Footpath to the Hills

"F" is for "Footpath to the Hills" and today's photo shows a group of walkers heading up into the hills at Dobcross in Saddleworth. They are on a walk that will follow old packhorse tracks and early turnpike roads to Bleak Hey Nook and over the moors at Standedge to the village of Marsden.

Those with an interest in slightly newer forms of transport may notice, running across the middle of the photo, the Huddersfield Narrow canal as it climbs Diggle Locks and the Manchester to Huddersfield railway line, just behind the canal.

On the skyline above the walkers, you can just see (on the larger version of the image) the obelisk at Pots and Pans, on the edge of Saddleworth Moor.

This splendid Pennine countryside is just 7 miles from Ashton and provides an excellent excuse to go out and get a bit of exercise.

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"Footpath to the Hills" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "F" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Sky Watch: Roughtown

This picturesque scene beneath a nearly blue sky doesn't seem to match the title "Roughtown" but that is the name of the area of Mossley on the hillside. The spire of St John's Church, Roughtown, points skywards, already having a head start as it was built high on the valley side.

The Roughtown area of Mossley was in the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1847.

The water in the foreground, which reflects today's lovely blue sky, looks as if it might be part of a canal, but is in fact a pond that has formed in the old clay workings that were once here. A total of 32,350 cubic metres of clay from these pits was taken by a narrow gauge railway to construct the dam for Chew Valley Reservoir which at over 1500 feet above sea level was, at the time of its construction in 1912, the highest reservoir in England.

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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!

Escape Ladders

"E" is for "Escape Ladders" and today's photo shows the fire escape ladders at the back of Oxford Mills in Ashton's West End.

The Oxford Mills complex was built around 1845 by Thomas Mason, the father of philanthropist and MP for Ashton Hugh Mason.

These mills, like others in the area, were built alongside the Ashton Canal to enable the easy delivery of coal and raw cotton to the mills and the easy dispatch of cotton cloth.

In the days before the present awareness of Health and Safety issues, the mills were built without fire escapes other than the normal internal staircases, and these external escape ladders were added later. The ladder on the right is accessed through doorways in the bricked-up loading doors, which had enabled goods to be hoisted in and out of the upper floors of the building. Fire was a particular danger in cotton mills as the air was full of combustible cotton dust.

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"Escape Ladders" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "E" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Waterloo Plaque

Alongside the main Oldham Road that passes through Ashton's northern suburb of Waterloo, is this embossed plaque, mounted on an attractive wooden structure with a tiled roof.

Anyone pausing to take a closer look will be impressed to see that the plaque features historical information about the northern part of Ashton, including Waterloo, Taunton, Fairbottom and Park Bridge.

Tameside Council started to commission these plaques, intending to have one for each of the 19 council wards in the borough. Unfortunately, with only a few made so far, the economic climate means that no more will appear, at least for the time being, which is a shame, as the plaques seem to me to be an excellent way of helping people to know more about their local history.

Below is an image of the whole plaque. Click photo for larger version. (Press Back button to return here.)

In future posts I will show close-ups of the features on the plaque along with more information about the places concerned.

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"Waterloo Plaque" 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: Branches

There is more sky visible at this time of year, as you can also see it between the bare branches of the trees!

This photo shows the sky above Mossley as seen through these branches. The spire of St John's Church, Roughtown, is picked out by the late afternoon sun, while the foreground is already in the shadow cast by the hill that separates Mossley from Ashton.

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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!

Dukinfield Old Chapel

"D" is for "Dukinfield Old Chapel" and today's photo shows this magnificent building situated at the top of Crescent Road in Dukinfield, less than a mile from Ashton under Lyne Parish Church.

Constructed in 1840 as a re-building of Dukinfield's older Unitarian chapel, the building is strikingly tall for its footprint. Built at the highest point in the central part of Dukinfield the chapel made a landmark clearly visible on the skyline from Ashton and is in a far more prominent position than the nearby St John's Church of England church. This reflects the competition and politics that went on between the established and non-conformist denominations at that time.

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"Dukinfield Old Chapel" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "D" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Sky Watch: Bailey Mill

Bailey Mill makes an interesting outline against the sky, with its assortmentof shapes and its gables and chimney leading the eye upwards.

This former woollen mill is in the village of Delph, in Saddleworth, about 7 miles from Ashton. In contrast with the red-brick cotton mills of Ashton, the woollen mills of Saddleworth are nearly all constructed of stone.

The collection of buildings were added to over the years but the mill finally closed in in the 1990s. No future for the building has been decided but Delph is now a popular residential village so it is possible that the mill could be converted into apartments.

The mill was conveniently situated alongside the railway sidings close to Delph Station, at the end of the so-called "Delph Donkey" branch line.

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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!

Canal Bridge

"C" is for "Canal" and today's photo shows the point where two of Ashton's Canals meet.

The Ashton Canal terminates here at Ashton Old Wharf and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal begins, heading under Whitelands Bridge to the first of 74 locks between here and Huddersfield. The wooden lock gates are just about visible through the arch.

The white oval plate to the left of the arch shows that this is Bridge Number 111 - the numbering starts at the Huddersfield end, whereas the locks were numbered from both ends, with this one being 1W (for "west").

The smaller arch to the right was built to allow boat horses to pass under Whitelands, wearing their harnesses, while their boats drifted through the main arch. At the time when the canal was opened, in the 1790s, all canal boats (and other vehicles) were horse-powered!

The design of the canal arch is interesting in itself but you will have to wait until we get to "S" to find out why!

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"Canal Bridge" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "C" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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