We moved from Longsight to Coledale Drive in Langley when I was about 7 (1954ish) It took us several hours to find the house as the bus stopped a mile from where we were to live. It was late November, dark and deep snow. We eventually asked a gentleman passing by if he knew where […]
Brandlehow Drive
My paternal grandparents came here in the 1950s from Ancoats and Collyhurst. They lived on Brandlehow Drive before it was rebuilt.
A right bargain!
My Aunty Lynda and Terrence have lived next door for 53 years. They are the original people from when the house was built. She has lived there for that long that when she bought the house it was only £14,000! L Ashton

Read the Overspill Book
The Overspill book was posted out to participants of the Overspill Project in September and October 2020. Copies of the book have also been made available for collection at Heywood, Middleton, Darnhill & Langley libraries. To read it online click the link below.
Darnhill – from the Archives
A selection of images from the Archives, courtesy of Archives +
Sheila
The estate was all new and clean. We thought we’d moved to the country! Not many houses were here at the time – they were building new houses all around us, I lived with my granny till we moved to Langley. My mam had a tow up and two down at Newton Heath, outside toilet, […]
Cath
I lived in Collyhurst and moved to Bowness road in 1964. OMG there was such a huge difference! From cobbled streets, back yards, no bath or toilet inside – we felt like we were in the country. Posh! The first time I stepped inside Our Lady’s Church on Wood St I felt like I was […]

Proposal for Langley estate
From the Manchester Guardian 1955. Reprinted with permission from Archives +
Back from the future: a poem by Robin Parker
This poem was written at an Overspill workshop led by poet John Lindley which the Langley Writers took part in in November 2019. Back from the future Eight immigrants, Indigenous population absent, Writing in refurbished Community centre, Heading for mists of history. Riverside from Merseyside Control Bowlee Park, Control most of overspill. Rest consisting of […]
Heywod Grows as Darnhill rises
Article from the Manchester Evening News 1st June 2005: “THE population of Heywood swelled when thousands of people were moved out of the Manchester slums and into the Heywood countryside of Darnhill” https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/nostalgia/heywood-grows-as-darnhill-rises-1139421