IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Pomona Street, ROCHDALE, OL11 1PD

This building was formerly the Sunday School of St. Luke's: the actual Church building stood a short distance further away from the photographer, on Deeplish Road. But in the 1980s the large Church itself was sold for demolition and replaced by the modern flats visible in the left background of the photograph. Services were then transferred to the Sunday School building shown above, which thus became the Church.

No 86 on the right with the door open, and No 88, where I lived as a boy from 1948 to 1954.

Looking eastwards from the junction of Deeplish Road with Ashfield Road, known locally as Deeplish Corner. These are large terrace houses which each have, or had, a small front garden: however, some of these front gardens have been removed to create space to keep a m***r c*r, (that affliction of our villages, towns and cities!)

This is looking northwards from Deeplish Corner, and shows the junctions of Ashfield Road with Ventnor Street and Aubrey Street. The decorative brickwork on the terrace ends is of recent origin. The tilting bus stop sign is of significance - it states 'out of use'. There is no bus service whatever now into the Deeplish district. Interestingly enough, this is the route of Rochdale Corporation's very first bus service. Back in the 1920s, the corporation was a tramway operator, but trams would not have been suitable in Deeplish with its narrow roads and awkward street layout. So a motorbus service was started, and appropriately enough, was given service No 1. It ran for very many years, usually at a 10 minute frequency, surviving into the SELNEC and GMPTE eras (although renumbered). But now it has gone with only a few disused bus stops to recall its existence.

No 86 (nearest house) and No 88 have had front gardens removed: passage between 86 and 84 illegally gated and locked: road humps (unnecessary on this curving road) will mitigate against reintroduction of bus service.

The houses visible in the background were then in local authority ownership: those on the right in Digby Road, and those on the extreme left in Dicken Green. Although the water looks clear, the Rochdale Canal was not navigable at that time.

The overspill from the Rochdale Canal discharges into Sudden Brook, a tributary of the River Roch.

Seen from the front of a narrowboat heading south-west towards Manchester.

A row of red-brick terraced houses on Aubrey Street in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Such housing stock is typical of much of Rochdale and of Greater Manchester.