HYDE CHESHIRE

Harry Rutherford's
Festival of Britain Mural




Sunday 11 July 2010

Greencroft Mill

Greencroft Mill was the first steam-powered ,purpose-built ,mule spinning factory to be erected in Hyde. It was built in 1802-03 by John Ashton on the Market Street end of Manchester Road. Gas lighting was introduced there in 1812 ,the earliest known instance of a mill being lit by gas in the Hyde district.
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Crossley Motors of Napier Street (Crossley Street), Gorton, Manchester was a manufacturer of cars, buses, lorries and other vehicles. They had a factory in the mill in 1938 as re-armament work caused the search for more space.In 1939 Crossley had 900 buses in service. 646 of these were in the Manchester fleet.

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A five-storey section of the spinning mill survived until quite recently, fronting Manchester Road with a three storey building. The last of the old mill building was not demolished until 1987 and the site is now a retail park which hosts , amongst others , a B & Q diy store.

6 comments:

Tom said...

Excellent comparatives here Nancy... I remember this building very well... and the dust and fumes at the traffic lights... I'm told told the Crossley Motors were known to drive chassis around Hyde testing them out... one place they did this was on Early Bank and Range Roads.... thats the single track road just off Matley Lane... the road leads to Stalybridge. It is still drivable now.. ha! in a landrover or 4x4..

Hydonian said...

Dunc used to work in this mill when he worked for Warmshield ,just before it closed down.

JohnR said...

Yes they also used to test the fire engine's water pump on the canal side near to hyde botanical club
The place was also E peart &co ltd as I severed my time there.

Tom said...

John..
Cheers for commenting John... all the more so because I know you've had a busy Day today as well..
Nancy..
I'd forgot it was Warmshield..

Tom said...

I came across this snippet from a 1891 Hyde Directory it was listed as Cotton spinner and manufacturers called Hibbert and Aspland, Green Croft Mill it says that it had 26,668 mule and 1,480 ring spindles, 141/341 twist,161/421 weft; 541 looms, and made domestics, shirtings, drills and twills.

harshini said...

A good spinning mill company in India....

Aegan Industries