THIS week in Looking Back we have unearthed these brilliant pictures of the demise of a former iconic Warrington site.

This is the demolition at Greenings Wire Mill on Bewsey Road.

And not only did Warrington see the end of an iconic piece of Warrington history, but legendary star Fred Dibnah carried out the work.

Peter Foy has a number of pictures from the demolition including the one above.

He said: “It was performed by Fred Dibnah and a chapter describing this event with photos is in the book Fred Dibnah Chimney Drops by author Alan McEwen.

“The brick built chimney was constructed by N Greening and Sons in the early 1900s and was dropped by Fred in the late 1990s.”

Warrington Guardian:

And Ryfields resident Pete Cullen also had fond memories of that time.

He said: “I was employed at Greenings Wire Mill in the 1980s when the incident took place.

“On Thursdays and Friday mornings I walked out to watch Fred working.

“He had about four or five very wide tree trunks and he knocked three layers of bricks (about 12ins).

“He put the trunks in the gap, they were first soaked in some highly flammable liquid, he then took me across to the area where the stack would fall.

“He put a chalk mark where he said the last brick would land.

“On the Sunday morning he set fire to the trunks, as they burned the stack began to fall. He was less than four feet out with his forecast.”

Fred Dibnah, who died in 2004, was a well-known television personality and steeplejack.

He came to fame in 1978, while making repairs to Bolton Town Hall.

Dibnah was filmed by a regional BBC news crew and the BBC then commissioned an award-winning documentary about his work on chimneys.

It proved so popular and he was such a character that he was then given a number of TV jobs where he could reflect on his great passion of steam.

He also filmed in Warrington for a famous Greenall Whitley advert.