Irlams o' th' Height railway station

Irlams o' th' Height railway station was located on the Atherton Line between Manchester Victoria and Wigan Wallgate. The railway station was opened by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway on 1 July 1901, some 14 years after the Atherton Line had opened in 1888. The station closed on 5 March 1956. The preceding station was Pendleton, the following station was Pendlebury, also both since demolished.

The station was located at the bottom of Bank Lane (just over the boundary in Pendlebury), however this was to prove to be the station's downfall, as it was located too far away from the main population centre of Irlams o' th' Height. Although isolated from the population centre, the station was located close to various factories, as well as the extensive Agecroft Locomotive Shed (demolished in 1968). The station's construction differed from all the others along the line, its being constructed of planks of wood (both platform and buildings) rather than the usual yellow brick which is the standard along the line. The station was noteworthy because the station was staffed entirely by women during the First World War.

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Greater Manchester Built-up Area

The Greater Manchester Built-up Area is an area of land defined by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), consisting of the large conurbation that encompasses the urban element of the city of Manchester and the metropolitan area that forms much of Greater Manchester in North West England. According to the United Kingdom Census 2011, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area has a population of 2,553,379 making it the second most populous conurbation in the United Kingdom after the Greater London Built-up Area. This was an increase of 14% from the population recorded at the United Kingdom Census 2001 of 2,240,230, when it was known as the Greater Manchester Urban Area. The Greater Manchester Built-up Area is not conterminous with Greater Manchester, a metropolitan county of the same name (and, until 1974, part of the counties of Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire) for it excludes settlements such as Wigan and Marple from Greater Manchester, but includes hinterland settlements which lie outside its statutory boundaries, such as Wilmslow in Cheshire, Glossop in Derbyshire, Whitworth in Lancashire and Newton-le-Willows in Merseyside.

Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, West Yorkshire and Derbyshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. The county has an area of 1,276 km2 (493 sq mi) and is highly urbanised, with an estimated population of 3,009,664 in 2024. Manchester is located in the centre of the county, with the city of Salford immediately adjacent to the west. Other large settlements include Rochdale in the north-east, Stockport in the south-east, Sale in the south-west, Wigan in the far north-west, and Bolton in the north-west. The majority of the county's settlements are part of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which extends into Cheshire and Merseyside and is the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. For local government purposes the county comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan. The borough councils collaborate through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 from parts of north-east Cheshire, south-east Lancashire, and a small part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The centre and south-west of Greater Manchester are lowlands, similar to the West Lancashire Coastal Plain to the north-west and the Cheshire Plain to the south-west. The north and east are part of the Pennines: the West Pennine Moors in the northwest, the South Pennines in the northeast and the Peak District in the east. Most of the county's rivers rise in the Pennines and are tributaries of the Mersey and Irwell, the latter of which is itself a tributary of the Mersey. The county is connected to the Mersey Estuary by the Manchester Ship Canal, which for its entire length within Greater Manchester consists of canalised sections of the Mersey and Irwell. What is now Greater Manchester was largely rural until the Industrial Revolution, when the region underwent rapid industrialisation. The area's towns and cities became major centres for the manufacture of cotton textiles, aided by the exploitation of the Lancashire coalfield. The region was also an engineering and scientific centre, leading to achievements such as the first inter-city railway. Following deindustrialisation in the mid-20th century the county has emerged as a major centre for the service sector, media and digital industries. It is also recognised for its contributions to guitar and dance music, and for its football teams.

653 m

Agecroft Colliery

Agecroft Colliery was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield that opened in 1844 in the Agecroft district of Pendlebury, Lancashire, England. It exploited the coal seams of the Middle Coal Measures of the Lancashire Coalfield. The colliery had two spells of use; the first between 1844 and 1932, when the most accessible coal seams were exploited, and a second lease of life after extensive development in the late 1950s to access the deepest seams.

Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal

The Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal is a disused canal in Greater Manchester, England, built to link Bolton and Bury with Manchester. The canal, when fully opened, was 15 miles 1 furlong (24 km) long. It was accessed via a junction with the River Irwell in Salford. Seventeen locks were required to climb to the summit as it passed through Pendleton, heading northwest to Prestolee before it split northwest to Bolton and northeast to Bury. Between Bolton and Bury the canal was level and required no locks. Six aqueducts were built to allow the canal to cross the rivers Irwell and Tonge and several minor roads. The canal was commissioned in 1791 by local landowners and businessmen and built between 1791 and 1808, during the Golden Age of canal building, at a cost of £127,700 (£12.5 million today). Originally designed for narrow gauge boats, during its construction the canal was altered into a broad gauge canal to allow an ultimately unrealised connection with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The canal company later converted into a railway company and built a railway line close to the canal's path, which required modifications to the Salford arm of the canal. Most of the freight carried was coal from local collieries but, as the mines reached the end of their working lives sections of the canal fell into disuse and disrepair and it was officially abandoned in 1961. In 1987 a society was formed with the aim of restoring the canal for leisure use and, in 2006, restoration began in the area around the junction with the River Irwell in Salford. The canal is currently navigable as far as Oldfield Road, Salford.