Shaw and Crompton

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Shaw and Crompton
A view of Shaw and Crompton from Clough.
Shaw and Crompton shown within Greater Manchester
Area	4.5 sq mi (11.7 km²)
Population	21,721 (2001 Census)
- Density	4,692/sq mi (1,812/km²)
OS grid reference	SD938090
- London	166 mi (267 km) SSE
Metropolitan borough	Oldham
Metropolitan county	Greater Manchester
Region	North West
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	OLDHAM
Postcode district	OL2
Dialling code	01706
Police	Greater Manchester
Fire	Greater Manchester
Ambulance	North West
European Parliament	North West England
UK Parliament	Oldham East and Saddleworth
List of places: UK • England • Greater Manchester

Coordinates: 53°34′40″N 2°05′34″W / 53.57777, -2.092894

Shaw and Crompton is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England.^[1] It lies on the River Beal at the foothills of the Pennines, 8.7 miles (14.0 km) to the northeast of the city of Manchester, 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north of Oldham, and 3.6 miles (5.8 km) southeast of Rochdale. It is regularly referred to as Shaw.

Historically a part of Lancashire, Crompton (as it was originally known) experienced rapid socioeconomic development and urbanisation following the Industrial Revolution. It rose to prominence during the late 19th century as a mill town centred on cotton spinning and textile manufacturing. Forty eight separate cotton mills have been recorded as existing in the area. As a result of an interwar economic boom associated with the textile industry, according to the national press Shaw and Crompton had more millionaires per capita at its zenith than any other town in the world.

Today, Shaw and Crompton, which covers 4.5 square miles (11.7 km²), is a predominantly residential area of mixed affluence with a population of 21,721. Its double name has been said to make it "distinctive, if not unique". The legacy of its industrial past can be seen in its six surviving cotton mills, all of which are home to large distribution companies, among them Littlewoods Shop Direct Group's Shaw National Distribution Centre, which is a major employer in the area.

[edit] History

[edit] Toponymy

The name Shaw is Anglo-Saxon in origin, coming from the word sceaga, meaning "wood". The name Crompton is also of Anglo-Saxon derivation, from the words crom/crumb, meaning "crooked", and ton, for "hamlet or village".^[2] A local historian stated that "this name aptly describes the appearance of the place, with its uneven surface, its numerous mounds and hills, as though it had been crumpled up to form these ridges."^[3] The University of Nottingham's Institute for Name-Studies has offered the suggestion that the name Crompton means "River-bend settlement" however;^[4] Crompton lies on a meander of the River Beal.

The dual name of both Shaw and Crompton has been said to make the town "distinctive, if not unique",^[5] whilst preference of Shaw over Crompton and vice versa had been (and to a limited extent remains) a minor local controversy and point of confusion for generations.^[5][6] Today, the single name of Shaw seems to have won preference in the locality, due to several reasons.^[6]

Shaw was originally a hamlet and sub-district of Crompton,^[7] and appears to have its origins as the commercial and ecclesiastic centre of Crompton because of the siting of a small chapel there dating back to around the 16th century.^[8] Prior to that time, Whitfield had been the largest village in Crompton.^[8] In 1835, Shaw was noted as a chapelry within the township of Crompton,^[9] and in 1872 as one of three villages.^[10] The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica describes Shaw as a populous village within the Crompton district.^[11] However due to the urbanisation of Shaw facilitated by the construction of a major road from Werneth to Littleborough, and the establishment of a post office sub-district named and situated in Shaw,^[12] the two areas and names merged to form the present day "Shaw and Crompton", a name which boundary markers have used since as early as the 1950s.^[5]

[edit] Early history

A map of Shaw and Crompton from 1851. Although this map demonstrates how rural the area was at this time, there is evidence of cotton mills and heavy industry. Many features, such as place names and roads exist to this day.

Evidence of the first human activity in the area comes from Iron Age artefacts discovered on Crompton Moor by local archaeologists.^[13] The artefacts are said to be from an encampment used by primitive man.^[13] A Roman road is believed to have been built through the area leading from the Roman fort Rigodunum in neighbouring Saddleworth. The straight path of an ancient track, conjecturalised as Ancient Roman, crosses the modern Buckstones Road on the way to Grains Bar.^[13]

In 616 Æthelfrith of Bernicia, an Anglo-Saxon King, crossed the Pennines with an army and passed through Manchester to defeat the Brythons in the Battle of Chester.^[13] A wave of Anglian colonists followed this military conquest and their settlements are identified by the "ton" Old English suffix to local place names.^[13] Royton, Middleton, Moston, Clayton, Ashton and Crompton are a number of settlements northeast of Manchester suggested to have been founded as part of this colonialisation.^[13] It is therefore thought that Crompton as a settlement dates from the 7th century.^[13]

In 1076, following the Norman Conquest, the area was given to Roger the Poitevin, the maternal nephew to William the Conqueror.^[14] The Knights Hospitaller and the Abbeys of Whalley and Cockersand had small estates in the township, at Whitfield, Gartside, and Crompton Park respectively.^[15] The first recorded use of the name Crompton for the township was discovered in legal documents relating to Cockersand Abbey near Lancaster, dating from the early 13th century, when Gilbert de Notton was granted the estate from descendants of the Norman conquerors.^[13][14] Some decades later, the de la Legh family—again of Norman descent—acquired the land.

Until the Industrial Revolution, Crompton was a township made up of scattered woods, farmsteads, moorland, and swamp with a small community of families.^[8] The area was thinly populated and consisted of several hamlets, including Whitfield, High Crompton, Cowlishaw, Birshaw and Bovebeale (above Beal).^[16] These hamlets were situated above the water logged valley bottoms and below the exposed high moors.^[16] Family names appearing in the earliest documents pertaining to the township include Milne, Wylde, Buckley, Clegg, Tetlow and Crompton.^[13] During much of the Middle Ages the Buckley and Crompton families were recorded as the largest landowners in Crompton, owning land and manor houses at Whitfield and Crompton Fold respectively.^[13]

Because of the poor soils and rugged terrain, Samuel Lewis said Crompton's inhabitants were "a race of hardy and laborious men".^[10] They have also been described as having a reputation for being a "hardy, frugal and somewhat independent breed".^[6] There had been a chapel-of-ease at Shaw since at least the early 1500s, but, due to ecclesiastical arrangements for the parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, the inhabitants were obliged to contribute money towards Oldham Parish Church, which in turn had obligation to the mother Church of St Mary the Virgin at Prestwich.^[6] On several occasions during the 15th and 16th centuries, the Archdeacon of Chester had to intervene because Crompton's inhabitants refused to contribute towards holy bread and candles used at Prestwich.^[6] In 1826, a poll was taken regarding the re-building of Oldham Church. Not one person in Crompton voted in favour of the rebuilding and when a rate was levied to raise money for the new church at Oldham, the people of Crompton refused to pay.^[6]

The manufacture of wool in Crompton can be traced back as far as 1474, and to ensure that trade was kept buoyant, a law existed from 1675 to 1814 to encourage Shaw and Crompton's wool production. It required that everyone was to be buried in woollen garments.^[17] However, as technologies developed and demand increased, the manufacture of cotton in Crompton became more important than wool, and by 1792 the woollen industry had died out, replaced by cotton milling.^[18]

[edit] Crompton family

Crompton first appears as a family name in the 13th century, when the principal landowner, Hugh de la Legh, decided to change his family name to "de Crompton" (of Crompton), the place which he and his family both owned and lived in. The Crompton family has a well-documented history and can be traced back to the time of Magna Carta, appearing in the Assize Roll for 1245.^[13] The family was a prosperous landowner in the area and collectively had private ownership of a significant part of Shaw and Crompton's land from its medieval acquisition, right through to the early 20th century.^[13] The family owned a large manor by the name of Crompton Hall, on the site of Crompton Fold (more commonly known now as Buckstones). Crompton Hall first appears in historical records as early as 1442, owned by Thomas de Crompton and his family.^[14][13]

The original "medieval" Crompton Hall was demolished around 1848.^[14][13] A second Crompton Hall, set in its own prominent forested grounds, was erected by the family—by then an influential and affluent investor in the local cotton industry—but following the death of the last remaining family members, the site was sold and, in around 1951, the manor was demolished to make way for an exclusive development of bungalows.^[14][13] Some of the original forested grounds of Crompton Hall remain in the Buckstones area today, as a small but popular wood. The legacy of the Cromptons is apparent in the area and Crompton House Church of England High School still bears the family name.

[edit] Industrial Revolution and cotton

Shaw and Crompton owes much of its history to the Industrial Revolution, in particular to 19th century cotton spinning, which brought rapid expansion, prosperity, and economic growth. The boom began in Shaw and Crompton in the 1870s, when suitable land in nearby Oldham (then the largest and most productive mill town in the world)^[19] was becoming scarce.^[20] By 1913, Shaw and Crompton had one sixth of the spindles of the wider Oldham Parliamentary Borough and Shaw and Crompton's townscape became dominated by distinctive rectangular brick-built mills.^[21] In the post-war boom of 1919–20, investors did not have the time to build new mills and so were prepared to pay vastly inflated sums for shares in existing companies. Many mills were refloated at valuations of up to £500,000, or five times what they had cost to build before the war,^[8] resulting in the town being nicknamed "The Golden City" as the scramble for shares intensified.^[8] Because of this highly profitable share dealing, it was reported in the national press that Shaw and Crompton had more millionaires per capita than any other town in the world.^{[2][22][dead link][23][20]}

Shaw and Crompton's damp climate provided the ideal conditions for cotton spinning to be carried out without the cotton drying and breaking, and newly developed 19th century mechanisation optimised cotton spinning for mass production for the global market. Together with Oldham, at its peak the area was responsible for 13% of the world's cotton production.^[24]

The global demand for cotton goods led to a local expansion in both industry and population. In 1801, Shaw and Crompton had a population of 3,482, but by 1911 that had increased to 14,750. The number of cotton mills in the township peaked at 36 in 1920.^[23] However, events following World War II, combined with competition from abroad and the Great Slump of the 1930s, led to a severe depression in the British cotton industry. Production declined and eventually came to a halt; the final cotton was spun in Shaw and Crompton in 1989, in Lilac and Park mills.^[12]

[edit] Mills

Main article: List of mills in Shaw and Crompton

No less than 48 separate textile mills have graced the Shaw and Crompton skyline over the past three centuries. Today, only six of them still exist with four of those having survived for over a century; the oldest is the Duke Mill, which has remained firm on its foundation stone since 1883. Below is a table outlining all the documented mills built in Shaw and Crompton since the mid-18th century.^[19]

Dawn Mill, (built 1901), was typical of Shaw and Crompton's red brick cotton mills. The structure was demolished in late 2006.

Dee Mill was designed by Philip Sydney Stott, and built in 1907. Demolished in 1984, the Shaw National Distribution Centre now occupies its site.

Two cottage mills, named Holebottom and Millcroft, are also known to have existed.^[12] Little is known about them except that Holebottom was built in the mid-17th century and was not demolished until around 300 years later.

[edit] Governance

This emblem, introduced in 1987, is found at the parish border markers of Shaw and Crompton, as well as on some street furniture.

Crompton was recorded in 1212 as being one of the five parts of the thegnage estate of Kaskenmoor, which was held on behalf of King John by Roger de Montbegon and William de Nevill.^[15] The other parts of this estate were Glodwick, Sholver, Oldham, and Werneth, names and places still familiar today.^[13] The Shaw and Crompton area later formed a township within the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the hundred of Salford.^[15] Throughout the Middle Ages, local men acted as jurors and constables for the purposes of upholding law and order in the township.^[13] Following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, Crompton formed part of the Oldham poor law Union.^[1] In 1873 Crompton Local Board of Health was formed to ensure high or higher standards of sanitation in the township.^[1] From 1894 to 1974, Shaw and Crompton formed its own local government district, Crompton Urban District, and lay within the administrative county of Lancashire.^[25] The urban district council was based at Crompton Town Hall, which opened on 28 December 1894.^[26]

Under the Local Government Act 1972, the town's Urban District status was abolished, and Shaw and Crompton has, since 1 April 1974, formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, within Greater Manchester.^[1][27] Since 1987, Shaw and Crompton has had civil parish status, and its own parish council, giving it some limited local government autonomy from that of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, and including the status as a statutory consultee on local planning applications.^[28] The council comprises 14 locally elected members, including three who also act as councillors to the wider Oldham local authority. The parish council is consulted in planning applications that affect the area.^[18] Shaw and Crompton Community Council, a separate body, meets at least four times per year and is designed to allow local people to put forward their priorities for the area in which they live, suggest improvements and have their say on how services are run on a local basis.^[29] Shaw and Crompton does not have a mayor, but does have a town crier,^[30] a purely ceremonial role. Shaw and Crompton is one of only a few parishes of England that still observes the ancient custom of Beating the bounds.^[13] Originally an annual event, it now takes place every seven years.^[13]

From 1832 until 1950, the town lay within the parliamentary constituency of Oldham,^[11] which was represented in the House of Commons by Winston Churchill between 1900 and 1906.^[31] Churchill once stayed at Crompton Hall, and letters written by him describe how peaceful and tranquil he thought the area to be.^[32] From 1950 until 1983, Shaw and Crompton lay within the Heywood and Royton constituency.^[5]

Today, Shaw and Crompton forms part of the parliamentary constituency of Oldham East and Saddleworth, and is represented in the House of Commons by Phil Woolas, a member of the Labour Party.^[33]

[edit] Geography

Further information: Geography of Greater Manchester

View of Shaw and Crompton from Crompton Moor. Shaw is in the foreground with Oldham over the hill to the left, Royton is to the right with Manchester lying beyond in the distance.

At 53°34′39″N, 2°5′32″W (53.5777°, -2.0928°) Shaw and Crompton lies along the eastern edge of the ancient Lancashire border; West Yorkshire and the Pennine hills are close to the east. The larger towns of Rochdale and Oldham lie to the northwest and south respectively; Royton is 1.2 miles (1.9 km) west-southwest. There are no motorways in Shaw and Crompton, though a heavy rail line bisects the town from north to south.^[34] The town has a post office under the Oldham post town. The territory of the civil parish is given as 4.5 square miles (11.7 km²). For purposes of the Office for National Statistics, Shaw and Crompton forms part of the Greater Manchester Urban Area,^[35] with Manchester City Centre itself 8.7 miles (14.0 km) southwest of Shaw and Crompton.

Described in Samuel Lewis's A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848) as located in "a bleak situation",^[10] Shaw and Crompton is in the valley of the River Beal, which runs northward through the town towards the village of Newhey. The land to the east of the town steadily rises, reaching a height of 1,283 feet (391 m) at the summit of Crompton Moor. To the west, the land reaches around 699 feet (213 m) at High Crompton and 825 feet (251 m) at Whitfield, and from these highpoints the surface slopes away in all directions.^[16] The River Irk rises on Shaw and Crompton's western boundary with Royton.^[15] The geology is represented by carboniferous coal measures.^[16] The soils of the town are broadly sterile,^[10] the poorest being in the upland moors.^[16] Rainfall rises steadily from the Cheshire Plain in a northeasterly direction, and reaches about 40 inches (102 cm) a year in Shaw and Crompton compared to about 33 inches (84 cm) a year at Ringway.^[16]

Shaw and Crompton's built environment follows the urban structure of most towns in England, consisting of residential dwellings centred around a High Street in the town centre, which is the local centre of commerce.^[36] There is a mixture of low-density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Shaw and Crompton, but overwhelmingly the land use in the town is residential; Industrial areas and terraced houses give way to suburbs and rural greenery as the land rises out of the town.^[37] Generally, property in the centre, west, and south of the town is older and smaller in contrast to that found in the east and north.

Shaw and Crompton contains two separate political wards, appropriately named "Shaw" and "Crompton" (to the east and west respectively),^[38] and residential suburbs, including High Crompton, Rushcroft, Buckstones, Clough, Jubilee, Shaw Side, Wrens Nest, Cowlishaw, Low Crompton, Nook, Goats, Wood End and Shore Edge.

[edit] Demography

Further information: Demography of Greater Manchester

According to census data, in 2001 Shaw and Crompton had a total resident population of 21,721,^[39] with a population density of around 4,692 people per square mile (1,811 per km²), and an average age of 39.^[40][41] Around 3% of Shaw and Crompton's population is from a black and minority ethnic background (which includes a small but long established community of Bangladeshi heritage), the rest broadly being of white background.^[18]

Of the residents in the combined electoral wards of Shaw^[40] and Crompton^[41] (which are coterminous with the town) 41.7% were married, 9.2% were cohabiting couples, and 9.7% were lone parent families. Forty percent of households were made up of individuals and 14% had someone living alone at pensionable age.

The ethnicity of the town was given as 96% white, 0.5% mixed race, 2.0% Asian, 0.3% black and 0.2% Chinese or other.

The place of birth of the town's residents was 96.8% United Kingdom (including 95.13% from England), 0.6% Republic of Ireland, 0.5% from other European Union countries, and 2.1% from elsewhere in the world. Religion was recorded as 84% Christian, 1.7% Muslim, 0.2% Hindu, 0.2% Buddhist, 0.05% Jewish and 0.02% Sikh. Some 6.8% were recorded as having no religion, 0.14% had an alternative religion, and 5.6% did not state their religion.

The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 45% in full-time employment, 12% in part-time employment, 7% self-employed, 2.4% unemployed, 2% students with jobs, 3% students without jobs, 13% retired, 4% looking after home or family, 7% permanently sick or disabled, and 2% economically inactive for other reasons. This was roughly in line with the national figures. Of the town's residents aged 16–74, 15% had a higher education qualification or the equivalent, compared with 20% nationwide.

Alfred Street is an archetypal Victorian terraced Shaw and Crompton street. Around a third of the area's property has remained as such since the 19th century, indicating the area's history as a Mill town. Note the Pennine terrain of the locality, and the mills in the valley behind.

The town has 9,274 residential dwellings, of which one third are Victorian terraces,^[42][43] built for the cotton mill workers of former times. It is considered a popular residential area of relative prosperity,^[44] with a variety of housing types to suit families, couples, individuals and professionals.^[45] The Buckstones and Rushcroft areas contain modern housing estates and are amongst the most affluent suburbs of the town. They were built as part of an agreement made in the 1950s between the then Crompton Urban District and the County Borough of Oldham councils, to alleviate Oldham's chronic shortage of quality housing.^[5]

Below is a table outlining population growth of the area since 1901. Earlier records show that the area had a population of 7,032 in circa 1871,^[46] and a century earlier consisted of just "six families".^[3]

[edit] Economy

Shaw National Distribution Centre: A major employer of the local and wider communties.

Shaw and Crompton has become a base for distribution companies as a result of the town's good transport links, its supply of large, disused mill properties, and its situation between Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Lancashire, and West Yorkshire.^[12] It is home to the Littlewoods Shop Direct Group's Shaw National Distribution Centre, which is a major employer of the local and wider community. The company occupies three former cotton mills and state-of-the-art purpose-built storage and sorting facilities on a 20-acre (8.1 ha) complex within the town. In 2007, the site became the retail company's only packing and distribution centre for non-bulk items.^[47] It employs nearly 1,000 staff, making it the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham's largest private employer.^[48] Children's toy distributors Toy Options and bakers Warburtons also have distribution centres in the town.

Warburtons has had one of its 11 major bakeries in Shaw and Crompton since 1965. The "Pennine" bakery produces around 500,000 loaves a week and distributes them to major multiples and independent retailers throughout Greater Manchester, Cheshire, and Derbyshire. Located on Glebe Street, it employs around 200 staff and produces a wide range of Warburtons bread products.^[49] Until the 1990s, Shaw and Crompton was the home of Osram, the multinational lightbulb manufacturer, which occupied Duke Mill and was a significant employer in the area.^[5] Production has since been moved away from the United Kingdom.

Trent Mill Industrial Estate, on the edge of the town near Rushcroft, takes its name from the mill that was once found there. The business park is home to several small industrial companies. It was partially destroyed by a fire that started in a plastics factory in the early hours of April 28, 2007.^[50][51]

On August 6, 2007 a 35,000-square-foot (3,252 m²) ASDA supermarket opened on the site of the former Dawn Mill.^[52] A derelict row of houses on Eastway was demolished as part of this development. Two houses on Greenfield Lane were also demolished, allowing the existing ALDI store to expand—possibly to help it to compete with the new ASDA store. The original planning application was put to a public vote in 2005, and included proposals for 316 parking spaces, improved bus facilities, pedestrian routes linked to Market Street, junction improvements to nearby streets, and the relocation of a local tyre-fitting company.^[53] The supermarket cost £20million to construct, and is the first ASDA store in the United Kingdom to use environmentally friendly construction techniques, which Wal-Mart intends to use as a blueprint for all its new ASDA supermarkets.^[52] It incorporates a sustainable timber frame and an energy-saving ventilation system, which together have eradicated the need for 500 tonnes of steel and 450 tonnes of carbon emissions.^[52]

[edit] Landmarks

Despite its comparatively small size, Shaw and Crompton has several landmarks, including a large war memorial.

[edit] Crompton War Memorials

Crompton War Memorial.

The main Crompton War Memorial, located on the High Street, consists of a Scottish granite plinth surmounted by a large bronze statue flanked by two Rolls of Honour containing the 346 names of those from Shaw and Crompton who fought and died in World War I. Panels listing the Roll of Honour from World War II were added and unveiled on November 12, 1950 by Councillor H. M. Turner.^[54] Commissioned by the Crompton War Memorial Committee, the statue was conceptualised in 1919 by Richard Reginald Goulden, and unveiled on April 29, 1923 by General Sir Ian Hamilton. The original cost for the memorial alone was £4,000, but the total cost, including site and layout, was about £6,067.^[54]

The inscription on the memorial reads:

The symbolic memorial depicts a group in which the central figure is a man defending the future generations, represented by young children, against foreign aggression, represented by a beast. The memorial is also a time capsule. Inside it is a lead casket containing coins, a copy of the local newspaper, three cops of spun cotton, and a length of cloth manufactured in the local area.^[2]

A second, smaller war memorial is located in Jubilee Gardens. It is dedicated to the soldiers who fought in the Second Boer War. It consists of a plaque built into a stone wall that is located between two large bushes.

Its inscription reads:

It then lists eight men: four who were "killed in action", two who "died of wounds", and two who "died of disease".^[55]

Shaw and Crompton Beacon

In 1995, to mark the 50th anniversary of the ending of the Second World War, a landmark known as The Shaw and Crompton Beacon was erected in Jubilee Gardens.

The inscription on the plaque below reads:

[edit] Crompton Moor

Pingot quarry at Crompton Moor features an un-named waterfall.

Spanning approximately 160 acres (0.6 km²), and reaching an elevation of 1,282 feet (391 m), Crompton Moor is one of the largest open spaces run by Oldham Countryside Service.^[56] It is a registered common of Greater Manchester,^[57] and, since 2003, a designated Site of Biological Interest.^{[58][dead link]}

Brushes Clough and Pingot are former coal and sandstone quarries set amongst Crompton Moor.^[59] During the 1970s, quarrying was halted, the land was reclaimed, and thousands of pine trees were planted. The area has since been used for recreation, including hiking, orienteering, and mountain biking.^[59][56] Brushes Clough Reservoir was constructed in the 19th century using stone quarried from this site. The area is now managed by United Utilities.^[59]

An un-named waterfall (provisionally called Crompton Waterfall) cascades off Crompton Moor into the now unused Pingot Quarry forming the Old Brook, a tributary of the River Beal.^[56][59][60]

[edit] Big Lamp

The Big Lamp as seen in 2006. Crompton Moor can be seen in the background.

The Big Lamp was a six-sided gas-powered public street lamp standing 20 feet (6 m) high at the original cross-road junction of Manchester Road, Oldham Road, High Street, and Church Road. It was pulled down on June 17, 1925, when electric lighting was introduced.^[2] Its absence was so evident that the adjacent public house, then known as The Kings Arms, was renamed The Big Lamp.^[26]

During the 1990s, the junction was redeveloped to accommodate the new Crompton Way bypass. A large roundabout was built, and a scaled-down replica of the original Big Lamp was erected in its centre. The new Big Lamp is electrically powered and stands about 6 feet (2 m) high. Once the new lamp appeared, the roundabout became known as the Big Lamp Roundabout, and the public house reverted to its original name.^[26]

[edit] Transport

Shaw and Crompton has had a rail transport line and station since 1863, when it was used mostly for haulage.^[61] Today Shaw and Crompton railway station is used by passenger trains running between Rochdale and Manchester on the Oldham Loop railway line.

After initially being rejected, plans to turn the line into part of the Manchester Metrolink were accepted by the government on July 6, 2006. Work is expected to start in 2008.^[62] The conversion will be likely to result in the decommissioning of the conventional heavy rail service on this line, with trams running along most of the existing line, which it is planned to re-route into Oldham town centre.

The bus company First Manchester provides frequent services to Oldham and Rochdale, with buses running on to the Trafford Centre and the suburbs of Rushcroft, Wrens Nest, and Buckstones. There is also a 'Shaw Circular' route, bus 403, which is run by Row Travel, who took over from Bluebird in December 2007, which serves the smaller roads of Shaw and Crompton.^[63] GMPTE co-ordinates the bus routes in the area. Shaw and Crompton is located south of Junction 21 of the M62 motorway, which connects the town with other parts of Greater Manchester, as well as counties of England as far as Merseyside and South Yorkshire.

[edit] Education

See also: List of schools in Greater Manchester

Almost every suburb of Shaw and Crompton is served by a school of some kind, including some with religious affiliations. All the schools in the town perform either at or above the national average for test results. Crompton House, a secondary school for 11- to 16-year-olds, also has a sixth form college of further education for 16- to 18-year-olds on the same site.^[64]

[edit] Religion

See also: List of churches in Greater Manchester

East Crompton, St James Church. Established 1847, this is one of Shaw and Crompton's parish churches, in the Diocese of Manchester.

The township of Crompton was originally within the parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham in the Diocese of Lichfield, until 1541, when this diocese was divided and Crompton became part of the Diocese of Chester. This in turn was divided in 1847, when the present Diocese of Manchester was created.^[13]

The exact date of the establishment of a church in Crompton is uncertain due to conflicting primary sources,^[13] though Shaw Chapel is certain to have been in existence since 1534.^[13] Prior to this time, the people of Shaw and Crompton, a Christian community, had to travel to Oldham, St Mary's, Rochdale, St Chad's or Prestwich, St Mary's for ritual baptisms, marriages and burials.^[3]

Shaw and Crompton has three Anglican ecclesiastic parishes (although other denominations exist in the area): Shaw, High Crompton, and East Crompton.^[3] There are churches representing a number of Christian denominations, primarily Church of England, and a considerable Methodist presence.^[9][46] The earliest church buildings date from the 19th century, although their architectural style makes them look older. The following is a table of the churches presently in Shaw and Crompton, as of 2007. Others have existed, but have been demolished.^[3]

Most of the above churches participate in Shaw's annual Whit Walks event, when congregations, choirs, and brass bands parade through the streets from their respective churches before taking part in one large, communal, inter-church service.

The town centre is also home to a small mosque.

[edit] Community facilities

Crompton Pool, near the town centre, is a public swimming pool built in 1899, under the supervision of Crompton Urban District Council.

Shaw and Crompton has many communal areas and public facilities, including public parks, sporting establishments, and playing fields. Public houses in the centre of the town include The Blue Bell, Duke of York, Coach and Horses, and Pineapple.^[26] There are many outlying public houses, including The Kings Arms at the Big Lamp, Royal Oak at Cowlishaw, and the Park Inn at Buckstones Road.^[26]

Crompton Library is a purpose-built library housing over 36,000 items including books, CDs, and DVDs that can be borrowed by anyone who lives in the Oldham borough.^[65] It has communal Internet facilities. The library was built in the early 1990s after the original 1907 building, which exists now as apartments on Beal Lane, became too small.

There are three main public parks in Shaw and Crompton. Dunwood Park lies alongside the Oldham Loop Railway Line and has a children's play area, bowling green, and over a mile of wooded pathways along the base of a forested hillside.^[66] The land that forms Dunwood Park was presented to Crompton Urban District Council by Captain Abram Crompton JP on the 22 June 1911, and opened as a park by him on the 14 September 1912.^[67] High Crompton Park is in High Crompton and is home to a tennis court, bowling green, children's play area, and gardens. Jubilee Gardens are found in the centre of Shaw and Crompton town centre, behind the Crompton War Memorial. Shaw and Crompton has large areas of land reserved for sporting and communal events; these are located off George Street, Edward Road, and Rushcroft Road respectively.

Shaw Market, located on Westway, is open to market retailers and customers every Thursday, and Saturday morning.^[68] At other times most of the market area becomes a public car park. The market area has been used occasionally for fun fairs and other events. Shaw and Crompton town has several public sporting establishments. Crompton Pool is a swimming pool built in 1899 on Farrow Street in the town centre,^[69] and Crompton Cricket Club, is located on Glebe Street in the town.

"Playhouse2" is a 156 seat theatre in the heart of Shaw and Crompton town centre. It has been the home of the 'Crompton Stage Society' (an amateur theatre company) since 1966. A wide variety of entertainment, professional as well as amateur, is produced each year.^[70]

[edit] Filmography

Title image of The Fred Dibnah Story, showing Fred himself scaling Briar chimney in front of a backdrop of Shaw and Crompton centre. Circa 1978.

Shaw and Crompton has been featured in several British-made television programmes and films:

• The film The Parole Officer features a scene in which Steve Coogan is seen driving a car along Grains Road. The scene was filmed near the junction of Grains Road and Buckstones Road at Dog Hill, and the Shaw and Crompton skyline is a background.
• The first series of the BBC's Common As Muck featured scenes filmed in the local area. Locations on Market Street, High Street, Rochdale Road, and Westway were used, including the Cricketers public house, Shaw Meat Centre (now Shaw Farm Produce), and Healds (now Tesco).
• Bolton celebrity steeplejack Fred Dibnah visited the cotton mills of the area as part of the BBC documentary The Fred Dibnah Story.^[71] The film included Fred's unique approach to the demolition of the Briar and Cape chimneys.

[edit] Public services

Home Office policing in Shaw and Crompton is provided by the Greater Manchester Police. The force's "(Q) Division" have their headquarters for policing the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham at central Oldham. The nearest police station is at Royton. Public transport is co-ordinated by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive. Statutory emergency fire and rescue service is provided by the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service.

There are no hospitals in Shaw and Crompton—the nearest are in the larger settlements of Oldham and Rochdale—but some local health care is provided by Crompton Health Centre which is Shaw and Crompton's NHS surgery. It has been subject to a development scheme intended to improve NHS facilities in the town.^[72] The North West Ambulance Service provides emergency patient transport in the area. Other forms of health care are provided for locally by several small specialist clinics and surgeries.

Waste management is co-ordinated by the local authority via the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority.^[73] Locally produced inert waste for disposal is sent to landfill at the Beal Valley.^[74] Shaw and Crompton's Distribution Network Operator for electricity is United Utilities;^[75] there are no power stations in the town. United Utilities also manages Shaw and Crompton's drinking and waste water;^[75] water supplies being sourced from several local reservoirs, including Dovestones and Chew.^[76]

[edit] Notable people

People from Shaw and Crompton are called "Shaytonians" or "Cromptonians".^[3] The town is the home of Oldham-born actress Shobna Gulati,^[77] former Oldham Athletic player and manager Andy Ritchie,^[77] and is the hometown of Kevin O'Toole, a founding member of dance act N-Trance. Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball also live locally;^[77] Ball owns farm property that overlooks the area. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, an acclaimed etcher, painter, and art critic was born in the area in 1834.^[78] Although a native of Rochdale, television and movie actress Anna Friel was a pupil at Crompton House Church of England High School, which lies in the area.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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More spoken articles

• Crompton articles at Gen UKI
• Crompton: from the Normans to the Tudors A comprehensive historical reference site.
• www.ShawLive.tv Local internet TV service, Community information and webcams.
• Shaw Cam Website featuring picture gallery, discussion boards, and live video feed of Shaw and Crompton.
• Shaw Life Message board with picture galleries and articles contributed by local residents.
• SunsetOnTheDawn Website documenting the demolition of 105 year old Dawn Mill, including picture gallery.
• Dunwood Park Home page of local park.