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The Great Fire of Ashton Market

I just discovered from talking to my mum that in Ashton-under-Lyne (the little town which I grew up in), the indoor market was reduced to ashes in the early morning of the 28th May 2004, at around 3am.

I was shocked to hear the news, and went straight away to check out the local news. Luckily there was no one injured.

To see the pictures of the great blaze click on the links below.

BBCi News Report
Images of the blaze from Tameside Council
More images from Ashton-under-Lyne.com

I remember when I was a child, I used to visit the indoor market to buy our groceries, food, and even my school sports kit from there. It was a lively and friendly place. I even used to buy my weekly edition of the Spiderman comic from the newsagent at the back of the market. There was also a very good butchers, fish monger and an excellent cold meats shop. There was a second hand book shop which I purchased an old copy of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel "The Light Fantastic". There was also shops which sold cards, dairy products and an excellent cake shop.

My most remembered shop was the small toy shop. I remember nagging my mum endlessly to get her to buy me the latest Transformer toy or He-man figure. Those were the days.

I feel very sad that such a historic building (dated 1829) came to such an end. I do hope Tameside council will make every effort to rebuild the indoor market, and I hope the small business owners who had businesses in the market will get back to their normal, hard-working lives as quickly as possible.

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