FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[PanBiker]

Our Steeton cottage porker will see us through Winter without any problem.

[Stanley]

Exactly Ian......
Another contribution to the domestic economy was the hen pen. (Time I bumped Wilfred Spencer's short story!) (As I write this I can't get the exposure of Just Eat and Deliveroo on TV last night, such a contrast.) Have a look at Fred Inman's evidence in the LTP on his father's activities before and during the war, he was producing eggs on a large scale. It's no coincidence that in the immediate post war years the Craven region was a hotbed of poultry breeding and sales of day-old chicks. An interesting sideline was that the art of sexing the chicks so that the males could be discarded was imported from Japan and adopted round here very early. One of my mates was one of the first to learn this and he was in great demand. (Funny thing was that he was a very big man with hands like shovels!) If you go back to the newspapers of the time you will find that breeding and rearing 'fancy' breeds was widespread and there were many poultry shows where the prizes were hotly contested.

[Stanley]

Can't believe I missed a post yesterday......


("Schneepflug pferdzug" by Thomas Springer - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... erdzug.jpg)

This is a Bavarian snow plough but it's exactly the same as the one that used to be stored on the lay by near the Lanehead pub on High Lane. It was used by BUDC to clear the roads until as late as the 1950s and was towed by the Council tipper wagon. Jack Platt told me that when there was snow and frost the piece workers on the bank at Upper Hill quarries were laid off as the stone wouln't split properly. They used to set on for the Council snow clearing and got better pay than they did at the quarry. Every cloud has a silver lining!

[Stanley]

I forget his name but the bloke who was foreman on the BUDC road gang was a big man with a black moustache who went by the nickname Ticker I think. He told me that BUDC ploughed the road up to Standing Stone Gate and one morning they went up to the Fanny Grey, hooked up to the plough in the lay-by and set off up the road. It was only when he turned the wagon round at Standing Stone Gate that he realised they had lost the plough somewhere on High Lane! They had to go back and look for it. Luckily they were the only people using the road at that hour.
He also told me, and I confirmed this with my ports of call later, that for some obscure reason the Old Gisburn Track from Pasture Head up to Weets House was the responsibility of the North Yorkshire Rural County and as it was an outlier they seldom saw the plough and had to look after the road themselves. I think it was in 1983 when the boundary changes were made and that solved the problem as the road then became the responsibility of Pendle and Lancashire.

[PanBiker]

I forget his name but the bloke who was foreman on the BUDC road gang was a big man with a black moustache who went by the nickname Tricker

Harry rings a bell, I bet Gus knows, i'll ask him if I think on.

[Stanley]

It was Ticker and not Tricker...... My memory was false.
Still thinking about road surfaces....



This fan pattern of small setts in Newtown (The paviors called the pattern Durex) is different than any others in the town. They are granite setts and so were imported. I was once told that in about 1900 when it was done it was one of the first roads in Barlick to be paved and that the paviors were French.
Billy Brooks could remember it being done. He said that Station Road was done at the same time and that the carters hated the surface because it didn't give as good a grip as the dry macadam roads.
It must have been sometime after this that the Salterforth quarries started producing millions of larger local setts, there was a big export trade to East Lancashire towns, particularly Burnley. See Jack Platt in the LTP for the account of the boats that took them to Burnley before the advent of motorised transport.



These setts in Hill Street are Upper Hill setts. Incidentally, Hill Street is the only one I know in Barlick that is paved with concrete.

[PanBiker]

I forget his name but the bloke who was foreman on the BUDC road gang was a big man with a black moustache who went by the nickname Tricker

Harry rings a bell, I bet Gus knows, i'll ask him if I think on.

FB land and Gus have come good. It was Harry Hill and as you say known as Ticker.

[Stanley]

That's him! Well done! Straight into the archive. He was a cheerful bloke and I have an idea he loved his job.



So did these blokes I'll bet. Night soil men working in Barlick in 1982. They were emptying the commode of the lady who lived round the corner who was bedfast on the ground floor. The commode bucket was emptied into the hopper on the left hand corner of the vehicle and sucked into the main tank by vacuum..

[Nolic]

He was called Harry. He used to run the bingo at Earby Cricket club. Nolic

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

My Forgotten Corner this morning is outside the manor in the foothills behind Bingley. The district is called Egypt. There is a cluster of names there wich have always intrigued me. The knacker yard where we sent our casualties was there at Jerusalem Farm. There is a row of houses called 'Bay of Biscay' and best of all some of the highest dry stone walls you have ever seen near a quarry. The Locals call them 'The Walls of Jericho'. (LINK)



The Walls of Jericho

[Stanley]

I took this low light pic of the large brick building at the back of the fire station because when I looked I haven't a good pic. I shall remedy that this morning.
The purpose of the pic is to illustrate something that has always bothered me, why the fire station was built using brick in what is essentially a stone-built town. Walt Fisher told me that this large Accrington brick building was a precursor to the fire station. It was the transformer house for the public electricity supply from Keighley that arrived in the 1920s. As the system developed it became redundant and was used as the basis for the new fire station when it was built. The fact that it is brick was perhaps a factor in using the same for the new construction.

[Stanley]

Here are two better pics!

[Stanley]

This pic of the gala procession forming up on Bank Street is about 1920. Someone told me that in those days the fire station was a building on Gisburn Road on the North side of Butts beck at the bridge. There is still a big open space there.



Eddie Lancaster once told me that his father was at one time on the Earby Fire Brigade and he said that if they were called out the biggest job was catching the horses as they were out in a field. You might wonder how long it took to get pressure up in the boilers of the fire engines that had steam pumps. The answer is surprisingly little. Merryweather in London was one of the biggest manufacturers and they patented a vertical tubed boiler that could have a full head of steam very quickly, aided by the draught created by the engine moving fast on the road. Newton once told me that they took 15 minutes maximum. (LINK)

[Wendyf]

A couple of photos of the Earby Fire Engine.





Notes for the second photo say it is a Shand Mason Engine.

Bob Abel is currently researching the history of the Earby Fire Brigade.

[Stanley]

They, along with Merryweather, were the main makers of steam pumped engines Wendy. I wonder if Eddie Lancaster's dad is on that pic?
Another use for portable steam pumps was outside the manor, in Paris. The night soil men used them to empty the large cess pits which served many buildings. There are some very good pics of them if you go searching.



The other use of portable boilers that comes to mind is this pic of Newton Pickles attending to the boiler on a steam driven well boring rig in the 1930s. Bit different than the outfit that did your bore Wendy. (Hows it going? All settled in and working well now?)

[Wendyf]

Yes thanks Stanley, it's working fine. The treatment plant in the barn has an insulated cupboard round it to keep it cosy in case we get a period of very cold weather. It's good not to be worrying about the supply freezing up at this time of year.
There were no names for the firemen in that photo but we have quite a lot in the archives, I'll check the index for Lancasters.

[Stanley]

Thanks Wendy. Glad you are all settled in with the water, such a big asset, we forget about it in the town, just turn the tap on. That's a forgotten corner in itself. Many would envy you your view and the quiet up on the hill but they forget there is a price to pay. Good to see why so many people migrated from the countryside into the towns in the 19th century, it was a quantum leap forwards in living standards and of course is the reason why villages like Wycoller and Stock were deserted.



Stock Estate in the late 19th century.

[Stanley]

The 1853 OS map of Stock and Bracewell.



Part of the 1717 estate map of Bracewell and Stock showing the open field system.



And here's the list of the field names. 'Dole' Refers to individual field strips in the medieval open field system.



Here's the original photograph of the map I got many years ago. It's 24" X 18". Many of the doles are marked with names and there is a list of some of the major tenants. There were two smaller open fields, One called Mither Close and the other Bentay Pasture. Lots of other information like the course of the mill leat and the mill itself at Yarlside. At the time I got this the reference at the Lancashire Record Office was DDx 160/1. I have an idea I enquired a few years ago if they had digitised the map and they said no, they even said they had no record of the original negative! I told them it was there somewhere because I had a photograph. If you want to try you could have better luck!

[Wendyf]

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According to the catalogue it's still there under the same reference number.

[Stanley]

I might have mixed it up with the Whitemoor Map Wendy, I know one of them is lost.

[plaques]

It may seem odd to start a 'Forgotten Corner' with two items that are in plane view for all to see. Here I'm referring to the Drill Hall Date stone and the adjacent Duke of Wellington plaque which are both located next to the War Memorial in Fern Lea Avenue.

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The plaque clearly states that the Date Stone was located over the door of a local firm. This is the start of our Forgotten Corner. Before going further I'm indebted to 'Thomo', Peter Thompson, who first posted the following images some while ago and also to to PanBiker, Ian, who kindly dug them up from the long lost archives.
This shows the plaques being cleaned up. Whether this was during its manufacture or restoration I do no know.
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. This picture, below, shows the Date Stone in its original position above the door of the drill hole in Crownest Rd.

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Now becoming a 'Forgotten Corner' most people will remember the Albert Harley buildings in Crownest Rd, to look like this.

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Originally, it was quite well used and here it is shown hosting one of the many functions.



. Unfortunately it has recently become target of vandalism as this final picture shows.

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[PanBiker]

The refurbishment of the plaque was done by Peter prior to the rededication ceremony for the new entrance plaques with the missing names we researched.

The units including the old Drill Hall have all been swept away about the same time as the new Aldi build and replaced by modern units. Silentnight occupy one of them, I think for extra office space.

[Stanley]

This is Hall Lane, the road coming down from Bracewell to the ford. It was originally the road to Stock Village.



And here's the remains of the paved ford through Stock Beck. Both long forgotten now.

[PanBiker]

Not by me Stanley, I often think of the traffic that must have passed that way when I do my Stocks walk.