FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[PanBiker]

Nolic mentioning the siren testing has jogged another memory from me. The fire station siren I mentioned was tested at 10.30 and had its associated turn out response drill every Saturday morning. I reckon they got a double whammy of system testing. There was the siren on top of the hose and ladder practice tower (now a mobile phone hedgehog) and I seem to remember one on the gasworks building that became my Uncle Bobs workshop opposite the end of Wellhouse Road. I assume they would be linked, were there any others, (probably at the top of town) if anywhere?

[Stanley]

In June 2006 I was talking to Walt Fisher about piped wireless in Barlick. He said Stanworth and Shorrocks started it from their shop at 1 Rainhall Road in the 1930a. (The telephone number was 80!) The main receiver and hub of the service was in a yard on the right on York Street just off Rainhall Road. Later they moved to Albert Road opposite the Majestic. During the war they relayed the air raid warning siren on the gasworks building via the relay network.



The buildings on York Street are still there.

[PanBiker]

Thanks for that confirmation Stanley. I thought they would be linked but had never thought of the relay. You can still see the flat mount for the siren on the gable ridge of the gasworks building. Any idea if there were any other sites?

[Stanley]

I've never heard any mention Ian. The ARP did rent a room off the CHSC for their office in the war. I think it was at Butts Mill but I'd have to trawl the Minutes to confirm that.

[Stanley]

Something Jack Platt told me when I was interviewing him for the LTP on his work in the quarries (See 'Rock Solid' in Stanley's View) was that as the quarries on Salterforth drag were developed, large waste heaps built up lower down the hill on the north side and when Kelbrook New Road and the improvements at Skipton on the Keighley Road at Sandbeds were being built much of the offal was carted away to use in the road foundations. Over the road at Park Close Quarry most of the offal was used in the brickworks lower down which was part of the operation so there are no obvious waste heaps.



Park Close in 1948.

[Stanley]

We often forget that apart from being on the watershed between the Ribble and Aire basins and also that we have a very handy geological feature running just north of the town centre. Quarries north of that are limestone and those to the south are gritstone. Limestone is thin on the ground in Lancashire and so after 1800 when the L&L canal opened for through traffic Barlick exported many tens of thousands of limestone into Lancashire. Greenberfield, Gill and Springs Quarries were all active and there was a very large limestone quarry at Thornton in Craven as well.



Thornton Quarry around 1900.

[Stanley]

The stone from the Upper Hill Quarries, owned by Gledstone estate but worked by the Sagar family was good quality and used for building stone. They also operated the top quarry on Salterforth Drag where the stone was even better quality. Jack Platt told me that the stone saws there only cut at half the speed as those in Upper Hill. The sawn stone was used for cills and lintels. If you look at the house Sagar built Just below Lister Well Lane you'll see some of the best stonework in the town.
One3 thing that has always puzzled me about that area at the top of the hill is that the old name for it was 'Loose Games' and that was the name of the quarry. What was the origin of that?



Here's a map I once saw on a scrap of paper. The road on the right is the High Lane and the one at the top Lister Well Lane.

[Tizer]

We're planning a new low wall in our back garden and wanted something natural and local. The builder (who lives a couple of streets from us and comes with excellent recommendation) is going to source stone from a small family-owned quarry at Williton, 15 miles from here. It's New Red Sandstone, from the Triassic age about 200 million years ago. LINK Eight hundred tons of stone from the quarry was used to build the sea wall at Minehead. Rougemont Castle at Exeter was built with New Red Sandstone so I think our wall will last about a thousand years!

[Stanley]

Stockport is founded on red sandstone which is very easy to cut. Look up the caves on the Mersey used for shelters during the war and by Manchester University for experiments on gravity after 1945.
The stone from the quarry on Salterforth Drag is very good quality and was in demand for things like steam engine beds and heavy architectural work. In common with Loose Games, it is not bedded, no good for flags or slates as it won't split. This is an advantage for most building purposes and much of what we see in Barlick came out of these quarries.



The Sagar quarries in 1892. Well organised, note the tramways down to the canal for exporting stone by that route.

[Stanley]

I tripped over this pic in the archive.... Isn't it nice to be able to reach back 81 years into the past just because someone took the trouble to preserve a snap!

[Stanley]

Sorry about the quality but this is pulled out of a 1963 aerial view of Barlick and shows Barratt's Steam Laundry and the last chimney built in Barlick. This became the site for Kwik Fit. Until WW2 they were in the old joiner's shop at Wellhouse.



There they had the advantage of steam supplied from the mill boilers and their own borehole for the water they needed. When they moved out Brown and Pickles took over the shop for large machines they installed to fulfil War Office orders. The original use for the building when Bracewell built New Mill in 1853, later renamed Wellhouse, was to produce bobbins for use in the mill.

[Stanley]

That reminds me that there were at least two boreholes at Wellhouse mill and the name it was given suggests there was a spring or well there before the mill but I have no clue about that. When Silentnight were redeveloping the old Wellhouse Mill I contacted them and reminded them of the bores but they never bothered to reply.
Worth noting that I know of two more Wellhouses in the town.



Wellhouse Farm on Church Street around 1881.



And this building at Townhead which was a Baptist Chapel at one time I think which was also called 'Wellhouse' locally because there was a public well incorporated in the building.
In the days before mains water these names were important.

[Stanley]

If you were walking down Folly lane it would be very easy to miss this tiny flow of water out of the bank on the opposite side of the lane from Folly Cottages. It's the reason the cottages are there. If you were to dig it out there will be a stone trough there as a reservoir because it was the water supply for the cottages and the animals kept there as well. It's only when we see TV appeals for water aid to under-developed countries that we are shaken out of our mains water and tap that always runs mind-set. This was a fact of life in Barlick 150 years ago.

[Stanley]

There is a gap in my understanding of our local history. Before the canal reached the town coal for domestic heating was not an option, it was too expensive as the only way it could get here was by packhorse. The only obvious alternatives are wood and turfs (peat) from the moor. Wood could supply some of the needs but I feel that turfs must have been very important. The problem is that we have no evidence beyond the fact that during the winter the Manorial Court banned the use of heavy wagons on the roads up to the moor and this suggests that at other times of the year there must have been significant traffic. The only resource I can think of up there is turfs and so I suspect there was a healthy trade, stone was available in the valley. My problem is that apart from this I have never found any evidence of the trade.
So it's a negative report today but I am sure that it existed!

[Stanley]

Here's another little mystery for you....
The Craven Herald of 22/9/1888 carried a report of mining for silver at Lower Park Farm.
I have never found any other mention of this but the fact remains that this report was published and it has intrigued me for years. Sorry to leave you in the air but that's what research is like at times. Sometimes you get a surprise and trip over further information, if that happens I shall report!

[Big Kev]

Here's another little mystery for you....
The Craven Herald of 22/9/1888 carried a report of mining for silver at Lower Park Farm.
I have never found any other mention of this but the fact remains that this report was published and it has intrigued me for years. Sorry to leave you in the air but that's what research is like at times. Sometimes you get a surprise and trip over further information, if that happens I shall report!

Is silver not found in the same ore as lead? Was there lead mining local to Lower Park Farm?

[Wendyf]

From the Burnley Express 29th September 1888:

Sinking operations were commenced last week in one of Lower Park fields to reach the ore bearing strata which is supposed to contain either silver or lead. Samples of the ore have been sent for inspection and analysis.

[Big Kev]

[Tizer]

Mentioned in Stanley's View, Volume 7, page 347.

[Stanley]

Now there's a dedicated fan!
To my knowledge, the nearest lead deposits that were mined were at Cononley and Rimington.



Remains of the lead mine at Great Todber near Gisburn.

[Stanley]

My forgotten corner this morning wasn't as big a problem here as it was in larger towns and cities. For 150 years after the advent of the canal, cheap coal and the growth of coal burning as domestic fuel and in the mills the dominant scent in the air was that of coal smoke. In Barlick it wasn't concentrated enough to trigger the worst effects and being in the Pennines at 600ft we had enough wind to keep the town clear. This wasn't the case in other places, especially those in valleys and with high concentrations of industry.
It's difficult for anyone who hasn't experienced it to understand 'smog', the colloquial name for a deadly combination of smoke and fog, often exacerbated by a 'temperature inversion' where a layer of stagnant cold air trapped the smog in a valley. I have known it thick enough to make it impossible to see your hand held out at arm's length in front of your face. The Tinsley Viaduct near Rotherham was notorious because of the situation in a valley and the numerous steel works.
We were spared the worst of this and it was largely ignored until 1952 when a particularly bad episode hit London and eventually led to the Clean Air Acts.
One consequence of the improvement in air quality was that gardeners in urban areas were plagued with blight on their roses, the pollution had been holding it in check! (Not many people know that.....)

[Stanley]

There is a knock-on effect of the same circumstances that led to the resurgence of blight on roses. In the early days after the Clean Air Acts came in sand-blasting buildings made them look almost like new but it was soon noticed that a consequence of stone cleaning was accelerated lichen growth on clean stone, there was nothing to kill it! Instead of soot blackened stone we started to get lichen-greened buildings!

[chinatyke]

Instead of soot blackened stone we started to get lichen-greened buildings!

One day I took my eldest stepdaughter to Accrington and Rochdale because she had been told of jobs that were available and she would need to live in digs nearby. As we drove along the Haslingden by-pass, she looked up at some stone built terraced houses in Haslingden and asked if they had been on fire because they looked so black. I thought it was very amusing that she had never seen grime like that as she had always lived in Wallasey. She took a job in Rochdale!

[Stanley]

It was almost a badge of pride China because it was the result of industrial success and as such was seen as a price worth paying. In the days before fuel efficiency was understood engineers commonly believed that you couldn't make steam without smoke and mill owners actually encouraged them to pour out black smoke to advertise how busy they were. I remember when I first read Armstrong's 'The Crowthers of Bankdam' I was sceptical about the episode when the mill was short of work and not weaving the owner told the engineer to burn rubbish and make smoke to fool the opposition. I later found that there was a grain of truth in this. If you haven't read the book, have a crack at it!
By the way, I have heard that valley between Haslingden and Accrington described as the arsehole of Lancashire, I lived there for a while and it is close to the truth.

[Tripps]

By the way, I have heard that valley between Haslingden and Accrington described as the arsehole of Lancashire, I lived there for a while and it is close to the truth.

A bit harsh if I may say so - to refer to the area thus. It has emerged as the point of origin of most of my family, and many others 'of that ilk' as well. When I looked up such things, I had Haslingden set up on Ctrl V to save a lot of typing.