THE Bealey family certainly made their mark on Radcliffe.

Quite apart from the building donated as the Bealey Maternity Hospital, an array of reminders of this much-respected family endured.

The family came to Radcliffe from Rostherne in Cheshire and were established as "whitsters", or bleachers, by 1832.

They had extensive crofts in which cloth was pegged out to bleach.

William Bealey and his two sons Richard and Joseph laid the foundations of the business.

In the late 18th century, Joseph spent a great deal of money on the construction of a "goyt", or artificial stream.

"Bealey's Goyt" was to keep the bleachworks at Radcliffe Close supplied with water power.

The river was tapped for the channel from a natural waterfall at Warth, and from the works continued across the E'es to empty back into the river.

The weir at Warth was rebuilt in 1811 and remains much the same to this day.

The head of water afforded by the weir supplied the power to drive eight water wheels, from six to eight feet in diameter and two feet wide.

In the late 18th century, chemical bleaching supplanted the old methods and Bealey's became one of the first to make sulphuric acid for bleaching powders.

The corrosive liquid was made inside large lead lined chambers, measuring ten feet by ten feet.

Salt was needed and this had been supplied by horse drawn convoy until the opening of the Manchester, Bolton, Bury Canal in 1796.

The factory was then supplied from its own wharf at Hagside, and the advent of steam trains meant that a light railway was built between there and the works.

The tunnel constructed to run under the 1846 East Lancashire Railway line to Bury still exists, along with the stone mounting blocks for cranes at the wharf itself.

After the firm was closed in 1980, a large outdoor clock at the works was saved.

This was later moved to adorn the Blackburn Street shopping precinct.