Railway Sleepers Salford Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 72,750

With increased competition from the towns of Bolton and Oldham, Salford’s cotton spinning industries faltered, and so its economy turned increasingly to other textiles and to the finishing trades, including rexine and silk dyeing, and fulling and bleaching, at a string of works in Salford.  For centuries in Salford, textiles and related trades were the main source of employment.

Both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels spent time in Salford, studying the plight of the British working class.   In The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Engels described Salford as “really one large working-class quarter …[a] very unhealthy, dirty and dilapidated district which, while other industries were almost always textile related is situated opposite the ‘Old Church’ of Manchester”.

Salford developed several civic institutions; in 1806, Chapel Street became the first street in the world to be lit by gas (supplied by Phillips and Lee’s cotton mill).  In 1850, under the terms of the Museums Act 1845, the municipal borough council established the The Royal Museum & Public Library, said to have been the first unconditional free public library in England, preceding the Public Libraries Act 1850.

The effect on Salford of the Industrial Revolution has been described as “phenomenal”.  The area expanded from a small market town into a major industrial metropolis; factories replaced cottage industries, and the population of rose from 12,000 in 1812 to 70,244 within 30 years.   By the end of the 19th century it had increased to 220,000.  Large-scale building of low quality Victorian terraced housing did not stop overcrowding, which itself lead to chronic social deprivation.  The density of housing was as high as 80 homes per acre.

Railway Sleepers Salford Greater Manchester

Railway Sleepers

Bolton Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 139,403

The town’s position on the west of the Pennines provides a damp climate.   It is this feature which probably led to Flemish weavers, fleeing the Huguenot persecutions in the 17th century, to eventually settle here, as moisture-laden air allows for the spinning of cotton with little breakage.   The cotton industry was to provide the catalyst for the town’s expansion between the 14th and 19th centuries.

Large, steam-powered textile mills eventually dominated the town’s skyline, providing the major employment and defining the rhythm of the working week, so much so that an annual shut-down for maintenance in late June became the Bolton holidays.   There were also some large iron foundries in the town as well as other engineering works, many connected with the cotton industry.   The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal connected the town to Bury and Manchester.

The Bolton and Leigh Railway was one of the oldest in Lancashire, opening to goods traffic in 1828 and to passengers in 1831.  Bolton was Worktown in the Mass-Observation project which has left us with many photographs taken around the town by Humphrey Spender as part of that project.

Railway Sleepers Bolton Greater Manchester

Railway Sleepers Oldham Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 103,544

Much of Oldham’s history is concerned with textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution; it has been said that “if ever the Industrial Revolution placed a town firmly and squarely on the map of the world, that town is Oldham.” Oldham’s soils were too thin and poor to sustain crop growing, and so for decades prior to industrialisation the area was used for grazing sheep, which provided the raw material for a local woollen weaving trade.

By 1756, Oldham emerged as centre of the hatting industry in England. The rough felt used in the production process is the origin of the term “Owdham Roughyed” a nickname for people from Oldham.  It was not until the last quarter of the 18th century that Oldham changed from being a cottage industry township producing woollen garments via domestic manual labour, to a sprawling industrial metropolis of textile factories.

The climate, geology, and topography of Oldham were unrelenting constraints upon the social and economic activities of the human inhabitants.  Located 700 feet (213 m) above sea level with no major river or visible natural resources, Oldham had poor geographic attributes compared with other settlements for investors and their engineers.   As a result, Oldham played no part in the initial period of the Industrial Revolution, although it did later become seen as obvious territory to industrialise because of its convenient position between the labour forces of Manchester and southwest Yorkshire.

Railway Sleepers Oldham Greater Manchester

Railway Sleepers

Rochdale Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 95,796

In Rochdale, demand for cross-Pennine trade (e.g. to support the local cotton, wool and silk industries) led to the building of George Stephenson’s Summit Railway Tunnel and the Rochdale Canal (from Manchester to Yorkshire - re-opened in 2003 after years of neglect, including its division by a motorway).   The Manchester and Leeds Railway opened a station, but the line passed about a mile south of the town centre.   The station remains open, but much reduced from its heyday.   Trains run south (to Manchester Victoria), east (to Halifax, Bradford and Leeds) and to Manchester Victoria via the Manchester to Rochdale via Oldham Line, (also known as the Oldham Loop).

Rochdale is to be served by an extension of the Manchester Metrolink tram system, which would see the Oldham Loop converted from heavy rail to light rail.   This extension was deferred in 2004 on grounds of cost. In July 2006, however, ministers approved plans for extension from Manchester Victoria as far as the planned Rochdale Rail Station stop just outside the station. Approval for extension into Rochdale town centre, extended down Drake Street and terminating opposite Rochdale bus station, as well as into Oldham town centre, is expected in 2008.

Railway Sleepers

Rochdale Greater Manchester

Railway Sleepers

Stockport Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 136,082

Stockport is a large town in Greater Manchester, England.   It lies on elevated ground on the River Mersey at the influx of the rivers Goyt and Tame, 6.1 miles (9.8 km) southeast of the city of Manchester.   Stockport is the largest settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, and has a population of 136,082, the wider borough being 281,000.

Stockport in the 16th century was known for the cultivation of hemp and rope manufacture and in the 18th century the town had one of the first mechanised silk factories in the United Kingdom.   However, Stockport’s predominant industries of the 19th century were the cotton and allied industries.   Stockport was also at the centre of the country’s hatting industry which by 1884 was exporting more than six million hats a year.   In December 1997 the last Stockport hat works closed. The town’s hatting heritage is preserved at ‘Hat Works - the Museum of Hatting’.

Dominating the western approaches to the town is the Stockport Viaduct. Built in 1840, the viaduct’s 27 brick arches over the River Mersey carry the mainline railways from Manchester to Birmingham and London.   This structure featured as the background in many paintings by L.S. Lowry.

Railway Sleepers Stockport

Greater Manchester

Railway Sleepers

Manchester Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 458,100

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. Manchester was granted city status in 1853.   In 2007, the population of the Manchester local government district was estimated to be 458,100, whilst the surrounding Metropolitan County of Greater Manchester had an estimated population of 2,562,200.

Manchester itself lies at the centre of the wider Greater Manchester Urban Area, which at the 2001 census was shown to have a population of 2,240,230 (of which 394,269 lived within the Manchester subdivision), and it was the United Kingdom’s third largest conurbation at that census.

Manchester has the second most populous Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) in the UK with an estimated population in the 2004 Urban Audit of 2,539,100 and is the fourteenth most populated in Europe.   Forming part of the English Core Cities Group, often described as the second city of the UK, and the “Capital of the North”, Manchester today is a centre of the arts, the media, higher education and commerce.   In a poll of British business leaders published in 2006, Manchester was regarded as the best place in the UK to locate a business.

Railway Sleepers

Manchester Greater Manchester

Railway Sleepers

Bury Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 60,718

A history of Bury is not complete without reference to its role as regimental town of the Lancashire Fusiliers.

In 1688 Prince William of Orange (later King William III) landed at Brixham, Devon. He was met by a number of noblemen who were then commissioned to raise Regiments to help him oppose James II.   Colonel Sir Robert Peyton raised a Regiment containing six independent companies in the Exeter area. In 1782 the title was changed to the XX or East Devon Regiment of Foot and from 1 July 1881 became the XX The Lancashire Fusiliers.

The link with Bury and the Fusiliers started at this time when, following successful recruiting in Lancashire a Regimental Depot was established in Bury, Wellington Barracks, in 1881.

The Regiment has been involved in many campaigns and peace keeping duties including the Jacobite uprising, the American War of Independence, the Napoleonic Wars, the Indian Mutiny and both World Wars.   Since moving to Bury the Lancashire Fusiliers were part, in 1898, of the force that relieved Khartoum and fought in the Battle of Omdurman and in 1899 - 1902 during the Boer War took part in the battles of Spion Kop and the Relief of Ladysmith.

Railway Sleepers Bury Greater Manchester

Railway Sleepers

Wigan Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 81,203

In the Anglo-Saxon period, the area of Wigan was probably under the control of the Northumbrians and later the Mercians.   In the early 10th century there was an influx of Scandinavians expelled from Ireland.   This can be seen in place names such as Scholes – now a part of Wigan – which derives from the Scandinavian skali meaning “hut”.   Further evidence comes from some street names in Wigan which have Scandinavian origins.
Although Wigan parish church was mentioned in the Domesday Book, the current building dates to the 15th century.

Although Wigan is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, possibly because it was included in the Neweton barony (now Newton-le-Willows), it is thought that the mention of a church in the manor of Neweton is Wigan parish church.  The rectors of the parish church were lords of the manor of Wigan, a sub-manor of Neweton, until the 19th century.   The incorporation of Wigan as a borough happened in 1246 following the issue of a Charter by King Henry III to John Maunsel, the local church rector and lord of the manor.  The borough was later granted another Charter in 1257–1258, allowing the lord of the manor to hold a market on every Monday and two annual fairs.

Edward II visited Wigan in 1323 in an effort to stabilise the region which had been the source of the Banastre Rebellion in 1315.   Edward stayed in nearby Upholland Priory and held court in the town over a period of several days.  During the medieval period Wigan expanded and prospered and in 1536, antiquarian John Leland described the town, saying “Wigan paved; as big as Warrington and better builded.   There is one parish church amid the town. Some merchants, some artificers, some farmers”.

Railway Sleepers Wigan Greater Manchester