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

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

Signs of the Times

Hope Street Sunday School

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

Pre fabs at Foxholes

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

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

Persimmon Homes, Newbold Way, Belfield

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.