Features and detail leap out from every corner of the house. For instance, the terracotta corbels to both downstairs rooms were rescued from an old pub in Mount Street, Bolton when they demolished it in the 70’s. A living testimony to a great mans lifetimes’ work which had been left unattended for over four years due to a family legal dispute, and when we took over it was to put it bluntly “a mess”. The house was in a bad state having not been lived in for 4 years and it had been burgled several times. All the windows were boarded up and it was looking sad from every angle. On top of this the yard had been left with all the outside machinery at the mercy of the elements, covered in mildew and many parts had been stolen from the machinery. The workshops had been broken into and every bit of brass that could be taken had been taken, the work shed had been ransacked in the search for brass or anything of value, there was even I am told a tramp living in the workshop making I believe daily trips to the scrap yard with bags of metal for weighing in! In fact when we took over I found heaps of metal (artefacts, fittings, nuts & bolts of all sorts) in a big bag as if it were ready to be dragged off to the scrap yard. All the pressure gauges and gauge glasses had been removed from the Danks boiler that was used to power the yard, most of the signs and maker’s plates that Fred had collected over the years had been stolen (shame on those that did this). Even the weather vane had gone missing. I thought it important that we tell you what we are still up against before we launch into our aims for the place, so that you understand where we are coming from. Because we are currently living in the house we thought it only fair that we brought it back to life ourselves at our own expense and this we have done with no expense spared ever mindful of the need to retain the character of this beautiful house. After all it is such an important property and eventually the house is hopefully going to be a part of the legacy that we hope to leave for future generations to see how and where Fred a true hero of Bolton and skilled iconic advocator of our industrial past lived and worked. The exact tools he used the machinery he collected and the workbenches he toiled at etc. This is NOT a replica – like Fred, it will be real. It would be a shame if all this history had been lost to scrap men and thieves. When the work is completed this will be one of the last fully working steam driven worksites left in the world. Fred’s workshops must be preserved for future generations to see how it all worked; and experience the danger and thrill of how our ancestor’s successfully toiled to make Great Britain into the finest industrial capital of the world; a heritage of which we can all be proud. But it’s not enough to just have a “museum” is it? We don’t want to simply look at old machinery and wonder what it does or how it worked, we want to SEE IT working, being used to actually manufacture something. So what we want to do is this: to have the machines here working and actually manufacturing something like Fred did. We are open to ideas about what exactly this entails but that’s our aim.

The brass and cut glass light fitting once graced a local church and the timbre wall cladding in the middle downstairs room and master bedroom also came from an old church, and was originally part of an organ! If you are a Fred fan and hopefully that’s why you are reading this, you will be aware that this is an amazing place.

THE MINESHAFT

The garden was so over grown it was like a jungle with many of those fast growing trees sprouting up all over the place. Inside the house the burglars had spent many hours walking around scavenging for anything they thought was of value and in so doing had left trails of candle wax absolutely everywhere, on carpets on furniture everywhere, what a nightmare to remove, but we did, by hand bit by bit.

THE MAIN WORKSHOP

FRED'S EXTENSION

Therefore, we are drawing on the expertise of some of Fred’s colleagues and friends to get the place “fettled” as he would have said to get it back in working order, with all the machinery inside and outside brought back to life. Our ultimate aim is to make this wonderful place into a Heritage Centre, where people of all ages can come and see how Fred worked.

LOTS OF FRED'S ROPE

THE UNDERBUILD

FRED'S CEMENT FOR THE MINE SHAFT

We would like to think that once the Heritage Centre is set up and hopefully will be a self financing or nearly self financing operation we will turn the place over to a trust that will then own the site and maintain it for the public to visit for the foreseeable future having done our bit.

THE UNDERBUILD

THE FRED DIBNAH HERITAGE CENTRE