The Maclure Road fire station is located within the Maclure Road Conservation Area, setup to protect the important buildings within it.  The station dates from 1933.



The station includes an engine house, a distinctive campanile tower and 32 fireman's houses.  Ironically, the tower was originally meant to be part of St John's Catholic Church on the other side of the road but escalating costs led to it being omitted from the final plan.  Instead, when the local builders R and T Howarth moved on from the church they added the campanile to the fire station converting it into a drill tower for the fire service.  It is suggested that at 10 storeys in height it is the tallest in England.

The fire station became vacant when the fire service moved to a new station on Halifax Road in Hamer in 2014.  Since then the future of the building has been a matter of concern.  The Greater Manchester Fire Service Museum Trust have a museum in a small outbuilding at the rear of the site.



However, the Trust is hoping to raise enough money to create what they describe as, "... a fantastic heritage fire station building, with plenty of space; the Museum Trust has tried a number of schemes in the past to acquire the building but has been unsuccessful. This has included asking the Fire Service to hand it over to us, also a partnership with a private funder which sadly fell through, and an earlier Heritage Lottery Fund bid which was unsuccessful. The Trust is now in a new partnership arrangement with Rochdale Council, which is in the process of buying the empty fire station from the Fire and Rescue Service for the purposes of enabling the museum to achieve its aims.   The intention is for the museum to occupy the ground floor and part of the first floor, with the remainder of the building having a new – as yet undetermined – use in the hands of the Council."