For some odd reason, of late, Oldham has been on my mind - something as a Rochdalian one has to guard against mind! - but what with the latest Metrolink developments, and a wonderful pic posted by Tarboat I thought it was time to dig out a c1930 street plan of the town that has altered so much and is being altered. The cutting through of the ring road in the 1960s and '70s changed it much and now the extensive rail network seen here (and that was 'pruned' over the decades) is effectively vanishing as part of the great tram scheme. And those station names! - can any UK town have had such a selection of ringing names? - Werneth, Clegg Street, Mumps and Glodwick? At the time of this plan Oldham was, sadly in many ways, just past the industrial flush of youth - at the start of the 20th century the town was widely recognised as having the greatest concentration of cotton spindles in the world - a staggering achievement. At left, in Werneth, the Hartford Iron Works was still the centre of the massive Platt Brothers enterprise that equipped many mills - including one suspects many overseas mills that began to challenge the town's and area's primacy in cotton.