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Royton branch

Beeching closures in EnglandClosed railway lines in North West EnglandRail transport in Greater ManchesterRailway lines closed in 1966Railway lines opened in 1864
Use British English from July 2017

The Royton Branch was a mile-long Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway built double track branch railway line in Greater Manchester, England, that ran from Royton Junction (renamed Royton in 1978) on the Oldham Loop Line to Royton.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Royton branch (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

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Latitude Longitude
N 53.5611 ° E -2.1102 °
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OL2 6HT , Cowlishaw
England, United Kingdom
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Royton
Royton

Royton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 21,284 in 2011. Close to the source of the River Irk, near undulating land at the foothills of the South Pennines, it is 1.7 miles (2.7 km) northwest of Oldham, 3.2 miles (5.1 km) southeast of Rochdale and 7.6 miles (12.2 km) northeast of Manchester. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, Royton and its surroundings have provided evidence of ancient British, Roman and Viking activity in the area. During the Middle Ages, Royton formed a small township centred on Royton Hall, a manor house owned by a long succession of dignitaries which included the Byrons and Radcliffes. A settlement expanded outwards from the hall which, by as late as 1780, "contained only a few straggling and mean-built cottages". Farming was the main industry of this rural area, with locals supplementing their incomes by hand-loom woollen weaving in the domestic system. Royton has the distinction of being the first town where a powered cotton mill was built; at Thorp in 1764, and is one of the first localities in the world to have adopted the factory system. The introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution facilitated a process of unplanned urbanisation in the area, and by the mid-19th century Royton had emerged as a mill town. At its zenith, there were 40 cotton mills—some of the largest in the United Kingdom—employing 80% of the local population. Imports of foreign cotton goods began the decline in Royton's textile industry during the mid-20th century, and its last mill closed in 2002. Today, fewer than a dozen mills are still standing, the majority of which are used for light engineering or as distribution centres. Despite an economic depression brought about by the demise of cotton spinning, Royton's population has continued to grow as a result of intensive housing redevelopment which has modernised its former Edwardian districts.

Coldhurst
Coldhurst

Coldhurst (or more rarely Cold Hurst) is an area of Oldham and an electoral ward of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. At the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001, it had a population of 11,935, increasing to 13,201 at the 2011 Census. The electoral ward spans most of Oldham's town centre, although the name Coldhurst conventionally applies to the area immediately north of the centre. The district of Westwood and a small adjoining part of Chadderton in the Busk area also lie within the Coldhurst ward district. Historically a part of Lancashire, Coldhurst was formerly a chapelry within the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the Salfordshire hundred.An old hall existed in the locality belonging to Abram Crompton Esq, which gave its name to Crompton Street. Coldhurst is said to have been the scene of an action in the English Civil War in which the parliamentarians were defeated.Following the Industrial Revolution, Coldhurst was the site of considerable industry and commerce, including coal mining, cotton spinning and hat manufacture.Coldhurst is the home of a significant community of South Asian (particularly Bangladeshi) heritage. 37% of the population is non-white and most of the white residents live in what have been described as "bleak council developments". In 2001, Coldhurst was in the 5% most deprived wards in the United Kingdom.A photograph of Coldhurst during the Victorian era was used as part of the "Made of Manchester" promotion of the home strip worn by Manchester United F.C. for the 2012–13 season.