Rope Walk

As so often happens while looking for one thing I turn up something else. I was checking something on the 1887 map and noticed 'Rope Walk' mentioned on Victoria Street Newton, I recalled also seeing this near Floweyfield, it got me to wondering why. 

It seems that a rope-walk was a long straight narrow lane, or a covered pathway, where long strands of material were laid before being twisted into rope. 

One inch rope required 72 strands of ‘binder twine’, so for 100ft of 1 inch rope, 7.200ft of twine was needed. That sounds like a lot of twisting and work.

Hand spinning was a skilled job, the spinner had to walk at just the right speed to keep the yarn smooth and make sure it was the correct thickness.

 The rope made locally could possibly have been sold to farmers, mine and mill owners, hopefully a bit was left over for granny to have some fun

   

Swan Welding.

I came across this on Ebay yesterday. It is an old letter sent by by Swan Welding Company who used to stand on Crook Street.
If anyone knows the exact site of the business, please let us know so we can pinpoint it on the map .
 Thank you.






The invoice is still for sale if anyone is interested.

OLD HYDE CRICKET CLUBS By Jeffrey Stafford.

  Here is another wonderful article written by Jeffrey Stafford.

Above are two maps showing the location of the first home of Cricket in Hyde, at Newton Bank Cricket Club.  The first map is from 1887 and the second one is present day.

Many Thanks, Jeffrey ! :)

Well Meadow To Dukinfield Road And Beyond

Dave took these picture of the tunnel under the railway leading from Flowery Field to Dukinfield Road after we did another posting from the area. It seems this as been a right of way for many years, well before the railway and the Throstle Bank mill was built as can be seen on the 1841 map.

1841



1910

If anyone can tell me the name of this footpath, I'd be greatful. 

Old Map

Stockdale's Map 1794

John Stockdale 

" The Book Selling Blacksmith

John Stockdale was born in Cumberland, so not a Hydonian, but I'll forgive him for that, seeing as he published this map. He was raised as a Blacksmith like his father,  and become Valet to John Astley of Dukinfield. He married Mary Ridgway, who was a native of Roe Cross, Mottram In Longdendale. Mary was sister to James Ridgway, a well-known publisher of London. He had met Mary in the Dukinfield Moravian Church. 

I came across him by chance when reading up on John Aikin's  'A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester'. (1795), Originally this book intended to be an account of the neighbourhood of Mottram-in-Longdendale, with which Stockdale had personal acquaintance. I'll not go on about his life story, which is worth a read... but I wanted to show this map. It happens so often while researching one thing I want to post about, I end come across something else.  

Hamnett Street /St Pauls connection

Whilst doing some research into St Pauls Church origins I discovered that it was started in an upstairs room in Solomon Wagstaffe’s Ironworks on Hamnett Street in 1848. This whetted my appetite to find out where on Hamnett Street the firm was.

I am relatively sure , given the help of tithe maps and street maps of that time, that the room was above what is now the Abbey Bank building. The date on the side is relative to when St Pauls started and also to where buildings were situated in 1848.
If anyone has any information that would help to (dis) prove this research then we would be happy to show it!

Situation of buildings on Hamnett Street in the tithe maps of 1836-51
 (Hamnett Street is sometimes spelt Hamnet Street on old publications.)

Gower Hey Woods

 

The beautiful cobbled path leading into Gower Hey Woods in Summer and Winter.

Gower Hey Woods is an area of woodland situated in Gee Cross. It has its own conservation society which does a lot of good work in keeping it clean and safe for everyone to use.

www.tameside.gov.uk/countryside/gowerhey

There appears to have been a cotton mill situated in the bottom of the woods ,which was built in approx 1792 by Thomas Howard, son of Joseph Howard of Haughton Hall. Not much is known about the mill but the last known use for it was as a cotton waste bleaching mill run by Obadiah Broadhurst in 1874.

Map from 1836-51 , showing the mill . Note the old spelling !

Top Field known locally as either Shanes Field or Buttercup Meadow depending on your age!

 Buttercup Meadow from my front garden. So beautiful!

Looks so different here.. hard to imagine it as such.

The Boggert Of Gower Hey

There once lived at Hyde a celebrated Dr. Wylde (an ancestor of the Thornley's), who bore a reputation for astrology. About 1730 a great sensation was occasioned ..... that there was a boggart in Gower Hey Wood, which made awful sounds at night. The inhabitants went in a body to ask the learned doctor to lay the spirit, and this he gladly consented to do. Noticing the direction of the sound he went in broad daylight to the spot which no one else dared approach, and there found that two branches of a tree, rubbing together with the motion of the wind, gave forth the doleful sound that had scared people from the wood. Telling no one of his discovery he quickly sawed one branch off, and then gravely announced that he had laid the spirit. Needless to say, after this, that his reputation for magic was unequalled in the neighbourhood, and for years his powers were firmly believed in.

From The History Of Hyde

By Thomas Middleton

Spout House Farm

Before the construction of Dowson Road in the early 1920's and the subsequent housing development which occured along Knott Lane , the land to the west of Hyde Chapel was attached to Spout House Farm.


Tithe Map 1836-51

In 1712 the building was occupied By Robert Ashton. Later tenants included Joseph Redfern in 1816 who was a shopkeeper and Amy Redfern in 1850 ,a Corn dealer.

It seems ,according to the baptism register at Hyde Gee Cross Unitarian Chapel, that Blind Jack of Knarsborough's first daughter Tabitha, who had married a Cheshire cotton manufacturer, lived at Spout House farm. This is also confirmed by the Werneth Land Tax records.
(Grateful thanks to Gay J Oliver for her invaluble information on "Blind Jack of Knaresborough")

(John Metcalfe 1717-1810, otherwise known as Blind Jack of Knaresborough was a famous road building pioneer, pre-dating Telford and Macadam.)....but that's another blog :)


Photo Courtesy G J Oliver.

This building is still in existence and is located between Enfield Street and Tatton Street,Gee Cross

Church Brow, Woodend Lane, and Captain Whitle's Wind

Just on the left is a footpath known as Church Brow that leads from Gower Road, as you cross the road theres a cobbled passageway that leads to Albert Road and towards the centre of Hyde. This footpath seems to form the boundary of Church Street - Woodend Lane

The building that juts out onto the road was an old farm known as Thornely Fold Farm, it was pulled down in 1909.

In the early 1970s this was our prefered way to walk to Greenfield Street School, it was around this point we had to make the decision to carry on walking towards Albert Street and a day spent at school.. or turning left onto Woodend Lane and spending the day wagging it from school and getting up to mischief on the Peak Forest Canal... I must admit by the time I'd been at Greeny for two years the pull of a day on the canal got greater.. in fact the pull of a dentists pliers was sometimes more appealing than a day sat in a classroom. Ha! that says more about me back then, than Greenfield Street school.

The red arrow on the map above shows the point the footpath crosses the road, it is interesting to note that this 1897 map shows the brook in the valley as Gorehay Brook.. but it is know and named as Gower Hey Brook, in fact the valley the brook runs through is known as Gower Hey.

...

The above photo is taken on Woodend Lane, looking back towards Church Street, the other picture as been treated to a make over in a drawing package on the computer... and shows St. Georges Church towering above the surrounding houses.

CAPTAIN WHITLE'S WIND

The name of Captain Whitle's Wind was given to a certain terrific and sudden hurricane which swept over parts of Hyde and surrounding districts sometime in the 1800s. The effect of this storm was tremendous, and the town bore many signs of the devastating powers of the gale. One Hyde story will suffice here. In the orchard adjoining the old white farm which stood near Church Brow, close to the St. George's Vicarage, a great tree was blown down, and for a long after was known as Captain Whitle's tree. Now for the derivation of the title. Captain Whitle lived at Hollingworth Hall, and was a stout old sea-dog of the days when English ships were reaping plunder on the Spanish main. He is said to have been officer on the first English ship of war that ever sailed the China seas. . The Captain died at Hollingworth, and was buried at Mottram Church, where, so runs the tale, when the bearers emerged from the church doors with the coffin on their shoulders to carry it to the grave, the storm referred to above burst on them in all its fury, blew the coffin from their grasp, and carried it, bump, bump, bump, down the old grave-yard, terrifying the beholders, as well as dashing them about with as little mercy as it treated the corpse. That gale was known henceforth as Captain Whitle's Wind not only in Mottram but far beyond the windings of pleasant Longdendale. The inhabitants of Mottram and its neighbouring towns and villagers were very superstitious, and many an old worthy would huddle up in the chimney corner on a fierce night, when the wind howled without, and the gale screamed past, firmly convinced that the gruff old seaman rode in ghostly state upon the wings of the storm.

From the book Annals Of Hyde by Thomas Middleton.

White Terrace, Apethorn Lane

I believe one of these was used for a school for the mill workers children at one time, but I'm not sure if it was for Apethorn Mill, or Gibralter Mill that was next to the river.

O.S. Map 1897

.

White Terrace and the Coloured Cottages on Apethorn Lane are in view here.

Coloured Houses, Apethorn Lane

I remember the gas lamps around this area

Nice to see most of the chimney's are still here

I remember these being very run down and dilapidated

I am glad these survived..

The Astoria Bingo Hall

The Astoria Bingo Hall is a very familiar sight in Hyde. It seems to have been there forever but sadly the "To Let" sign may mean it's days as a Bingo hall are numbered. It started life as a picture house called "La Scala". One of the many cinemas that Hyde enjoyed. It's sad that there isn't even one working cinema left in Hyde now.

This was during the last bus station revamp .Before they built the new modern bus station building.

This photo shows the Astoria before the heart was ripped out of Hyde - when the motorway came through - See the old Bus station and George Street to the left. The Astoria has changed very little indeed! Still the same colour, too!

This map is from before the bus station was built. It's taken from an Ordnanace Survey Map of 1897... Center of map shows George Street/Clarendon Street.. what a differance then.