Abbey Hills (archaically Wabbow Hills) is an area of
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, wh ...
in
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...
. It is contiguous with
Glodwick
Glodwick is an area of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. It is south-east of Oldham town centre.
Glodwick is a multi-ethnic residential area in the south of Oldham, home particularly to a large community of Pakistanis and British Pakistanis.
...
and
Alt
Alt or ALT may refer to:
Abbreviations for words
* Alt account, an alternative online identity also known as a sock puppet account
* Alternate character, in online gaming
* Alternate route, type of highway designation
* Alternating group, mathema ...
.
Lying on the eastern border of the historic Oldham township, Abbey Hills was the location of a large housing estate, the Abbey Hills Estate. It was built in the 1930s but was largely demolished during the late 1980s.
History
Until the early part of the 20th century the area around Abbey Hills was
moorland
Moorland or moor is a type of habitat found in upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and montane grasslands and shrublands biomes, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils. Moorland, nowadays, generally ...
and
farmland
Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...
. At this time it was still known by its archaic name, Wabbow Hills, centred around a farmstead, Wabbow Hills Farm.
Other than minor development in the vicinity of Pitses, there was little change in the area until well into the 20th century. By 1922 the new Abbey Hills Road from
Glodwick
Glodwick is an area of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. It is south-east of Oldham town centre.
Glodwick is a multi-ethnic residential area in the south of Oldham, home particularly to a large community of Pakistanis and British Pakistanis.
...
had reached a point just beyond its junction with the also new Manor Road, with Pitses and Alt still served by the old road running between the Moorhey area of Oldham and the industrial settlement of
Park Bridge
Park Bridge is an area of Ashton-under-Lyne, in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in Greater Manchester, England. It is situated in the Medlock Valley, by Ashton-under-Lyne's border with Oldham. Park Bridge anciently lay within medieval ma ...
.
The first major change to the area came in the 1930s with the building by Oldham Borough Council of the Abbey Hills Estate, laid out on Garden City principles on land north and south of Abbey Hills Road, which was then extended to meet Lees New Road, completing the modern–day route to Ashton.
The estate was built right–up to what was then the administrative edge of the Borough of Oldham.
Construction of the estate and the extension of Abbey Hills Road necessitated the demolition of Abbey Hills House (formerly Wabbow Hills). The Manor Inn, built by the
Oldham Brewery in 1936–7, occupies a part of its site.
The housing of the Abbey Hills Estate was built to a lower standard than earlier Council housing, add to which it was unpopular due to its isolated location. Families left and the estate became run–down and neglected. Improvements were carried out between 1976 and 1978, though in 1988 nearly all of the 1930s houses south of Abbey Hills Road were demolished (the only survivals are those fronting the main road). The land was turned over to developers and new houses built in their stead, with the surviving
lengths of road renamed.
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iSRQ8LA-PacJ:www.oldham.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/1149/oldham_rochdale_hmr_pathfinder_heritage_assessment_-_alt+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk, Alt, Final Report 2008 , Retrieved 7 December 2016]
Transport
provides service 425 to Holts Village and to Fitton Hill via
Glodwick
Glodwick is an area of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. It is south-east of Oldham town centre.
Glodwick is a multi-ethnic residential area in the south of Oldham, home particularly to a large community of Pakistanis and British Pakistanis.
...
and Oldham.
References
{{Reflist
Areas of Oldham