As you waft about the World-Wide Web, halt awhile in Oldham, Lancashire, England.

This is the borough's most comprehensive collection of links . . . Not very pretty, but fast and efficient!

Address and fax number, with access to a map of Training and Enterprise Council areas and a main page which offers an A-Z index and hot news.

Consortium of Oldham Chamber, Oldham Sixth-Form College and Oldham Council whose mission is "to provide direct assistance to small businesses through a range of professional and commercial technology". Certainly worth a look if you are an Oldham business which needs IT help.

which aren't quite working properly yet, but are improving.

One for the local government finance buffs. Department of Environment details about Oldham Council's rate support grant. Everything you need to know!

Oldham and Oxford have "similar poverty profiles". If you can bear to read on, it will do you good!

Oldham businesses

Maker of miniatures soldiers etc, based at 40 Church Road, Uppermill. Specialises in 25mm Napoleonic and American Civil War - whatever that means!

Oldham maker of flexographic presses. Formerly Cobden Chadwick Ltd.

Chadderton-based translator - Spanish-English and vice versa.

Internet specialist. WWW-page design and training etc from Grasscroft.

Brief page about this Frenches Wharf, Greenfield, business

Magazine publisher, based in Southlink Business Park, Oldham, with tentacles all over the world to judge from its contact list. Delightful picture of the editor, Christine Butterworth

Oldham-based maker of pickles. Supplies Terence Conran's Bluebird store in London, and they are on sale in a Paris department store - though how they got there no one knows!

Basic details of this Dunkerley Street, Oldham, company.

This Oldham company is one of the world's leading makers of pipeless digital organs. Some of the site is still under construction, but it is still one of the most interesting company sites around.

Chadderton-based networking specialists

Catering equipment specialist, based in Cliff Hill Road, Shaw.

Oldham-based public relations company

Oldham's premier supplier of local news, though you won't find any on the site yet. Plenty of other info to tell you how to get intouch with the news team or to advertise.

Advertising and guide to Oldham. Not yet fully constructed.

Saddleworth-based company, specialising in team-building exercises and events, conferences, event management, corporate hospitality and training.

TV and video experts in Mossley.

Chadderton-based company

Brief details of this electronics company

Oldham's three MPs at the Labour Party's website. Pictures and profiles after a search.

Glyn is way ahead of Oldham's UK MPs with an interesting site about his work in the European Parliament and obsessive love of Manchester City

Two descriptions of the 1995 Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election one, courtesy of James Heald's home page, from the London Evening Standard...

and the other from...

in which Martin Wainwright unaccountably calls Conservative candidate John Hudson, Jim.

Oldham Athletic

The one you exiles have been waiting for. Paul O'Keeffe's Latics site should keep you all up to date with what's going on at Boundary Park.

Allan Poyner's site has died, but there's quite a lot to read about its death!

Lots of up-to-date news about Latics in the Second Division

including Oldham Athletic, of course!

The site of the club's own match-day radio station, run by hospital radio, Radio Cavell. And it's looking for a sponsor!

The Radio Latics/Voice of Oldham presenter's home pages, with an emphasis on Oldham and radio matters, including news of the North-East Manchester small-scale licence.

Jonathan Chadwick, a student at the University of Bath, pays homage to the Latics striker

Fanzine-style news and views about Latics

They get everywhere!

Oldham's soccer amateurs on display at a site still under construction.

Rugby League

Oldham Rugby League Club on the web at last. Basic details about the club, including fixtures, ticket prices, player profiles and so on. No pictures yet, though

Golf

Information about Oldham, Bardsley Park Golf Centre, Crompton and Royton, and Saddleworth. Brookdale and North Manchester sneak in under the Manchester heading.

Fishing

. . . including Oldham reservoirs. Access to UK fishing guide.

General

Listing of various clubs and organisations, including some in Oldham.

Exactly what it says, supplied by Weathernews inc. You can have fun with up-to-date satellite photos and movies, too!

The team's page covers everything from history to personnel and even has an obituary column. Moving type, too!

Certainly one of the most intriguing local sites, especially for those who enjoy "walking in the UK, good pubs or hostels to stay at; the countryside, natural history, wildflowers and birds; the environment and conservation issues". There's space available for you to publish items "loosely related to the spirit of the site". Already on there are "Pub Hikers' Guide", "FAQ about Walks in the UK", "UK Walk Library", "Flora of Saddleworth", and "Oldham Agenda 21" - the unofficial site of the Oldham Environment Forum.

ODBA Secretary Andy Sutherland has devoted his home pages to beekeeping and his other great love - whisky. If you want to keep bees, start here. If you want to drink whisky, go to the pub.

Join other Oldham Lambretta and Vespa owners to celebrate these two-wheeled wonders. Actually the club has only three members at the moment, having fallen somewhat from the 1980s height of being 50 strong. Scooter pics and events and rally news.

Oldham rock group formed in the 1960s, and still going strong. More popular in Europe than in Britain, they once commanded an audience of 10,000 in Berlin. Their new album "River of Dreams" has been released and they're performing in Germany and Switzerland until the end of September.

The latest news about the members of one of Oldham's most successful pop groups.

The band's latest CD at your fingertips. You can play any of the tracks at 14400 or 28800, providing you have the right software. If you haven't, you can download it at this site.

The Trust was responsible for moving the Christie Pipe Organ at the Odeon, Sale, to the Blue Coat School, Oldham, where they give periodic concerts. The Trust looks after other organs around the county, notably the Wurlitzer at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Recordings can be ordered, but there don't seem to be any of the Blue Coat instrument.

Rather a strange site, but fascinating. Dr A J Doyle, from Diggle, Saddleworth, has put together a collection of tunes - from 1650-1850 - which is sold as the Plain Brown Tune Book. He also seems to play in the Plain Brown Wrapper Band. You can hear a tune called Hucklestone Peg and see a picture of Diggle, and print out several manuscripts of tunes free! Interesting stuff!

Clearly the definitive text about this folk custom, which finds a modern manifestation in Saddleworth's annual Longwood Thump Rushcart Festival at the end of August. Lots of local references here, but this is only a spur of...

The definitive morris dancing site, which lists web pages for 102 UK sides, as well as many overseas teams. Saddleworth don't seem to have one, though

If you want to find out what it's like to take part in the Longwood Thump Rushcart Festival, read this description of the Vancouver Morris Men's adventure in 1994.

North Chadderton School's pages are so good that they have won an award. Certainly the best site in Oldham. With them comes another set of

Comprehensive, if not exhaustive, guide to the college. There can't be anything left out. An impressive site, well worth a visit.

Still under construction.

Ambitious set of pages about the school, including colour pictures of the 1995 visit of Princess Anne - courtesy of the Oldham Evening Chronicle.

The secondary school's first attempts at a web page.

The school's home page, and the results of its annual Computer Camp.

Werneth Infant School's web site - one of the first Oldham schools to make it to the WWW. (We would say it was the first, but someone's bound to know better.)

Details and pictures of the Chadderton school

Brief home page, but there's some sort of link-up with Canadian girl guides here, though exactly what it's about remains an intriguing mystery.

The school league tables for Oldham, as published by the Department for Education last November. They seem to have been on the WWW since the end of January. You can search for any school's results once you get to the home page.

Ofsted's pages give reports on all Oldham schools that have been inspected.

through the Travel Now web pages

Details of accommodation at Higher Quick Farm, Lydgate; Boothstead, Farm, Denshaw; and Globe Farm, Stanedge. Call up a map and picture, courtesy of the Farm Holidays Bureau

Details of the Old Bell Inn, Delph; Globe Farm, Stanedge; New Barn Guest House, Diggle, and Sunfield Accommodation, Diggle.

Very short Oldham section of a Greater Manchester places-to-visit site

Short list of places to stay in Oldham. By no means exhaustive.

This is the entry for Oldham in the UK-Guide. It would be more helpful if it was up to date. The tourist office has now moved to Albion Street, Oldham.

Oldham Support Group for Carers in Autism, the local support group for parents and carers of children and adults with autism and related disorders. recently registered as a charity..

Contacts for Park Dean School, Oldham (Oldham Visual Impairment Service); Oldham Metropolitan Society for the Blind; Oldham Social Services; and LOOK, Oldham.

That's what Greater Manchester Police call Oldham. Here you'll find details of the patch - 437 officers, dealing with 22,520 crimes and 1,819 road accidents a year. There is lots more interesting info, and, of course, you can get at the rest of the Greater Manchester force's pages.

The only Oldham church on the WWW? It's there thanks to the Rev David Phillips, the minister in charge, who is also an executive member of Christian on the Internet (COIN). Details of services and pictures.

Web page of the Oldham branch of the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society. Gives little more than dates and times of meetings and speaker details, but from here you can backtrack to all the essential genealogy resources on the Internet. And it is also worth stopping off at...

Jeff Johnson's home page includes this section - he lives at Shawforth, Rochdale. Read "The Quarrymen and the Great Rochdale versus Oldham Clog-Fighting Contest". Bear in mind that he's also a member of the Rochdale branch of The Vikings, a Dark Age re-enactment society, and say you like it!

Samples of Jack's work on the Cartoonists' Guild site.

Alas! We can't claim this for Oldham, but Zen's search facility and links are some of the best around. Unfortunately, they're in Rochdale, but never mind!

If you run an Oldham site or know of other interesting Oldham sites, send them in and they will be included when we update the page.