Question
Do you have any details or could you point me in the right direction .....because I am trying to find out about the old dye works on Wingates Lane...it continues on from Leyland Mill Lane just past the hospital (it's a bit of a pet project and am getting dizzy looking on 'tinternet').
Answer
I haven't heard of a dye works on Wingates Lane - there was a famous iron foundry/forge at Brock Mill at the end of this lane (which is now a small housing development). The only dye works I know of was at Worthington (about half a mile upstream) at the bottom of Rectory Lane (locally know as the Bleach Works). It stopped production about 7 years ago and is now yet another housing estate. In the nineteenth century there was a water powered paper mill there - but originally it was a corn mill dating from the middle ages. (By the way on the 1849 6-inch OS map, Wingates Lane is marked as Wingale Wood).