IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Vulcan Park Way, NEWTON-LE-WILLOWS, WA12 8AF

Link to a short history of the works http://www.n-le-w.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=27

The station was a very basic structure, built to serve the adjacent Vulcan Foundry engineering works. It had closed to passengers the previous year. The line was the original Warrington an Newton Railway, built in 1831 as a branch off the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and in 1837 becoming part of the Grand Junction Railway to Birmingham. The locomotive is 92116, a British Railways Standard Class 9 2-10-0 on a freight train.

Just a snippet of the vast Vulcan Works near Earlestown. The expanse of grass in the foreground is a bowling green.

The Vulcan Works (operated by MAN B&W Diesel since 2000) closed at the end of 2002 and the business transferred to the MAN B&W Diesel Ltd, Mirrlees Blackstone site at Stockport. The Vulcan Foundry was finally demolished in 2006 and the site was levelled to give way to a proposed urban village. The bowling green at the north west corner of the site is all that remains.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Village became rundown and almost derelict until it was acquired by Maritime Housing Association, who refurbished and adapted the properties to modern standards. During these improvements the old foundry school was converted into three bungalows for the elderly and disabled. After the Vulcan Inn, it is the second largest building in the Conservation Area.

The Vulcan Foundry manufactured ironwork for railways and built early steam locomotives to designs by Robert Stephenson and others. These cottages were thought to have been constructed in 1833, the 114 houses set in six terraces all named after major cities. In 1984 the houses were brought up to modern housing standards and subsequently Vulcan Village became a conservation area. In 2002 the works closed and was demolished in October 2007, this once remote industrial village now has over 600 new houses on the adjacent works site with more under construction.

It is thought that the construction of Vulcan Village began in 1833, though records of the origin of the Village are few and fragmented. The only indication that the Village existed in 1835, are the notices to hawkers and ballad singers, which are located on the gable ends of Derby Row in the Village Dated 1st of May 1835, the notice was probably the result of harassment by hawkers and others in a similar plight, which was a common occurrence in the years following the Napoleonic Wars. This notice is on the northern end of the row, there is an identical notice on the southern end. TAKE NOTICE PRIVATE PROPERTY WE DO HEREBY CAUTION ALL HAWKERS RAG AND BONE DEALERS BEGGARS BALLAD SINGERS &c FROM TRESPASSING ON THESE PREMISES ANY PERSON OR PERSONS OF THE ABOVE DESCRIPTION FOUND HEREON AFTER THIS NOTICE WILL BE PROSECUTED WITH THE UTMOST RIGOR OF THE LAW VULCAN FOUNDRY MAY 1st 1835.