The Hidden History of Manchester's Irk Valley

[Music] [Music] [Music] hello welcome back to another video my name is Martin the hidden history of Manchester's Kirk Valley while the irk being the river Oak and the valley is situated between two of the main roads that lead Manchester and head north Cheeta Mill Road on one side a Rochdale road on the other and down in the valley you've got the river oak and Collier old kind of follows it now it's the history along this valley that we're going to explore I've been here before and on the video I before but the song swore to look at so let's take a look at the map of where we are in Manchester and I'll show you the places we're going to investigate and explore okay so there's the area that we're going to be looking out on Google Maps now this area is just to the north of Manchester City Center you'll see I put cheap mill rolled in there for you on the left-hand side and you'll see the white line which is Rochdale rolled and basically we're exploring that valley there you'll see where it says coleus road and you'll see the little blue line of the river arrghh so coleus road and the river ERG are down at the bottom of the irk Valley and all those circles are the areas of interest that we're going to investigate so I know this area quite well so you'll have to forgive me it's an area that I'm very very interested in okay so this is location number one and where those cars are parked down there that's a spin lane and you'll see just there they're doing an archaeological dig now that used to be a carpark while it's all very recently but before that they used to be swarmed housing on there and they're digging up now and exporting all the foundations and all the cellars of the slum housing we'll go over an hour cut a closer look in a moment what the digging it up and the doing all the research of the minute because it's going to eventually be guess what you guessed it apartment anyway I'll show you I'll give you a bit of a closer look now I did ask the man I said when were these houses built do you think this these this slum housing built and he gave me a figure I'm surprised he could be more specific but he said to me 1820 1850 early the 19th century said basically now not sure when they were demolished but if you look on the map you can see that they're still there at about 19 1900 so what's been nearly nineteen hundreds when they got demolished or take a closer look and you can see just what poor quality we were okay so there's the area on the side-by-side Maps okay so first thing to point out is that Aspen Lane used to be called Ashley Lane right I'm looking at the right-hand map the modern-day map you'll see the green area st. Michael's flanks and you'll see just to the left of that the carpark area now look over to the left and map the then 1890 map and you'll see that that cow park area used to be little houses the were there was dwelling there now you'll know it's been a little red hour off put there that red up red arrow I think he's pointing to a courtyard okay so we'll come back to that in a moment well that's just so you can see what we're looking at and you can look at it compared with modern-day with around about 1890 okay so what the lady pointed out to me she was digging there she said look at out there she said there's a doorway there there's been bricked up for some reason but look at this walls that is literally one brick thick imagine that in winter and they pulled them down [Music] I remember that courtyard appoint you two on the map I am wondering if this large paved area here was that courtyard because it just seemed to tell him with it position wise and there you go look at that court yeah that was look cooler there probably would have been the only form of drainage or sewerage when this little courtyard and the houses were built and we look at it now and it looks quite clean in everything but there was it marks and angles angles that wrote about the condition of the working classes and they had a lot to say about these poorly built houses and these areas and this is one of the things you said about this sort of housing ill-fitting windows and doors in a state of Filth everywhere heaps of debris refuse and awful standing pools for gutters and the stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilised to live in such a district and he talks about I think the uses the word effluvia to describe the filth and the stench and the absolute horror of these places when there were like hundreds of people living in these poorly built crammed conditions no wonder they died of such diseases and just at the back of this area of this dig is a huge burial ground where the poor were buried I think was up to 40,000 poor people buried just in angel meadow Park now I'm gonna be dead honest with you about those that photomontage just showed you there I think that's probably from late 18-hundreds 1900s I don't think those photos portray the absolute filth and the horror of these basement cellars you know the talk of up to 15 to 30 people sleeping in a basement like that they slept naked sometimes because they otherwise they'd just get covered in bugs bed bugs men women children disease filth so I don't think those photos show what it was actually like the shirtless your poverty grinding poverty but I don't I don't think I think those photos only touch the the tip of the iceberg of the horror of these places [Music] anyway I'm just going to take you down here now away from the archaeological dig to a little bridge that's a grade 2 listed building just before we get there just take a look at that view there [Music] anyway come look at this bridge each failure very old so this is Union bridge a little tiny bridge just over the river work now it's great to listed and it's the most unassuming bridge that ever sort of think of in your life but it dates to about 1801 and they think that's why it's called Union bridge because 1801 it was a unit unification of Britain Island or the Irish act or something like that and the pink that's why it's called Union bridge support yeah and the reckon early nineteenth late 18th century so yes this most amazing bridge is two hundred and seventeen years old spans the river work it's just where Roger Street meets Colliers road people are still using it today walking across it all the time and notoriously difficult to film because of all the undergrowth and just wait soft tucked away you can't get to it almost put me waders on and bought balled away when I found out about this bridge and here's a picture of it in 1920 and now it looks wider there but nowadays it's more of a footpath and there's an iron sort of fence sort of chopping the the the footpath in half the bridge is still that way then it's still intact but that's why it looks wider on that picture so if you get down there to Collier's Road and you check it out go down in winter when the undergrowth has a has gone back a little bit you might be I get a good view of it could not believe the story of this bridge could not believe it was so old amazing right I've just stopped here on Collier old for a reason and what you do is you get your phone out you open your browser up you type in time picks you cake and you let it find your location now it doesn't always work there might not always be a picture but I know there's one here find your location and you can tap on where the pictures might be look what I've found [Music] [Music] so our journey now has taken us just up Colliers road and that's Vauxhall Street there is not much to look at these days just a dead-end street here it is on the 1888 map now Vauxhall Street is old it's very very old because it goes back even further than this and you'll see their date Street and Kyle street that just come off it and as we zoom in you see to the top there Sam Street that will come that will come in later but they're in just appear in is ebony xur works now what was their benissa works what became of it can we still go and see the remnants of it well maybe we can let's go and see so let's have a look and see what happened to Ebenezer works you can see it on the this side here it's all completely overgrown there was little streets there although I don't know where they fitted in because it seems to go or so whether the sort of banked adoptions to pull the streets down the Dalton all bought ahead here was the Ebenezer works so I decided to venture a little bit further in this is wild completely wild I thought thing anyone's been here for years and the walls of the perimeter sort of walls of the factory they're still here what I think there's probably all of the birds and the foxes at live here now fascinate that love to have a walk around the place for a see what if there's any remnants of anything what [Music] [Music] [Music] now it's really difficult to find out what Ebenezer works was and what it looked like I think of finally managed to get some pictures of it here they are and you can see it looks quite a huge place obviously now just a shell of what it was they see this hill behind me here that large hill that has been sort of landscape now but that is a spiral industrial spoil heap and it's all toxic underneath their parent way now we'll go to the top of the hill there's a view of Manchester from up there but if we go back to 1790 and we go up to the top of the hill here 1792 about 1850 we'd be going to Robert tinker's gardens or later the Vauxhall gardens where we can promenade on the lawn we can dance and apparently we can take tea if you'll allow me and if you'd lead the way now this Hill is known locally or is known as the improbable Hill and like I say it's a spoil Hill and it's a it's toxic waste from the Industrial Revolution so we're talking about the Vauxhall gardens now and we're talking late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundreds so I would imagine at the time and then it wouldn't have been this hill like I say it would have been probably a gently sloping valley down to the river so when we got up here honest house showing you where the gardens were I can't imagine they were on top of this actual precise Hill the landscape would have probably been slightly different these are the things that keep me awake at night thinking about the improbable hill so the Vauxhall gardens well it's amazing about late seventeen hundreds early very early eighteen hundreds this is described as a rural ideal sort of like lots of little Dells and cloths that are all wild and untamed and over here you've got Moss Brook what was the most and broken and down there down the valley you've got the river urk and it used to be quite lovely and this is where the Vauxhall gardens were here and and like I say it was all by Robert tinker and then it changed its names at some point to the Vauxhall gardens there was a fish pond there they kept you could come and see rabbits and guinea pigs and I think it was all very middle-class and a bit genteel because it said it said that people used to ride it on horseback from Austin and hang coats and for a small fee that was very good grazing here and and they could raise the horses here this sort of like sculpture thingy I think is just some sort like something to do with regeneration because this is toxic wasteland here it's to do with regeneration or something like that but yeah fish pond and it was all very middle class and very genteel and so what happened to the place a bit like Pomona this story isn't it when you think of it sort of genteel Gardens well basically just like Pomona creeping industrialization and and the there was the dye works down there the river urk and the river of Cadets that became very polluted industry started moving around there just down the road you've got angel meadow which became he'll hold squalor and deprivation and it was no longer really attractive and I think the owner Robert sink eventually died and now the soil under heir apparent will not not now because it's toxic soil bought back then the soil was red sand apparently and the bulk stated that they could grow wonderful plants and it was very good for cucumbers because they grew a cucumber and the cucumber was what was it seven four eight inches long and they sent a sample of the plant that it grew from so the Prince Regent came to have a look at but anyway this great soil that grew these wonderful cucumbers and plants was also very good in the in iron manufacturing I think they used it for the molds for iron and invents that I could say creeping industrialization over here they became a sand sort of like quarry and started selling the sand like mad so now your Vauxhall gardens has got sand quarry a where the selling sand for for iron manufacture you've got the river work down there which is now completely polluted and you've got one of the biggest sort of like slums in Manchester that way and there you go and that was the demise of Vauxhall gardens not the explosion that sawed off Pomona but poor old Vauxhall gardens a and there is 18-49 map that map is incredibly old 1849 and I told you that Vauxhall Street was older than that because there is still there 1849 you've got coleus rolled there as well and in the middle there you've got Vauxhall gardens complete with this little fish pond but look at what's happening top left hand side you've got the dye works by the river work and it was that creeping industry that started - well caused the demise of Vauxhall gardens at the top there you'll see red sand Delft and that was the very red Sun that basically was good for the iron industry people flogged it off and it was soft cause the demise really the industry and people flogging off the sand that caused the demise of Vauxhall gardens but that red Sanders we know very good for growing cucumbers who'da thought that the genteel classes that used to come to work the Vauxhall gardens would see it like this one day I'm not showing you the best part at Manchester bought I'm showing you the real part but yeah I think these are due for demolition soon now this is Sam Street looking at now I'm here a bit different than it was back in the day and the you Spiteri streets here behind me where these mazing that's already falling down but the Sun Street basically and over there is that Hill that is the toxic sort of dump Hill now again time picks to put this location in on time pic so you come to this location tam Peaks will find you the pictures look at the sort of wasteland there I'm going to show you a picture now [Music] now just a stone's throw away from Vauxhall gardens and our toxic improbable Hill and I mean literally a few paces north of coleus Road these coleus sandstone quarry and you'll see up top left there you'll see Smither lane and coleus road splits and that's splitting the road he's still there to this very day but like say over on the right there collie oh sandstone quarry now there was quarried the red sandstone that built some of Manchester's oldest buildings the quarry is long since gone but let's go and take a look in the area [Music] [Music] ah God has to be the hottest day of the year I'm telling you so this is fixed George Street or wasp it's George Street and I've done a video here before it was called the Manchester off the beaten track and the only thing that would tell you that it was a former Street with terraced houses on is the cobbles I'm walking on but just over to my right I think other remains of something and I think it's the remains of Colliers quarry this area was once a quarry where the chord the red sandstone and the red stands sandstone is 2.8 million years old now well this is the remains of some sort of building or works I'm not sure some kind of mound here of rocks or former building or something he's completely overgrown but that rock there has got more of that red sort of you to it that you see Cheatham school and but even when I look at the old map the 1890 map the quarry isn't on that so it must have been a long long time ago probably maybe 1700 a now the stone they got from coleus quarry built some of the earliest buildings in Manchester if you go in the Cathedral some of the red sandstone can be seen in their sentence church Cheatham school and of course the roman fort down the castle field was built using the stone here it was a case of proximity they had to use the local stone well guess what he didn't really stand the test of time it was quite flaky and he certainly didn't stand up against the acid rain that was a result of all the industry that eventually came into Manchester [Music] out bloody ow ow ow I've just rolled back into Nettles I've just come through this way here but I've just made it through more undergrowth now and through there and this is what I'm trying to show you this is incredible but better view where so alas they stumbled upon an incredible place that is the Moss Brook and it comes out of a tunnel there and I'm stood on the edge of a kind of ravine it's unbelievably tucked away and I didn't even know it was here but all this brickwork you can see in the ravine and he's actually the remains of a former mill now the mill was called bridge mill an incredible place this place hasn't been touched for years let me show you some pictures of it and show you a map of what we're looking at now so that's the area we've been exploring top of the map there is where the quarry was Colliers quarry but coming into view now is Bridge mill now that is built on top of that ravine this is a picture of the mill from the main road the main Rochdale Road and at the back of that building it drops down into the ravine it wants to use the Moss Brook for water there's what I think is a back view of the mill and the huge chimney that starts below street level [Music] so these images you see now from another video or that I did I actually went down there and I did a full explore of the area and what place it was it was quite incredible so if you want to see this video that you're looking at now I'll put the full nail up when it's obviously it's on my channel but you can see all the remains of the mill and you can see a tunnel that we explored as well it's this video here [Music] well finally back to our 18-49 map annuda thought just outside the city centre there was a place called little Horrocks and great Horrocks names of long since disappeared and as we move along here as were going along the the valley along coleus Road a place called Travis Island and a mill there just to the side of the river oak long since gone long since I think built over by the railways incredible and so much more to look at we didn't even look at Colliers Hall maybe one day we'll revisit the area but for now we'll have to leave it here because the video is just gonna go on and on so thanks for watching I'll leave you with some images take care and I'll see you in the next video [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Martin Zero

Views: 56,961

Rating: 4.9369016 out of 5

Keywords: hidden history, hidden history documentary, manchester, manchester Irk valley, Collyhurst, manchester history, angel meadow manchester, vauxhall gardens, historical adventure, urban exploring, urbex manchester, slum housing uk, marx and engels, condition of the working class in england, old photographs manchester, old maps manchester, historical documentary, martin zero

Id: po0DtFd790E

Length: 29min 3sec (1743 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 12 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/rozmister]

Really enjoyed this video, I’ve walked over the Irwell near Angel Meadows a few times but didn’t even know its name. Especially like the old pictures - I’m going I try that site the next time I’m out!

[u/Lumb3rH4ck]

Wonder if someone will do one on Roch valley too!