Focus on Middleton: The Middleton Civic Association

Middleton Library is part of the Middleton Civic Association's conservation area

The Middleton Civic Association was set up in 1974. It was formed during boundary changes in a bid to protect the identity and heritage of Middleton.

Current chairwoman Audrey Riches, is the fourth chairperson in more than 30 years, and although she claims, she is not the “most knowledgeable” she knows plenty about the association.

Rochdale Online reporter Laura Wild, met up with Audrey to find out more about the association and what it does. The association has 32 members. They meet every month and on the second Wednesday of nine months of the year they meet at the Boars Head and listen to a speaker.

Audrey describes the association as an “umbrella” because so many committees from across Middleton work together or seek help and support from the association.

“We are all connected and we are all working together,” said Audrey.

The association has an original conservation area, known as the golden cluster, it focuses around Long Street.

However over time the conservation area has extended because members thought other areas, such as the old grammar school, should be included.

“The conservation area is at least three or four times bigger than when we started,” added Audrey.

The association is currently waiting for a lottery grant, for the original conservation area which they will use for upkeep and maintenance. Audrey is “optimistic” about the grant.

Audrey, a lady known by many people in Middleton, thinks her connections have set the association in good stead. She said: “The highlight in my time is that more people recognise the civic.

“I think because I am involved in lots of different things we are at the fore front, and have lots of co-operation.

“I like meeting people and finding out what needs doing and trying to put it right in a small way.”

One of the key things the association is responsible for is the placement of the blue plaques on the walls of buildings which show when they were founded.

The next one they are keen to display will be at the Middleton Arena, to represent the old Middleton Hall which was pulled down in 1841. The plaques work as a way for people to find out about local history, which the association is trying to make possible.
In the long term the association is hoping to turn the golden cluster into a tourist area, they hope the library will remain and the Long Street Methodist Church is to form the Edgar Wood Museum Centre.


The association also hopes to clean up the graves of “important people” in the Middleton Cemetery close to the cankey ginnel to turn it into Middleton’s very own necropolis.

Of course there are things in Middleton that the association hasn’t been able to stop or have been unhappy about, one of which was the building of the new Tesco supermarket. The association along with many others held protests.

They did however, manage to keep some of the history buried beneath the building.

The association buried a time capsule with photographs picturing both the inside and outside of the old civic building, the swimming baths and the sports centre.

Audrey concluded: “I am unhappy with how things in Middleton have moved, it is a bit of a dump around the central part and we are working to enhance Middleton – but we aren’t doing it alone.”