FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Worth clicking on that pic to enlarge it and looking at the work that is in progress building the lovely breast wall around the site of today's Catholic Church.

[Stanley]

This is a forgotten corner in so many ways these days. Waiting to tip a load of kits at West Marton Dairy in the days when we had a thriving milk industry in the area and Marton was a milk-bottling plant serving customers as fare afield as Nelson and Bradford. In addition we had Dobson's dairy at Coates, a cheese making plant. All those small family farms who could survive off a small herd of cows and contributed so much to the social structure of the area. All this has gone now and we never even noticed it. Add the small producer retailers like Fred Smith at Bancrofts and the army of milk chaps serving the town. All gone now and I regret it.

[Stanley]

A tip first. I have found that if you go into the gallery there's a tiny unlabelled button at the top of the images, if you click on it you can do things like search the gallery.

This pic came to mind when I read about David Whipp's latest efforts on our behalf to alleviate flooding. This innocuous overflow at County Brook is where a lot of the flood water in Earby starts on its course down the old Black Brook (County Brook) into the valley below and thence forward to Earby through Salterforth bottoms. I have often wondered whether it could be regulated.......

[Stanley]

PS. I can't upload images yet but I can post ones that are already in the gallery.

[Stanley]

Ian's post about the power outage on the Croft yesterday reminds me of a very large forgotten corner that we occasionally touch on but usually in connection with water supplies. It would surprise me if the underground cables serving the Croft aren't the originals from the late 1920s and 30s when mains leccy first arrived in the town. (East Hill Street where I live is almost certainly the same) The miracle is that even though the cables are older than I am they still serve us well. We were lucky enough to have an upgrade of the main water pipes a few years ago but as far as I know, nothing has been done about the old cables and also many of the sewers. These are all forgotten corners until something goes wrong......

[Stanley]

Funny that on the same day I commented on the age of the leccy cables our power went out locally last night for two hours from 19:00 until 21:00.....

[Stanley]

Mentioning County Brook reminded me of the rich history of the Stew Mill and the number of water power sites there. If the canal company hadn't interrupted the free flow of the water from 1840 onwards when Whitemoor Reservoir was built, this valley could have developed into a very prosperous little village.

[Stanley]

This pack horse bridge at Wood End on the way down to the Stew Mill is interesting enough but just to the left of it if you look closely there are the remains of Wood End Mill. a 'pirate' corn mill that was the subject of legal disputes in the 18th century. These unauthorised mills sprang up when the licensed corn mills could no longer cope with demand as population and arable farming grew in the area.

[Stanley]

Midgeleyestatemap06.jpg

Click to enlarge. I'm not sure what date this map is, I'd guess around 1890. Lots of interest on it and it marks the site of Wood End Mill.

[Stanley]

When the Skipton Rural District Council, and soon thereafter the Barnoldswick Local Board, made the decision that Barlick needed mains water they didn't go blindly into the project. They employed a reputable consultant to advise them. (I shame to say that I have forgotten where I got all this information and have no note of it!) He investigated and came up with three possibilities, Construct a reservoir on the slope of Weets above Bancroft to impound the water coming off Whitemoor, Sink a bore hole just above Park Close Quarry or, his favourite, use the powerful spring that existed at White House Well. This latter is on the top side of the road between the canal reservoir at Whitemoor and White House Cottage and is still marked on the OS maps as a reservoir. Negotiations were started with the owners of the well, I think it was Rushworth from Colne, but in the end too much money was being demanded for the water rights. The reservoir above Bancrofts was seen as too expensive and in the end the bore on the top road was settled on and proved to be a good choice, giving a trouble-free source of water until town growth forced a rethink and the Elslack reservoir was constructed.

[Stanley]

Rainhall Road in 1979. Around the time in the 1890s when water and sewage services were being installed in the town these shops on Rainhall Road were cottage properties. I wonder how many people realise this today. If you look above the shop fronts it is obvious but not many people look up and observe today!

[Stanley]

One unintended consequence of the conversion of cottage properties into what would be regarded elsewhere as tiny shops is that they are relatively cheap to run in terms of fixed costs like rates and heating. I think this must be a factor in the fact that Barlick is still extremely well supplied with small town centre shops run by locals. They are not attractive to modern retailers from the outside.

[Stanley]

Another example of 'small is beautiful' is the survival of small cottage properties and back-to backs particularly in the town centre. These cottages were regarded in the 1950s as too small and old to be viable accommodation but they have survived and are now very desirable properties. If you are a pensioner on a low income and bad on your pins the small distance to the shops is a wonderful aid to independence!



King Street is another brilliant example.

[Nolic]

Top pic is Garden Street where I used to live. our shared toilet was down the little ginnel that you see to the left of the picture. You cannot see Number 5 as it was set back slightly on the same level as the shop you see - which sold ladies corsets and underwear when I was a nipper.

[Stanley]

Comrade, I have this down as 6&7 Market Street. Should it be 5&7?

[Nolic]

The house in the corner to the left was where I lived and number was 5. Not sure where 7 was. Nolic

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Comrade! Tiny wasn't it.......

[Tizer]

That must have been a squeeze Nolic. How many of you were living in that house?

[Nolic]

There was me and mum and dad.It was small but then so was I so it didn't seem so at the time - 3 rooms ground floor, first and an attic. Though it was a walk to the lavvy the first floor room had the luxury of an old iron tiger feet bath fitted that seemed big enough to swim in. Nolic

[Stanley]

The size is all relative isn't it. I remember going back to the house I grew up in and that was the first thing that struck me, the rooms seemed much smaller than my memory suggested. There are still two up and two down properties in Barlick like the back to backs in East Hill Street which in the 1950s were deemed to be unfit for habitation and building regs prohibit the building of anything that small but look at how popular they are now. Small can be beautiful!

[Stanley]

The Majestic complex is still one of the best designed and built buildings in the town. Every now and then it is necessary to remind ourselves of the influence of Matt Hartley, the builder of the complex, on our modern townscape. If you see a building with a pediment surmounting the front you are looking at one of his builds, he loved his pediments. He was active in the town from 1910 onwards as far as I can make out and there many references to him on the site.
Worth remembering also that the Majestic Cinema originally got its name because Matt bought a lot of internal fittings salvaged fro the White Star liner Majestic when it was scrapped. The booking office at the cinema at the top of the steps was the purser's office from the liner and many of these artefacts still survive, even in the Accrington Brick bungalows he built at the end of Greenberfield Lane. Try a search for the keywords on the site search engine!

[Tizer]

This is a 1921 photo of the much-loved old YMCA building in Bridgwater. It was sadly replaced with a glass & concrete box for modern shops in the 1960s.

[Stanley]

I hate it when a perfectly functional building of quality is destroyed in the name of progress. I think of places like Ypres, Rothenburg am der Taube and Nuremberg that were totally destroyed during WW2 but they had the sense to rebuild the old buildings with no alterations. Another less spectacular example is Fremantle in WA. There was a movement to 'modernise' it but the city fathers said no, refurbish what already exists and retain the Victorian township which is human scale and it worked.
Things in Barlick like the Brutalist 1950s post office corner and the red brick fire Station offend me every time I see them. being a backwater and not attracting attention can have its advantages!

[Stanley]

Here's a building that has always offended me and I'm not quite sure why. It used to be the Craven Water Board offices and is on the road up to the Croft from Church Street. It's been converted into flats now but it stood empty for many years and was an eyesore. Perhaps I've never forgiven it!

[chinatyke]

Here's a building that has always offended me and I'm not quite sure why. It used to be the Craven Water Board offices and is on the road up to the Croft from Church Street. It's been converted into flats now but it stood empty for many years and was an eyesore. Perhaps I've never forgiven it!

Because it is ugly and unsympathetically extended? I agree, an eyesore.