It was also home to another family who succeeded in making their mark, the Pierrepoints. Albert, Britain's last public hangman, was born in Clayton and he followed the same grim trade of his father Henry and his Uncle Thomas.

Albert is played by Timothy Spall in this drama which begins in 1932 as he receives a letter from the Home Office saying he's been accepted for training at Pentonville Prison. After four days, he became assistant to Uncle Tom, progressing to hold the noose for the likes of John Haigh, the acid bath murderer, Timothy Evans, John Christie, and Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. All-in-all, he was our most prolific executioner, known in the tabloid press as The King of the Rope.

As this story tells it, he marries local girl Anne Fletcher (played by Juliet Stevenson) and declines to discuss his away-days with the family. Timothy Spall says, "I've seen footage of Albert saying he felt he had a dual personality – he could leave himself behind when he hanged people. He was insistent that no form of cruelty was involved. I think he had something to prove to himself, a sort of competitiveness with his father, to make up for his father's dismissal of him. He needed respect. He was a delivery boy, so he had a very lowly job. But this job made him extraordinary. It was something very sacred to him.

"Albert often mentioned how much he loved travel. Here was this northern, working class man who was going on a train down to London to be called 'Mr Pierrepoint'. The ego is universal and everybody needs to fuel it.

"To do all the hangings was actually quite disturbing for me. When I was pretending to do those executions, the sense of ultimate power when you push that lever and snap somebody on to the unknown, it's unbelievable.

"Albert went from being a hero to being a villain. He became the personification of the injustice. It's seen from the hangman's side, so it's completely original. He's not an evil psychopath who wears a hood. He's a jolly bloke. He sings in boozers. He could be your grandad, or mine for that matter."

Although Albert became the executioner-in-chief, this post did not rate a salary from the Home Office – only payment by results per job. In 1945, his country needed him for work on a larger scale and stage. He was flown to Hamelin Prison to deal with 13 convicted war criminals. The German trip was good business. It enabled Albert to take a lease on a pub called The Poor Struggler.

In a dramatic device in the film version, he gets summoned to do an execution at Strangeways in Manchester and finds the condemned man is one of his friends. The guilt Albert feels about stringing him up, plus the public outcry at the execution of Ruth Ellis, causes him to resign.

The truth was rather grubbier than that. In 1953, Albert had a row with the Home Office over money so he packed it in after 24 years. Subsequently, this man who was said to guard his anonymity, had no problem when Fleet Street offered him lucrative publishing deals.

The headlines brought a threat of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. So he retired to a bungalow on the outskirts of Southport. Albert tended his prize-winning roses until his number came up after 87 years, having enjoyed apparently something like local celebrity status.

Pierrepoint, Monday, ITV1, 9 pm.