ABC Wednesday: O is forOldham Old Drill Hall

The Old Drill Hall on Rifle Street, St Mary's, Oldham with its distinctive castellated Gothic frontage, was the home of the local volunteer forces since 1897 and was used by the Territorial Army until 1998 and closed in 2002.

A sign on the former Oldham TA Centre exhorts:
DON'T WASTE YOUR SPARE TIME
JOIN
THE REME OR RAOC (TAVR)
JOIN HERE - JOIN NOW
INTERESTING WORK CAMPS OVERSEAS GOOD PAY

The red-brick castellated front block with tower at each end and central gatehouse with a hall reputed to hold 1000 men was built for the 6th Volunteer Battalion Manchester Regiment (following the 1881 Cardwell reforms previously Lancashire Rifle Volunteers). The battalion became the 10th Manchesters following the Haldane reforms in 1908.

In 2007 Oldham council failed in a bid to list the building because of its architectural or historic interest. Later that year a developer was given the green light to demolish the hall and build 30 homes, but that permission expired.

The Oldham Detachment of the Greater Manchester Army Cadet Force who meet in a building adjacent to the old hall had wanted the hall to be used as multifunctional venue.

The Old Barracks building was engulfed in flames on 31st March 2011. The 48,000 square metre hall was being used at the time to store vast amounts of upholstery foam. Read the Manchester Evening News report.

For now its only use is as an anchor for mobile phone masts.

A contribution to
Rubbish Tuesday;
ABC Wednesday;
signs, signs;
Good Fences.

ABC Wednesday: W is for Waste Recycling Centre

This is part of the new Household Waste Recycling Centre at Bredbury Parkway as viewed from the footpath alongside.


Here is the main entrance to the site.


This is how the site looked when I was walking down the footpath in April 2009.

For more W posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Friday Bench (23): Ashton Market Ground

This week's benches are on the market ground at Ashton-under-Lyne. The photograph was taken yesterday in pouring rain.

In the background is a stall set up by the Royal British Legion under the Town Hall selling poppies in readiness for Remembrance Day.

My favourite benches discovered last week include Rune's in The Forest of Canada, Barbara's in Edmonton, Rupert's in Old Catton Park, Neil's in Belmore Park and Cezar and Léia's on the Champagne Trail.

My phone is finally fixed.

Those of you who read my post I is for ice-cream and internet connection will be aware of our recent troubles with the phone and subsequent loss of decent internet connectivity. Instead of getting better, it just got worse and the telephone became unusable. I phoned my telecoms provider using my mobile phone and again they warned me it would be costly if they sent out an engineer and the fault was with my equipment. They agreed to send one the following morning. I wanted it fixed, whatever the cost.


My mobile phone is a "pay-as-you-go" with T-mobile. I don't use it much. In fact I'd topped it up with £10 in April 2004 and by December 2007 I still had just over £2 credit left. You have to make a call every 180 days to keep the phone active though and I missed it by a day. I was told I could reactivate it; it would cost me £10 and I'd regain my £2 credit. Alternatively, if I wasn't bothered about keeping the number, I could go online and buy a new sim-card for just 50p. This I did and on my tarriff, calls are 15p per minute compared to the 30p on my previous tarriff. What I didn't know (and the information was nowhere to found on T-mobile's website) that calls to 0845 numbers are 40p per minute, so my call to report my faulty phone cost over £2. I've subsequently discovered that even calls to 0800 numbers (free from any landline) are also charged at 40p per minute.


On Wednesday morning, a BT-engineer dutifully arrived. The fault lay with the cable outside the house. It seems that when a tree by the telegraph pole was chopped down last year, it had frayed the cable and allowed water to seep into the connection. As the cable crossed the road he had to call in assistance to replace it.


Afterwards I plugged my cordless telephone/answering machine back in as there was obviously nothing wrong with it. It still took until Sunday morning though for my internet speed to get back up to near-normal.