Horwich Works was a railway works built in 1886 by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR) in Horwich, near Bolton, in the North West of England when the company moved from its original works at Miles Platting, Manchester.
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Horwich works was built on 142 hectares of land bought in April 1884 for £36,000. Rivington House, the first of several workshops was 106.7m long by 16.8m wide and opened in February 1887. The long brick built workshops had full-height arched windows and were separated by tram and rail tracks. Work to construct the three bay, 463.3m long by 36m wide, erecting shop began in March 1885. Inside were 20 overhead cranes.[1]
An 18-inch (460 mm) gauge railway, with approximately 71⁄2 miles (12 km) of track was built to carry materials around the works complex, modelled on a similar system at Crewe Works on the London and North Western Railway. Two small 0-4-0 tank locomotives were bought from Beyer Peacock in 1887 to haul stores trains around the site, and six more were acquired at intervals to 1901. The first of these was bought from Beyer Peacock, but the remainder were built at Horwich. From 1930 they were gradually withdrawn from service, the last, Wren, (a Beyer Peacock engine) was withdrawn in 1961 and is preserved at the National Railway Museum.[2][3]
The first locomotive built by the LYR at Horwich was a 2-4-2 tank engine designed by John Aspinall. This locomotive was LYR No. 1008 and is now preserved at the National Railway Museum. By 1899 a further 677 locomotives had been built, and another 220 under Henry Hoy. Between 1891 and 1900, 230 0-6-0 tender engines designed by Barton Wright were rebuilt as 0-6-0ST saddle tanks, LYR Class F16.
In 1899, the Aspinall-designed 'Atlantic' 4-4-2 express passenger locomotive was introduced and forty had been completed by 1902. Horwich works produced its thousandth engine in 1907, a four cylinder compound 0-8-0.
In 1923 when the railway became part of the LMS, its Chief Mechanical Engineer was George Hughes. In 1926 he was responsible for the design of a 2-6-0 mixed traffic locomotive of unusual appearance, which became known as the "Horwich Crab." The class proved extremely successful, with 245 engines built, 70 at Horwich, including the first 30 examples. The "Crabs" continued in service with British Railways London Midland and Scottish Regions until the last two survivors were withdawn in early 1967.
Three of the four future Chief Mechanical Engineers of the post-grouping railways learned their craft at Horwich: Nigel Gresley, Henry Fowler and Richard Maunsell, as well as aviator Alliott Verdon-Roe who went on to found the Manchester-based Avro aeroplane company.
During World War II, the works built nearly 500 Cruiser, Centaur and Matilda tanks.
After nationalisation in 1948, locomotive construction at Horwich continued at a high level for ten years. During 1948 twenty LMS Ivatt Class 4 tender engines were completed, twenty-seven followed in 1949, with twenty-four in 1951, followed by a single locomotive in early 1952.
120 LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 tender engines were built at Horwich by the LMS (53 locos) and British Railways (67 locos) between 1945 and 1950. The last BR Standard design steam engine to be built was outshopped in 1957.
BR continued to overhaul steam engines for several more years. The last steam locomotive (Stanier LMS 8F 2-8-0 48756) was despatched after overhaul on 4 May 1964.[4]
Horwich continued in use as a works for other rolling stock up to 1983. The foundry and the spring shop continued in use after this date, although the work force was reduced from 1400 to 300. In an effort to publicise the redevelopment of the site into small industrial units on 20 June 1985 a BR locomotive (47 491) was named (at Horwich works) Horwich Enterprise by David Mitchell, who was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport at the time.[5] The site was sold by BREL to the Parkfield Group in 1988 and the rail connection to the works was removed in 1989. The site is now an industrial estate, appropriately named "Horwich Loco", with most of the buildings still in use.
The railway station in Horwich town centre, primarily used by employees at the works was opened in 1887. It closed in 1965 with the last passenger train departing on 27 September 1965, hauled by 2-6-4T number 42626.[6]
The Horwich Locomotive Works is designated a strategic development site in Bolton Metropolitan Borough's Council Core Strategy planning document which is subject to Examination In Public by the Planning Inspector. If approved it will be developed as a sustainable mixed use community with capacity for building up to 1600 houses with 15-20 hectares of land for light employment use.[7][8] The development will connect the Middlebrook Retail Park to Horwich town centre via the old loco works site by creating a through road with public transport nodes. The plans have been welcomed by local residents due to the existing heavy industrial uses and the associated fires, noise and pollution.[9][10] There is some opposition to the proposals from some local councillors, who, in principle, support the development but wish to retain many of the old buildings [11]
The Loco Works sheds are part of a designated Conservation Area and it is envisaged that the buildings will be converted if feasible and viable in line with national planning guidance. 'PPS 5 Planning for the Historic Environment' and more specifically policy HE9.[12]