Looking down towards Gerrards
Heading towards Knott Lane
Note the steeple at Hyde Chapel.
It is not long since Dowson road had a 60mph speed limit... seems hard to imagine that now on such a busy road. These two postcards are numbered 3 and 4... if you have copies of the first two we'd be pleased to show them.. and does anyone know how many were in the series?
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I don't know about postcards, but these photographs of Dowson Road (along with several others of a similar vintage) are in the Tameside Image Archive, which as you probably know can be accessed via the Tameside website.
My Gran lived at 213 Dowson Road which I think would be in the region of postcard number 4, and I often heard the term 'Gerrads' used. Cannot for the life of me remember what 'Gerrads' is or was. Anyone enlighten me please?
If you type 'Gerrards' into the search window on the Tameside MB photo archive it comes up with a series of 7 photographs of Stockport Road running up from what is now Dowson Road towards the Grapes. The History of Hyde says: 'The presence in the township of numerous brooks and streams attracted the builders of the early cotton mills which were all worked by water power. Illustrative of this it may be mentioned that the small rivulet running through Gee Cross down Gerrards Hollow had, at one time, as many as five cotton factories standing on its banks.......'. The new houses at the corner of Apethorn Lane and Dowson Road (opposite Smith Knight Fay) are on Gerrards Hollow and Gerrards Wood. So it looks as if Gerrards Hollow ran to the north of, and parallel with, Stockport Road and Apethorn Lane all the way down to the River Tame.
I've walked most of the hollow in the past Dave... and it dose seem hard to imagine all the small mills being run by the trickle of water now.. we used to dam part of the stream when we were young in the woods that are behind Bagshaws Barn.. oppersite the old farm. We would then swim in the stream and drop from rope swings. There is evidance of buildings about in the hollows and stream bed as you walk the stream.. but it is so long ago I last did it I do notknow if it would still be possible...
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