Weekend Reflections: Mill Race

This delightful scene with its watery reflection is in the village of Delph, in Saddleworth, around 7 miles from Ashton.

The tranquillity of the scene belies its industrial origins. The waterway on the left is an artificial mill race or leat, created to provide power for a woollen mill a little further downstream.

The water comes from the River Tame, which runs unseen below the bank on the right of the photo. A couple of hundred yards upstream, just below Delph Bridge, a weir across the river helps to divert some of the water into the mill race. By the time the channel reached the mill, its height above the river meant that it was able to drive a water wheel that could power machinery.

Waterside mills were very common in the hilly area to the east of Ashton before coal-powered steam engines were able to power a greater number of machines, giving rise to the large multi-storey mills built in Ashton and other towns throughout the Victorian era.

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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!

Saturday in Saddleworth - Delph Village

This photo shows the road that winds through the middle of Delph village as it crosses the River Tame.

Fortunately the main A62 road between Oldham and Huddersfield bypasses the village, although the original turnpike road did in fact come through the village and over this bridge.

Since the photo was taken the road has been deliberately narrowed so that only one vehicle can cross the bridge at a time.

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Saturday in Saddleworth - Delph Station

Delph Station was the terminus of the "Delph Donkey" branch that left the main Huddersfield to Manchester line between Moorfield Halt and Saddleworth Viaduct.

The station building, close to Delph Cross Roads, is still there and is now a private house. The platform is now seeing service as a patio! A new housing development now occupies the former goods yard and siding just beyond the station.

The "Delph Donkey" line had two stations at Dobcross and at Measurements, a halt added for workers travelling to and from the Hirst Brothers' Measurements factory, which made watches and clocks. Trains from Delph called at Greenfield on the main line and then continued on another branch through a tunnel to Grotton, Lees and Oldham Clegg Street.

The last passenger trains to Delph were in 1955 and the last goods trains in 1963. The track bed is now a walking and cycling route.

It is claimed that the line was so named because carriages were originally pulled by a donkey or horse but this is thought to be very unlikely and it may just have been a derogatory name for the little line.

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