Thorpe Lane

[UncleD]

just read through chemmikes post and ur right what a process that was and for them to be messing with sulphuric acid alone makes for quite a nasty thought! on the map I think uncle mick posted from 1854 it shows these as bleachground engines and in the cellar of these houses it is huge , do you think the cellars themselves would have been used for any of the process or do u reckon it was just the workers cottage with the bleaching done away from the actual house itself? ill try and get a photo of the cellar on but there is a lot of clearing out that needs doing in there first

[Tinny]

UncleD, I tried uploading the photo but it says that the file is too large. If you drop me an email at martin@jemltd.co.uk i'll email it to you. A bit of info about the photo: You can't really make out much of the cottage behind him but I can assure you that what you can see is the corner of the house with the door to the left. The date on the back of the photo is 12/6/34 and, as you can see, it as been heavily touched up by the photographer. His dog, who had a politically incorrect name beginning with 'n' , looks like it has been touched in the most. My dad could remember his dog because he was about 4 years old at the time of this photo.Tinny

[dsco]

I've deleted some messages here as it was getting rather unpleasant. Please don't be rude to each other, and don't use bad language - this is a friendly forum

[dsco]

I've had to delete another bunch of messages. If you use abusive language or threatening behaviour on this website again, your account will be banned - final warning.

[jihfadiuh]

I used to live just around the corner from here on sissons road and grew up around the area, didn't even know anything about this.
On the map it shows bleachground house on the other side of the road (which is then bleachground farm on another map) and then these two houses as bleachground engines, the site of bleachground house/farm is now houses but my question is would these houses have been part of the farm and possibly built around the same time? A photo on leodis , id number - 200245_34338015 shows bleachground farm and says in the description that the farm was owned by William Barslow in 1788 could they be from around the same time as this?
What would the building have been used for and why was it separate from the rest of the farm? This is a very interesting part of middleton history and if the two homes are part of the original farm and still standing this would be amazing and a true part of old middleton left for us to remember.

[jihfadiuh]

looking back through the post, if you google image - coal pit engine house it brings up something very similar looking to the photo posted from leodis. The leodis photo says bleachground engine chimney for middleton little coal pit. Could it be that the houses are the engine house housing the winding lift for the shaft? in the photo there is another structure, could this be the entrance to the shaft?