Old Man

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"0" is for "Old Man" and today's photo shows the grave stone of a former resident of Ashton under Lyne who would have been considered very old in his time!

The stone, in the church yard of Ashton Parish Church, was carved with the words:
"Here Resteth the Body of John Leech of Hurst Buried the 16 day of October 1689 aged 92 years whereby Anne his wide has issue 12 Children and in his Lifetime was Father to 12 Grandfather to 75 Great Grandfather to 92 Great Great Grandfather to 2 in all 181 Persons"

The grave stone has been moved at some stage from its original location to this upright position near the churchyard entrance and someone has added the word "Near" above the words "Here Resteth..."

These days attaining the age of 92 does not seem to be such a remarkable achievement but it certainly was back in the 17th century, when he lived through the period of the Great Plague. Even at the time of his death the average life expectancy in England was only around 39! There must have been something in the ale in Hurst!


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"Old Man" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "O" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Market Cross

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Today's photo shows Ashton's old Market Cross, which now stands as a feature in Stamford Park. The cross once stood in Ashton's original Market Place, which was situated at the junction of Old Street and Cricketts Lane, at the northern end of St Michael's Square, near the appropriately named Old Cross Street.

There had been a market on that spot since 1284, and a number of crosses have stood there over the years. A small cross is known to have been erected there in 1723, but that would have replaced an even older cross. That cross was replaced in 1763, probably to enable road widening for the construction of the turnpike road to Mossley and Doctor Lane Head. This, in turn, was replaced in 1798 by the cross in this photo that survives today in Stamford Park!

In 1829 the market was moved to the new Market Place (now the open market) and the old market place just became a busy street. The old cross was eventually moved to its present location when Stamford Park was opened in 1873 in the extensive grounds of Highfield Hall, on the border of Ashton and Stalybridge.

The pillar bears the inscription "Erected by Thomas Walker, Jack Knight, Robert Lees, Constables, 1798"

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"Market Cross" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.

Sky Watch: Manchester Skyline

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Today's Sky Watch photo shows the view looking from Broadcarr, on the hill between Ashton and Mossley, towards Manchester City Centre. Broadcarr is close to Hartshead Pike. The photo was taken from Lane Head Road which leads towards Lees village.

The tall building, left of centre, is the 47-storey Beetham Tower, which houses the Hilton Hotel and private apartments, and is the tallest residential building in the country.

The building is 554 feet (168.9m) tall and stands at an elevation of around 100 feet (33m) above sea level, which means that the spot where the photo was taken is around 300 feet higher than the top of the building!

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Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

Number Nine

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"N" is for "Number Nine" and today's photo shows two buses outside Park Cakes at Hathershaw, on the historic Number Nine route between Rochdale, Oldham and Ashton. The bus is the former Ashton under Lyne Corporation Transport bus no. 44, which was new in 1965. The bus behind is former Oldham Corporation Transport's bus no. 394, which was new in 1957.

The route started off as a a combination of tram or trolley bus routes, connecting at Hathershaw and Thornham. In 1939 the three towns of Ashton, Oldham and Rochdale replaced the trams and trolley buses on this route and started a through motor bus route - the 9, with buses from all three towns travelling the whole route on a joint running arrangement. In the 1970s the route was re-numbered 409 and this is still the number of the same bus route today.

The photograph, although showing a scene that might have been common in the 1960s, was in fact taken last Saturday, when the Greater Manchester Museum of Transport organised a special event remembering the Number Nine service. Four buses re-created the old Corporation bus days by running along the entire old Number 9 route, stopping for photos at several points.

The photo above was taken outside Park Cake Bakery on Ashton Road, Hathershaw. The photo below shows the four buses that took part in the re-enactment lined up outside the Museum of Transport. Ashton 44 is on the right and Oldham 394 on the left. Also in the photo are former Rochdale Corporation 280, new in 1956, with its distinctive swooping livery, and rear-engined former Oldham Corporation 163, new in 1967. This last bus is based at the transport museum in St Helens. The other three buses are part of the Manchester transport museum's collection.


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"Number Nine" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "N" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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St Peter's Church

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Today's photo shows St Peter's Church in Ashton's West End. Last week I showed a photo of the Albion Church, the size of which indicates the popularity of the Non-Conformist religious movement in the Ashton area. St Peter's Church answered this by providing an Anglican church for the people in the growing West End of Ashton.

The church opened in 1824 and is a Grade 2 star listed building. Unusually it had a gallery around three sides. The tower, built in a gothic style, is 128 feet high. It is a very grand-looking building which, in many towns, you would have expected to have been the parish church. Ashton, however, already had the much older St Michael's Church fulfilling that position.

After the Napoleonic Wars and the victory at Waterloo, Parliament gave the Church of England a million pounds to erect a number of magnificent churches in thanks for the victory. St Peter's Church was one of the churches that resulted. The first vicar was John Hutchinson, who had been the assistant curate at St Michael's.

Most of the working people of the area saw the Church of England as being the church for the rich and the bosses and continued to go to the Non-Conformist churches in the area.

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"St Peter's Church" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.

Memorial

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"M" is for "Memorial" and today's photo shows Ashton's War memorial in the Memorial Gardens, with the Parish Church in the background.

The Memorial will be a focus of attention in a month's time when people come to lay poppy wreaths in memory of those who have given their lives for their country in various conflicts in the last hundred years.

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"Memorial" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "M" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Albion Church

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Today's image is another look at the Albion Church in Ashton, the largest Congregationalist Church in Northern England. It is seen beyond the ornate gateway from the Memorial Gardens.

On the left of the photo is the former Parochial School that served the Parish Church. The school now has a modern building and the old building is now a nursery.

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"Albion Church" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.

Sky Watch: Morning Cloud

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One of the (few) good things about the shortening days is that you get to see the wonderful skies around dawn without having to wake up in the middle of the night!

Today's photo is looking across the Tame Valley towards the Pennine hills just before dawn. For just a few minutes the clouds were lit up with the red light of the sun rising out of sight somewhere beyond the hills. Then, after those few short minutes, the glorious colours fade and the sky just becomes "normal" again. By the time the sun rose above the hills the magic light show had long finished.

Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

Look Up!

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"L" is for "Look Up!" and today's photo shows that you can sometimes see surprising things if you look upwards as you walk around Ashton.

What looks at first glance to be an unremarkable row of shops on Old Street turns out to be some of the oldest buildings in Ashton's town centre. When you look up at the wall of the upper storey you see that there is a plaque showing the date 1744 and a rainwater funnel to collect water from the roof gutters that is attached to the wall with a fixing dated 1745!

The plaque and funnel also bear the letters W I M. I wonder if anyone can cast light on what these letters might stand for? It does not refer to the king atthe time, as that was George II.
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"Look Up!" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "L" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Rain, Rain

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"Rain, rain, go away!" was the general sentiment in Ashton over the past few days, as "My World" became Waterworld and it seemed as if it would never stop raining.

The Manchester area has a reputation for having a lot of rain but it is not as wet as is often supposed, as can be seen from the majority of photos on this blog!

In fact Manchester is the 9th wettest city in Britain. Swansea (not far from the location of the recent Ryder Cup golf tournament) is the wettest with an average of 53 inches of rain each year. This compares with 31.5 inches for Manchester. Mind you, I suppose Manchester would seem wet when compared with Cambridge, which only gets around 22 inches of rain each year.

And if you thought Swansea is wet, more than twice as much rain falls in some parts of the Scottish Highlands, with up to 118 inches of rain annually.

That was little consolation in rain-soaked Ashton in the last few days, though! Incidentally, the photo shows a damp Warrington Street, looking towards Old Street from near the Old Post Office.

"Rain, Rain" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.

Medieval Day (2)

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Here is another photo from last Saturday's Medieval Day that took place alongside the Market Hall in Ashton.

The photo shows a stall selling various craft items. Behind the stall a craftsman is operating a traditional lathe powered by a foot treadle. Some of the chairs and stools he has made can be seen at the far end of the stall.