The Cornbrook drains the urban area South of the River Medlock, it rises in Gorton and follows a tortous path through Manchester’s Southern ‘inner city’ suburbs and empties itself into the Manchester Ship Canal at the Pomona Docks.
It’s a tram stop – primarily an interchange, though the brand new shiny residential new build has produced a brave band of brand new shiny residents in transit. Slipping and sliding ‘neath the bridge, skating over the age old accretion of filth, oil, diesel and detritus produced by the surrounding scrap yards.
We are one of the first recycling companies operating in the North West, Bennett Bros was founded in 1948 by Francis William Bennett and Bernard Bennett, and remains a family-run business to this day. Bennett Bros was originally involved in loaning ponies to the many rag and bone men who collected unwanted household items and sold them to merchants, and while the recycling industry has now embraced modern technology, we are very proud of our heritage as innovators in what was then a new industry.
In 2017 I visited the area to snap the gates of their older site – as they had moved the business just across the street.
I returned in December 2023 to discover what had become of the gates.
Remnants of the drop shadow block lettering remain, beneath a palimpsest of tags and grime.
Chisworth Works Coombes Lane Holehouse Charlesworth and Chisworth SK13 5DQ
Built at the end of the 18th or in the early 19th centuries; Chisworth Works was as a cotton band manufactory. During these times, the site was called Higher Mill.
It was referred to as Higher Mill, as there was a lower works, Mouse Mill in Holehouse, owned by the Booth family.
It has been a longstanding, low-lying object of interest to those intrepid Urban Explorers.
A planning application of 2009 was submitted for redevelopment of the terraced cottages.
Proposed alterations and change of use to form ten two bedroom cottages from existing five dwellings and vacant office accommodation.
This was the state of play in April 2021 – the interior photographs were taken through an open aperture.
Lead Chromatecan affect you when inhaled or swallowed. Contact can irritate and burn the skin and eyes. Prolonged skin contact may cause blisters and deep ulcers.
Inhaling Lead Chromatecan irritate the nose, throat and lungs.Exposure can cause headache, irritability, and muscle and joint pain. Repeated exposure can cause Lead poisoningwith metallic taste, colic and muscle cramps.
Inhaling Lead Chromatecan cause a sore and/or a hole in the septum.
Lead Chromatemay cause a skin allergy.
Lead Chromatemay damage the nervous system. Exposure may cause kidney and brain damage, and anemia.
The building was subsequently owned by EP Bray.
Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman.
For over two hundred years the site has been a place of toil, dangerous toil taking its toll.
The valleys which inevitably fed the Mersey, were home to the origins of the Industrial Revolution – people and water powered.
This is a toxic landscape, nestled in the heart of ancient post-glacial earth movements:
Geomorphological investigations of two landslide areas on the Cown Edge escarpment showed that slope failure was primarily the result of local stratigraphic and lithological conditions and not of past climatic vicissitudes or changes in the form of the relief. Failure on each occasion took place by shearing along the same line of weakness: shales either within a calcareous shale band or in close proximity to it became decomposed and unable to bear the weight of the slope forming material above it. Each displacement resulted in a bank slip failure and the formation of a block glide landslide. The morphology indicates that slip movements has occurred several times and the periods when these took place have been determined using palynological methods. These results indicate that the Cown Edge landslides date from a post-glacial period.
Opened in 1961, Martins Bank’s branch at Sheffield Moor is new and purpose built, occupying space left in the Sheffield Moor area by the bombing of the second world war. Time flies however, and more than fifty years on, the building is empty and awaiting the next chapter of its life.
Note the olivetti shop incorporated into the bank building.
Our New Branch at Sheffield Moor owes its existence to the extensive replanning of this area of Sheffield. Part of it was destroyed during the war and the remainder has been or is in course of being pulled down as the plan unfolds for the creation of a brand new shopping area.
It is really too far from the old commercial quarter to be effectively served by our branch at West Street and so the banks are moving in. It is a beautiful modern building with interior decor which responds to the full blaze of sunshine most cheerfully, or, on a dark day when the illuminated ceiling has to be switched on, creates an oasis of light, warmth and welcome which makes it a pleasure to step inside.
Plans are in place for redevelopment of the site and the demolition of the tower block and adjacent housing.
The scheme, designed by Sheppard Robson, would see 3,300 new bedspaces brought forward, taking the total number of units at the complex to 5,400, a net increase of 950. This is an increase of around 1,000 new units compared to the previous iteration of the project, approved in 2015.
The weir and former causeway stands across the River Dee. It was originally built in 1093 by Hugh Lupus, first Earl of Chester. It was built for St Werburgh’s Benedictine Abbey – now Chester Cathedral. It channelled the water to allow it to power a series of mills along the Dee. These mills were amongst the largest and most valuable in England during the 13th century. They were in use until 1910.
The weir was restored in the early 20th century to serve the City Council’s hydro-electric power station
Chester generated its own clean carbon-free electricity for almost half of the city’s needs from the hydroelectric building on Castle Drive between 1914 and 1949.
From 1932 the city was buying electricity from the Central Electricity Board’s embryonic national grid in order to cope with demand which grew to over 23,000 consumers by 1946.
At nationalisation in 1948 the corporation’s system came under the Merseyside and North Wales Electricity Board – Manweb, which in 1968–70 built its administrative headquarters in Sealand Road. The buildings had as their centrepiece a seven-storey Y-plan office block, which dominated the skyline looking west from the city centre until it was demolished in the 1990s.
I was wandering the streets of Chester when I came upon this decorated doorway in Newgate Street.
In consultation with the current owners panda mami – we concurred that the building was once in service to the electrical generating industry.
Architecturally pre-National Grid, this implies that it would have been part of Chester’s independent provision.
It can be seen in the top left of this archive photograph.
Electricity House in the days of Chester Corporation Electricity Department.
If she’s put together fine and she’s reading my mind I can’t stop I can’t stop myself Lightning is striking again Lightning is striking again and again and again and again
Lou Christie and Twyla Herbert
The arch above the entrance is adorned with these carved stone electrical emblems – also rendered in the Futurist Moderne manner.
The pumping house is to become a visitor’s centre – named the Hydro Hub.
Singin through you to me Thunderbolts caught easily Shouts the truth peacefully Electricity
Two swans in front of his eyes Colored balls in front of his eyes It’s number one for his Kelly’s eye Treble-six right over his eye
Edward Thompson, the family printing business, was founded in Sunderland in 1867.
They identified a business opportunity when a local priest, Jeremiah O’Callaghan, ordered some bingo tickets for a parish fund-raising exercise.
From those humble beginnings, Edward Thompson mushroomed in size as Britain went bingo-mad in the 1960s, becoming first the UK’s and then the world’s biggest producer of bingo cards and tickets.
The company which has been printing for more than 155 years – has been hit hard by the crash in bingo hall use as Covid ripped through the leisure sector. CEO Paddy Cronin said he was ‘gutted’ but the business had finally had to face the inevitable as the cashflow dried up.
We were built on a bet but our luck has now run out – he told The Northern Echo.
Covid completely changed the market and as the halls went into decline it just became untenable so I had to break the news to the workers.
They were the pioneers of newspaper bingo, printing the first cards in 1975 and going on to work in places like Bolivia and Belgium and even printing the ballot papers for Nelson Mandela’s 1994 election in South Africa.
So their number is up the factory is tinned-up, house has been called for the very last time.
Yeah, yeah, industrial estate
Well you started here to earn your pay Clean neck and ears on your first day Well we tap one another as you walk in the gate And we’d build a canteen but we haven’t got much space
This joint-stock bank was established in Manchester in 1836 as Manchester & Salford Bank by a group of promoters keen to take advantage of recent legislation allowing the formation of joint-stock banks outside London. The bank had up to 15 directors and the issued capital was £1m, of which £252,100 was paid up by December 1836.
RIBA Pix: Headquarters building for William Deacon’s Bank Limited – Mosley Street Manchester: the garden at podium level.
Harry S Fairhurst & Son 1965
The first shareholders’ meeting, in May 1836, took place in temporary premises, but in August 1836 a banking house was rented in King Street. Land off Mosley Street was later acquired and a new banking house completed in 1838.
In 1969 The Royal Bank of Scotland was restructured and Williams Deacon’s became a direct subsidiary of a new holding company, National & Commercial Banking Group. The following year the holding company’s subsidiaries in England and Wales – Williams Deacon’s Bank, Glyn, Mills & Co and the English and Welsh branches of The National Bank – merged to form Williams & Glyn’s Bank.
In 1972 Williams & Glyn’s Bank joined with five other European banks to form the Inter Alpha Banks Group to exploit opportunities in the European Economic Community. In 1985 The Royal Bank of Scotland Group’s two major subsidiary holdings, Williams & Glyn’s Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland, were fully merged as The Royal Bank of Scotland plc.
The very merry monopolies and mergers merry dance – consequently this perfectly formed Modernist bank stands alone and forlorn.
Completed in 1969 to designs by Leach Rhodes and Walker in collaboration with the Borough Engineer John Whittaker
Constructed at the tail end of the Sixties – the last gasp of Municipal Modernism in the Borough, providing education, edification and entertainment for the local population.
The fountain is gone, the building is closed – the party’s over.
The Fast Cars are history – well they were history, until I was told that they are still speeding along!
A council has spent £348,000 on a masterplan for a town centre that the public has never seen.
Consultants have been used to come up with ideas to regenerate Swinton in Salford.
The town centre is dominated by the imposing Lancastrian Hall, opened in 1969, with an adjoining shopping mall.
The hall housed a council library and was used for civic and community meetings, wedding receptions and election counts.
But it has been closed since 2015 after the library moved to the new Gateway Building on the other side of Chorley Road.
So this magical structure of stairways, undercrofts, elevated walks and majestic concrete clad volumes is under threat.
Swinton and the Lancastrian Hall deserve much better.
Over 550 people took part in the recent visioning work, and we are grateful for their time and valuable contributions.
An overwhelming majority of those who shared their views saw Swinton as a good place to live and bring up a family – somewhere friendly, with a strong sense of community.
People valued their local green spaces, but strongly felt that there needed to be more investment in the town centre, and a plan to tackle empty buildings and shops.
Overall, people felt that Swinton needed to be a more vibrant place, with more going on – and more reasons for people to visit and spend their leisure time there.
This is an opportunity to create tomorrow’s local centre, but that does rely on removing the Lancastrian Hall, rethinking the shopping centre, and repurposing the Civic Centre and the spaces around it.
The police station and magistrates’ court at Chorley was designed to replace a building from 1896 – a weights and measures plaque from the original building was retained and remounted at the foot of the new building.
The two buildings were set adjacent one another and around a newly formed square with one side made up of the rear of the existing town hall. This small civic group was intended to relate to one another in scale, but was markedly contrasting in its material make-up.
County Architect’s Report: 1963-64.
The design team was Roger Booth, Lancashire County Architect; C.A. Spivey, Assistant County Architect; D.B. Stephenson, Design Architect; and D.G. Edwards, A.G. Gass, responsible for the detailed design and construction. The seven-storey in-situ concrete framed main block was the last bespoke police station to be built in Lancashire, following this the department developed a systemised concrete construction method which was deployed across the county. The dramatic cantilevers gave the new building a stature and presence that signalled authority. The lower levels were accessed by ramps and provided space for police vehicles. To enter the police station one ascended a set of external stairs across a pool that once contained koi carp – fittingly, one boy described the new building as a ‘fishtank’ upon its completion. The magistrates’ court was finished externally in a grey brick and carried the signature pyramid rooflights that were synonymous with the Department.
Coun Alistair Bradley, Leader of Chorley Council, confirmed that the council had enquired to take ownership of the building but that this was knocked back.
He said: We’ve enquired about taking the building on but the owners, the Ministry of Justice, has said they want to take it to market.
The building is being advertised as a potential site for a future office, residential, restaurant and bar, leisure, entertainment, and hotel.
Asked about its future, Chorley councillor Aaron Beaver told Lancs Live he had heard no news of developments but desperately wanted to see something happen with the building, he said:
It’s a perfect location. There’s lots of things it could be used for.
If you were to knock it down, there’s all sorts of things which could be built there. If you were to convert it to something like flats, it could be tricky because there’s not many windows.
Commenting on the progress of the sale since it’s closure, he added:
I wouldn’t say it’s slow moving, I’d say it’s not moving.
Cwmbran was founded in 1949 as a new town, to provide new employment opportunities in the south eastern portion of the South Wales Coalfield, but the area has a long history.
We shall now explore the housing framed by the railway and shopping centre.
From Cleeve Barr’sPublic Authority Housing – published in 1958.
A mix of pedestrianised terraces and low rise blocks, set in a loose grid of roads and rolling, tree-lined, grassed areas.
Over time there has been the addition of uPVC and the revisionist intrusion of the ahistorical carriage lamp.
Incidentally an area with more al fresco shopping trolleys than I had ever seen, I assume that the big Asda, located within walking distance of the homes, to be the progenitor of such a notable proliferation.
It remains, generally speaking a well kept lived in area – let’s take a look.
Work on the new building began in 1960: it was designed by Sir Basil Spence and was built by John Laing & Son at a cost of £2.75 million and was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 14 October 1963.
The design for the seven-storey building involved continuous bands of glazing with exposed concrete beams above and below.
A large mosaic mural depicting local scenes was designed by Clayton and Gelson and installed on the face of the building.
In March 2019, the County Council approved a proposal to move to a smaller new-build facility on the Sands car park at Freeman’s Place in the centre of Durham. Of around 1,850 staff currently based in County Hall, 1,000 will be based at the new HQ and approximately 850 will relocate to four council office sites being developed across the county in Crook, Meadowfield, Seaham and Spennymoor. The building works, which are being carried out by Kier Group at a cost of £50 million, are scheduled to be completed in late 2021. Richard Holden, Conservative member of parliament for North-West Durham, has described the new council headquarters as a ‘vanity project’, questioning the suitability of the location as well as tax increases and cuts to services used to pay for the development.
In April 2022 the council sold their new HQ to Durham University – yet demolition will still go ahead. This unlisted gem in the grand Festival of Britain style deserves much, much better.
Nearby Neighbours Newcastle have had the good sense to list and retain their Civic Centre.
The administration now plans a three-pronged approach to:
Construct another new modest-sized civic building and conference centre for businesses at Aykley Heads.
Occupy other council-owned offices already being built at Aykley Heads.
Refurbish and reuse the former customer access point on Front Street, Stanley, a large, run-down Grade II listed building which the council has been unable to sell.
Online, there is no evidence of any will or pressure to save this glorious building – the site will eventually become that most modern mix of business park, retail, and leisure facilities.
The proposal, led by Durham County Council, forms part of an overall masterplan to knock down the municipal building in Aykley Heads and redevelop the wider site to provide retail, financial and professional space, food and drink units, space for leisure use and a multi-storey car park.
A mural by a beloved pitman painter, commissioned by Durham County Council to mark the opening of County Hall in 1963, has been successfully moved to its new home in Bishop Auckland.
The painting by Norman Cornish, one of the most respected and much-loved artists to emerge from the North-East, depicts the arrival of the banners at Durham Miners’ Gala.
After being commissioned by the council, Cornish was granted 12 months unpaid leave from Mainsforth Colliery in Ferryhill to complete the painting, with most of the work being completed during the coldest winter in 40 years.
Although it arrived at County Hall in 1963 rolled up in the back of a carpet van, the mural’s removal was an incredibly intricate process, involving several experts.
Lately I have been frequenting bad houses Places no respectable man would be seen I hate myself for my weakness My past sickens me I tell myself I will not go Even as I drive there
A truemartyr for the love of his Country and its people, and a true Working Class Hero!
Cllr O’Carroll deserves to be recognised by the State and the People of Ireland for his work with the Labour Party, TheAncient Guild of Brick & Stonelayers Trade Union and most importantly for his contribution to the Freedom of Ireland.
‘Bhí sé dílis dá thír is dá chineál’
‘He loved his country and served his kind’
I came upon these two slab blocks of flats whilst walking the streets of Dublin – this service tower acts as a memorial to his life and achievements.
I was stopped in my tracks when I chanced upon the enchanting mosaics, wrought iron railings and walkups, I stayed a while to take a look around.
I walked from St Bride’s Church, through a valley to East Kilbride Civic Centre
Commissioned by the burgh of East Kilbride, was designed by Scott Fraser & Browning, built by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts and completed in 1966.
Accommodating Ballerup Hall.
Ballerup Hall is located within East Kilbride Civic Centre and takes its name from its twin town Ballerup, which is near Copenhagen in Denmark. The hall comprises a main hall with stage, kitchen facilities and a bar servery. The adjoining district court room is available after office hours for a limited range of activities.
The stars of British Championship Wrestling return to East Kilbride with a star-studded line up including The Cowboy James Storm and all your favourite BCW Superstars!
I missed the missing link twixt Roddy Frame and the Civic Centre.
If you were lucky enough to catch the 2013 concerts in which Frame marked the 30th anniversary of High Land Hard Rain by playing Aztec Camera’s seminal debut album live, you’ll already have seen Anne’s pictures. Before getting to High Land Hard Rain itself in those shows, Frame treated audiences to a rare set drawn from what he termed his East Kilbride period – the songs he was writing as a teenager that would appear on Aztec Camera’s two Postcard singles, and form the basis of the band’s legendarily unreleased Postcard album, Green Jacket Grey.
While he played those tunes, huge, striking black and white images of his old hometown appeared as a backdrop behind him, setting exactly the right fragile, retro-future new town mood of post-industrial Fahrenheit 451 urban development.
A strategic masterplan for East Kilbride town centre which could see a new purpose-built civic facility is to be put before the council next month.
Last March we told how radical new plans could see the crumbling Civic Centre replaced with – a new front door to East Kilbride.
Despite there being no specific proposals agreed at this stage, South Lanarkshire Council has confirmed that agents of the owners are set to present their strategic masterplan to elected members in February.
It currently sits by the shopping centre and a patch of empty ground.
Several imposing interlocking volumes, formed by pre-cast concrete panels.
East Kilbride was the first new town built in Scotland in 1947. New Town designation was a pragmatic attempt to soak up some of the population from an overcrowded and war ravaged Glasgow. Its design was indeed an anathema to the chaotic and sprawling Glasgow: clean straight lines, modern accessible public spaces; and footways, bridges and underpasses built with the pedestrian in mind. It was designed as a self contained community — with industry, shops, recreation facilities and accommodation all within a planned geographic area.
I was walking along St Vincent Street one rainy day.
From the corner of my left eye, I espied a pyramid.
Curious, I took a turn, neither funny nor for the worse, the better to take a closer look.
Following a promotion within the Church of Scotland to construct less hierarchical church buildings in the 1950s, an open-plan Modern design with Brutalist traits, was adapted for the new Anderson Parish Church. The building consists of a 2-storey square-plan church with prominent pyramidal roof, with over 20 rooms. The foundation stone was laid in 1966, with a service of commemoration in the now demolished St Mark’s-Lancefield Church. The building was completed in 1968.
Let’s take a look around outside.
Later that same day, I got a message from my friend Kate to visit her at the centre.
She is charged with co-ordinating a variety of activities at The Pyramid.
In 2019 the Church of Scotland sold the building and it became a community centre for people to:
Connect, create and celebrate.
It also serves as an inspirational space for music, performances, conferences and events.
Let’s take a look around inside.
As a footnote the recent STV Studios produced series SCREW was filmed here!
Architects: David Harvey, Alex Scott & Associates – 1967
The Adam Smith Building, named in honour of the moral philosopher and political economist, Adam Smith, was formally opened on 2 November 1967 by Sydney George Checkland, Professor of Economic History from 1957 to 1982. The building was the first of the University’s multipurpose blocks housing a large number of departments, and a library for Political Economy, Social and Economic Research, Economic History, Political and Social Theory and Institutions, Management Studies, Psychology, Social Psychology, Accountancy, Citizenship, Anthropology, Criminology, Industrial Relations, and the School of Social Study. A records store was provided beneath the Library for the Economic History department to house their rapidly growing collection of business records from the vanishing Clyde shipyards and heavy engineering workshops, which now form part of the Scottish Business Archive held at University of Glasgow Archive Services.
Wandering almost aimlessly around the campus, when the blue mosaic caught my eye.
The glass stairwell drew me in further.
Entering the building I explained myself to the passing janitor:
I’m intrigued by the stairways of 1960s civic buildings.
There are two – he helpfully replied.
Further intrigued I took a good look around – first up one.
Reaching the top and discovering the Lecture Theatre.
Then down the other.
The mosaic mural at the foot of the main staircase was the work of George Garson, the head of the Mural Design and Stained Glass department at the Glasgow School of Art.
A quick look around the outside and then on my way.
Designed by Professors Andy MacMillan and Isi Metzstein.
Grade A listed 1994 RIBA Bronze Medal
Should you so wish – jump the train from Glasgow Central, unless you’re already here/there.
Walk up West Mains Road, alone on a hill standing perfectly still sits St Bride’s, you can’t miss it.
The biggest extant example of Bricktalism, the most Bricktalist building in the world, possibly.
Stallan-Brand design director Paul Stallan commented:
St Bride’s for me is the most important modernist buildings of the period. The church made from Victorian sewer bricks and concrete is both simple and complex. The architecture continues to be a key reference for students of architecture from across the world interested in modernism and the contemporary vernacular in context. Andy and Isi’s work is as important to Scotland as Alvar Aalto’s work is to the Finnish.
It’s a traditional Scottish stone detail I saw for myself as a boy growing up in the Highlands, on every castle and fortified house, and on the flanks of the tower at Muckrach, ancient seat of the Grants of Rothiemurchus, built in 1598. This was my local castle just a mile from home.
The entrance to St Bride’s, I like to imagine, comes from a friendship that included travel in the Scottish Highlands, admiring the Scottish vernacular close-up, of a fevered conversation about a simple concept – the massive blind box, and how the application of simple, semi-traditional material detailing can make it all the richer.
St Bride’s is simply one of the finest buildings in Scotland.
Modern Mooch 