Step back in time |
Rochdale Observer 1st March 2003 |
By Michael Byrne |
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PLAYTIME... are you on this picture or do you know anyone who is? |
INTERESTING archives ... Terry Mitchell shows some of the society's photographs. |
WARDLE residents can look forward to the past. thanks to a new series of features in theObserver. Wardle History Society has a vast archive of pictures and documents which we plan to share with our readers in the coming weeks. Among the items is a collection of aerial photographs, which show how the village has changed over the years. Some. of the photographs will bring back the memories of carnival parades and forgotten trades and tradesmen, such as wheelwrights and fellmonger, a local variant of a sheep shearer. |
There are pictures of mill workers and children at play in the streets. Readers may even recognise some the people in them. Using computer technology, the Society has also archived some of the documents it holds, including an indenture for land around Benthead and Alderbank, which dates back to 1703. Terry Mitchell, the chairman, said the Society had looked into the history of that land and the manor survey of 1620 shows it once belonged to the Knights of Jerusalem, who pro- tected pilgrims to the Holy City during the Crusades. |
They were the fore runners of the St John Ambulance Brigade. Other items include a commemorative plaque made by the family of John Vernon Handley, of Smallbridge, who died in the First World War. Letters They also have letters written by Wardle people, including one from a young soldier, who later perished on The Somme in 1916. |
He was in training at Dunstable and wrote to his parents in November 1915 that the Bedfordshire town was a quiet place like Wardle, 'full of old spinsters and retired vicars'. Mr Mitchell said the Society was always looking for more material and was particularly interested in photographs and historical items from the Smallbridge area. |
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