Borderlands - Radcliffe, Greater Manchester - a rarity
I happened to be in Bury yesterday and, on the tram north, I realised that this was the glorious day I needed to retrace my steps and find a landscape I have passed at speed for years. Parallel to the Metrolink tracks, in what was the borderland between the Urban District Council of Radcliffe and the County Borough of Bury, along the old Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal and bisected by the River Irwell, is one of those slightly forgotten landscapes. A century ago here was a small colliery, with a loading stage on the canal, and mills along the river. Today it is mostly green alongside the ribbon development of the 1930s that followed the road between the two towns.
Along the lane are the vestiges of the long abandoned street lighting and this control box, on an old cast iron gas lamp colum, with a later swan neck adaptation, is now a rare survivor. Cast with the logo of ATM, the Automatic Telephone Company (later the AT&E) , the Liverpool based manufacturer of telephonic equipment. ATM expanded into some allied technologies, such as the control of traffic signals, and used an early form of remote switching for street lighting known as "Rythmatic". Not many of these still exist.
Borderlands - Radcliffe, Greater Manchester - a rarity
I happened to be in Bury yesterday and, on the tram north, I realised that this was the glorious day I needed to retrace my steps and find a landscape I have passed at speed for years. Parallel to the Metrolink tracks, in what was the borderland between the Urban District Council of Radcliffe and the County Borough of Bury, along the old Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal and bisected by the River Irwell, is one of those slightly forgotten landscapes. A century ago here was a small colliery, with a loading stage on the canal, and mills along the river. Today it is mostly green alongside the ribbon development of the 1930s that followed the road between the two towns.
Along the lane are the vestiges of the long abandoned street lighting and this control box, on an old cast iron gas lamp colum, with a later swan neck adaptation, is now a rare survivor. Cast with the logo of ATM, the Automatic Telephone Company (later the AT&E) , the Liverpool based manufacturer of telephonic equipment. ATM expanded into some allied technologies, such as the control of traffic signals, and used an early form of remote switching for street lighting known as "Rythmatic". Not many of these still exist.