FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

The first motor wagons appeared after WW1 when the army sold many surplus wagons. They were very crude, lacking efficient brakes and lights but quickly took hold displacing horses for the heaviest work like quarry transport. By 1920 they had improved and here's the Co-op lorry in 1920 ready for the gala. Notice that this one still had solid rubber tyres.

[Tizer]

The gala wagons are very different now - here's a typical modern gala wagon at Bridgwater Carnival...

[Stanley]

The gala parade lining up at the end of Bank Street c.1920. A bit less complicated!

[PanBiker]

Take all the people away and the area is not much different to when I lived on Craven Street as a lad. "Top shop" at the top of Stuart Street is in business, the steps and paths up to the front and side of Wellhouse Square, joiners yard on the right and the stone sets on Wellhouse Road, they were still there in the 50's. I can remember the sound of the car tyres on the bend lower down, I don't think it was bitmac surfaced until the early 60's. The lamp standard on number 2's gable had gone though by the 50's although we had one at the bottom of Craven Street, it was directly opposite the end of our back street and made a convenient wicket for tennis ball cricket, (you were out if it went in a back yard)

[Tizer]

Is `bitmac' another name for tarmac? I've only seen it written in one other place and that's the Terry Pratchett novel `Johnny and the Dead'!

Stanley, the old galas were not only less complicated they were also less vulnerable to electrical failure!
Did the old galas feature fireworks too? The Bridgwater Carnival has always finished with `squibbing', their name for fireworks. But it's dramatic because they also have an evening procession with people carrying burning torches. The combination of naked flames, sparks, fireworks and inebriated, excited people is dangerous. Bridgwater people avoid driving their cars through the streets in the days following the carnival - there's too much broken glass, nowadays mainly from light bulbs rather than bottles.

[Stanley]

The old fashioned galas were more to do with either religion or civic pride and I don't remember fireworks or booze.



The Labour gala in Norway House in Colne 1978 was more like a Sunday School treat. Len Dole here making his annual speech which was largely a garbled history of the party. Lovely evening out!

[Stanley]

We are lucky in that we have a good stock of images of Barlick over the years. They always reward close examination. For instance, in this old picture of Walmsgate there are steps down to the cellar of one of the shops on the right with protection that encroached on the pavement. That has gone. The quality deteriorates in the far distance but it looks as though the cottage properties at the end of the Calf Hall Lane have been demolished. I'd guess that the image is probably c.1900 so this was an early widening of the junction of the lane with Walmsgate.



This pic looks to about the same time and confirms that the cottages have gone. The obstruction to the pavement outside the shop is still there.

[Stanley]

More Walmsgate. The old house in the gap that is built on a different orientation looks to have sunk in the ground but it's the ground that has risen. It takes some imagination to visualise Gillians Beck running across the street where there was a ford. The beck was culverted and the road raised around 1850.



The evidence is there in this original bit of paving outside the access to the cellar in the left hand house on Lamb Hill.

[Stanley]

I think this pic of Walmsgate is pre-war. Clough and its chimney are still there. The object of my interest is the white building on the right with the pediment on the frontage. It's always been a slight annoyance to me that I am sure this is what Atkinson in 'Old Barlick' (On the site in rare texts) refers to as Hudson's Buildings but I have never found definitive proof. There is a notation on the 1853 First Edition OS 'Hudson's Buildings' but it isn't clear as to what building it refers to. It has been a private dwelling for many years but in the inter-war years at least it was a pie shop and probably long before that. The yard behind it behind the buildings on the right and accessed from Butts is Hudson's Yard but that's not much help because it doesn't nail down which building. Atkinson talks about a palisaded area in front of the shop and this is now a low wall so that's in favour of my choice.
Incidentally, you can see the steps on the building on the left of Lamb Hill that lead down to the original paving.

[Tizer]

I am sure this is what Atkinson in 'Old Barlick' (On the site in rare texts) refers to as Hudson's Buildings but I have never found definitive proof. There is a notation on the 1853 First Edition OS 'Hudson's Buildings' but it isn't clear as to what building it refers to. It has been a private dwelling for many years but in the inter-war years at least it was a pie shop and probably long before that.

Have you interrogated the present owners? They might have old documents among the deeds.

[Stanley]

No Tiz. My investigation and research motivation has diminished over the years. I'm resting on my laurels now! I need all my energy to cope with day to day life......



This pic came to mind yesterday as I walked round Barlick and it struck me that I couldn't remember the last time I saw a bobby on the beat in Barlick. For that matter I can't remember when I last saw a Community policeman or a car! The comments made by the retired policeman I saw in the Sky News interview about knife crime the other day on Youtube where he said that we were losing control of the inner cities because of lack of manpower came to mind (The clip was posted under the title 'You'll never see this interview repeated"). We're a quiet town but I couldn't help wondering whether we are sleepwalking into a dystopian future. Or am I too pessimistic?

[PanBiker]

20 specials there for a population of about 10,000 then I suppose. I wonder how many regulars they supported as well. They are all older than the call up of course.

It's a good photo and I have always wondered where in town it was taken?

[Big Kev]

20 specials there for a population of about 10,000 then I suppose. I wonder how many regulars they supported as well. They are all older than the call up of course.

It's a good photo and I have always wondered where in town it was taken?

I have a vague recollection of this image being discussed a while ago (not sure if it was on here), was the building in the distance identified as Bank House? I can't remember if an exact location of the photo was established.

[Whyperion]

Yes, it was discussed here, and I think it had something to do with potential industrial / political unrest as much as anything else.

Police Spotting otherwise, they do appear around in odd places, still mainly in twos (I wonder if it would be cost effective to have one as an android , generally copying what the other does, as static or mobile in a car they are more a deterant / reassurance as much as anything)

[PanBiker]

It was on the old site Kev when Bank House in the distance was suggested. If that is the case I can't think where the foreground buildings are, for Bank House to be on the distant horizon the view must have been from the West or East. Not a lot of buildings in the West and even fewer to the East. Bank House would appear on the horizon looking from the West from Greenberfield Lane after the brow of the hill where there are no further houses and from the East roughly from where the Rolls sports fields are now. The only other possibility would be Eastwood Farm which used to be to the South East, roughly at the end of Weets View between Coates Avenue and Avon Drive. Swept away when the estate was built but at the time of the photo surrounded by fields. Buildings don't look like a farmhouse though and there are other structures to the right and a dry stone wall in front of the foreground buildings.

[Stanley]

We did talk about it and we never came to a satisfactory conclusion. It still puzzles me....



I've gone back to the original copy and pulled this out as much as possible. Have another study! Why the extended chimney stack on the right of the nearest building. Bakehouse? Definitely Bank House in the East......

[plaques]

Not too sure about it being Bank House. The chimneys don't look in the right place

Bank House Barlick.JPG

This view has the chimney behind the gable not on the apex as shown in the Special Constables image.

[PanBiker]

I have always had a downer on it being Bank House which always seems to be suggested when we need a "house on the hill", reasoning above, apart from the contour of the building.

Now, another contender from browsing the photos on Barlick and Barlickers Now and Then site. I came across a photo taken from just below "Windy Harbour" which shows part of the terraced row that used to sit on the triangle at the top of Colne Road with its junction with Manchester Road. It's looking straight up Tubber Hill and has the house on the horizon that is now derelict that used to sit at the bottom of Lister Well, or is it the adjacent house below opposite the end of Hodge Lane? The view from one of the houses on the left opposite "Windy Harbour" could be a contender, Hillcrest or Homelands area or even slightly behind around Letcliffe.

Here is the view:



This view fits in Forgotten Corners also

[Marilyn]

I am rather taken by the steps up to/and height of the front door on the RHS of that pic.
Flood prone?

[PanBiker]

Not there Maz, it's at the top of a hill. Top of Colne Road runs in from the right and you can see Bancrofts Farm just past the terrace. Not called Windy Harbour for nothing.

[Marilyn]

What landscape lays behind the photographer's back then? Because that high set front door and steps suggest some worry of water.
(Says me...with no real knowledge of the area at all...) but surely it cost more to set up higher than needed?

The ground drops away on the other side of the building so there would probably be 3 full stories on that side with a door at ground level. I'm just guessing.

[Tizer]

Maybe it had cellars Maz and the ground floor was higher so they didn't have to dig out so much for the cellars. Could it have been a pub or inn in the past?

[Marilyn]

I do love a mystery...

[PanBiker]

Here you go Maz another aspect taken from the other direction and above, shows exactly what was at the top of the hill.



From the facebook site again

[Stanley]

No mention anywhere of it being a pub Tiz but one clue could be that wherever the name Windy Harbour crops up there is often a connection to overnight stops on Drover's Routes. I found this on a board discussing the origin of the name 'Windy Harbour'; "It refers to a shelter for travellers on the road. Spelt hereberwe in Middle English, the word is cognate with modern German Herberge, which means an inn or shelter as does the French auberge."