A bold step forward
VISIBLE for miles around the Seven Sisters are arguably Rochdale’s most striking buildings and represent one of the most ambitious construction projects in the town’s history.
The £2.5m plans were first unveiled in July 1962 as a potent symbol of the town’s determination to emerge from its dark industrial past into the bright new world which opened up during post- war regeneration.
Named after buildings worked as George such as Mardyke and Wimpey and Company’s Dunkirk House which chief architect. stood in a slum estate Work began in early called the Paddock, which 1963 and over the next the blocks replaced, College two years the imposing Bank would provide structures began to 761 homes. stretch into the sky.
The flats were designed As the flats grew so did by Rochdale’s borough the interest among the surveyor Mr WHG Mercer public and by July 1965, and Mr EV Collins, who with the first block near to completion, 400 applications flooded in from all over the country.
On Friday, October 1, 1965, a new era in Rochdale housing began as the Minister of Housing and Local Government, Richard Crossman, officially opened Underwood - the first of the College Bank flats.