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Written by Steven Dowd
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Following my transcription the other day for the Kellys 1895 Directory, I follow today with my attempt at transcribing the Newton-in-Makerfield section from the Lancashire Baines Directory 1824-5
If I can find some more old book referrals to the area, I will make efforts to transcribe those, hope someone is finding this usefull |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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This is an instalment from the diary of Earlestowns Mr Harold Thorn, recalling sporting highlights of the past.
EARLESTOWN ASSOCIATION Football Club. Like the Viaduct Cricket Club, the famous Earlestown AFC must have been formed nearly a century ago.
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Written by Steven Dowd
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I posted last week about a newspaper article I read about a local Highway Robbery, here now are the details:
GENERAL POST OFFICE
Wednesday, November 12, 1800.
The post-Boy carrying the Mail on Horseback from WARRINGTON to WIGAN was stopt about Half-past Two oClock in the Morning of Sunday 9th inst.. between Winwick and RED Bank MIll, by a Man on Foot, who after a struggle with the Rider pulled him off his Horse which the Robber mounted, and rode away with the Mail, containing the following bags of letters, viz.
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Written by Steven Dowd
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Rodney Robert Porter, a British biochemist who, with Gerald M. Edelman, received the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his contribution to the exact determination of the chemical structure of an antibody.
Porter was educated at the University of Liverpool and the University of Cambridge, and he worked at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill from 1949 to 1960. | 
Rodney R. Porter
(1917 - 1985) |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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Railway share certificates, in common with other railway ephemera, have been and always will be desirable, and thus they fetch consistently high prices in relation to other similarily aged and engraved pieces ? especially shares of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (henceforth referred to as the L&M). |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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On the southern boundary of the township of Newton, a wooded valley branches off east-wards from the Wigan-Warrington road. The northern side of the valley, known locally as Red Bank, formed the boundary of old Newton Park Estate, and was marked by a high man-made bank with a hedge running along it. On the opposite side of the valley, which is about 100 yards wide, stands a natural steep-sided sandstone bank, which in-places is between twenty and thirty feet high, In the year 1648 this was also probably topped by a hedge.
The valley and surrounding fields are the site of the English Civil War "Battle of Winwick Pass"
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Written by Steven Dowd
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| I recently purchased an old newspaper from 1830, which had amongst its pages an account of a train derailment at the top of the embankment for the Sankey Viaduct, The incident happened on the night of the 23-24th Sept 1830. |  | | Since the railway only had been opened but one week previous to this date, I wonder whether this account would class as the worlds first derailment accident of a passenger locomotive. |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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I was sent this scan of a map yesterday by a visitor to the website,Its a Strip Road Map from Emanuel Bowen and John Owens Britannia Depicta.
Published between 1720 and 1764.It clearly shows Newton, though in the 1720s it seems to have been named "Newton in the Willows", the map shows Newton Hall, at the south end of the village, where it shows a small building and notes it as a hall it also shows two Mills, these are Newton mill and Red bank Mill, the text vertically down the map says "Water Mills", the road to liverpool shown at the top of the village is probably crow lane. |  |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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Before the bank holiday weekend, I managed to purchase an original 1872 copy of a text by William Beamont, Esq.
"The Fee of Makerfield, With an Account of some of its Lords, The Barons of Newton"
William Beamont I am led to believe, is the person who founded Warrington Library, This text was published some 40 yrs previous to the more well known J H Lane, 1914, History of Newton-le-Willows books. and may have been Lanes source for the material on the Fee of Makerfield. |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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Mr. Rylance is a born raconteur, as the many admirers of his angling yarns and other stories, which have appeared in "The Warrington Examiner," have long realised. These reminiscences of Newton Races, presenting telling word-pictures in minute detail of the sordid, the pathetic, and the seamy side of the racecourse, written by the master-hand of a keen observer of Nature, who is also a clean and unerring humorist, will give permanence to nineteenth century scenes that must inevitably pass before the advent of improvements and inventions that affect even the fair ground entertainer and the racecourse swindler. |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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| Archaeologists have recently been working on the site of the old Holly House Farm, crow lane, the old farm buildings were recently demolished and the site was cleared to make it ready for development by the the new landowner Wainhomes (Northwest) Ltd. |  | As Part of the process, the Archaeological team from "Oxford Archaeology North" (the name for the recently merged Lancaster University Archaeological Unit and Oxford Archaeology Unit Ltd ) have been invited on site, to evaluate the site for remains of the Wigan to Wilderspool Roman Road which runs directly through the middle of the cleared land, and also to find some details on other buildings and a Tannery which may have previously been built upon the site.
The archaeologists have now left the site, I expect Waine Homes to shortly recieve their report, and the building of new houses to soon start |
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Written by Steven Dowd
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I recently acquired an original copy of "The Penny Magazine", dated March 31 to April 30, 1833.
(Needless to say it didnt cost me just "a penny", Infact I wondered if the Inflation in its recent price, was in direct relation to the age.)
The Magazine had a seven page article with illustrations on "The Manchester and Liverpool Rail-Road". Since a great part of Newton-le-Willows and Earlestowns history is directly related to the railroad, I have scanned and transcribed the magazine for those who might be interested. |
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