FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

When Bracewell built Wellhouse Mill in 1853 he made his own gas for illumination in a small gasworks located near the boiler and engine house. He sold surplus gas to the adjoining houses and they were the first in the town to escape the tyranny of oil lamps and candles. He realised that there was profit in this and built a bigger gas plant near the Corn Mill which supplied the public and eventually became the BUDC gasworks which supplied the town until the advent of North Sea Gas in the 1960s.



The twin gas holders of the original gasworks from Coates Bridge in 1978.

[Stanley]

For years these small cast iron covers have intrigued me. This one is in Hill Street but you can find others. From the SWD on the lid I guess that they are something to do with Skipton Water Department which I think at one tome managed our water supplies. I've never seen one lifted and I think they must be access points to valves in the mains but are probably all redundant now.....

[Stanley]

Seeing a picture of our cherished local MP Stephenson, jumping on yet another bandwagon in Earby trumpeting the flood prevention works in Earby as though it was a Tory triumph reminded me of another forgotten corner, the 19th century flood prevention works around Salterforth Bottoms and the west side of Earby. Salterforth Bottoms was, historically, a swamp. Drainage works at Salterforth and lower down the beck through Sough (in itself a dialect word for a drain) and by making the flow easier, reclaimed a lot of land at Salterforth. I believe at one time the village had its own drainage board. There was a consequence, the more direct flow meant that flooding in Earby increased, mainly in the Lane Ends area. Perhaps it's time I wrote about it !



Here is John Clayton's interpretation of the LIDAR image of the beck at Sough. You can see the meandering course of the original stream bed before it was improved by straightening it out and deepening it.

[Tizer]

Ironically the aim now is to introduce bends into rivers and streams to make them longer thus increasing their capacity and slowing the flow, and to hold back the water in marshy ground upstream. The Somerset Levels flood problems today derive from the drainage activities of the Benedictine monks 800 years ago.

[Stanley]

One of the problems with this beck is that it is high on the watershed between the Ribble and Aire Basins and this is the only stream that heads for the Aire round here. There is virtually no fall in the valley bottom until the water gets beyond Earby. Historically this has always been Earby's main problem with drainage.



Water Street (!) in Earby in August 2004.

[Wendyf]

The water causing the flooding on Water Street is coming the other way down Earby Beck, it hasn't joined up with the cut at this point. The water has come down off the hills and is all directed very efficiently into the beck above the old corn mill site!

[Stanley]

You're right of course Wendy but it was a handy flood picture!
We often forget that we have the great advantage in this area of not having to deal with other area's water as we are on the watershed. In Barlick we only have to contend with water off this side of Whitemoor and all of it goes into the Ribble Basin.

[Tizer]

Unless you're the one on the very top point of the hill you'll be vulnerable. If there's ground a couple of feet higher near you then there's a chance of flooding, especially if there are several acres of that higher ground. If it's a couple of metres higher the hydraulic pressure can be devastating. I remember a hill in Blackburn where all the cast iron manhole covers in the road popped out under the pressure of water from a bit higher up. We lived on a steep hill but the garden sometimes flooded with water coming from a bit higher up. Mind you, that was good fun for a child like me!

[Stanley]

Quite right Tiz, we saw that in 1932. But we don't have the massive quantities that you had in the Levels..... Only flash local flooding at times.
At one time good grassland management in an area like Craven depended on regular top-dressing of grassland with lime or Basic Slag, both 'natural' products. This has been replaced with lighter dressings of expensive 'artificial' fertilizers largely relying on the oil and chemical industries. Is this progress or a triumph of modern marketing? How long is it since you saw lime spreading being done?

[Stanley]

Barlick used to be an agricultural town, many people worked on farms. As well as that, many of the workers in the mills used to go hay-timing in the evening during the harvest. I did this as well in the 1960s, not for money, I did it for nothing because I enjoyed it. There was still some of that going on for hay bale carting later on when most farming had been mechanised. Bale carting was the most labour intensive job on the farm, no way of mechanising it. I can tell you that it was some of the hardest work I have ever done in my life!
I wonder how many people would go and do that today for entertainment!

[Stanley]

Barlick used to have a weekly livestock sale in the road outside the Seven Stars. I suspect it was largely informal because I have never found any advertisements for it but plenty of large auctions of land in the Seven Stars. The Bracewell Sale was held there and many others. The Seven Stars was also used as a public venue for events like the lunch if the Calf Hall Shed Company. Now it's a funeral directors.... This says a lot about the way we have changed!
Gisburn Marts, just outside the manorial boundary, is the nearest livestock auction now and for many years past. A big and very profitable enterprise over the years.

[Stanley]

My corner today is bang up to date. Have you tried to talk to a policeman lately on a non urgent matter that doesn't warrant a 999 call? I can remember when you could walk up to the police station. Today you call 101 and get diverted to Lancashire Constabulary and there is nobody there..... The response to a neighbour's 999 call was good, two officers on the scene but apart from that, zilch! Things have changed......

[Stanley]

Today's forgotten corner is a funny one and fairly recent history. I was talking to PCO Neill Wallin yesterday and when we had finished our business I asked him if he was any relation to Frank Walling. He said no, no relation but he mentioned that he had been asked that question before. I used to work with Frank Walling when he was a tanker driver at West Marton Dairies for a while and he was an edgy character. If my memory serves me right he got in a spot of trouble at one time involving cigarettes. It was news to Neill! You may also remember him being in the news when he made a Mayday call from a sinking yacht off the coast of Portugal..... Funny how these things come back to you!

[Stanley]

Eughtred and Sidney Nutter making old fashioned wage packets up in the office at Bancroft. I suspect that this doesn't happen today. Old technology but efficient!

[Stanley]

Wild's bus picking up the workers at Bancroft in 1976 on a rainy evening. All part of encouraging the workers to stay at the mill. Notice the engine house still lit up. The engine is running because it was still ten minutes to going home time. Someone once asked me why I ran the engine when there were no weavers in the shed. I told them because that was what I was paid to do, if I had stopped early the bus would have come early as well!

[Stanley]

Rag Albert outside his little house in Orchard Street in 1982. Always worth reminding people about Albert who was a well known character in the town but that's not the main thing that triggered this post. It was a report (another one!) about the lack of affordable housing for poor people. Albert was poor but he had this little house in the centre of the town, at that time they could be bought for £2000 or rented at a very low figure. 40 years later all this has changed. These little houses that escaped 'slum clearance' in the 1950s are now extremely desirable 'town houses' which are in demand. I don't know how much they are worth now but it will be eye-watering.
This sector of the housing market is a forgotten corner these days and we are the poorer for it. The cost of these houses has inflated far faster than wage levels.

[Big Kev]

Number 6 Orchard St sold for £41000 in March 2018.

[Tripps]

The name Eughtred caught my eye, so I googled it. The only sensible results led back to one Stanley Challenger Graham. A published book, and the Lancashire textile project.

Do you know any more about the origin of the name - for one who is always curious?

[Tizer]

Tripps, while waiting for Stanley's reply you might like to read this Wikipedia page... William Oughtred

[Wendyf]

Ughtred is the more common spelling.

[PanBiker]

We went to Warkworth Castle last week on our holiday. As well as the birds of prey display we were treated to a presentation of the history of the Medieval Kings and one Queen (although never acknowledged as women were not officially allowed to be monarchs). Somewhere in the half hour mix of throne grabbing I'm fairly sure Eughtred was mentioned. Can't remember his exact placing in the history though.

Nothing to do with Tizers link, this bloke was in the "royal" mix somewhere.

[chinatyke]

This was the only link I found where it is a given name rather than a surname:

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10. ... 601-e-3145

[Tripps]

Well - it's nice to get several reactions to something I posted. Thanks to you all - I didn't expect that. I like these exotic names , particularly Zilpah Hartley the TV presenter, and Sir Elkanah Armitage, Victorian, and former Lord Mayor of Manchester. They are biblical in origin which is understandable.

[Stanley]

I always wondered but as far as I can remember Eughtred is how he spelt it..... I agree, Ughtred would be more accurate.
£41,000! I rest my case m'lud.



Stanworth's pot shop in 1984. The whole block is the vet's now. It was a lovely shop.
There used to be a smithy behind but it's a garage now..... The end house on Forester's Row below was a dressmaker's.

[Stanley]

Forester's Buildings. The name comes from the fact that the row was built by the Independent Foresters which was an early form of Friendly Society. Many of these eventually developed into modern building societies. For many years this row was the Northern boundary of development in the town centre. This changed after about 1895 when the residential property started to extend down towards Bracewell.
Originally I believe there was another dwelling on the left (East) end but when the sidings were developed into the Green and the new road put in as an extension of Fernbank Avenue, that house was demolished.