A "GOLDEN CLUSTER" OF HERITAGE
Great news for Middleton’s heritage – the Government and English Heritage have listed the Independent Labour Party Club on Milton Street as Grade II. This followed the submission of a scheme to convert it into flats. The listing specifically protects the inside as well as the outside of the building as being of special historic…
Golden Cluster Month has had another successful year with hundreds of people enjoying four heritage buildings open to the public and various events laid on. Things were brought to a close by Middleton Heritage Film Group’s ‘Enlightenment Middleton’ film, directed by Anthony Dolan. Over 80 people came to the premiere. This is a great documentary…
A new social enterprise may be formed to help save Edgar Wood’s Arts & Crafts Church at Long Street. Christine Grime, Lee Wolf, Nick Baker and David Morris, two Middletonians and two ‘Wood-ies’ from further afield, have temporarily called it Arts & Crafts Awakening while they consult local people and visitors on the best way…
Middleton Heritage Film Group have worked all year on their fourth film about Middleton’s impressive heritage. Don’t miss the premiere coming up next Tuesday! Admission is free, thanks to money from the Heritage Lottery funded Edgar Wood and Middleton Heritage Initiative. Enlightenment Middleton covers the area’s history of the 1700s and early 1800s. You will…
Middleton’s Milton Street Family Centre was closed and sold a few years ago but not before it was lovingly restored by Middleton Township and Rochdale Council’s building repairs team. New owners want to convert it into ten flats, something which would destroy the interior spaces, replace the lovely windows and install rooflights into the prominent…
Middleton Garden of Remembrance is highlighted by English Heritage in its annual review of listings across the country. The garden and loggia are one of only a handful of Arts and Crafts inspired war memorials. The whole report can be viewed here… Designation_Yearbook_2013-14_final…
From https://www.britannica.com/ Alexander Nowell, (born c. 1507, Whalley, Lancashire, England—died February 13, 1602, London), English scholar, Anglican priest, and dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London whose tactless preaching brought him into disfavour with Queen Elizabeth I. He was the author of the catechism still used by the Church of England. He is famous in…
From https://www.wikipedia.org/ Ashton Lever was born in 1729 at Alkrington Hall. In 1735, Sir James Darcy Lever, his father, had served as High Sheriff of Lancashire.[1] Perspective interior view of Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum in Leicester Square, London 30 March 1785 Lever began by collecting seashells in about 1760, and gradually accumulated one of the…
From https://en.wikipedia.org/ George Caley (10 June 1770 – 23 May 1829) was an English botanist and explorer, active in Australia for the majority of his career. Caley lived much of his life in Middleton and was president of the Middleton Botanical Society which met at The White Hart Public House on Rochdale Road. He corresponded…
From https://www.artnet.com James William Booth (1867-1953) Booth was a leading member of the Staithes Group. He studied at Manchester School of Art under Elias Bancroft. He was a friend of Fred Jackson. Bancroft and Jackson visited Whitby and Hinderwell to paint and Booth followed. He initially shared a studio with Laura and Harold Knight in…
From https://www.fwjackson.co.uk/ Frederick William Jackson was born in 1859 at Middleton Junction. He was one of three children, and his father worked as a photographer in Oldham. His two brothers were Vincent Jackson, a musician trained at Leipzig Conservatoire, and Charles Arthur Jackson, who was an art dealer and owned a gallery at 7 Police…
From https://en.wikipedia.org/ Thomas Langley (c.1363 – 20 November 1437) was an English prelate who held high ecclesiastical and political offices in the early to mid-1400s. He was Dean of York, Bishop of Durham, twice Lord Chancellor of England to three kings, and a Cardinal. In turn Keeper of the King’s signet and Keeper of the…
Samuel Bamford (28 February 1788 – 13 April 1872) was an English radical and writer, who was born and lived in Middleton, Lancashire. Bamford was one of five children born to Daniel Bamford, a muslin weaver, part-time teacher, and later master of the Salford workhouse, and his wife, Hannah. After his father withdrew him from…
It is believed that Ye Olde Boar’s Head P.H. began life in the 1600s as a pair of clothiers houses on the road between Manchester and Rochdale. At that time, the textile industry was based in houses, where the upper rooms had long rows of windows illuminating the weaving loomshops. The houses were later combined…
Middleton in the Industrial Revolution and Georgian England – how science and reason took hold – and how individualism and reform came about in South Lancashire through the extraordinary lives of Ashton Lever, George Cayley and Sam Bamford…
Check out Andy Marshall’s photos of Hopwood Hall Hopwood Hall is one of the truly great buildings of Middleton and Manchester but one which has sadly been abandoned and left to decline for many years. In recent years, the Council has tried to make amends by providing security and undertaking urgent repairs. There is always…
Long Street Methodist Church & School are a striking complex of connected buildings arranged around an ‘outside room’ garden. Across this space, Edgar Wood integrates a series of opposites – sacred and secular, expression and restraint, axial and informal, and, rational and romantic. The plain and simple mass of the church contrasts with the complexity…
36 Mellalieu Street was Edgar Wood’s first house designed with a concrete flat roof that covered the whole building. It was drawn up in 1906, five years after he had begun experimenting with flat roofs and three years after he had first met J. Henry Sellers and they had begun on their ambitious project to…
Tonge Hall is generally regarded as one of the finest examples of Tudor architecture in the country and despite a devastating fire in 2007, still retains many of its original features, including carved oak beams, inglenook fireplaces timber panelling and a wonderful spiral staircase. The building was heroically saved by Heritage Trust for the North…
When Redcroft (left) and Fencegate (right) were built in 1891, they were the most modern pair of ‘semis’ in the country. They began a new phase of Arts & Crafts design which reworked the humble features of farmhouses and cottages into new sophisticated architecture. Edgar Wood’s buildings had been hinting at this vernacular inspired style…
