Heywood, Greater Manchester

I thought I must have been to Heywood at least once in my life as I knew it had a market, but in all honesty I couldn’t remember when – so it must have been in the 1970s.

Anyway back to the present day – it was one of those days when I didn’t want to travel too far and since Heywood is nearby I thought I’d give it ago.  Getting to Heywood is pretty easy - just get on the M60, exit at junction 19 and follow the A6046 into Heywood.  You can also get there via the M66, exit at junction 2 and take a right onto the A58.  I think the latter route is better as you avoid some of the blasted road works on the M60 at the moment.

We parked up in a nearby car park by a roundabout in the centre of town.  It was free, which was great, and there is also plenty of parking available in the nearby Morrisons car park.

I really didn’t know what to expect of Heywood.  For a split second I thought it had seen better days, but I reckon this place has been resolutely working class from time immemorial.  That said, it wasn’t a disappointment, it just isn’t day-out material.

The architecture is predominantly Victorian red brick terraced shops, although there are some interesting buildings if you look up.  The old reform club has an impressive looking balcony, though unfortunately it’s in need of much TLC.  St Luke’s Church dominates the skyline, but we didn’t go in and we missed out on the beautiful carvings in the southern wing.  You really don’t expect that sort of thing in a local church. My favourite building though was the library.  It’s an Edwardian stone building with pillars and a carved archway entrance.  I love libraries and it’s a shame that they’ve been hit by the cutbacks in recent years.

Nearby was the local war memorial gardens.  Often in towns, war memorials are consigned to dark and dusty corners, but in Heywood it’s an immaculate and well-tended place.  It’s really nice to see a town take pride in these gardens.

We visited the charity shops in the town, but unfortunately we didn’t find much.  There are a few house clearance and second hand shops in Heywood too.  If you are looking to upcycle some old furniture, it’s definitely worth taking a trip here as you will find something.  There is a little vintage furniture shop here, and they had a dressing table in the window which had been painted white and fitted with some new funky handles – it looked great.

Amazingly we found a second hand record shop here and Neil had a rummage.  He actually knew the guy who runs the shop, but had forgotten that it was based here.  It’s packed to the rafters and you really need to bring a packed lunch with you as it will take hours to go through all the stock.  Neil sadly didn’t have much time to go through stuff, but he did say it was a reasonably priced shop.  I never expected to find a shop like this here, but it definitely makes a trip to Heywood worthwhile to pick up vinyl records.

We did have a bite to eat at the Heywood Fish Bar next to the indoor market.  We both had fish and chips and they were the best we’d had for some time.  The fish was freshly done and whilst I’m not a big fan of chippy chips, these were darn good.

The indoor market wasn’t very busy as it was a bright sunny day outside.  However what I did notice was the friendly banter between the stallholders and the customers.  There is a good community vibe happening here, which you don’t often see.  It was a pleasant antidote to the blokes on the street who were shouting random things– no wonder Heywood is locally known as Monkey Town when there are idiots like that here.

There weren’t many people on the streets in Heywood, but I’ve never seen so much traffic pass through one small town.  You do take your life in your hands when crossing the roads here and there must have been lots of traffic accidents over the years.  There is a one way system that cuts through the place to make it easier for traffic, but pedestrians can spend half their time trying to cross the roads.  I think the small retail park must do good business with Morrisons and Dunnes Stores, although I think the majority of the traffic is due to the fact that it’s the main road between Bury and Rochdale.

In all honestly Heywood is not that exciting – it’s just a working class northern town and not a day- trip sort of place.  That said, I found the place alright – great chippy, good second hand record shop and a nice community vibe going on.  No doubt we’ll be back at some point and next time I’ll make sure we see the inside of the church.