General > Out & About
Out and about - as a pedestrian.....
MrDavo:
Thanks for your comments and Steve's pictures, Ziggy is cute! MCTID pointed out to me that within an hour of Manchester is some stunning and underrated scenery, as good as you'll find anywhere.
From Saturday's walk, here's a rare picture of me, sat down mainly because the drop behind, at Indian Head, was terrifying.
Some odds and ends, here are some white bluebells I noticed. very rare but I don't know how I can sell them on eBay yet.
Walking along the trackbed of the old Micklehurst loop line, we came across a huge derelict goods shed, like finding a lost temple in the middle of a jungle.
Nearby was the engine shed for the little shunting engines for the coal wagons that fed Hartshead power station
Here is the same spot in 1967, when the power station was still in use. There is nothing there now, I watched from a hillside when they blew the cooling towers up. The engine is a fireless steam loco, developed for munitions works originally, they were ideal for power stations because they had free unlimited steam on tap.
The view from Buckton Castle. I and many others always assumed it was an iron age fort, but when students from Salford University dug the banks they found 9 foot thick medieval stone walls.
The whole hill is dominated by a large quarry, around the back we found an older disused one, the rock is sandstone.
Finally, you say sleepy sunbathing piggies, I think 'Mmm, bacon.....'
MrDavo:
I know, the picture overlooking Dovestones reservoir you can see the road going up to Saddleworth Moor, where Brady and Hindley took their victims, and parked up overlooking the lake. When the police reopened the case in the 80’s I remember vans everywhere up there and groups probing the moors with poles. One lad is still up there, poor soul. We won’t be going up there to walk, they have a general idea where he is but it’s a real needle in a haystack. Sometimes I see old flowers and a teddy bear attached to a fence on the side road to Meltham, I know who put them there and why, it’s a very sad sight.
As a kid I was lectured over and over never to get in a car with someone I didn’t know, but never told why. They trawled Ashton market for victims and regularly went to our local cinema so it’s all very raw around here.
MCTID:
Oddjob....years ago we lived in Highgate, London. We were driving somewhere locally and my Sister in Law was visiting us and was a passenger in the Car. We stopped at a junction on Cranley Gardens and my SIL just said, "Oh, Cranley Gardens.......isn't that where Dennis Nilsen cut up all his victims" ! I was a bit flummoxed so I did some research about it....and I don't think I ever drove down that street again while I lived in the area ! My SIL was......a Copper ! There was a joke at the time that Nilsen's house was a 'Boddies House'.......just for us Northerners on the Forum !
Bryanj:
If we are going macbare i lived in Bury when he moors was going on and forget how many times i passed the Wests hose in Gloucester
MrDavo:
Correct Oddjob, my neighbour, and his son work at Kappa. When I got my HGV licence, and it was called Dolan's, I was desperate for experience, and the agency I drove for used to send me, as it was local and, having learned how to double declutch I could drive their ancient Seddon Atkinson tractor units. Their tall single axle trailers I hated with a passion, and I lived in fear of getting back over that tiny tight bridge over the river Tame at the factory entrance. It still gets regularly battered beyond belief today, I'm surprised they haven't replaced it with something more suitable, maybe they are waiting for the day it falls into the river so they can claim on some poor trucker's insurance.
I too can only spot the engine shed as a break in the trees, it's so overgrown. It's near the eastern end of the coal conveyor, which now just stops in midair. On this map it is in the 3rd square along, top row, the goods shed is in the square beneath it.
An aerial view of the same area:
This is one of the supports for the conveyor, where it ends with the wife for scale, it gives an impression of just how overgrown it is down there. Behind is where the colossal coal hopper once was, all you can see now is a concrete base with a mass of twisted rebar, it must have been a sod to demolish.
This 1967 picture taken in the rail yard caught my attention, the concrete support at the extreme right is the one in my photo, the coal conveyor is just out of shot above the locos. Also note the Black 5 in the background, 44871, it was on the last ever BR steam train in August 1968, and is now owned by Ian Riley and preserved at Bury. Here's a photo I took of it at Sheffield on a railtour I went on last November, with its sister loco, 45407.
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