Description

Ernest Leonard Leeming: The Urmston Concrete King

Ernest Leonard Leeming was engineer, surveyor and architect for the Urmston Urban District Council from 1933 to 1954.

Leeming was the architect of the now demolished Urmston Swimming Baths and he also designed Davyhuylme Park. A blue plaque was installed in the park in 2024 to honour his achievements in the borough.

Leeming also laid out the area now known as Crofts Bank Road from Urmston centre to Davyhulme Circle creating a more dynamic road system to filter traffic to Flixton, Barton, Lostock and Urmston.

His favoured construction material was concrete; hence his nickname ‘The Concrete King’. He even built his own house out of concrete panels on Cornhill Road, a project he personally supervised on site. He is also known for his concrete road signs, many of which are still in evidence.

This book traces the life and career of a man of vision and the role he played in the transformation of the Urmston area as well as his post-retirement work on the Rhodesia Resettlement Scheme and the Morecambe Bay Barrage.