IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Ambrose Street, ROCHDALE, OL11 1QX

I celebrated my 21st birthday by taking this photograph of waste ground outside the spring works. In those days. nobody bothered about air pollution. Engines would stand on the sidings for hours emitting smoke and steam, while additional smoke was caused by Riley's workmen setting fire to waste rubber outside the works.

These houses, which still exist, were, when photographed in 1949, almost in "as built" condition, with sash windows, and facing onto an unmade road with gas lamps.

This is the view to the south-west from Deeplish Corner. This view has not changed in any material aspect for the last 60 years, with the exception that the road was the sett-paved - and the introduction of speed bumps is quite recent.

An all-stations train from Manchester Victoria nears its terminus. It will use the remains of the former Oldham line to reverse direction, returning to Manchester (and on to Wigan Wallgate) at 12.04. For a contrasting, earlier view of this scene, see: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/820376.

For a photograph at the same location some 58 years earlier, see Image Trees prevents use of exactly the same viewpoint for the 2007 picture.

Osborne Street only has houses on one side. They face a pleasant area of grass and trees, which many years ago was a wasteland of cinders and ashes not even suitable for a game of football.

Looking south-west, this shows the back lane that runs between Osborne Street and Ashfield Road. The back lane has been metalled and all the houses have back yards, but that does not stop them from putting rubbish in the lane: there is no need for this, as there are excellent recycling and rubbish disposal centres in this borough.

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.

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.