Remember me mentioning Castle View and the possible origin if the name? Another little mystery has been solved this week. Many of you will know Longfield Lane in Barlick, the road leading down to Ouzledale Mill and onwards over Forty Steps. It has the distinction of being the only row of houses I know in the town that has two cast iron nameplates, one reads Crowfoot Row and the other Longfield Lane.
For as long as I have known it, the locals called it Crow Row and I always wondered why. The clue is in the date stone on the row, there's a picture of it here. If you look at it carefully you'll see what looks like the imprint of a bird's foot beneath the date and this is where the name Crowfoot originates. The question is why is it there?
The 'W B' on the date stone is William Broughton. I have a record of him as being a stonemason in a trade directory for Barlick of 1822. As late as 1896 he is described as being a stonemason and contractor living on Albion Terrace. He came from a family that has a long line of stonemasons going back at least 150 years and this is a craft that has very strong customs and traditions. One of these is that each mason had his own 'mark', always capable of being cut with a combination of straight chisel cuts. The mason put this mark on any major work as identification to show who made it. On large contracts where many masons were working this ensured they got paid for each piece. If you go to the Barrowford end of the Mile Tunnel at Foulridge you'll see many mason's marks on the dressed stones that form the portal, it's almost as though they were artists signing their work. Once you understand this you can make the connection, the crowfoot mark beneath 1828 on the date stone is William Broughton's personal mason's mark and this is the origin of the name Crow Row. It is almost certain that William himself carved the stone because another mason wouldn't have been allowed, by the strict rules of the trade, to carve another man's mark.
I love odd bits of information like this about our town. So simple and yet satisfying because behind the story is a lot of careful investigation by many people. It was relatives of William who brought this matter up on the Oneguy website and triggered me off to go digging again and write this. Many would say that it's all ancient history and has no bearing on today's world but I disagree. One of the reasons I bend your ear each week about matters like these is that I believe they have an influence on how we regard Barlick, the more we know about our roots the more firmly we will be embedded in the town for we are the stuff that the history is made of.
The date stone on Crowfoot Row.
