BT Telephone Exchange – Ashton under Lyne

BT Roundabout OL6 6QQ

In 1913 Ashton is already a crowded town, a cotton town.

The first telephone exchange arrives and sweeps away property at the junction of Scotland and Bedford Streets.

The second arrives along with the bypass and establishes a roundabout, an island of telecommunication.

Tameside Image Archive

There they sit betwixt St Michael’s Parish Church and Albion Congregational.

A marriage of inter-war brick Revivalism and post-war concrete Brutalism.

Ninety nine point nine percent of the passing parade pass by onto the bypass by car, I took time to circumnavigate the site on foot.

This is what I saw.

Underpass – Lancashire Hill Stockport

I can’t resist passing under an underpass from Scarborough to Milton Keynes.

I often use this local yellow passageway as I make my way in the world.

Bridging Lancashire Hill, Belmont Way, Manchester Road, Tiviot Way – from the town centre to the out of town shopping centre, the flats to everywhere.

Bridging the tarmac to another green world and back.

Come with me now there’s a life going on underground.

Underpass – Scarborough

I’ve been here before.

In and out of the underpass from shore to mighty sea.

I’ve come back again, fascinated by the barely illuminated utilitarian infrastructure that seems so rarely used, alone in world of my own.

Take a closer walk and look with me.

The light at the end the tunnel is another tunnel.

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