ABC Wednesday: Kings Road

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is K for "Kings Road" and the photo shows a section of this thoroughfare just east of the junction with Queens Road at Hurst Cross.

Many years ago, before the area became built-up, this was known as Cross Acre Lane. When these houses were built it became Upper King Street. Then Upper and Lower King Street became Kings Road.

The terrace of houses has architectural interest, with six of the houses in the whole of the terrace having a roof gable facing the road (three of these being visible in this photo). The windows all have arched lintels. The semi-circular fanlight windows above the doors show that these houses have hallways (the fanlights left the daylight in to these hallways) unlike the less-posh terrace houses where the front doors opened straight into the parlour.

In the distance, beyond the traffic signals, is the spire of St John's Church.

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"Kings Road" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "K" posts from around the world please follow this link.

ABC Wednesday: Jutting Out

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is J for "Jutting Out" and shows Newmarket Road in Ashton, where one of the old cottages juts out into the road. This may come as a surprise for drivers unfamiliar with the road when coming around the nearby bend!

The cottages are part of the the ancient hamlet of Taunton and were built at a time of horse-drawn traffic along the old road out of Ashton. The road split just ahead, with the road to Oldham going to the right and the road to Woodhouses to the left. The road has been widened to cope with lorries and buses but there is only just enough room for a modern road to squeeze through here between the cottages and the Woodcock Inn. Luckily the traffic to Oldham now follows the straight turpike road and misses this location altogether.

The photo shows the road at a quiet moment. During the day time there is usually a flow of traffic in both directions.

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"Jutting Out" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "J" posts from around the world please follow this link.

ABC Wednesday - Houses

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is H for "Houses" and shows houses on Bentinck Street.
These are some of the newest houses in Ashton. They are three storeys high, with half of the top storey being a rooftop patio.

Behind them is Bentinck House, one of a number of tower blocks built in the area in the 1960s.

In the distance, further along Bentinck Street, is the Guzzlin Goose pub seen here last week.

See Google Street View of this location, currently showing the site before the houses were built.

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"Houses" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "H" posts from around the world please follow this link.

ABC Wednesday: Elizabeth Street

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is E for "Elizabeth Street" and shows part of the street of that name in Ashton under Lyne.

This is a fairly typical street in the town, most of it being lined on both sides with terraced bricked houses. The street does have a claim to fame, however. Those with sharp eyes may have noticed a blue plaque on the wall of the nearest house. The plaque commemorates the fact that this house was once the home of Hannah Mitchell, a celebrated figure in the fight for women's rights.

Born in Derbyshire in 1872, Hannah lived in this house from 1900 to 1910, at a time when she was making speeches at campaign meetings. Even though she suffered poor health, she was an active worker for the women's suffrage and Labour movements.

See Google Street View of this location.

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"Elizabeth Street" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "E" posts from around the world please follow this link.

Hamilton Street

The City Daily Photo theme for the beginning of December is "My Street". The photo shows Hamilton Street in Ashton's West End.

This is not the street where I live (stalkers, please take note) but I have chosen it for today's theme as it is so typical of the streets in Ashton under Lyne.

Like most of the housing built in the town 100 to 150 years ago, the street is made up of neat terraces of red brick houses. Even so, the houses are not all the same - those on the left have small front gardens. Those on the right have decorative stonework over the windows and doors.

The many rows of similar houses throughout Ashton were built to accommodate the workers of the cotton manufacturing mills that had sprung up around the town. The houses of Hamilton Street would have been built for the workers of Ryecroft Mill, seen in the background.

These days the cotton spinning machines have gone and the mill produces Weetabix rather than cloth.

See Google Street View of this location.

"Hamilton Street" is a contribution to the City Daily Photo theme day "My Street". Click here to see other streets from around the world.

Ten Houses

This week's view of My World shows the remote terrace of cottages known appropriately as Ten Houses. The row is surrounded by fields and is situated 100 yards outside the boundary of Ashton at Park Bridge.

Although it is now a peaceful location, accessed only by a narrow lane, 100 years ago the nearby valley bottom was a thriving industrial location with the Park Bridge Iron Works, a corn mill and a coal mine all a few minutes walk from these cottages. Park Bridge Iron Works are reputed to have been where the rivets for the Eiffel Tower were manufactured.

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See Google Street View of this location.

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

Cedar Street

Today's photo shows a row of houses in Cedar Street, in the Hurst district of Ashton.

The houses are typical of the many brick-built terraces of houses built in Ashton and other Lancashire towns. The windows have plain stone lintels and cills while the doorways have a decorative arch above a semi-circular fan-light window.

The fanlight over the door indicates that the houses have porches or hallways inside, and these windows provide daylight for these. By contrast, the more basic style of house had its front door opening directly into the front room and so had no need of a fanlight. Another feature of these houses is that the lower courses of the wall are built from stone, now painted.

See Google Street View of this location.

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

Richmond Street

"R" is for "Richmond Street" and today's photo shows this elegant terrace of brick three-storey houses on Richmond Street in Ashton.

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See Google Street View of this location.

"Richmond Street" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "R" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Providence House

"P" is for "Providence House" and today's photo shows the larger-than-average house of this name which stands on the corner of Cowhill Lane and Albemarle Street, close to the centre of Ashton.

The house was built in 1899 and stands amid smaller terraced houses which were built earlier. On a grassy knoll to the north stands St James' Church, which has appeared here several times.

If anyone knows any more history connected with this house, I would be pleased to hear it.

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See Google Street View of this location.

"Providence House" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "P" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Limited Outlook

"L" is for "Limited Outlook" and that's exactly what the occupants of this house can enjoy!

This well-cared-for semi-detached house in on Stockport Road in Ashton, almost at Guide Bridge. Above the doorway is a fanlight window and a semi-circular arch of tapering bricks with a a stone keystone.

There is also a brick single bay window allowing splendid views of, er... the back of a bus shelter!

I'm not sure how long the bus shelter has been here, as I seem to remember the bus stop being closer to the Corporation Arms a few years ago. I don't know whether the occupants had any say in the matter or whether they drew back the curtains one morning and there it was!

Of course, as Stockport Road is a very busy thoroughfare they may have welcomed the shelter as a screen although I must say I would find it somewhat claustrophobic myself.

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See Google Street View of this location.

"Limited Outlook" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "L" posts from around the world please follow this link.
Please leave a comment below.

Crown Street

Today's photo shows Crown Street, just off Stamford Street, close to Ashton's town centre.

Crown Street was originally part of Church Street, which ran parallel with most of Stamford Street in the town centre, but was re-named when it became separated from the rest of Church Street by the building of an office block and the Post Office Sorting Office.

The houses in Crown Street are among the few remaining terraces of residential property still left in the town centre. Even the houses on the opposite side of the street have been demolished to make way for a car park.

The building at the far end is the former Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School, seen here in 2008 looking for a new use.

See Google Street View of this location.

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

Dingle Terrace

Dingle Terrace is an unusual location. It is a short street comprising two terraces of elegant brick houses. However, rather than being located, as you might expect, in a town setting, Dingle Terrace is in a remote rural setting at Park Bridge, just within the northern boundary of Ashton.

Park Bridge today is a quiet backwater, accessible only along narrow and bumpy roads. However, when these houses were built it was a busy industrial setting with coal mines and the iron works of Hannah Lees and Sons, which supplied rivets for the Eiffel Tower. Most of the buildings of the iron works have now gone and their sites landscaped. The stable block has become a Heritage Centre and Park Bridge these days rings not to the sound of hammers on iron but of to the sound of walking boots on cobbles!

The houses of Dingle Terrace and nearby Dean Terrace were built to accommodate employees of the the iron works but these days are sought-after properties because of their enviable location.

See Bird's Eye View of this location to really appreciate the rural setting.

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

Gloucester Place

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Gloucester Place is the grand name given to this fine pair of houses on Portland Street in Ashton. On the gable wall above the doorways is a stone bearing the name Gloucester Place and the date 1880.

The houses are in a part of Ashton which is mostly made up of small terraced houses so these larger semi-detached houses come as a surprise. There are two other pairs of semi-detached houses here, each pair of a different design, all facing Holy Trinity Church.

Some of the terraced houses close by are also of a larger and grander design than usual. It is possible that, while most of the houses were built for the mill workers, these houses may have been built for those of slightly higher status, although not of sufficiently high status as to be able to afford to live in a house with gardens.

The three pairs of semi-detached houses on Portland Street, although they have no front gardens, do have fairly long back gardens, which is unusual for this part of Ashton, where a small yard is the norm.

See Google Street View of this location.

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

The Point

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"P" is for "Point" and today's photo shows "The Point", which is a building that formerly housed Ashton's Labour Exchange and County Court, but has now been converted into apartments.

The building was empty for a number of years until a developer took on the challenge to spend £2 million on converting the building. Unfortunately the company ran into financial difficulties and the project was halted. Luckily another company saw the merit in the scheme and completed the work. Read more about it here.

This is the view from the Point, looking across Park Parade (Ashton's by-pass) to the Parish Church.
(That's enough Ps for one Photo - Ed.)

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"The Point" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "P" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Margaret Street

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Today's photo shows part of Margaret Street and the area south of Katherine Street.

This area was re-built in the 1960s as part of part of Ashton's slum clearance programme. The area had previously been occupied by rows of cramped terraced houses and the multi-storey flats and maisonettes built here were a big improvement at the time.

The buildings have had some re-modelling in recent years, with the leaky flat roofs of the maisonettes being replaced with new curved roofs. Security gates and other measures have given the residents more privacy than before.

On the left is the five-storey maisonette block of Welbeck Terrace, with the three-storey Margaret Terrace to the right. Behind that is the 13-storey Welbeck House, with Portland House in the distance.

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

Jersey Street

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"J" is for "Jersey Street" and today's photo shows the street of that name off Alexandra Road in Ashton.

Jersey Street is in an area of tightly-packed terraced houses built in the second half of the 19th century. It was probably named after George Child Villiers, the 5th Earl of Jersey, a Conservative politician of the period, whose son married Julia, the daughter of Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. George Child Villiers was a distant relation to Liberal MP Charles Pelham Villiers.

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"Jersey Street" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "J" posts from around the world please follow this link.

Royal London Buildings

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Following last week's "My World" image of fancy Victorian brickwork at Stockport Road in Ashton, here are some more photos taken just a few doors further along the row.

Although part of the same terrace, the design of the building is very different, with a fairly grand stone portico gracing the front door supporting a square bay window above.


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The stone plaque between the upstairs windows on the right bears the words "Royal London Buildings".


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Looking even closer, it will be seen that the upstairs windows, while appearing to be plain in design, in fact have interesting splayed bricked lintels above them. It's amazing what you notice when you start looking upwards!


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


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Doctor Spencer's House

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"D" is for "Doctor Spencer's House" and today's photo shows this house on Henrietta Street in Ashton that was once the home of a Doctor Spencer.

Before you marvel at my wonderful knowledge of local history, I should point out that I knew this simply by looking at the stained-glass window above the door, where the words "Dr S. Spencer" appear.

This is a fairly large house so it is possible that, as well as being Doctor Spencer's residence, it might have also been where his patients came to see him. If anyone reading this knows anything of Doctor Spencer I would be pleased to hear from them.


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"Doctor Spencer's House" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "D" posts from around the world please follow this link.

Victorian Fancy

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The Victorians were given to flights of fancy. That included adding lots of fancy brickwork to their buildings!

At first glance, these houses on Stockport Road in Ashton are unremarkable. But when you look upwards you can see that the Victorian builders were determined to give the houses something better than the other houses in the town! The intricate brickwork on the gable front is the sort of thing you would expect on a grand building somewhere, but here it is on a pair of terraced houses on a main road. There is an identical decorative gable on the next pair of houses to the left but not on other houses in the row.

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


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Alley Way

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"A" is for "Alley Way" and today's photo shows the a back alley typical of those that run behind the streets of terraced houses in Ashton.

At one time many of these "backs" would have had an earth surface, getting muddy in wet weather. The posher streets might have cobbled back alleys!

Nowadays many of the alleys have concrete flagged surfaces and are enclosed within lockable gates to keep out unwelcome visitors.

The back alleys were needed to provide rear access to the houses which were built in continuous terraces.

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"Alley Way" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "A" posts from around the world please follow this link.