These houses stood in the north east corner of Wedneshough. The left hand house bore a datestone of 1772. Like several other similar houses in the area, they were probably built to house the home workers in the expanding textile trade of the late 18th century.
During the 19th century these particular houses, with their spacious accommodation previously used for living and working in, became lodging houses for the influx of people who arrived to work in the mills and print works.

Other lodging houses stood on Cinder Hill at the other end of Wedneshough near the Coach Road. One of these was occupied by a man called TYRELL and his wife. TYRELL was entered in the 1851 census return as a "journeyman papermaker and lodging house keeper." His lodgers included a journeyman hatter and his wife, a hatter's apprentice, a journeyman tinman and his wife, a railway labourer, a journeyman blacksmith and his wife and their five children.

The lodging houses alone could not cope with the demand for accommodation and the census for 1851 and 1861 show that many people took in lodgers and boarders even when they had large families of their own.

Wedneshough Green was home to a number of the GODDARD family at various times, including John, Martha, John James, Thomas, Robert and Fanny.

From Longdendale in Retrospect by Joyce Powell, first published 1977, second edition 1984
Original photograph from Tameside Local Studies Library