Guide Bridge, Lancashire

home for 25 years

When George Pritchard (1897) and Nellie moved back to Lancashire, George soon had a job at Oldhams again but finding a permanent home for the family was more difficult.  Those children that weren’t evacuated were living with relatives in Eighton Banks, Denton and Dukinfield and it wasn’t going to be possible for the family to be reunited until a house big enough for a family of eight could be found.  Fortunately Sydney Cameron, husband of Nellie’s sister Annie travelled to his work at Oldhams in Denton via Guide Bridge and noticed a large house to let next to the Post Office on Stockport Road.  He told George and Nellie about it and they rented the property.  It had been empty for some time and was in a dreadful state but they soon made it fit to live in and the family gradually came back together.  This became the family home for more than twenty five years.

St Stephens C of E School

As they settled in Guide Bridge the children all went to St. Stephens C of E School which was only five minutes walk away from the house on Stockport Road.  Initially Brian, Marion, Margaret and Trevor were all at the school and later as they reached school age the younger children went there.  On April 11^th 1942 Nellie gave birth to another boy George, named after his father, in Ashton-under-Lyne General Hospital.

Guide Bridge Station in 1951

Guide Bridge is a part of Ashton-Under-Lyne but never feels like it.  It is very much a district on its own and relates as much to Audenshaw as it does to Ashton. The name is a little bit of a mystery.  There are a variety of reasons given for it but probably the most likely is that there was a ‘guide post’ at the junction where the Ashton to Manchester road divides towards Stockport.  When it was necessary to build a bridge over the newly excavated Ashton Canal in 1796 it became Guide Bridge.  It was in the following century that it became an important railway junction.  In 1841 the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway Company opened its railway line and built a station which was initially called Ashton and Hooley Hill. In 1845 the station was renamed Guide Bridge when a through service to Sheffield was introduced and in 1846 the SA&MR. bought the Ashton Canal.  Within a few years railway lines had been opened which connected Guide Bridge to Stalybridge, Stockport and Oldham.  The area developed into a hive of industry with cotton mills lining the canal, an iron works, colliery, rubber works and extensive railway marshalling yards.

With the Ashton Corps of the Salvation Army only a mile up the road the Pritchard children were quickly enrolled and each of them joined all of the various sections as they reached the appropriate age. The ‘Army’ became an all important part of their lives with a part of almost every day being taken up with some activity connected with the Corps.  St Stephens school also brought a religious influence to their lives and the children attended the church which was immediately opposite the school each Wednesday morning as a part of lessons.

Ashton-U-Lyne Salvation Army Hall

George Pritchard settled into his job at Oldhams and remained there until he retired in 1964 at the age of 67.  Nellie had an extremely busy life with seven children to take care of but she did manage to attend her beloved Salvation Army at every opportunity.  Guide Bridge was an interesting, exciting and quite dangerous place to live for children growing up.  Living on a busy main road, surrounded by industry, canal, railways, the colliery, and close to the River Tame it was inevitable that they had many accidents and ‘close shaves’ but fortunately all survived to become healthy adults.

two years after the Manchester- Sheffield electrification

As one by one the children left home George and Nellie began to think of retirement and when George retired in 1964 they moved to Black Rock in Cornwall.