Rochdale Flats for the pixies

Hygrocybe Sp ?

The Ink Cap fungus in Rochdale cemetery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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.