FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[SAC]

The opticians that was on the corner where Leon the jeweller was used to be Clifford Benjamin they still have a shop in Skipton

[PanBiker]

That's the one SAC, Benjamin's thanks for that.

[Stanley]

That's right. I was getting the two corner shops mixed up...... I remember the name now.

[Stanley]

The other side of Rainhall Road at the Newtown end in 1983.

[Stanley]

The other end of the shops. Remember Ken and Ern's? Roy Cardus next door. My mother always had a soft spot for Roy!

[Stanley]

This old postcard of the end of Rainhall Road opposite the school reminds us that these were also private houses early in the 20th century. Interesting in that it seems the area of tarmac between the present day shops and the pavement may still be the property of the owners of the shops.....
Notice the design of the cast iron lamp post. This is the same as the one we identified at Townhead and appears to be the standard BUDC design. I used to have one up at Hey Farm and always intended to re-erect it but never did it. I can't remember what its final destination was.

[Stanley]

This feature on the end of a row of houses lower down Rainhall Road used to be common. 'Toothing Stones' were left ready for the next build when building stopped with the advent of The Great War.

[Stanley]

This is possibly the most obscure Forgotten Corner I have ever posted but bear with me, there is a lot to be learned from it. This is a general view of the top of the Lancashire boiler at Bancroft when we were working. Part of my working world for six years. I have just knocked the top lid in for access, you can see it is suspended on the block and tackle hanging from the roof, we were evidently getting ready for the summer internal boiler inspection. To the uninitiated it is a random maze of pipework but every one had a purpose, we knew them like the back of our hand.
There is lots to see in the picture but my object of interest is one single pipe. Can you see that above the top manhole there is a 3" pipe coming straight down, it has a plug cock on it and a rag hung on the end to remind you it was there, you could get a nasty bang on the head as you were getting into the boiler!
We never used this pipe but it is interesting. If you walk up Gillian's beck above the old water mill, about half way up the field you'll find a concrete basin the beck and this was where the pipe started its run down through the field and terminated above the boiler manhole. Its purpose was to refill the boiler after maintenance with free water from the beck. Over the years it had carred up internally and no longer ran but had never been cut out. I never touched it because it could have been a can of worms! There would still be water in the pipe and not necessarily from the basin in the beck.
It demonstrates the lengths the old mill owners would go to to obtain free water supplies.
In case you're wondering, we refilled the boiler with mains water as it was cleaner and better. It wasn't until the mill closed down and we had to turn all the services off that I discovered that we had been stealing water all those years as it was connected to the sprinkler main and wasn't metered!
That's a Forgotten Corner!

[Stanley]

Another thing to note about that picture is that the insulation on the exposed part of the boiler shell is asbestos. Every time we swept the bone dry boiler top there was a cloud of dust. I can't understand why it hasn't got me before now and am always aware of the possibility. That's a Forgotten Corner now thank God!

[Stanley]

I return to this favourite image to illustrate a forgotten corner that is not very easy to illustrate because it's an attitude. I can remember in my childhood that my mother had an inordinate fear of us getting wet, especially wet feet. This was thought to be a seriously dangerous thing because it caused illness. You used to here a word in Barlick which I thing has completely died now, a child with wet feet was said to be 'witchered'. I think it's a corruption of 'wet-shod'. These children playing in the beck at School Lane in Earby in about 1900 were in serious danger!

[Stanley]

In these days of minimum police cover it's salutary to remember that Barlick had all these special constables in 1916. Were we so lawless? Or was the bobby on the street more important then.

[PanBiker]

A lot of bobbies but the question is, where was the photo taken, I have often wondered?

[Big Kev]

A lot of bobbies but the question is, where was the photo taken, I have often wondered?

Is that Banks Hill House in the background?
Could it be somewhere near Coates Wharf?

[Whyperion]

One of my friends was a special, his main duties were 2*8 hour shifts per month, mostly at Luton Town Home Games, where he spent the match with his back to the pitch watching the normal well-behaved crowd.

[PanBiker]

Is that Banks Hill House in the background?
Could it be somewhere near Coates Wharf?

Could be Kev, the house is certainly one that stands out on the horizon. Banks House could be a contender but I would have thought Coates Mill would have been in the shot if it was from around the wharf.

Could it be from further back from around the old Vicarage or around Albert Hartleys?

[Stanley]

I've always wondered the same thing. Yes that's Banks house on the hill. I have always favoured somewhere near the gasworks......

[Stanley]

The 1909 OS map of the Coates area. I was trying to illustrate how the police image could have Banks House in the background if it was done in the gasworks area. I think it was a general who once said that every battle he had been in occurred on the junction of at least two maps!
I had the same problem but at least we can have a good look at Coates in 1909.

[Stanley]

The 'old reservoir' marked on the Coates map was the lodge for Old Coates Mill. It's under the car park at the back of Rolls Royce now but the old clow for emptying it survives in the bank of the beck.

[Stanley]

This building, part of the old Wellhouse mill buildings, now demolished of course, has always interested me. It was known in the latter days as 'The Laundry' reflecting the days when Barrett's Steam Laundry operated out of there until it was taken over by Henry Brown Sons and Pickles at the outbreak of WW2 to house bigger machines they needed for the war effort.
As far as I can make out it started life as a bobbin mill for Bracewell's original build in 1853. Later it became a carpenter's shop and then the laundry took over. One feature that has been forgotten is that there was a borehole inside the building from which Barrett's drew all the water they needed for their business. B&P used it as an extension of their Wellhouse works right up to demolition. I've often wondered why it was built that shape, I suspect to get the maximum light in the building when it was making bobbins. Good fenestration was always a feature of these mills.

[Stanley]

Booth Bridge at Thornton in Craven. Originally a corn mill, in the later 19th century this was converted into a bobbin mill Run by Vandaleur Wilkinson.



Evidence for the earlier corn mill is the re-use of millstones to refurbish the mill and these stones in an adjacent wall. The ones with the notches in them are rack stones, the notches accepted the ends of the spars that supported the heavy horse hair cloth that the grain was spread on with hot air from a fire coming in underneath.

[Stanley]

Further evidence that Booth Bridge Mill at Thornton was a corn mill at one time. During a later refurbishment a millstone has been cut into building stone. You can still see the groove that were cut into the face. Another clue is that this is an early local gritstone millstone. Possibly quarried at Noyna quarry at Foulridge. Later in the history of corn milling in the area the millers went over to using 'French Burr' stones that were much harder and more efficient. (LINK)



Two nice examples of French Burrs. The stone wasn't available in big enough pieces to cut a full stone so it was made of smaller segments and bound together by shrinking wrought iron hoops round the rim.

[Stanley]

An estate map of Bracewell dated 1717. Lots of interest on here, the hamlet of Stock still existed and its associated medieval strip field system. If you look carefully to the left of the 'S' in Stockhill you will see a small building on the East side of the field marked Mill Hill. This is a clue to the fact that there was a small cornmill on Yarlside land that could possibly be one of the earliest in the area. If you get permission and walk across there you can still see the site of the mill and the course of the old mill race that started with a weir on the Stock Beck on the Barlick side of Bracewell. There isn't much fall on it and under later revisions of field drainage it now flows in the opposite direction in some sections. Well worth a walk and a study!

[Stanley]

I love old maps! Here's the 1853 First Edition 6" OS of Bracewell. If you look in the bottom right hand section you can see the weir for the mill at Yarlside marked together with the mill race and the mill itself. It also shows Hall Lane from Bracewell to Stock village and the ford on the Stock Beck. It's all still there but disused and overgrown. Well worth a walk to identify all this.

[Stanley]

One thing I found out while researching the Bracewell family was that this is the only village in England with this name and any family with the Bracewell patronymic almost certainly originated in the village. As to the name of the village, the origin is almost certainly 'Braegd's Well' Braegd is an Anglo Saxon name.

[Stanley]

One thing that strikes me is that over the last 30 years we have gradually lost the majority of the 14 mills that once graced the town, that includes Salterforth.



Here's a map I cobbled together of the Barlick mills in 1921. Worth looking at it and recognising how things have changed!