Six Airmen killed and Eighteen Injured

Steven Dowd
Six Airmen killed and Eighteen Injured

Sunday 6th June 1952. A board of investigation will sit at the American airbase at Burtonwood, near Warrington, to-morrow to determine the cause of the crash on Saturday night between a Neptune naval patrol bomber and a Dakota aircraft in which six airmen were killed and eighteen injured. A seventh airman is missing, believed killed, and last night the wreckage of the burned-out planes was still being searched for his body. The eighteen injured are in the base hospital suffering from burns and shock and one of them is stated…

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The Last American

Steven Dowd

Once the biggest military base in Europe, Burtonwood is now a shadow of its former self. Lieutenant Colonel Bryan C. Lobdell has secured a place in the 50-year-old history of Burtonwood. This spans from the action-packed war years to today, a period marked by the absence of a clear enemy and American budget cuts that are accelerating its decline. Once, the place resonated with the landings and take-offs of great Flying Fortresses. Men worked in the hangars around the clock, seven days a week, fitting communications and armaments to the…

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Burtonwood: Historical Snippets by Year

Steven Dowd

I’ve been trying to put together a year by year snippet history of Burtonwood historical notes, it’s a work in progress, it has errors, and spelling mistakes, these will most likely get edits, names and place names will be edited and checked , I am sure it will have more year snippets added to it and many updates as more documents are read and transcribed by the people helping me 1028 King Canute in his excursion against the Scots boldly made the Norwood road and took measures of common ford…

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Burtonwood Air Crash U.S. Airmen Killed

Steven Dowd
Burtonwood Air Crash U.S. Airmen Killed

Friday 11 January 1952 Seven U.S. airmen were killed, and one seriously injured when two planes collided at the U.S. air base, Burtonwood on Saturday evening. The planes crashed on the runway, with the result that both planes were set on-fire. One plane, a Neptune. was just returning to the base after a trip to Iceland, and the other machine a Dakota was just leaving for a flight to Manston, Kent. After the crash there was a series of explosions, which was believed to have been ammunition aboard the Neptune.…

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Winwick : It’s History and Antiquities

Steven Dowd

By WILLIAM BEAMONT. Second Edition, 1878 Time, that great clock which requires no winding up, and possesses what so many dreamers have sought for and sought in vain—the secret of perpetual motion—has also, like other clocks, from time to time, but at longer intervals, its striking times which summon attention and invite us to pause and look back, promising in return something which from the past shall teach the present how to improve the future, and instruct while it amuses us. CONTENTS. Part 1. Etymology of Winwick. Part 2. Oswald,…

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Burtonwood Dahlia Queen Crowning Ceremony

Steven Dowd
Burtonwood Dahlia Queen Crowning Ceremony 1952

Friday 08 August 1952 Threatening clouds affected the crowds attending the annual Burtonwood Dahlia Queen celebration on the Chapel Lane field on Monday afternoon. Up to 2 p.m. the arrivals were very thin, but afterwards when the clouds dispersed, the crowds began to arrive though not in sufficient numbers to create a record. As usual all the fun of the fair was available, and everything went according to plan. The procession through the village was just as colourful as ever, with gay tableaux, mounted characters and decorated horses. The streets…

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Earlestown’s Brunswick Road Mission

Steven Dowd

From Mission to Church The City Mission Movement: it was discovered that the poor would listen in great number’ provided they were not asked to enter a church” (Owen Chadwick, The Victoria Church, Part Il, P .286). Our Church has its origins in the City Mission Movement of the last Century. The Town Mission in Earlestown began in 1875 as an outreach from the Manchester City Mission. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, great cities, like Manchester, mushroomed with vast working populations overnight. The whole social structure of Britain was changed…

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The Irish Club, Earlestown, ’50 Years’ Golden Jubilee 1888-1939.

Steven Dowd

We go back fifty years. From the four Provinces beyond the sea have come exiles of Erin, settling in and around the district of Newton-in-Makerfield. They are not here of their own desire. They have been forced to leave their native land to earn a livelihood. Strangers in a strange land, they are God’s creatures, with the right to live. They are the poorest of the poor in this world’s goods, but in their poverty they are richly endowed with the spirit of faith, self-sacrifice, and affection, one towards another.…

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Newton-le-Willows 1821-1851

Steven Dowd

The impact of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on: Newton-le-Willows 1821-1851 Newton le Willows is situated on the lowlands of south Lancashire, on the route to the north by way of Warrington, Wigan and Preston. From Saxon times until 1830 the village of Newton was in the east of the township, situated on an inlier of bunter sandstone overlooking a crossing place on the River Deane; this sandstone area provided a dry site and a water supply from shallow wells. The remainder of the township is a broad spread of…

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Haydock: A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4.

Steven Dowd

In history Haydock has been named as Hedoc, 1169; Heddoch, 1170; Haidoc, 1212. and then recently called Haydock This township has an area of 2,409 acres. (fn. 1) From its situation between Newton and Ashton it seems to have been cut off from the former township. Clipsley Brook separates it from Garswood in Ashton, and Sankey Brook forms the south-west boundary. The population in 1901 numbered 8,575. Haydock is varied in its natural features, sometimes undulating, sometimes flat. On the west the surroundings are unpicturesque but typical of a colliery country, scattered over…

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Haydock: some history

Steven Dowd

Haydock Historic Characterisation project from 2011 conducted by National Museums Liverpool and English Heritage Township: Haydock Geology: The solid geology is coal measures sandstone overlain by drift deposits of boulder clay.  Historic Core: According to the OS 6” 1st Edition map, the main historic core of Haydock appears to have been based at Haydock Town and Old Boston. Linear settlement development also exisits between Haydock Green and Old Boston. Haydock Green is named and depicted on Greenwood(1818) and Hennet (1830) maps. Only the township of Haydock is named on Hennet…

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A History of Burtonwood.

Steven Dowd

Burtoneswod, 1228; Bourtonewod, 1251; Burtonwode, 1297; Bortounwod, 1337. This township, of 4,192½ statute acres, (1) was long purely agricultural in character. The population has recently increased at a rapid rate, and in 1901 numbered 2,187 persons. The country is extremely flat, with much reclaimed marsh or mossland, drained by ‘cuts’ into the Sankey Brook, which, winding from north to south-east and south, forms the boundary of the township on those sides. It yields crops of wheat, clover, and hay, and some potatoes and turnips on a clay soil; but on…

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History of Burtonwood Brewery

Steven Dowd

On March 13th, 1867, James and Jane Forshaw purchased the land on which the Burtonwood Brewery now stands. James had some brewing training while employed at the Bath Springs Brewery, Ormskirk, and probably chose the site because of its position mid-way between Warrington and St Helens, and also because there was an adequate supply of suitable water readily available. The first brewery had a 14-barrel open-tired copper, two 12-barrel Fer-menting Vessels and a cellar capacity for 45 barrels. The trade was with Free Houses, farmers and private landowners, mainly in…

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The Burtonwood Chapel

Steven Dowd

The Chapel of Burtonwood was founded by Sir Thomas de Bold in 1605, when Burtonwood was part of the Parish of Warrington. It was consecrated by the Rt Rev John Lord, Bishop of Chester, on 16th December 1634 in the presence of Richard Bold and Thomas Ireland of Bewsey. During the Commonwealth, Burton-wood became a separate Parish, and it must have excited many of the Americans who came to Burtonwood in World War II to discover that an early incum-bent of the Church, the Rev. Samuel Mather, had sailed to…

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The Story of Burtonwood

Steven Dowd

In the last 25 years the name of Burtonwood has been carried by thousands of American servicemen to countries all over the world. It is the only place in the British Isles to bear this name, and is possibly more widely known than Warrington, to which it was originally a subservient manor. THE WOOD BY THE TUN Probably the original name of Bur-tonwood was simply ‘Burton’, which means the ‘tun’, or farmstead, by a ‘burh’, or fortifiedmanor. The burh could have been the borough of  Warrington. The wood, however, was…

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