When the Manchester-Saltersbrook turnpike was first built in the 1730s it ran past fields and farms and through small villages whose residents spun and wove at home, and most goods still went by packhorse. Ashton, the only town en route, had about 600 inhabitants. Within 70 years, however, Ashton was ten times the size, and Glossopdale and Longdendale had around 20 powered spinning mills shipping waggonloads of raw cotton in and finished yarn out. The original narrow, winding road was obsolete, and in 1793 the trustees obtained a new Act with greater powers and started to do something about it.
Unlike their predecessors, they didn’t just improve what was there but by-passed most of it. The cost, though, was such that it could only be done in stages, and they were still at it nearly 50 years later when changing fortunes brought them to a halt.
They started from Manchester, but by around 1800 had reached the top of Staley Hill. By 1819 Tintwistle and Crowden had been by- passed, and in 1825 work began on the biggest project in upper Longdendale, cutting into the side of the moor a new length of road between Woodhead and Saltersbrook, including a new bridge (see pic, taken from the ancient saltway).
They then widened the road through Hollingworth from 24 to 43 feet between walls, but not without difficulty as people had built houses along it, with gardens which they weren’t willing to give up, so compulsory purchase was necessary. Previous trustees had never had this problem because they usually included the landowners, but there were now many more people with property rights.
They then built a branch from Mottram to Besthill Bridge in Broadbottom, bypassing the steep climb at Gorsey Brow, before returning in 1830 to the upper valley and, after fretting about the cost, building a new line higher up the valley side at Rhodeswood. This was fraught with difficulty as they were cutting across an active landslip, which is why the old road had gone down almost to the river, and they had to pay £10 to the widow of a workman who was killed “by earth falling upon him.”
When finished, it was a modern coaching road – steady gradients, sweeping bends, and enough width for the coaches to hurtle past one another, horns blowing, or to overtake waggons crawling slowly towards Yorkshire. One thing was missing, but soon arrived. The old road had been served mainly by farms doubling as alehouses, but the scheduled coach services needed purpose-built inns where horses could be changed quickly whilst passengers and crew were fed and watered (or something stronger.) At Woodhead The Angel, a farm-cum-inn on the old road, moved to much larger premises on the new road below.
There was, though, competition. In 1818 the Snake Road was authorised, plus a turnpike from Hyde to Mottram to complete what’s now the A57 from Manchester to Sheffield. Traffic between the two cities might run over the Manchester-Saltersbrook turnpike for only two-thirds of a mile.
The coaches had to speed up, but there was an obstacle which hadn’t been tackled earlier, perhaps because the trustees thought they couldn’t afford to. If that’s what they thought, they turned out to be right….
Next – Part 11 – A Road To Ruin
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