St George's 1927

The front of this Whit Friday programme from 1927 shows how St George's churchyard use to look before the railings around several graves were removed.

See how it looks from a similar viewpoint now on Hyde Daily Photo.

Details of the early history of St George's can be found at The Annals of Hyde: St George's Church

A contribution to Inspired Sundays.

Newtonhurst from the air, 1922, 1935.

This image from 1935 is © English Heritage from Britain from the air.

In the foreground is the former Newton Hurst cricket ground around which are five blocks of terraced houses built in 1920.

A front view of the two blocks facing Victoria Road can be seen on Hyde Daily Photo and on Hyde DP Xtra.

Victoria avenue runs across the middle of the photograph with Cartwight Street leading off at a sharp angle to meet Talbot Road which runs across the top of the photograph.

Most of the open space between Victoria Street and Talbot Road continues to be a recreation ground for the area.

This image from the Roots chat forum shows the ground in 1922.

According to the play-cricket website

Newtonhurst began life in the early part of the twentieth century as the Newton Mill works team, and played in a variety of leagues, including the Hyde & District League, the Glossop & District League, the High Peak League, and for a short period in the 1950s they even competed in the heady heights of the North Western League.

In 1972, the cricket team metamorphosed from Newton Mill into Newtonhurst, and similar to their forebears, competed in the Glossop & District League for a short period. This was followed by an even shorter exodus to the Denton & District League, before joining the Ashton Cricket League in 1980. The Ashton Cricket League merged to form the Ashton & Oldham Cricket Alliance in 2005, though sadly folded following the completion of the 2011 season. Thus, Newtonhurst are now currently members of the Saturday section of the Greater Manchester Amateur League (GMAL).

I'm not certain where they play their matches now. New houses were built on the site of the former ground in about the early 1980s with the roads bearing sporting names including Charlton Avenue, Perry Avenue, Stathom Fold and Mallory Road so retaining a reminder of yesteryear.

A contribution to ABC Wednesday.

Hyde Lads Club

On display for the Heritage Open Day at St Thomas the Apostle were some memorabilia collected by Harold Greenhalgh, Honorary Secretary (1972-92) of Hyde Lads Club.

The club was founded in 1928 by the then Chief Constable of Hyde, J W Danby. The club first started in Hyde Town Hall in a room over the adjoining Police Station yard but quickly moved into Water Street Sunday School. A public appeal for funds allowed Mr Danby to purchase the premises on Beeley Street which had previously been the local Police Station and Courthouse. A plaque outside the club commemorated the fact that Judge Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown's Schooldays used to preside there as a Circuit Judge.

The club was officially opened in 1930 by the HRH The Duke of Gloucester. Catering for boys from the ages of 13 to 21, it contained a large gymnasium used for gymnastics, boxing, five-a-side football and basketball, a snooker room with three tables and a canteen area on the ground floor. On the first floor was an assembly room used for table tennis, a smaller table tennis room, a library where chess and board games were played, a darts room and two small rooms used for hobby activities such as photography and leather work. Located at the rear of the club over a garage which had once been used as the town's mortuary was a woodwork room.

At its peak the club, a voluntary organisation, ran four football teams, a gymnastic team which gave displays throughout the area, a boxing section, a champion winning table tennis team and a "Black & White Minstrel Troop" who travelled around local towns giving shows. In later year girls were allowed to join a judo section with some members taking part in international competitions.

In 1992 the building was declared electrically unsafe and with no funds available for the necessary repair it was forced to close and was demolished.

Only the signage and plaque to Thomas Hughes were saved and are on display in Beeley Street car park as can be seen on Hyde Daily Photo.

St Thomas The Apostle (1920)

This painting, dated 1920, of St Thomas the Apostle on Lumn Road was on show at the recent Heritage Open Day.

St Thomas' church was built in 1868. The architect, Medland Taylor was a Manchester architect who produced a number of fine if quirkish buildings. Locally, he designed St. Anne's, Denton, St. Mar'’s, Haughton Green, Holy Trinity, Hyde and the Library and the Post Office in Stalybridge. At the time when many architects were designing churches in a style they believed to be a copy of Gothic Architecture, Medland was producing an inventive mixture of architectural styles and motifs. For example, St. Thomas' has brick buttresses and window surrounds with stone infilling. Most would have followed the convention and used stone with brick infilling. According to Pevsner, the roof is an example of his humour, having a quirky additional pitch to it. The proportions of the church are such that St. Thomas' appears to be quite a small building, whereas it is fairly large.

Also on show were this piece of crockery celebrating the 125th anniversary of the church in 1993.

See Hyde Daily Photo for a current view of the church.

Visit the church website.

A contribution to Inspired Sundays.

Turntable at Godley Junction

Photograph © John Philips and used here with permission.
Cheshire Lines tracks to Woodley and Stockport Tiviot Dale are on the immediate left, the G.C./L.N.E.R to Guide Bridge and Manchester beyond. This was the changeover point for trains from and to the C.L., to electric power. Hence the turntable in use. (Only one C.L. line passenger daily: the overnight from Marylebone divided here, with its Liverpool portion headed off down the C.L.)

Here is where trains heading for Fiddler's Ferry power station via Warrington Arpley would exchange locomotives. The whole point of the railway was to carry Yorkshire coal to Lancashire for burning in one way or another. Originally the trains were steam hauled but after electrification of the Woodhead line in the 1950s the class 76 electric locos would draw the train onto the branch and un-couple before running around and departing; subsequently, a diesel loco would appear and hook-on for the remainder of the trip. Freight services over Woodhead ended in 1981 and this line became redundant.

This photograph by Joe Lloyd is from the Hyde Cheshire blog. Here the Hattersley estate is visible in the background.

See how the remains of the turntable looked in 2007 on Hyde Daily Photo Volume 1 and in 2010 on Hyde DP Xtra.

Photographs of the overgrown turntable as it looks now can be found on Hyde Daily Photo and Hyde DP Xtra.

The Queens

The Queens always seems to have steady trade. It has been one of the more popular pubs in the town centre. It has links to the Moors Murders. In 1965 Superintendent Bob Talbot of the Cheshire Police used the pub as a base for all the officers when the search of the moors was taking place. Some policemen were housed here in a make shift dorm in the function room. The pub was used as the police station as the town hall was not big enough to hold all the staff the investigation needed.

The Queens was at one time a coaching house. There were provisions at the back for horses and it was only recently that the saddle hooks and feeding baskets were removed when alterations were done. Tom Wigley writing on the Hyde, Cheshire blog says "I know they were there in the 1980s when Brian & Joyce Hunter were the landlord and lady. I worked on the door here for a while, which was fun, and I also did the bar for two other landlords, but for me when I see or hear the Queens mentioned I am reminded of the fun and laughter shared with good friends when Brian and Joyce were the hosts."


Located in Clarendon Place it is now a Joseph Holt pub - according to the brewery website in the early 1900s it was known as "The Pineapple". Confusingly the gallery of photos on the site shows two images that are actually of the Queens Hotel in Macclesfield.

Note it is NOT the Queen's Hotel (with an apostrophe) but the Queens - the pub sign which can be seen on Hyde Daily Photo - features the six wives of Henry VIII.

See current photographs of the Queens on Hyde DP Xtra.

A contribution to ABC Wednesday.

The Annals of Hyde: St George's Church

These images are from The Annals of Hyde.

The Annals of Hyde tells us

Prior to 1831, the Church of England had no place of worship in the township, and for ecclesiastical purposes Hyde was connected with the Parish Church of Stockport, which place many of the inhabitants attended. Others worshipped at Mottram, or at Denton Old Church ... But the rapid increase of the population of Hyde (owing to the spread of the cotton industry), and the long hours that the people had to work, caused the need of a church within the township to become apparent. The matter was taken up by (among others) Captain Clarke, who obtained the gift of a site from his half-brother, George Clarke, and eventually St. George's Church was built.

The erection of this spacious building was commenced in 1831, the foundation stone being laid on May 28th of that year, by Captain Hyde John Clarke, J.P. The cost, about £5,000, was chiefly guaranteed by the Church Building Commissioners.

The building was consecrated on October 20th, 1832, by the Rt. Rev. John Bird Sumner, D.D., Lord Bishop of Chester, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. The church is a plain substantial stone erection in the perpendicular style, consisting of a tower, a wide nave, and a small chancel. The tower which is lofty and square, surmounted by pinnacles with floreated finials, commands a fine view of the surrounding country. It contains a clock and a peal of eight bells the latter inscribed with the names of the gentlemen who contributed to the cost.

The first peal was rung on the 20th of March, 1853, by the ringers from Mottram Parish Church. Since that time the ringers of St. George's have distinguished themselves in various parts of the country, and have been awarded many prizes for
their skill in this department.

The interior of the church (which is galleried all round), underwent renovation some years ago, and is now calculated to seat above 1,200 persons, the whole of the sittings being free. The large east window of stained glass is a fine piece of workman-ship, and was the gift of John Sidebotham, Esq., J.P., of Kingston.

A large memorial window on the western side was inserted by Mrs. Horsfield, of the Longlands, in memory of her son, and on the north and south sides most of the original windows have been replaced by panes of stained glass in commemoration of departed parishioners. The edifice also contains tablets to the memory of the Rev. Alexander Read and the Rev. Herbert Alkin, former vicars, and one perpetuating the labours of Richard Gilbody and George Middleton, two workers in the Sunday Schools.

In the main entrance of the church, beneath the tower, is the family vault of the Clarke's descendants of the ancient lords of Hyde and there sleeps Captain Hyde John Clarke, who for many years was the chief figure in this part of the country.

St. George's was first formed into an ecclesiastical parish in 1843.

See how the church looks today on Hyde Daily Photo.

Sending water to Manchester (1888)

Click on image to view large size
This fascinating map is taken from the Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society which published an address given by William Sherratt on April 4th 1888.

Here are a few snippets as regards the reservoirs of the Longdendale Valley.

Longdendale was chosen as a source due its purity taking only second place within the UK to that at Loch Katrine. There is a softness in the Manchester water and a freedom from those salts and chemicals held in solution which give to other water supplies their varying hardness.

The Longdendale gathering grounds will be seen on the map, where the valley into which the water flows and river Etherow are shown. It was damned up and made into reservoirs. The area of this drainage ground is 19,300 acres of thirty square miles. There are 975 acres of water.

The height of Woodhead above the Ordnance level is 782ft. The water is sent on from Rhodes Wood reservoir to Arnfield and Hollingworth by its own gravitation.

There are innumerable springs. Each spring, as it is found, is tapped and the flow conducted into what is called a spring-water conduit. There is an arrangement by which this conduit simply takes up the pure spring water and lets the flood water go into Woodhead reservoir. There is a weir which receives the water from Heyden Brook. This pure spring-water conduit goes underneath. The moment any rain or flood comes it swells the stream at once, and instead of the water falling into the pure spring-water conduit it escapes over the sill.

At Hollingworth there are houses for the incubation of fish. Char and trout are turned into the reservoir and their presence does away the fishy odour and taste which arose from a species of snail. The fish act as scavengers.

To read the whole text view this pdf file.

Godley reservoir lies on the Manchester side of the Longdendale reservoirs. See a track to Godley reservoir on Hyde Daily Photo.

Comfort Corner, 1948

I recently heard from Bill Bevan who now lives in Nebraska USA, who wrote

I have a photo of my dad on his bike at the corner of Market street/ Manchester road / Newton street about 1948 showing Garbetts shop and an old number 19 double decker. It hung on my dad's living room wall from the eary 60s until his death in 1987 then on mine and we brought it with us when we moved to Nebraska. He always claimed the man on the bike was him on his way home from work at E Lowerys whose yard was under the arches at Hyde station. He was their lorry driver up to his retirement and I can just about remember him driving their steam shovel as well. I remember the old SHMD trams, the tramshed used to be roughly where Morrisons store is on Mottram Rd. Some of the trams had wooden slatted seats the backs of which reversed when the tram changed direction and were bloody uncomfortable if you were a kid in short trousers. They only ran as far as Godly Arches bacause they couldn't make the grade up to Mottram, there were also buses from there to Glossop which usualy needed the radiator refiiling at the horse trough just before what is now the eastern end of the M67.

See Hyde Daily Photo for a view from about the same spot now.

For Our World Tuesday.

A View of Pole Bank

Pole Bank was originally the home of the Ashton and Beeley famiies. Thomas Kerfoot rented the property from 1912-19.

The hall and grounds were purchased in 1920 by George Frederick Byrom for £4200. He died in 1942 and in 1946 in accordance with his will Pole Bank Hall and Grounds were bequeathed to the Corporation of Hyde for the use and recreation of the general public. Read details of the bequest.

A video by "Lilac Toad" with old photos relating to the history of Pole Bank can by found on YouTube.

Another video shows the work of the Friends of Pole Bank who carried out needed restoration work of the pond last year.

The hall itself is now a nursing home and the grounds are a public open space.

The small three-foot sapling in the above photograph is now a mature fir tree as can be seen in a view across the pond on Hyde Daily Photo (Vol. 2).

Another four recent photographs of Pole Bank pond can be found on Hyde DP Xtra.

Burley Key's Sundial

In March 2010 I published a photograph of Haughton Green Post Office at the top of Gibraltar Lane.

The post generated much comment regarding Burley Key who lived down the lane.

One commentator wrote

"I remember that post office in the late 1960s and 1970s when it had wooden doors, and roll-down security shutters were nearly unheard of. I bought National Savings stamps in there when I was 10 to save up for a play tent that I couldn't put up at home on the council estate because we had no garden but I played with it in Haughton Dale. Gibraltar Lane dipped steeply down and went to dirt after only a couple of hundred yards. On the left as the lane drops away out of sight was a house occupied by a local identity called Burley Key. His house had a high thick hedge round it and a wooden bench he'd made sat in a cutout of the hedge facing the lane. Carved in the back of the bench was 'Coom sit tha down and rest thy sen, it winna cost thee owt'. An invitation to people walking back up the steep hill, it was a written version of the broad local dialect Mr Key still spoke. As a child I could barely understand a word he said though my mother would stop and have conversations with him on our walks up and down 'Gib' Lane. Oh - it meant 'come sit down and rest yourself, it won't cost you anything'. Thanks again for the memories!"

Another wrote

"Burley Key was my great uncle. I used to love visiting his house with my mum. It was full of such interesting things for a youngster like me. Mum told me that Uncle Burley built his house using second hand bricks from the blitzed areas or Manchester. He and his wife (May?) cleaned all the bricks by hand for ages before work could start. Haven't been down Gibraltar lane for years. Must pop down sometime. I still have a handmade bird table he gave my mum, with hand cut miniature tiles on the roof. Very precious to me."

Paul Key wrote to say

"I'm Burleys great grandson and have a picture hung in my house of that very bird house and him and my dad looking at it. I have also heard the story of his house from my dad but I thought that it was made from the bricks from the mill at the bottom of gib lane"

Paul has now sent me a copy of the photograph. He wrote

"The sundial was made for a raffle at the church and this picture was in the newspaper in an article about the raffle. The sundial was made from salvaged bricks from gib lane mill. The older man is Burley Key, the child that is the closest to the bottom of the picture is my dad, John Key and the other child I have asked my dad about many times before and he has no idea who he is. I'm not too sure when it was taken but at a guess, around 1971. Also I'm not sure which house on gib lane it was but I think it's about half way up the lane."

I was by the top of Gibraltar Lane recently and took a new view of Haughton Green Village Post Office which can be seen on Hyde Daily Photo.