FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

He's wearing his racing spats as well!



A serious looking Stanley with his dad at Burrs Mount , Great Hucklow in 1940. We were there to escape the bombing in Stockport but there wasn't any, the 'Phoney War', so we went back just in time for it starting!

[Stanley]

Simply an urban back yard in Stockport but this was the world of my childhood, or at least, the first nine years from 1936 to 1945. The coal hole on the right and the flags and garage are unchanged since then. The pocket handkerchief of back garden has seen a major change because this is where our Anderson Shelter was dug into the ground and served as our refuge for many nights in 1940 and 1941. I went back and did this pic in 2002, so many memories but now of course a forgotten corner, it was over eighty years ago.....

[Stanley]

A rake of coal wagons leaving the sidings in the days when we had a railway. Notice the signal. Even then this type of signal was redundant but for some reason this one survived right up to the end of the line.

[Stanley]

Access to the Bowker Drain in Eastwood Bottoms in 1982. It has been destroyed since then by developments but was possibly the most important hole in the ground in Barlick! It was the main source of the water that enabled Bracewell's Wellhouse mill to function for almost a century. Water was pumped from here day and night by a steam Pulsometer pump into the two lodges on the site and this was where the engine derived its cooling water from. This was essential for economic running.

[Tripps]

into the two lodges on the site

Would someone who had no knowledge of textile mills know what a 'mill lodge ' was?

[Stanley]

No David but they might be pushed into enquiring and end up learning something.....



In October 1939 there was a smash at the waterworks on Whitemoor and Brown and Pickles were called in to repair the damage. This included making a new jack gear almost six feet in diameter. In those days the technology was available in the town to do such a repair. Is what we have to report progress?

[Stanley]

Church Street next to the Seven Stars in about 1900. For those of you who are reading Ernie's story in the Barlick 1900 post, this barbers shop is the one he was a lather boy at in the 1930s.

[Stanley]

The ventilator that used to sit on the roof of Gisburn Road School. These used to be a common sight on the roofs of public buildings. They were part of a comprehensive system of ventilation that was thought to be essential for any building where large numbers of people gathered together. This was because the prevailing theory to explain the spread of disease before the discovery of microbes was 'The Miasmic Theory'. This held that diseases were spread by vapours or miasmas carried by air currents and so it was essential to have a current of clean air flowing through buildings. Eventually it was realised that this was mistaken and the ventilators were removed because they made it harder to heat buildings.

[Stanley]

The junction of King Street and Newtown in about 1890. I can date it by the fact that the road is still paved with stone, the setts have not yet been installed. (See Billy Brooks in the LTP for evidence of when this was done.) The Cast iron gas lamp is the standard pattern that was used for all of Barlick's street lamps

[Stanley]

Wood Cut of Bracewell Hall in Whitaker's 'History of Craven'. This was first published in 1805 and crude as it looks, this could be the most accurate depiction we have as it was almost certainly drawn originally from life.

[Stanley]

Reading from the top:- Coates Mill, Bankfield and Crow Nest mills in 1963. This gives an idea of what Barlick looked like in the glory days of cotton before 1930. There used to be over 25,000 looms in Barnoldswick at peak making it one of the most concentrated centres of weaving in the industry.

[Stanley]

Wellhouse Mill in 1963. Bracewell's big build on a site that had no obvious water resource, essential for running a steam mill. At the time of the build he was thinking of using the waters of the Butts Beck and extracting them at the Corn Mill which he controlled and later owned. However, for some reason which I have never understood he finally settled to pumping from the Bowker Drain in Eastwood Bottoms to top-up the mill lodge.

[Stanley]