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When Trinity chapel was first
opened in 1635 the population of Salford can have numbered only
a few hundred and its site marked the limit of the town. To pass
further west along Chapel Street was to enter an area which became
built-up only with the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.
Chapel Street was very much the main thoroughfare of Salford
carrying the A6 from London to Glasgow. Mills to house the machines
invented in the Revolution for spinning and weaving cloth, especially
cotton, and the engines needed to drive them were built on or
close to Chapel Street with nearby accommodation for the workers
employed in the mills. One of these mills was that of the partnership
of Phillips and Lee, between Chapel Street and the river Irwell.
It was a pioneer among cotton
mills in that an extension to it, begun in 1798, was constructed
with cast iron pillars and beams. Unfortunately the building
was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. The same
works had gas lighting in 1806, which was also used for part
of Chapel Street, thus making it the first street in the world
to be lit by gas. Salford's own gas works were not completed
until 1819 but they became notorious as the scene of the great
Salford gas scandal in 1887 when the Superintendent, Samuel Hunter,
ran off with rather a lot of money, closely followed by the then
Chief Executive!
Other buildings of the time
of the Industrial Revolution have either been adapted, as engineering
and other industries have succeeded to cotton, or have been replaced
altogether. Salford Station was opened in 1838 as the terminus
and head offices of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Railway Company.
The line was later linked to Victoria Station via the bridge
which crosses New Bailey Street. |
