Arthur Wilde R.I.P.

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of Arthur Wilde who was the projectionist at the Theatre Royal in Hyde for over 35 years and when the cinema closed down Arthur became the caretaker of the building until ill health two years ago forced him to give up the theatre all together. Arthur had worked at a lot of the cinemas in the Hyde, Denton and Ashton areas. He knew a lot about the Theatre Royal Hyde and his knowledge of local cinemas was vast.

Here are a few pictures of the man himself and the theatre and the projection room in Royal One taken from Dennis Roylance's film. 

FROM STEPHEN HILL

The picture below is from Gerald England

The Beauty Of Matley

I've been busy today and not had time to write up a couple of posts that I'd planned to do, so today it's some pictures that have all been taken around the Matley Lane area. I have never been disappointed with any of the walks I took around here...  it really is a beautiful place to spend time.

Hope you have enjoyed these views

Time Lapse From The Low

Today's post comes courtesy of my good friend Darren Jones. He's been out and about with his video and this is the result. A beautiful sunset from the Low... I for one have not been able or not had the chance to get up there for a while, so to see these is a special treat. 

The Cenotaph 

Now I know from past comments that not everyone who drops by likes to see pictures of or from the Low, but we've not had any in a while and these video's are rare to come across.  

ENJOY THE BEAUTY

Roman roads in the Hyde area

I have been interested for many years now in trying to see if there is any evidence of roman roads passing through the Hyde area. The nearest certain Roman camps or stations are situated in Castleshaw Manchester (Mamucium) and Melandra Castle, Glossop (Ardotalia). Stockport is also possible, but despite strong local tradition, there is little evidence of a Roman site.

A few Roman coins have been found on the banks of the Mersey many years ago, other Roman coins cropped up east of Bredbury railway station in the 1930's and also a coin found in Hyde in 1905.

The first possibility is a road from Stockport crossing an old ford on the Mersey near the market place, this continuing through Bredbury into Hyde as Stockport Road. This road then possibly continues along Mottram Old Road to Melandra Castle in Glossop. (See maps )

A Roman road from Melandra castle to the Cheshire area has been said to cross Werneth Low at some point, whether it's the same road as above or a different one is debatable.

The third possibility is the road from Castleshaw in Manchester to Melandra castle in Glossop. If a straight line is drawn between the two it passes straight through the centre of Hyde and Godley.

The Roman road builders would always try and build their roads as straight as possible, but obviously due to geographical conditions , it was not always possible, so some deviations are inevitable. Even so this road must have passed through Hyde at some place.

I have checked the internet, but unfortunately it does not come up with anything definite, only vague references.

Middletons's History of Hyde says the following:-

The main road, which ran from Chester to York by way of Manchester, was joined by crossways which connected the forts at Manchester with those at Stockport, Melandra and Brough in the Vale of Hope. The road from Stockport passed over Werneth low to Melandra thence under the base of Buckton Hill through Saddleworth, when it joined the main road from Manchester to York.

It would be nice to try and locate the Castleshaw to Melandra road, as it appears as far as I can see, without contacting local archeologists , that we seem to have been missed out. Admittedly due to all the modern roads and buildings, it may be impossible now to locate them, somebody may have some knowledge of possible locations. If anyone has any info or suspicions please let us know.

Day Trip From The Navvy

Pub Outing

Bill Lancashire sent in this fantastic picture of a morning drive his father went on..

Bill writes: "I assume this is a morning drive from the Navigation Hotel (which is now the Cheshire Ring of course). He is seated on the second from the front row, third in from the left and looking at him (in what I think is his demob suit) and the other people on the picture I would guess that it is late forties or very early fifties. Sitting on my Dad's left is his friend Johnny Brown who worked with him at Watkin's Glove works.  Johnny had been a POW for several years.  My uncle, Bert Parkinson, who was the landlord of the 'Navvy', is the man with the smart suit and white handkerchief in his breast pocket seated three to my Dad's left.  There are certainly some characters on the photograph and some of the other names I can recall are Ralph Wright, Jess Wrigley, Billy Binns, and the dog's name was Micky.  I particularly like the look of the little man wearing the beret sitting on my Dad's right."

Thank's Bill I hope the enlargements are ok!

Hyde Civic Square 'What's On'

Hyde Market 

Harry Rutherford's 1948 Northern Saturday



Today there's a collection  for the Harvest Festival Food Bank

If you are in Hyde today check it out, and don't forget to support a few of our local businesses..  like these below.  I-Deal Gifts and Let's Talk Tripe.

I-Deal Gifts
&
Let's Talk Tripe

 Help Support Your Local Shops

The Cotton Tree and the Chartists

Here's another cutting from the 'All Our Yesterdays' souvenir paper printed by The Reporter' 20 odd years ago.

Here's what the Cotton Tree looked like in 2011:

And this is a photograph taken a few days ago:

On the left side of the building is a blue plaque, unveiled by Tameside Council in 1999, commemorating its history as a Chartist meeting place:

Thomas Middleton in his 'History of Hyde' says this about the trial of Joseph Rayner Stephens:
'No one was more outspoken than the Rev. J.R.Stephens, and it was a speech of his at a Hyde meeting which led to his prosecution at the Chester Assizes, and one of the most notable political trials of the century.'
and later:

'The trial of Stephens took place at Chester on Thursday, August 15^th 1839. There were three indictments against him, two charging him with sedition and disturbing of the peace, at places in Lancashire; but only the Cheshire indictment already quoted, was proceeded with. The Attorney General – Sir G. Campbell – who prosecuted, said that the meeting in question assembled at the Cotton Tree Inn, in Newton, half way between Dukinfield and Hyde. The crowd met after dark with firearms, and flags and banners of a most violent and inflammatory character. On one was "Tyrants believe and tremble"; on another "Liberty or Death"; others bore the legends "For children and wives we will war to the knife", and "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garments and buy one". There was also a transparency with the one word – "Blood".

Wm. Manley, the first witness, a constable of Dukinfield, spoke to seeing a large assembly at the Cotton Tree, about half-past seven in the evening; part of them came from Ashton and part from Stalybridge, and they were going towards Hyde. They had lighted torches and pots of fire with them. He heard the reports of pistols or guns. He left them at Flowery Field on the verge of Hyde. They were then walking six abreast. At the Cotton Tree there were about 500 persons, but they were joined by 400 more from Newton. Joshua Pickford, cotton manufacturer, of Hyde, said: "He was at home that night, and between 9 and 10 o'clock he heard a noise and music in the street; he then went down to Shepley's Fields near to Hoviley Brow. A platform had been erected, and defendant was one of those on it. Banners were placed in a half circle round it; there were 3,000 or 4,000 people within the half circle, and many more outside it. Some torches were on the hustings, and some within the barriers. He heard Stephens speak. Stephens said – "You need not be afraid of the soldiers, they will not act against you. The time has now gone by for petitioning; the time has now come for acting. There should be no mistake there that night, for he should advise them to arm." He said: "You men, women, and you – to the children – my little powder-monkeys, you that mean to buy arms, put up your hands with me." Stephens then put up his hands, and some hundreds put up theirs, and there was a great shouting and firing of arms. At half-past ten he, the witness, went home; he remained up until one o'clock, and went out at intervals from eleven to one. After twelve he heard music as if the meeting were dispersing. Stephens told them to procure guns, pistols, swords or pikes, or anything that would tell sharper tales than their tongues. His wife and children were very much alarmed, and his wife sat up till all was quiet."

The other witnesses included Messrs. W. Tinker, Charles Howard, Edward Hibbert, and Samuel Ashton, junior. Stephens addressed the jury for five and a half hours in his defence, but was found guilty and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment, and bound over for five years, himself in £500, and sureties in £250 each. On the first of February, 1841, he was liberated from Chester castle, eight days before the termination of his sentence, to enable him to attend the funeral of his father, the Rev. John Stephens.'

Rope Walk

As so often happens while looking for one thing I turn up something else. I was checking something on the 1887 map and noticed 'Rope Walk' mentioned on Victoria Street Newton, I recalled also seeing this near Floweyfield, it got me to wondering why. 

It seems that a rope-walk was a long straight narrow lane, or a covered pathway, where long strands of material were laid before being twisted into rope. 

One inch rope required 72 strands of ‘binder twine’, so for 100ft of 1 inch rope, 7.200ft of twine was needed. That sounds like a lot of twisting and work.

Hand spinning was a skilled job, the spinner had to walk at just the right speed to keep the yarn smooth and make sure it was the correct thickness.

 The rope made locally could possibly have been sold to farmers, mine and mill owners, hopefully a bit was left over for granny to have some fun

   

Request For Information

Last week one of the emails was from Steve Moorhouse, who wrote in to request a bit of help with the date

the old fire station on Corporation Street was demolished? 

Steve is putting together his father's life story for his grandchildren and part of his story was that his dad was a fireman at Hyde station in the late 1940's and early 1950's before he was promoted and posted to Stalybridge.  Steve said the station was a grand old building and it was a crying shame that it was demolished.......progress?????  he didn't think so.  I agree with Steve that the building should have been saved like a few more that have gone. What will be next, the Library or Town Hall. 

Anyhow lets fill in the blanks for Steve, we need the date it stopped being the Fire Station, and the date it was pulled down, and when was the station on Railway Street built and opened. 

Thank you to Maureen for sending in these great pictures of Hyde Firemen fighting a blaze at Redferns Rubber Works.

Well done to all past and present Hyde fire fighters

View from Flowery Field Church

This is a cutting from 'The Reporter' of 21 February 1991.

The street map below is from the pre-motorway A-Z and shows the streets in this part of Hyde before the demolition teams moved in. I've skewed the map a bit so it's more or less looking straight down Newton Street, but in the opposite direction to the photograph. Flowery Field Church is the small cross at the top left next to Newton Street.

On the left-hand side of the picture just above Carrfield Mill is a row of houses:

These are on the south side of Bank Street, and the short street which runs upwards on the right-hand side of the row is Pitt Street which leads to Grafton Street.

At the extreme bottom right of the picture you can just see the start of Dukinfield Road, and above that the backs of a row of houses:

These houses are on the north side of Mary Street. The photograph was obviously taken late in the day as you can see the shadow of these houses on Newton Street and the sunlight showing where Mary Street is. Going up Newton Street the next patch of sunlight is George Street and then at the top you've got Market Street.

It's a pity it's only a newspaper photograph as it limits the amount of detail you can see, but I'm sure that people who know the Hyde of that time a lot better than I do will be able to pick out other buildings of interest.

3 Adverts

It surprises me at times just what can be bought on E-bay, all 3 of these are on sale at the moment, all 3 are pages from magazines and as I've watched them before they will sell for a pound or two.  

James Winterbotham & Son

Here's a couple of pictures from a souvenir newspaper issued by 'The Reporter' probably 20 years or so ago called 'All Our Yesterdays'. 

Although the caption says that the shop was at 18 Newton Street the number 13 is clearly shown on either side of the 'Jas Winterbotham & Son' sign above the shop window, and the Kellys Directory of 1914 has an entry:

'Winterbotham James & Son, tripe dealers, 39 Bank street & 13 Newton street'

Here is a picture from the same newspaper of the Bank Street premises.

As this cutting says, Amos Winterbotham was Mayor of Hyde in 1931-32 and Thomas Middleton's 'History of Hyde', which was published in 1931, says this about him:

'Amos Winterbotham - 1931-32

Councillor Amos Winterbotham is a native of Hyde, and belongs to an old local family. His grandfather, Mr. Amos Armitage, was one of the leaders of the Hyde Chartists, and was imprisoned for the part he took in the Chartist rising of 1848. Mr. Winterbotham, who is in business as an oil and tallow merchant and tripe manufacturer, entered the Town Council in 1913, being returned as Liberal member for Newton Ward, which he has represented ever since. For many years he has been chairman of the Market and Baths Committee. He became Mayor in 1931.'

This is the photograph of Amos Winterbotham in the 'History of Hyde'