Bolton AES Lecture - Horwich Works - How the Railway Works Built a Town
16th September 2025 - 7.30 pm
Speaker:
Derek Cartwright - Secretary, Horwich Heritage
In September, we welcomed back Derek Cartwright who, in spite of his surname, worked as a millwright at the Horwich Works until 1983.
Derek told us the story of how the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) chose Horwich as the site for a much bigger locomotive and rolling stock factory for its expanding operations (their Miles Platting and Bury workshops had become too small to cope).
Up to that point, Horwich had been a small, rural community with just the bleach works as its main industry and the news that the L&YR had bought 650 acres for a locomotive works was not, initially, greeted with much enthusiasm. The army of navvies (English and Irish) required for the digging works (they removed an entire hill – Old Harts Farm – over the period of a year!) apparently had running battles with each other in the streets of the town.
As well as the earth works, everything else about the new loco works was huge. The Thirlmere Aqueduct, which was planned to pass through the site, had to be diverted and the works needed its own water supply adding. The works had a 1,520 foot (1/4 mile) long Erecting Shop as well as 7 ½ miles of 18” gauge railway line built to service all the workshops on site.
The first footings for the Works were laid down in 1885, the first locomotive was built in 1889 (1008 (2-4-2) tank engine, now at the East Lancashire Railway in Bury Meet the Locomotives – The East Lancashire Railway) and full production was running in 1894, with 3,000 workers on site.
Through its heyday, the works expanded the population, and with it the amenities of Horwich, building a recreation ground, cottage hospital, sports centres. The Horwich Works Mechanical Institute dominated the social and educational scene in the area for many years between 1888 and 1974. Many gifted engineers trained as apprentices at there, including Sir Nigel Gressley (the designer of the Mallard and Flying Scotsman) and Alliot Verdon Roe was an apprentice there before moving into airplanes and setting up the AVRO factory down the road in Manchester.
Production continued through the twentieth century, including making Matilda tanks and shells in WWII, then moving into diesel locos. The last new steam loco was built in 1957 while steam engine repair continued into the ‘60s.
Diesel engine production continued and there was considerable investment, in the 1970s, into making diesel-electric locomotives, especially following an order for 313 electric engines in 1978. However, in spite of all that, orders stopped in 1982/83 and the site started to close down rapidly. The Loco Works finally closed at Christmas 1983, leaving Horwich considerably bigger than it had been 97 years earlier.
About the speaker
Derek is a third-generation railway immigrant into the town of Horwich. Trained as a ‘Millwright’ he was made redundant from Horwich Works in 1983.
Since then he has spent 32 years in the Ambulance Service rising from Paramedic to Chief Executive Office. He now volunteers with Horwich Heritage holding post of ‘Secretary’.
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