Block Lane

History

The hamlet of Block Lane, also known as Black Ridings, lay on the ancient road of Block Lane as it followed the Oldham boundary southwards towards Butler Green.

The hamlet was situated close to the present day Block Lane Surgery.

By the mid 19th century the area had become a centre of industrial activity with four coal pits and two sandstone quarries in close proximity.

The Hare And Hounds public house opened in 1855. The pub closed in late 2014.

Blackridings Mill was a cotton waste mill on Block Lane dating to 1861. It was demolished in 1975. It occupied the site of the former Blackridings Colliery. The site was redeveloped in 1982 for Freehold Community School.

The United Mill was a cotton mill on Block Lane. Built in 1874, it ceased production in 1959 and was partly demolished in 1962, the remaining building is now in use as a mosque.

1870 saw the opening of Christ Church, a grade II listed building.

By the 1890s Block Lane had a bowling green and a football ground at the back of the old Black Ridings hamlet. At one time this was known as 'the track', a venue for foot races and wrestling. The ground was used by Werneth Rugby Club, who in 1890 were suspended from league rugby for 'professionalism'. The club disbanded in 1905.

Christ Church (Church Of England)

St John's Church, Werneth (closed in 1982) was the parish church for the Block Lane area from 1845 until 1870 when the new Christ Church was built by a group of lay people who were unhappy with the increasing ritualism at St John's. They appealed for funds in February 1870 to build a new church 'on the lower side of the Freehold adjoining Suffolk St at its junction with Oxford St and Block Lane' a church which they planned to 'secure a permanent Evangelical ministry, and to meet the spiritual needs of a rapidly-growing population.' The funds were so quickly forthcoming that the foundation stone was laid in May and the new church was completed and opened by December of that same year, and the first vicar the Rev'd Thomas Chapman took his inaugural service on Christmas Day 1870.

Christ Church in time planted a new church on Denton Lane, St Saviour's, which still exists in the 21st century; it also planted Emmanuel Church just off Drury Lane which still exists but now meets at its St George's building on Broadway; and it began a work at St Gabriel's Middleton Junction which became a parish in its own right, and is still a going concern. In addition it planted mission churches at Butler Green and at Cowhill which ceased to exist in the 20th century.

Christ Church itself still meets in its original building on Block Lane well into the 21st century, but with the addition of a church centre alongside the church on the site of its former day school, and it has a voluntary aided primary school (also called Christ Church) just off Denton Lane on Crawley Way as well as its sister church of St Saviour's and a growing work on Crossley Estate known as Crossley Christian Centre. Christ Church is numerically one of the largest parishes in the Oldham West deanery of Manchester diocese with a population of about 15,000 at 2016.

Transport

First Greater Manchester operate bus service 81 and 81a linking the lower part of Block Lane with Derker and Holts Estate via Werneth and Oldham town centre and with Manchester City centre, via Moston.

Manchester Community Transport operates bus service 159 to Oldham via Chadderton town centre and to Middleton via Hollinwood, Woodhouses, Failsworth and New Moston.

Freehold Metrolink station at the northern end of Block Lane provides direct tram links to Manchester and beyond and to Rochdale Railway Station and town centre.