The estate that 'blew up' its last link to Manchester
12.11.2023 - 05:21
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
For Maria Murphy her new home was 'like a palace'. Having moved from a post-war prefab bungalow in Blackley, just the fact of having stairs seemed exotic and exciting to the then 10-year-old.
"I just thought it was fabulous being able to go upstairs to bed," said Maria. "It was so, so different to where we'd come from."
In 1962, Maria, her two sisters and their parents became one of the first families to move onto Darnhill in Heywood, then a Lancashire town. It was one of several overspill estates built by Manchester council during the slum clearances of the 1950s and 60s.
But while Maria's new living arrangements were certainly up to scratch, the same couldn't be said for the rest of the estate. "When we moved in it was still being built," said Maria.
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"There were no pavements yet, it was like these cinder paths and there was no school so I had to catch the train to Moston with my mum while she went to work, then walk to Blackley. But it was a kids' paradise. We used to play on the building sites and get told off all the time."
The idea for Darnhill was first proposed in 1950. 'Plan to accommodate Manchester people in Heywood', ran the headline in the Heywood Advertiser, on March 3 that year.
Two years later, 171 acres of land to the west of Heywood, mainly fields and some farm buildings, some eight miles from Manchester, was identified as a potential site for what was being described as an 'overspill development'. But the plans met with opposition from the off.
A public inquiry was