This week in Rochdale, 100 years ago: the town captured from the air in August 1926

One hundred years ago this week, Rochdale was a very different town — but thanks to a remarkable series of aerial photographs taken in August 1926, we can still see it almost street by street.

The images, held by the Britain From Above archive, show a dense industrial town of mills, railway infrastructure, tramways, terraced streets and civic buildings. They provide one of the clearest surviving visual records of Rochdale in the inter-war period.

Yorkshire Street was photographed from the air in August 1926 under reference EPW016788. The view shows the familiar line of the street threading through tightly packed buildings, with factories, chimneys and terraced housing occupying much of the surrounding landscape. View the original image: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW016788

Rochdale railway station was also captured that month under reference EPW016784. The photograph shows not only the station but the extraordinary concentration of railway sidings, engineering works and industrial premises that once surrounded this part of the town. The archive identifies features including railway works, cotton mills, a goods shed and the Rochdale Canal terminal basin. View the original image: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW016784

Another image, EPW016791, looks across Town Hall Square. It records landmarks that remain instantly recognisable alongside features which have since vanished or changed beyond recognition. Archive annotations identify St Chad's, the Esplanade, Rochdale Post Office, Drake Street, tramcars and the Rochdale War Memorial while it was still under construction. View the original image: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW016791

Broadfield Park was photographed in the same month under reference EPW016782, giving another extraordinary perspective across the civic heart of Rochdale. View the original image: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW016782

The industrial scale of the town is perhaps most obvious in the August 1926 photographs of Fishwick Street. Image EPW016789 records the railway works there, reflecting the huge engineering and manufacturing presence which once surrounded Rochdale's rail network. View the original image: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW016789

Even before that August series, an Aerofilms photograph taken on 6 August 1926 captured Rochdale Road crossing the railway and Rochdale Canal at Slattocks. The image, EPW016440, preserves a landscape where canal, railway and road infrastructure sat side by side — the transport arteries which helped power the borough's industrial economy. View the original image: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW016440

What is striking about these photographs is not simply what has disappeared. It is how much remains legible. The Town Hall, St Chad's, major road alignments and parts of the railway landscape allow modern residents to orient themselves inside a town photographed from an aircraft a century ago.

The photographs also capture Rochdale during a period of profound change. The borough remained heavily industrial, public transport still included corporation tramcars, and mills and engineering works dominated huge areas which today contain housing, roads, offices and redeveloped land.

The Rochdale Observer itself was already a long-established part of town life by 1926, having first appeared in 1856. Its surviving archive means future editions of Rochdale Daily's '100 Years Ago' feature can go beyond photographs and recover the stories residents were actually reading — crime reports, council debates, sport, advertisements, court cases, births, deaths and the everyday incidents which made up life in the borough.

For this first edition, though, the photographs tell their own story. They allow us to look down on Rochdale exactly a century ago and recognise both the town we inherited and the one that disappeared.

Rochdale Daily intends to make 'This Week in Rochdale — 100 Years Ago' a recurring history feature throughout the centenary year.

IMAGE NOTE: The historic Aerofilms photographs referenced above are held by Britain From Above. Their terms do not permit commercial reproduction without a separate licence, so Rochdale Daily links readers to the original archive images rather than reproducing them without permission.