An Aerial view 4

This Aerial shot shows St Georges Church which is overlooking the municipal rubbish tip that used to be here. If any child ever wanted a bike, they could be found here scavenging for wheels and frames which they would then take home and make up their own style of bike. Mothers everywhere had heart failure as non of the Home-made bikes possessed any form of brakes! Harndens can be seen middle of the photo ,complete with chimney! Top left to middle is the "Rec" which was a green oasis in the middle of much industry, Queen Street and Slack Mills or James Norths as it was later known. Next to James Norths coming further right you can make out Redferns Rubber Works. The Railway lines off Osborne Road , now the "Pennine Trail" can be seen top right.

Norths from another angle.

Slack Mill, or Norths as it was later to become, covered a huge area from Market Street to Lumn Road and from Smithy Lane to Nelson Street. The only pictures of it that you ever really get to see nowadays are the ones of the front of the building with the large red brick tower.
Here are a few taken from Queen Street.


This one is looking towards the bridge that joined the Lumn Road site to the Douglas Street site. This is taken after the houses on the "Rec" or recreational ground side were demolished.


This one is taken from Queen Street looking at the back of the largest building that fronted Market Street. You can see where new bits of building work were done as the company expanded.


Looking into the goods yard at the back of the main site from Queen Street.

I had the good fortune to grow up in this area. My Nan lived in one of the houses that belonged to the Mill. You can see the gable end of the house to the right of the picture. It was joined to the yard and as children we could play in all the boxes and glove offcuts in the storage areas. It worked well . We didnt bother the workers and they didnt bother us. We used to wander all over the site without any problems. It just wouldn't be allowed in this PC day and age but was a veritible wonderland to us kids. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.