The first photo shows the left hand side of Hewitt Street in 1958, with the hat works to the right and the terraced houses on Manchester Road to the left, a nice old advert for Smith's Crisps on the end wall. The second photo shows the right hand side of Hewitt Street again around 1958. The corner shop had been a chippy but had recently closed down, next door was "Home Fittings" and then "Northern Plastics Limited", a company which is still in existence today.
Hewitt Street, after demolition of all the properties shown on these photo's became the entrance to the newly built Automasters Ltd.
A description of Automasters from a 1970's booklet is reproduced below:-
AUTO-MASTERS LIMITED
Auto-masters Ltd (engineers) were first established at Denton in 1947, and moved to Hyde in 1952, when they purchased premises off Manchester Road. By 1960 the old buildings had been replaced by a new bay on the same site, and this , together with adjacent works premises, since purchased , now total over 5000 square feet of floor area, standing on a five acre site.
Further development is planned for the future, and a start to the proposed frontage on to Manchester Road was made in 1964, when the original sites of demolished houses and shops were laid out with low walling, planted with semi-mature trees, and a large neon sign located over Hewitt Street to mark the main entrance.
The company is equipped with the latest machine tools and fabrication equipment, and a headroom of 25 feet, with travelling cranes up to 100 tons capacity, provide adequate facilities for most engineering requirements.
The area around Cooper Street (Hewitt St) in 1897
Last stages of construction of the new Auto-masters premises around 1970
