PERHAPS a period of more than 60 years separates these two photographs of the Red Bridge area of Bury.

And yet the scenes they capture present a near mirror image ­— the first shot was taken in circa 1920s, and the second in 1987.

Distanced only by time, their contents appear to speak of little change and a near immutable continuity of life.

What differences exist are at once subtle but striking.

Bury Times: Red Bridge area of Ainsworth in 1987. The village sits on the border of Bury and BoltonRed Bridge area of Ainsworth in 1987. The village sits on the border of Bury and Bolton

A venerable motorcar trundles its noisy way down Red Bridge Lane ­— once cobbled but now tarmacked and painted.

Antique bicycles sit propped carefully against a window ledge, safely stationed without the need for a chain lock or protective eye.

A figure of what seems to be a small child peers into the recesses of a baby’s carriage.

Young trees on the far side of the Middlebrook Bridge remain and over time stand a little taller.

Likewise, rows of cottages endure, almost identical but for a removed chimney pot here, and a appended porch canopy there.

The Red Bridge Tavern squats in the same spot that a public house has quenched the thirst of workers and travellers for centuries.

And yet signs are visible of the effusion of new and life-transforming technologies, ­in the punctuating electric street lamps, telegraph poles, and television aerials.

The small hamlet of Red Bridge lies on western fringes of Ainsworth village, nestled at the border of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Bury and Bolton.

Its name is thought to derive from an old red stone bridge, later replaced by the present Middlebrook Bridge, which connects Red Lane and Bury Old Road.

The surrounding area has been inhabited since at least the first millennium BC and was originally known as Cockey.

Under the Anglo-Saxons it gained the name Ainsworth ­— deriving from the Old English word for an enclosure or farm, and the name of its owner.

To the west arose the medieval manor of Breightmet Hall which encompassed the “close-knit farming community” of Breightmet Hill East.

This collection of families and dwellings would go on to form the basis of the Red Bridge hamlet, according to research by the nearby St Osmund and Andrew’s school.

For centuries Red Bridge and Ainsworth were principally home to an agricultural community.

But like much of Lancashire they became caught up in the explosive growth of the Industrial Revolution.

In late 18th century, as mechanised industry engulfed the region, a bleach works ­— later of Constantine & Son Ltd ­— was constructed at Breightmet Fold, just to the south of Red Bridge.

An advertisement for its sale, published in the Manchester Mercury of October 12, 1779, recorded that the Bleaching Croft included “a large mansion house, barn, shippon, bowking-house, dry-houses, washing pits, and several cottages, with 16 and half acres of good meadow and pasture land”.

“The bleaching grounds are very suitable for a printer, being constantly supplied by a notable spring of extraordinary good water,” the report added.

Research by the Ainsworth History Society has found that in 1808 the bleach works was 106 feet seven inches long and 38 feet wide.

The building consisted of “a chymical house, an engine house, a pan room, a bowk house and an area described as ‘the large building’ ”; and a smaller room was used for housing and packing.

It also boasted a water wheel for power and was serviced by a reservoir.

Divided from the bleach plant "only by a small rivulet of water" was the Printing Works of a Mr Wilson of Ainsworth.

An Ordnance Survey Map from 1850 shows the bleach works complex surrounded by its network of reservoirs.

However, at Red Bridge, cottages are only depicted on the Bolton side along Red Lane.

By 1892, in another OS map, Red Bridge appears much as it does today, including the row of cottages on the Ainsworth side and the Red Bridge Inn.

These cottages housed the workers of the mill and bleach works, and as Ainsworth and Breightmet’s populations also massively expanded many labourers would daily walk down Red Lane to their employment.

Conditions and wages at the works in the 18th and 19th century would have left much to be desired.

Workers would toil for long hours, in miserable heat, and were subject to near constant contact with chemicals and water.

But after a long day the labourers could enjoy a pint at the Red Bridge Inn.

The oldest part of the building is estimated to be 250 years, although its 'modern' extension is around 100 years old.

Four cellar dwellings were previously located beneath the older part of the pub, and had stone steps leading down to them, according to St Osmund and Andrew’s school researchers.

The buildings of the former bleach works still stands at Breightmet Fold and is today occupied by many businesses and industrial uses.

The neighbouring Red Bridge Mills, which was previously home to the Seddons, and then Tristrams weaving firms has been the premises of Red Bridge Book Cloth Co. Ltd cotton finishers since around the 1960s.