Newton Heath Totally Explained

Everything about Newton Heath totally explained

Newton Heath is a district in the city of Manchester, England. It is on the A62 road, about three miles north-east of Manchester city centre, on the northeast boundary of East Manchester.
Newton Heath is the birthplace of Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club (est. 1878), later to become Manchester United F.C..

History

Toponymy

Newton Heath takes its name from the Old English language and means "the new town on the heath". The heath in question stretched originally from Miles Platting to Failsworth, and is bordered by brooks and rivers on all four sides - the River Medlock, Moston Brook, Newton Brook and Shooters Brook.

Events

Culcheth Hall, which stood alongside the River Medlock within Newton, was owned by the Byrons (of whom the poet Lord Byron was a family member). Other great houses once lay within the district, including Clayton Hall (owned by the Greaves family), Whitworth Hall and Hulme Hall.
   French Huguenots had settled in the area in the 16th century to avoid continental persecution, and had brought cotton and linen weaving and bleaching skills with them. The arrival of textile mills saw Newton Heath's cottage industry change forever into a fully mechanised mass production system - in 1825 Newton Silk Mill (which exists to this day) was built and the Monsall Silk Dye Works followed soon afterwards.
   The Rochdale Canal made movement of raw materials and finished products a practical reality. Later came other industries, including a soap works, a match manufacturing factory and rope works as well as engineering and glass making works. A multitude of small back-to-back low cost houses had to be constructed to house the new migrant work force. Thus was Newton changed irrevocably from a farming community into an industrialised one.
   The 18th century saw Oldham Road turnpiked and a toll bar installed at Lambs Lane - this road still forms the main artery through the district. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Rochdale Canal had been constructed and this brought industrialisation to the district, and the former farming settlement was thus hastened into the Industrial Revolution and creeping urbanisation. The 19th century saw the local population increase nearly 20 fold.
From February 10, 1883, until the slum clearances of the 1970s a Salvation Army corps existed in Thorp Road. Wilson's Brewery was situated in Newton Heath before closing in the late 1980s.

Manchester United

Newton Heath is the birthplace of Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club (est. 1878), later to become Manchester United. They began life in 1878 as a football team formed by a Mancunian who was an employee of the LYR. The team played on a local pitch near Monsall Road, known by the name of Newton Heath Football Club. By 1892 they'd been admitted to the Football League. The club remained in the area until 1902, when they moved to new premises in Bank Street and changed the club name to Manchester United Football Club. This football club wore yellow and green coloured shirt. An old nickname for the team was "the Heathens" - clearly derived from their original name, this is often cited as the origin of "The Red Devils". A player of Newton Heath, Alfred Farman, in 1891, scored the first penalty in football history during the match Newton Heath - Blackpool. However Salford rugby league club acquired the nickname in the 1930s and this was copied by Matt Busby in the wake of the Munich air disaster of February 6 1958.
Newton Heath FC's biggest success was being elected to the First Division on its expansion in 1892 and winning the Lancashire Cup in 1898 - a far cry from the success achieved by Manchester United.

Governance

There was also a "detached" area known as Kirkmanshulme which formed part of the district - Belle Vue stands on that land, which is now only remembered in Kirkmanshulme Lane which borders it. The district was incorporated into the City of Manchester in 1890.

Geography

Newton Heath lies close to the districts of Monsall, Ancoats and Belle Vue. It lies along Oldham Road which, if followed from Manchester, leads through Failsworth onto Oldham. Clayton Vale separates Newton Heath from Clayton, the district to where Manchester United FC moved before moving on to Old Trafford.

Transport

Railways arrived in Newton Heath during the 1840s and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway (the LYR) laid two main lines across the district which made a significant change to the look of the district. Engine repair sheds were opened in 1877 at the Newton Heath Traction Maintenance Depot, which grew to become a major local employer which, by the 1860s, had been expanded to a 40 acre site with over 2000 workers. Newton Heath railway station closed on 3 January 1966.
Today, Newton Heath is served by Dean Lane railway station, on the Manchester to Rochdale via Oldham line and trains are frequent. There are (confirmed) plans for this line to be converted to Metrolink operation. The station is adjacent to the Newton Heath railway depot, which maintains diesel unit trains for Northern Rail.
Apart from the railways, Newton Heath grew into a major supplier of engineering, with companies like Mather & Platt, Avro and Heenan & Froude. Blackpool Tower was manufactured in Newton Heath.

Further Information

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