While researching the development of the Derbyshire limestone industry, with particular reference to the quarries around Dove Holes and the manner in which limestone and lime was transported to Manchester via the Peak Forest Tramway and Peak Forest Canal, several questions kept occurring to which their was no immediate answer.
Even in the 1840s, the Ashton Canal was still rural and it passed by or through the small villages of Openshaw, Clayton, Bradford, Beswick and Holt Town before entering Ancoats on the east side of Manchester but all this was soon to change.
As the 1840s progressed, Manchester expanded, little by little, eastwards but towards the end of that decade and into the 1850s that expansion became a torrent as mills and associated engineering factories were constructed. Mills and factories needed workers and consequently there was a huge influx of people from the surrounding rural areas, particularly from Cheshire, and from as far away as Wales and Ireland. This eventually resulted in every village lying on the east side of Manchester losing its independence to become a part of Manchester.
The construction of mills, factories and houses needed bricks and mortar on a large scale and they were needed quickly but just exactly where and how was it done? No visible signs were left on the ground for anyone to see today. There were a few deep clay pits to be subsequently used as landfill sites but no derelict lime or brick kilns or any other physical remains for that matter to give even the smallest of clues. Quite simply, there was nothing to remind us of the immense human activity that happened comparatively recently in historical terms.
Possibly a hint of this activity had survived in Street names and a search was needed for streets containing names such as:
An examination of a modern Manchester A to Z Street Atlas produced a plethora of Streets using some of these names and, as anticipated, the most common one was 'lime' or a name containing 'lime'. In any event, this word probably referred to the tree of the same name rather than the lime industry.
Nevertheless, on the east side of Manchester two interesting names were found in close proximity to each other on the Ardwick/Ancoats border. One was called Limekiln Lane and the other was called Lime Bank Street. This was not very much to go on and, in the absence of Ordnance Maps in the Local Studies Unit of Manchester Central Library dating from the 1850s and 60s, this particular line of investigation had to be suspended as time was pressing. But at least, a clue had been found.
Having an adequate supply of clay, with which to manufacture bricks, was the next compelling area for research. This was commenced in the knowledge that Manchester and the surrounding area is one vast bed of clay and that clay pits were not specially needed. All that was required was to remove the thin overburden of soil to reveal the clay ready for the taking. It was only necessary to remove a few feet of clay from a very large area and the land could still be used to build on. Studies showed that these areas were known as 'brickfields' and not as 'clayfields' as might be expected. There were very few clay pits to fill and the process of clay removal could also be used to level the land in preparation for building. So this flimsy evidence showed that a search for brickfields was needed with the presence of brick kilns to fire bricks and lime kilns to burn lime for mortar. A final requirement was the presence of suitable pits where the freshly burnt lime could be slaked in readiness for mortar production.
Burnt lime was transferred from kilns to these pits where it was slaked with an excess of water to form lime putty. This was mixed with sand (or crushed cinders from the many mill boilers in Manchester) in the correct proportions (1 part lime putty : 3 parts sand or crushed cinders) and then more water was added. The whole was then mixed well together following which it was allowed to stand for at least 24 hours before use. The use of pits for this purpose was advantageous as it was possible to make lime mortar in relatively large quantities because of its long setting time. At the end of the standing time the mortar would be shovelled out and taken to the nearby building site for use. This process was then repeated as often as needed.
Another important requirement was coal to fire the brick and lime kilns. When burning limestone at Bugsworth, a supply of low-grade sulphurous coal was all that was available and this was found to be adequate but here, in the Lancashire coalfield, it was high-grade, low sulphur coal. When coal was not far below the surface, the fact that it was too good for the job probably did not matter very much. Open-cast coal mining was very much a process for the future but there were already innumerable shallow pits in east Manchester. Until recently it was thought that these were probably based on the bell-pit system, which needed little equipment and no drainage or ventilation. However, new research is showing that bell pits, as such, were probably a myth and that early pits did have shallow shafts from which headings were driven to gain access to the seams. Additionally, drift mines were probably used as well where coal was extracted by simply following seams from the surface. With the passage of time these shallow workings became exhausted and it became necessary to sink much deeper shafts in order to reach seams well below the surface.
Three such pits in east Manchester were situated at Bradford, Clayton and at nearby Moston. Of these, Bradford Colliery was by far the most important and as Clayton Colliery was only a short distance away it was eventually worked from Bradford. Moston Colliery was reputed to be older than Bradford Colliery but apparently it was never operated on the same scale as at Bradford. This closed down in the late 1940s whereas Bradford Colliery remained open until 1968 leaving enormous reserves of coal behind. It finally closed because of the subsidence it would have caused had the expansion plans for it been implemented.
In the reign of James I (1603 - 1625), the Manor of Bradford had an annual output of some 10,000 tons and it was probably supplying the entire needs of Manchester. With the expansion of the town, the Manor was no longer able to meet the demand and coal had to be imported from pits as far away as Worsley and Clifton.
In the early days, even though the coal was mined at shallow depths, the capital required was beyond the means of all but the wealthy and it was recorded during Tudor days that several hundred pounds had to be invested in a colliery at Bradford manor, where one of the pits was sixty-seven feet deep.
A document, dated 21st October 1740, shows that Sir Oswald Mosley leased to John Seddon, of Manchester,
'----- the mine and mines, vein and veins, seam and beds of coal kannel to be found in the land around Bradford --- -.'
In return, Seddon agreed to pay Sir Oswald Mosley the sum of £50 per annum for such coal as was raised by ten 'gotters'. Shallow workings were probably operated at Bradford until the 19th century and it is certain that coal was wound in shafts from 1845 onwards.
By degrees, the clues were beginning to fall into place. There was an abundance of clay on site. Limestone was available from Derbyshire by way of the Peak Forest Tramway and Canal and then the Ashton Canal. Coal was available from Bradford and Clayton Collieries and finally a Limekiln Lane and a Lime Bank Street had been found on the Ardwick/Ancoats boundary. The only detail missing was a map (or maps), which factually showed it all. The evidence was clearly pointing towards Ardwick as the centre of activity with brickfields perhaps occurring in the nearby villages of Holt Town, Beswick and Bradford as well. At this juncture the matter rested until one day, when maps were not actively being sought, they were discovered quite by chance. The answer lay in a series of Ordnance Survey Maps dating from 1848.
The theory was correct, Ardwick was, indeed, the centre of activity and it was on a grand scale. The whole area to the east of Manchester was still surprisingly rural. There was a complex of mills and factories at Holt Town and at Miles Platting to the north with strip building along Ashton Old Road through Ardwick. However, a close scrutiny of the map showed that all this was about to change.
There were brickfields throughout Ardwick with others at Holt Town and Beswick but Bradford was still awaiting their arrival. Dispersed among these fields were brick kilns, lime kilns, lime works and limestone pits. Tramroads connected some of the works and kilns together and the newly constructed line of the Manchester & Sheffield Railway Company had a coal and stone yard at its sidings by Ardwick Junction. The Bradford private branch canal had been built, from between locks 6 and 7, to connect Bradford Colliery with the Ashton Canal and similarly, the Clayton private branch had been built from between locks 7 and 8, to connect Clayton Colliery with the canal. Interestingly, by 1888 there was no mention of the latter pit in the Canal Distance Tables, which indicates that the shafts were no longer in use by that time.
It is likely that these brickfields were initially developed to manufacture bricks for us within the city boundaries but on completion of this infilling there was every incentive to expand the city eastwards.
The map of east Manchester in 1848 is a much simplified composite of two maps and it is important to recognize that as events were moving rapidly it is simply a 'snapshot'. Twelve months or so later another map would have depicted an altogether different scene as factories and row upon row of the once familiar terraced houses rose from the ground.
The approximate limit of development of Manchester can be seen on the left of the map and the straight road across it is Ashton Old Road. This road was the original one connecting Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne. This was supplemented in 1825 by Ashton New Road, which was originally built as a turnpike. This provided a second direct road link to Ashton-under-Lyne with an added advantage that it passed through Openshaw and Droylsden. Openshaw, of which Clayton seemed to be part, was finally subsumed by Manchester in 1890 when the city's boundaries were extended.
The Ashton Canal and the newly opened line of the Manchester & Sheffield Railway Company were the focal points for industrial development as they were the most effective means of bulk transport for importing raw materials. Later maps show how industry located itself alongside the canal and railway.
However, transport was by no means the only criteria to be taken into consideration by factory owners. Other important ones were the suitability of ground for building on and the cost of overheads such as rates payable to local authorities. Conditions to the east of Manchester were ideal for the powerful industrial entrepreneurs of the day. The ground was level and it could provide stable foundations for large factories. The land lay outside the city boundaries where the overheads were lower and yet it was close enough to the city to attract an initial workforce of skilled people.
It will be noticed from the map that the centre of building activity lay on either side of Ashton New Road close to the Parish Church of St Silas, which was part of the Diocese of Manchester Collegiate Church (Manchester Cathedral). The siting of this church was not without good reason. It was built by the 'Ten Churches Association' (who only built five churches before its money ran out) and it had been consecrated six years earlier in 1842 as a 'Chapel of Ease' to take some of the workload away from the Collegiate Church and to provide for the spiritual needs of the people in what was soon to become one of the most densely populated suburbs of Manchester. The issue was put most succinctly by one of the sponsors of the association.
'---- Manchester contains no locality where a church is more needed. There are upwards of 1,200 dwellings with a population of 7,000 persons all of the poorer classes, without a single place of worship of any description and having but one solitary school. Beer Houses and Public Houses abound, but no public indication tells that God is acknowledged there ----.'
In other words this shrewd observer, who was appealing for more money to be made available, was insisting that it was necessary to build churches in anticipation of the imminent arrival of the population
To the north of St Silas, a tramroad connects four batteries of lime kilns and a lime pit together and at its southern end there is a battery of brick kilns. These features are all associated with a cluster of brickfields to the north of Ashton Old Road. One can only speculate as to whether or not this tramroad was of similar construction to the Peak Forest Tramway, which used L-section rails. By the late 1840s it is more likely that edge rails of the 'Jubilee' type were used but it is a question that is unlikely to be ever answered. The cluster of brickfields adjacent to St Silas had its own battery of brick kilns and is in close proximity to the coal and stone yards of the new railway.
To the north, two brickfields lie on either side of the Ashton Canal and a battery of brick kilns is conveniently placed close by. The isolated section of tramroad has the appearance of representing the physical remains of a once much longer tramroad. When this was operational, it probably serviced shallow coal pits lying further north.
The bulk of the coal required by all these kilns would undoubtedly have been provided by Bradford and Clayton Collieries. Either the shallow coal pits would have closed down by that time or their output would be insufficient to meet demand.
The area lying to the south of the Parish Church of St Barnabas boasted two clay pits, a fire-brick works and a pottery. Both factories probably produced similar merchandise, namely fire bricks to line kilns and chimney pots for new houses. Refractory clays were often found in association with coal seams and doubtless these businesses remained open after the factories and houses had been built. Their new function would then most probably have been the production of fire bricks for the many houses that were in use in engineering factories.
It was initially considered that limestone would have been discharged from boats directly into carts at a convenient point somewhere on the Ashton Canal and from there it would have been carried along unmade roads to lime kilns or at least to the northern terminus of the tramroad. Another, more plausible, explanation is that the limestone was taken directly by boat to the extensive Ducie Street Basin at Piccadilly, Manchester, where it was discharged into carts to be taken through the streets. The route taken would have been along London Road, Birmingham Street (by the side of London Road and no longer extant), onto Fair Field Street and then along Ashton Old Road to, say, the southern terminus of the tramroad.
While researching for possible routes for the delivery of limestone it was tempting to consider that the tramroad was once connected directly with Ducie Street Basin. However, this would have required bridges across the river Medlock and Shooters Brook. It was noted though, that the Medlock valley provided classic conditions for the siting of lime kilns of the continuous draw type, which required high ground at the back to facilitate charging with limestone and coal and low ground at the front for removal of burnt lime and lime waste.
Once the development of east Manchester was complete, it is virtually certain that the batteries of kilns would have rapidly fallen into disuse and would have been demolished to free the land for other purposes. Somehow or other, a few kilns survived for a while albeit in a different form. The brick kilns to the north of Gleden Hall in Holt Town became two brick works, which were still extant in 1893. One was adjacent to the famous Bradford Road Gas Works and the other was just to the north by the emergence of Shooters Brook. Another survivor was on the site of the lime kilns and limestone pit immediately to the north of St Silas. It was still extant in 1922, marked on the map as 'disused brick kilns'.
Today, no trace of any of this activity is to be seen and most of the terraced houses were demolished from the mid-1960s onwards (now dubbed the 'Sacrilegious Sixties') regardless of their condition or suitability for modernization. This was done to make way for new houses and this work was so thorough that even the once familiar layout of the streets was destroyed. Anything that happened to be left lingered on for a while to be eventually demolished to create a large urban wasteland. This land has now been regenerated and put to good use for the construction of the stadium for the Commonwealth Games and subsequently the new home for Manchester City Football Club. During preparation work for the stadium, evidence of the former streets and the remains of several ancient shallow coal pits was uncovered for the last time.
The once independent rural villages to the east of Manchester are now barely in anyone's memory. Holt Town still gets a mention on maps but Bradford has been overwhelmed by neighbouring Beswick. Nowadays Bradford seems only to exists in the name of a public house stood on a road of the same name, even though it does send two Councillors to Manchester Town Hall. The once mighty Bradford Colliery, at the centre of the village, is now reduced to a file about 3 inches thick, which was deposited at the doomed Lancashire Mining Museum at Buile Hill Park, Salford.
As for Limekiln Lane and Lime Bank Street, the two names that started the investigation? Well, Limekiln Lane is off Pin Mill Brow on the right-hand side when facing towards Great Ancoats Street and Lime Bank Street is just around the corner at the beginning of Ashton Old Road.
