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GORTON WORKS · No 1 The Time Bookthe record of a working works

Works Nos 5000-5399

The Shops

The bays and benches where a works made engines: erecting, machine, boiler, smithy and the shed.

every entry

4 units

No 5309The Shops

The shed and the canal

Why the works was called the Tank, what the canal depot did, and how water and land decided the site in 1848.

A railway shed with locomotives under a haze of steam, beside a canal arm and reservoir banks in flat Manchester light.

No 5233The Shops

The boiler shop and the smithy

What the boiler makers and smiths made, how the loudest trades worked, and what a riveted boiler asked of the men who built it.

A boiler shop corner with a locomotive boiler barrel on rollers, rivet holes along its seams, and a forge fire glowing in the smithy beyond.

No 5117The Shops

The machine shop

What the machine shop made, how it was organised, and why it was where the works taught its own.

A long machine shop bay with rows of belt-driven lathes, swarf on the floor, and a fitter's bench under a north light.

No 5042The Shops

The erecting shop

What the erecting shop was, what happened inside it, and why the whole works was measured against it.

A vast erecting shop interior with locomotive frames on trestles, an overhead travelling crane, and fitters working beneath high windows.