DELIGHTED museum bosses in Bolton have finally pinpointed the location of one of Humphrey Spender's atmospheric 1930s photographs of the town.

Bolton Museum and Art Gallery has been was inundated with phone calls after they appealed for help in locating one of the streets in the photograph "Mill Life", which was published in The Bolton News on Monday.

They now believe the scene is of the former Gray Street, north of the town centre, looking down Prince Street towards where the A666 now joins Blackburn Road and where Aldi supermarket is located.

Today the street is Gray Street North, with the Cotton Tree pub on the corner with Prince Street.

It is thought the mill in Spender's photograph is the former Albert Mill, once owned by cotton spinning company Barlow and Jones.

It has since been demolished, although the former Egyptian Mill behind it is still standing, as our present day picture above shows.

The terraced houses shown surrounding Albert Mill are believed to have been occupied by the mill workers.

Frank Handley, aged 66, of Eckersley Road, Astley Bridge, saw the picture in The Bolton News and recognised it straight away as he had lived in nearby Haydock Street for 14 years from the age of six.

"I spent most of my life around there and worked in the mill," he said. "I said to myself when I saw the picture: I know that place'.

"I've had many happy memories of the area. It took me back to many happy days."

The photograph was one of six recently bought by Bolton Museum from a private owner living in the South of England to add to their Humphrey Spender collection.

The famous photographer was responsible for the Mass Observation Project, which involved artists, poets, anthropologists and sociologists coming to Bolton in the 1930s to study the lives of working class people.

The latest pictures added to the museum's collection captures subjects such as unemployment queues in the Labour Exchange and the ghost train in Blackpool.