View from Hague Road
to Broad Mills c1908 (Gould Family)
Broadbottom Community
Association
History
Project
1900
-1914
Some new houses were built in the village in this
period: the terraces at Lymefield, the row at the
top of Moss Lane, West End and Olive Terrace, and
individual houses on the main road. Only a few more
houses were built after this period until the 1970s.
While Broad Mills was still a major
employer, and workers also went across the
valley to Kinder Lee in Charlesworth, other
mills continued to decline:
Best Hill Mill was closed by 1910 but
opened again as a munitions factory in the
1914-18 war. It was the used as a tape mill
until the 1920s when it closed for good.
Hodge Dye works had closed by 1913.
Costobadie sold it off in 1902 and after a
period when it was used by a firm making
Happy Brand soap powder it went out of use.
When the Tollemache estate was sold off in
1919 it was not bought. By the 1930s the
site was derelict.
West End mill closed as a cotton mill
around 1914
Post war there was a brief boom in cotton
production but this did not save many of the
mills in Broadbottom, some of which must
have been at the end of their useful life.
Finding work could be hard.
The railway was a key mode of
transport. Motorised transport was
very limited, but a bus ran for some
time from the station to Mottram.
Photographs of the time show how
central horse drawn transport still
was.
Social group at the station
entrance (probably a
'sermon' or church parade)
Market Street with The
Griffin pub at the right (now Harewood Arms) -
courtesy of Bernard Lyth.
Long Lane with New
York cottages on the right
Bus from
Broadbottom station to Mottram -
(Courtesy
of Joyce Powell)
Postcard of Market St
c1900 (from Archive
photographs of
Longdendale: ed Bill Johnson
Station
Master and Staff c1900
(courtesy Joyce Powell)
Edward Chapman died in 1906. He
was the inheritor of the great
estate left by John Chapman who
had been at the heart of the
village, including the house
built by his grandfather, George
Sidebottom at Hill End. The
photograph opposite of Edward's
funeral shows his status in the
village. It was the beginning of
the end of an era. Such grand
funerals declined as the new
century went on. Within 30
years Chapman's grand home, Hill
End House, would be empty, and
after the second world war,
derelict.
(photo courtesy of Joyce Powell)
Trail Hunt at Hill
End c1914
(from
Archive photographs
of
Longdendale: ed Bill
Johnson)
In other ways the
life of the privileged upper middle
class went on, as illustrated in the
photographs opposite and below,
which show a garden party at the
Hague, where another of the Chapman
family now lived, and a trail hunt
at Hill End.
Images of working class
families show a
relatively tough life,
but also how many could
dress up on special
occasions, notably the
Whitsuntide ‘Sermons’.
The photographs on the
right and below show
groups outside New
Street and Old Street in
the early 1900s. Eleanor
Lyne, still going strong
at the age of 100 in
2007, was born in New
Street, and the
photograph opposite
shows her in as a baby
in arms outside number
34.
Methodist 'sermon' on Bank Street, c 1910
- (Ida George)
Gathering wood
(courtesy of
Nellie Lyne)
Bankfield School
c 1912 -
(Eleanor Lyne)
Group outside
Old Street with
the road running
in front of the
houses
(Courtesy of
Bernard Lyth)
34 new
St 1909
Nellie
Lyne is
the baby
on the
left
Eleanor Lyne
('Nellie') as a
young woman
Education became
free in 1903. The
school at Bankfield
below the railway
viaduct, which had
80 infant pupils on
roll in 1903,
came to the end of
its useful life.
Conditions had
improved a little
but the site was
essentially
unsuitable.
Ruth Lomas (b1906)
remembered her education thus:
I used to hate
sewing because we
had to make very
old-fashioned
clothes in white
calico with frill
sewn with red
cotton.
We then had
to make a hole in to
learn how to make
patches.
There were just
two rooms in the
school with two
teachers.
It was a
lovely school and I
learnt such a lot.
We were
taught reading,
writing and
arithmetic. When I
was five years old I
could read anything.
We could
always spell
anything. We used
slate at first to
write on but they
were skwarking
things an all. We
sat at in two rows
on long forms and
long desks.
Nellie Lyne’s
memories of this
school in the early
1910s are also happy
and her school
photograph looks
very cheerful. But
there were
hardships. Even when
schooling was free,
ill-health and
poverty affected
children’s
education. There
were outbreaks of
illness. In 1914
children’s
attendance was
affected because
they had no clogs,
and in November,
children were sent
to the village
clogger to have
their clogs mended.
Children who had not
eaten breakfast were
given free meal
cards.
From 1913, the older
children went to
school in Mottram.
Garden party at the
Hague early 1900s
(courtesy of Joyce Powell)
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