Cheshire

The maintenance for Poynton Collieries was undertaken at Towers Yard and most of the buildings there have been converted for housing for a number of years. This range comprising, fronm the left, oil & grease store, engineer's stores and the yard manager's office, have resisted development until now. They have been sold to a developer and preparations were being made for work to start on conversion and extension to form a three bedroom bungalow. Some tree clearance had already been undertaken and the safety fencing was ready for erection when I visited. On reflection it is a good thing that these redundant structures are to find a new use, albeit in vastly modified form. The nearby gasfitters' and plumbers' workshop is to be made into a gym and home office as part of the works.

The former Crosfield's site at at Warrington is now operated by PQ Corporation after the Ineos Silicas business was merged with it. The site produces a range of inorganic chemicals.

A pair of maintenance boats built for duties on the Ashton, Peak Forest and Macclesfield Canals. Maria was built by Jinks at Marple in 1915 at a cost of £155. It replaced another boat of the same name built at the same yard for the Buxton Lime Company. Joel was originally built as a horse boat for the Buxton Lime Company in 1918. Sold out of service to the London and North Eastern Railway Company in 1926 she was subsequently rebuilt in 1929 as a motor boat fitted with a Kelvin 9HP petrol engine. This was the first motor boat in the maintenance fleet and always betrayed its' origins as a horse boat through the short, low horse boat style cabin cum engineroom with no gunwhales and the long rear deck and consequent long tiller. By 1946 the boat was in need of rebuilding and it was replaced by a new motor boat built at Gorton. It entered service in British Waterways colours in August 1948, retaining the fleet number 9. It may well be that a number of parts from the original boat were incorporated in the new Joel and that for accountancy purposes it was actually classed as a rebuild rather than a new boat. The boatbuilder at Gorton at this time, one Tommy Challinor, is said to have lacked the confidence to build a new boat from scratch and consequently always rebuilt or modified existing boats so they were like the aged broom that had 3 handles and 4 heads. Powered by a new 15hp twin cylinder Kelvin petrol/paraffin engine this was a fast boat which served until the Ashton canal became derelict in the early 1960's. Both boats were abandoned on the Ashton Canal by the early 1970s but were rescued by enthusiasts who formed the Ashton Packet Boat Company and undertook extensivel rebuilds. They continue to keep these rare wooden narrowboats in good order.

A doorway in the long derelict Unity Mill at Woodley. Fifteen years later and it is still standing (just) but the promised conversion to flats has never happened.

Shaft No.2 of the Redacre Colliery in Lyme Handley lies alongside the Macclesfield Canal and was certainly active in the 1830s although the colliery seems to have been sunk before 1800. The flat area to the left of the shaft mound is likely to have housed the horse gin for winding coal up the shaft. The are also remains of steam winding engine bedstones in the hollow behind this.

Originally known as the Adlington Mission Church, St John's church on Brookledge Lane, Adlington, Cheshire is also known as the tin tabernacle. It was built in 1892 at a cost of £150 with the kit probably supplied by Francis Norton & Co., Liverpool. The walls are corrugated iron, lined with pitch pine. The vestry came as an optional extra and has since been extended. The church originally had a small spire which housed a single bell. At a later date the spire was dismantled and the bell was moved to its current turret above the porch.

The rotting stumps of the Cawley Nursery on the Top Park at Poynton. This parkland plantation of mainly Beech trees has been a significant landscape feature for decades but now the trees are reaching the end of their life. The loss of this landscape feature is keenly felt by those who have grown up with it. A similar fate is befalling the Round Nursery to the west closer to Towers Yard.

This unprepossessing building once housed the Newcomen atmospheric type steam pumping engine for the Redacre Colliery in Lyme Handley, Cheshire. The building has had the top section and pitched roof removed at some time. The bob wall is the section to the right with the shaft immediately in front. There is also a stone-lined spillway to the river on the right. The pit was working before 1800 and seems to have continued until the 1840s.

Steam trains on the line between Kidsgrove and Cheadle Hulme are a rare event and it is many years since the last one passed through Macclesfield. 'The Mancunian' run by the Railway Touring Company was too good to miss and with 6233 'Duchess of Sutherland' at the front it is seen heading north alongside the Bollin at Macclesfield's Riverside Park. The line is downhill here and it was a very warm day which meant no exhaust from the locomotive.

Moore Lane swing bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal at Moore. It now provides access to a large nature reserve.

The Alma Cottages on Coppice Road,Poynton, stand on the site of the Worth Old Engine. This was one of the first pumping engines to be erected on the Worth colliery and was certainly in use in 1793 when it was just known as Worth Engine. It was probably erected for Peter Downes of Shrigley who was the owner of the Manor of Worth and it was sold to Sir George Warren, with the Manor of Worth and associated collieries, by his son Edward Downes after his father's death in 1791. The engine was of the Newcoment atmospheric type and drained workings in the Four Foot and maybe the Five Foot seams in this part of the estate. By 1826 the pumping had been moved to a Boulton and Watt type engine at the bottom of Anson Road. The Old engine Pit had been abandoned along with the Clayton Pit on the other side of Coppice Road which was used for winding coal. At that time all that remained was the engine beam in 2 parts, arch heads, beam gudgeon with pedestals and the carpenters shop at the Old Engine.

Style and functionality combined in this structure seen whilst walking in East Cheshire.

On a cool morning I was able to approach this rather sluggish male Orange Tip butterfly whilst it was feeding.

Properties with little time left on Great Portwood Street, Stockport, at the junction with Peter Street. It's not difficult to spot which one was the car paint shop.

Whilst out and about I spotted this shaft in the field close to the Macclesfield Canal. It is not marked on any Coal Authority plan. In the eighteenth century it will have worked the Gees Seam at a depth of 160-170ft. The mound is made of pit shale and rock that was brought out whilst sinking the pit. The shaft is situated in the slightly greener area at lower centre of the image. The flat circular area behind is where the horse gin was located to wind baskets of coal on the end of a rope. The colliers will have been lowered into the workings on the same rope. There are lots more unrecorded shafts in the area which often show up well during dry conditions in the summer.

It's just after 5.30am and I have alighted from the Highland Sleeper at Crewe after a journey from Aberdeen. 92 014 now awaits the road for London whilst most passengers continue to sleep.

Boiler house at the Romiley Board Mill which recycles waste paper into cardboard products such as cardboard sheets, tubes, coils and edge protection.

A small part of the Stanlow chemical complex viewed from the Manchester Ship Canal close to the Boat Museum in Ellesmere Port. This view includes part of the Innospec plant which manufactures fuel additives and, according to its website, is the world's only manufacturer of tetraethyl lead products.