping. He extended the park in 1911 on the Coronation of King George V.

A bandstand was erected in 1907 which was restored in 1998.

Mount Falinge (only the windoless facade exists today, heavily fenced off and neglected) was built by Clement Royds, his son Albert Hudson Royds, was the grandfather of Alderman Turner.

Rochdale Boundary Stone , Healey Stones

2006-10-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

In the middle of the 19th Century a series of Boundary Stones were erected 1 mile from the centre (?) of Rochdale.

This is one near Healey Stones on the path by the second (and dry) Syke resevoir.

The remnants of the cast iron plate lugs set in lead can be seen. At the onset of WWII, to confuse any arriving German parachutists, the plaques were destroyed and have not been replaced.

Rochdale Post Office

2006-10-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

The Post Office on the Esplanade in the centre of Rochdale was built in 1927 by the famous firm of R & T Howarth, who built many familiar buildings in Rochdale.

The building was cleaned earlier this year and now houses the Post Office again. This was previously moved in an insane arrangement with property speculators and stupid Councillors to the rear of Woolworth's for a while.

Today's users have to struggle past the massed ranks of drug dealers, well equipped with their ubiquitous mobile phones to summon up deliveries .... handily placed for the Police Station.

Free Trade Tavern

2006-10-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Free Trade Tavern...where else is there a pub named after a Political Idea ? The Ramada Inn where our Dear Leader laid his head last week at the Labour Party Conference used to be the Free Trade Hall but that (on the site of Peterloo) is an unhealthy reference to our socialist past.

Opposite the John Milne and purveyor of John Willy Lees CAMRA approved Ales, whose nearby Middleton brewery seen frequently on Coronation Street. The Bitter is said locally to be so weak that if you tip a pint over, it is so weak, it won't have the strength to fall off the edge of the table.

Adjacent to Milnrow Park with a striking War Memorial.

John Milne in the "John Milne"

2006-10-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

Rochdale born John Milne (1850 – 1913) after training as a geologist, he emigrated to Japan and to take up the post of Professor of mining and geology at the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo.

John Milne is generally credited with the invention of the horizontal pendulum seismograph in 1880....which has been used to identify the alleged nuclear explosion in NE North Korea today.

In June 1895 he returned with his Japanese wife to England and settled at Shide Hill House on the Isle of Wight. He was made a professor emeritus of Tokyo Imperial University.

This photograph is in the pub which was owned by his family, which is now a recently built motorway-side hotel on the site of a MIlne family owned pub. Other photographs are displayed showing him with his bride in his IOW house.

He is widely respected as the "Father of Seismography" in Japan, where there is a statue of him, a section of Tokyo University Library devoted to his work.

There are still members of the family in Milnrow.

Watergrove Resevoir

2006-10-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

This is the dated lintel from a property inundated when Watergrove village was flooded to make Watergrove Resevoir. It is set into the perimeter wall.

The Resevoir is now home to the West Pennine Sailboard Club.

Town Centre Flats

2006-10-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

From the North West, in the rain, this afternoon, showing the urban sprawl with it's Executive style houses with double garages and conservatories.

The 60's planners claimed that the huge multi story flats would release land for recreation.

The Flats in Rochdale, being central are surrounded by roads, endlessly busy with traffic.