SALE

Grid Ref: SJ 787 920
Date: 24 Feb 2010

A short walk through Sale from Northenden Road along School Road to Washway Road and Cross Street. Sale was formerly in Cheshire but is now part of the Trafford area of Greater Manchester.

This public house in Northenden Road is named after one of Sale's most famous residents, John Prescott Joule, the physicist, who made many discoveries but is perhaps best known for measuring the mechanical equivalent of heat and propounding the theory of the conservation of energy. His name is given to the unit of energy and work. There is a statue of Joule by John Cassidy in Worthington Park, Sale and one in the entrance to Manchester Town Hall, by Alfred Gilbert. Joule was born in Salford but lived in Wardle Road, Sale for a number of years. Throughout my life I have pronounced the name Joule as Jule but there is brewery of the same name in Stone in Staffordshire where they pronounce the name as Jowl.

From the bridge at the NW end of Northenden Road you can see the Bridgewater Canal and the King's Ransom public house on the tow-path. On the opposite bank is the Arts Centre. On the NE side of the bridge over the canal is the town hall, built betweeen 1914 and 1915 by C. T. Adshead in a mock William and Mary style.

Northenden Road runs into School Road and on the corner with Tatton Road is the former Lloyds bank building, now bearing the name of a firm of solicitors. On the corner of School Road and Curzon Road is 'The Bank at Sale', formerly a bank, now a pub but available as a "business opportunity" in 2010. The Bulls Head Hotel at the junction of School Road, Washway Road and Cross Street is another good example of a brick built hostelry from the Victorian period. It dates from 1879. On the opposite side to The Bulls Head is this unusual edifice of 1921 on the corner of Washway Road and Ashton Lane. What was its original purpose? The Odeon Cinema is on Washway Road and was designed by Drury and Gomersall and built in 1933. The ancient Egyptians did no have cinemas but if they had built them they would look like this. It was fomerly called the Pyramid and has Egyptian motifs inside and out.

Eyebrow Cottage on Cross Street was so named because of the unusual arches above the windows. Also on Cross Street is this fascinating display of vintage wireless sets

Sources: The Buildings of England, Cheshire, by Nikolaus Pevsner, Yale 2003

Pub sign		King's Ransom pub viewed from the canal bridge
Arts Centre on Canal Bank		Waterside development on the Bridgewater Canal
Entrance to Town Hall		Town Hall of 1914-15
Corner of School &Curzon Rds.		Former Lloyds Bank
Bull's Head		Opposite corner to the Bull's Head
"Eyebrow Cottage" on Cross Street		Odeon Cinema
Pub sign from Boer War period		The Volunteer of 1891 on Cross Street.
View through shop window		Vintage Wireless Company