FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Here's an expanded section from the 1963 aerial picture of Barlick. Interrogate it and find your own forgotten corner today!

[Stanley]

The 1853 OS map of Bracewell. The beauty of this edition in the case of Bracewell is that it shows the arrangement of the watercourses feeding the water mill near Yarlside were arranged. There was a weir on the Stock Beck to the east of the village and a long mill race to the mill. This was necessary because there is very little fall and at first sight the mill is not well served but it was established long before Barlick had a mill. Bracewell and Stock in medieval times was more important than Barlick. The Domesday entries quite clearly demonstrate this.
I can't stress too much how valuable it can be to study the old maps and then go out and walk the ground. If you do this in this case you'll get a bit of a surprise. The flow of water in what was originally the mill race where is crosses Hall Lane is reversed! This is because with the demise of the mill (After a fire I think from the state of masonry in walls on the site) it became more important to use the existing waterways for land drainage and as there was almost no fall this was easily done to improve field drainage. If I hadn't seen the map first I would have had no clue about its use as a mill race.
This make it a forgotten corner!



This might be a clearer image.

[Marilyn]

Can you tell me why, on these old maps, the trees are noted. It has always had me wondering...there must be some reason behind it.
Was it just a landmark to establish where you are on the map, when reading it at ground level?

[Stanley]

Not always accurately placed Maz. They were mainly used as a convention to indicate that there were trees on a boundary and to give an approximate indication of how many there were. Some isolated specimen trees were noted accurately but they had to be significant.

[PanBiker]

As Stanley says above they are just a representation of what you would see on the field boundary. Single trees that are noted on maps are often older pollarded specimins which were good landmarks, others shown may be on the junctions of footpaths or byways, again significant for navigation at ground level on foot or horseback.

[Stanley]

Here, for comparison, is the 1907 6" OS of Bracewell Village.

[Stanley]

We are very lucky in that we have a 1717 estate map of Bracewell surveyed and drawn for a sale of the estate. Here's a section of it. It was well surveyed and accurate and gives us a view into that period which is easy to compare with the later maps. The complete map shows much more and even includes tenant names for the still extant medieval field systems. I often wonder if one of the reasons that the Tempest family failed financially at Bracewell was because in an era of agricultural improvements they kept to the old ways and managed the estate so inefficiently.
Like all maps, it repays careful study. The village centre was essentially the same as this c. 1850 photograph of the old hall.



Note that this is a photograph and as such very early and high quality. The provenance of the image in the family is that it was done by William Bracewell. I have no evidence to the contrary and indeed there are some other very early images connected with Butts Mill which could back this up.

[Stanley]

This plan of the railway station dated 1914 has always intrigued me. Difficult to read I know but it refers to the sale of the land hatched in red to the BUDC in July 1869. Someone was being very far sighted and it became very important when the line was closed of course. Without looking it up I think this was when the Barnoldswick Railway Company, a private venture financed by the town, was taken over by the Midland Railway.



The 1892 OS map of the station and siding.

[Stanley]

A more extended view of the town centre in 1892.

As you know these old maps fascinate me and we are so lucky to have the 1892 25" to the mile survey as it is so detailed. What always strikes me is that the survey was done just before Albert Road was opened up across to the station. Billy Brooks lived on Newtown and he told me that before 1900 there were green fields between Newtown and the station and this survey shows that. There must have been a frenzy of building because by 1910 we had Station Road developed with the Conservative and Liberal clubs built. Wellhouse Road which for a time was called Station Road was also built on and reverted to its old name. Fernbank Avenue was built up and gave us the frontages we see today and this was when Matt Hartley was active building what became the Majestic complex.
All this was a reflection of the expansion of the mills that was happening at the same time, the profits were being kept in the town and reinvested and this was what was financing all this development. It's worth reflecting how different things are today, so much profit made in the town is exported and this is why the development of the town stopped essentially in 1914 with the outbreak of the Great War. The textile trade and profits never recovered after the war and Barlick went into a financial coma. This is why we were so lucky and escaped the subsequent 'improvement' that damaged other towns. Just look at Nelson and reflect how lucky we were but it didn't look like that at the time. Every cloud has a silver lining!

[Stanley]

This was Walmsgate in about 1910.



In 1950 it had hardly changed.



During the 1950s all the old properties on the left hand side of Colne Road going up to Townhead were compulsorily purchased, the road widened and we had what exists today. Compare the end of John Street on the right in the top picture with exactly the same gable end in the 2000 picture to get the orientation. This was as far as the improvements went, plans to demolish other properties like Club Row were abandoned. What we finished up with is a definite improvement but I am glad it went no further. Old Walmsgate is a forgotten corner now.

[Stanley]

Here's the 1853 6" OS survey of the Clough Mill area. All the property on the south side of Wapping was demolished, the first house you come to now is Stoops House at Townhead. It was a complete clear out. For years I was finding references to streets that no longer existed and they were all references to this demolished property.



Can you remember this image? It's at the corner of Esp Lane at Townhead and in the background you can see the chapel that was one of the buildings that went. This is the only image I have that shows any of it. This was in the early 1950s.
Remember as you look at the map that until 1843 (When Bracewell built Butts Mill), Mitchell's Mill (Later Clough Mill) and Ouzledale were the two major mills in the town. The others were small water spinning mills making roving for spinners in the home textile industry. Ouzledale was a saw mill and maker of things like wheelbarrows and handcarts at this time but was soon to be converted to an iron foundry, the precursor to Browns at Havre Park and the modern Ouzledale Foundry at Long Ing, now Esse stoves.

[Big Kev]

Can you remember this image? It's at the corner of Esp Lane at Townhead and in the background you can see the chapel that was one of the buildings that went. This is the only image I have that shows any of it. This was in the early 1950s.

It's Danny Wellock eating the ice cream, my wife works at the same place as his daughter.

[Stanley]

He looks like a likely lad!

[chinatyke]

In 1950 it had hardly changed.

Is that Model Lodging House and if so does it answer various questions posed on here? Things like did it have a flat/valley roof and was there a question about why it was so substantially built?

[Stanley]

No China, that large building is Clough Mill, now demolished. See the 1853 map I put up on Sunday, on that it's marked as Mitchell's Mill which was the original name of it.
I've never been able to pin down the early days of the water mill started by Mitchell that became Clough. It must have been sometime just before 1800 but even my friend Chris Aspin can't help. (His book 'The Water Spinners' published in 2004 is magisterial. Seek it out!)
George Ingle in his book 'Yorkshire Cotton' tells us that Hartley, Bracewell and Company ran the mill in 1800 and had it insured for £400. By 1812 it was owned by William Mitchell and insured for £600. By 1827 he had installed a steam engine, the first in Barlick and was insured for £2,400 in 1831. He also ran Parock Mill which was owned by Henry Lambert in 1808 and was insured for £300.
In 1867 Henry Slater bought Mitchell's mill and they ran it successfully for many years.

[chinatyke]

Thanks.

[Stanley]

The news about the illegal climb of Dixon's Chimney looks as though it's going to be a bad outcome. In other topics I have pointed out that all they needed to do was get some competent Jacks in. It seems as though specialists in rescue can be blinkered if their experience isn't wide enough. Sorry to sound like a know-all but unfortunately it's true. Laddering tall stacks quickly under difficult conditions was solved long ago as any of us who have been involved know. That's the reason why I started Steeplejack's Corner and how anyone who followed that knows the history and what is possible.



Simon Schwabe's 340ft stack at Middleton in 1923. My mate Peter Tatham laddered it for inspection in 1976.

What looks impossible to a layman is all in a day's work to men like this. It seems as though this is a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

The news about the illegal climb of Dixon's Chimney looks as though it's going to be a bad outcome. In other topics I have pointed out that all they needed to do was get some competent Jacks in. It seems as though specialists in rescue can be blinkered if their experience isn't wide enough. Sorry to sound like a know-all but unfortunately it's true. Laddering tall stacks quickly under difficult conditions was solved long ago as any of us who have been involved know. That's the reason why I started Steeplejack's Corner and how anyone who followed that knows the history and what is possible.



Simon Schwabe's 340ft stack at Middleton in 1923.



My mate Peter Tatham laddered it for inspection in 1976.

What looks impossible to a layman is all in a day's work to men like this. It seems as though this is a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the dénouement of the case of the man on the chimney. Difficult to interpret the 'management speak' but I think that 'specialist contractors' must have been steeplejacks who are now evidently a forgotten corner. As I said yesterday the chimney was laddered and the man had gained access even though the first ladder had evidently been removed.
The sight of jacks on a stack used to be common and people knew well what was going on.



Crow Nest laddered for maintenance in 1978.



Bancroft in 1981.



Peter Tatham taking Butts stack down in 1980.

[Stanley]

We complain today about the amount of traffic.



Coal delivery to mills was only a small part of horse drawn traffic in Barlick in the late 19th century. Add in the building boom, retailers delivery carts and private transport and the streets must have been choc a bloc! Yet we don't see many complaints apart from the state of the water bound stone streets.
In the LTP Billy Brooks talks about the first setts being laid in the centre of the town around 1900. Funnily enough it was the carters who complained then because their horses hadn't as good a grip. Farriers had to respond by re-designing shoes with hardened studs and grips on the front of the shoe to give the horses a chance.

[Stanley]

Thinking about muddy streets before hard paving, my first thought is the state of woman's long skirts and the difficulties they must have faced keeping them clean. Remember that the mud would include faeces and other nasties from the horses and the night soil carts! Then think about the composition of the dust in dry weather and the fact that the wind blew it everywhere.
Then think about uncovered foods and displays outside shops, particularly butchers.



This one is exceptionally elaborate but all butchers hung meat outside and many shops had open fronts. The dust from the streets together with its associated nasties plus flies had full access. At that time the concept of bacterial infection was only just beginning to be accepted and the consequence was that everyone was getting small doses of bacteria all the time, this applied particularly to foods that were already cooked or didn't need cooking. We know from medical history that a constant low level of infection was a given at the time and undoubtedly contributed to high mortality as well.
It's doubtful if we would be able to withstand this but conversely, this constant exposure probably meant that the Victorians had better adapted immune systems than us. It was a trade off.
That's the forgotten corner but we are allowed to wonder whether our modern obsession with cleanliness and safety has reduced our ability to cope with occasional infections. Think of the cases we see in closed communities like cruise ships where a simple infection can spread like wildfire. As I said earlier, it's a trade off!

[Stanley]

I love these old images, this one is about 1900 and taken where Gillian's Lane (Now Colne Road) met Barnoldswick Lane (now Manchester Road or Upper Hill.) The white colour is a result of the fact that the road is water-bound Macadam, usually limestone because it fractured more easily into small stones when knapped at the roadside mainly by poor people on Outdoor Relief from the workhouse in Skipton.



A Thomas Bewick engraving of a stone breaker knapping stone at the roadside. The knapping hammer was very small with a long shaft, weighed about 2lbs and was pointed. Thomas Telford, the great Victorian engineer who pioneered modern stone roads supplied the stone breakers with a ring for testing the stone size, the target was about the size of a pigeon's egg or below for the top layer.



This small enclosed yard, now overgrown, was known locally as 'Poor Bones'. It is just below Letcliffe Park on Barnoldswick Lane and was where workers on outdoor relief knapped stone for the roads. Abandoned now, I suspect it could still be the property of the successors to Skipton Workhouse, now of course the NHS. I'll bet that has been forgotten!
The other thing that strikes me about the picture is how few trees there are compared to today. Trees were house fuel in the days before economically priced house coal! Have look today and note how the trees have returned.

[Stanley]

I'm cheating this morning because my mind went back to Stanley's Crumpets and the wealth of local bakers we used to have in the town.



The East side of the Green in 1982. (I'd forgotten the Station Garage!)

Here's the cheat, an extract that we posted a long time ago.

Stanley’s Crumpets – Harry and Stan Stanley, 1950’s – extract from my autobiography. [Barry Sharples]

Mentioning the earning of money reminds me of the many occasions I assisted, at Stanley’s Bakery and Whip’s Café.
The Stanley’s were very good friends of the family; in fact I always referred to both Stan and his brother, Harry, as uncles. I first started to assist the whilst at Barlick’s secondary school, first on Saturday mornings and then during holidays, which I thoroughly enjoyed, even going with uncle Harry on many of his deliveries to shops all over Lancashire.
In the bake house it was always Stan who made up the batter in a huge round container, which was then covered with a cloth to await fermentation.
This was done under maximum security; he was always concerned about his recipe being discovered. There were two large gas heated hotplates, which were covered with lightly greased crumpet rings, and then the batter would be ladled in. When the surface of the crumpets had bubbled up and just lost their moist appearance, it was time to turn them over. This was done with the aid of a cranked palette knife and a deft flick of the wrist, which I soon mastered.
Once the surface, now at the bottom, had acquired a light golden colour it was time to lift them with the palette, two or three at a time, onto the cooling racks. Five minutes or so later we would lift off the rings and stack the crumpets into piles of approx. eight into tissue lined cake trays.
Occasionally there would be a misshape, which at the end of a shift were given to me wrapped in tissue paper, as well as ‘ten bob’ or sometimes more. Many was the time I ran all the way home with the comforting warmth under my arm and the distinct aroma of impending gastronomic delight and money in my pocket as well! Ah happy days.
No doubt due to these experiences during my formative years, I have had a lifetime love for the humble crumpet, but sadly without the lashings of butter now considered de rigueur.
At the risk of sounding like a granddad! They just do not make crumpets like that any more, now they are smaller, thinner, steamed not baked, and either left pale and anemic in colour or ‘torched’ to give some semblance of colour but devoid of the true flavour.
In addition to crumpets Stan and Walter introduced Scotch Pancakes and Oatcakes to their production range, which like crumpets, I still find irresistible if not somewhat disappointing now.
Scotch pancakes were made with an egg-enriched batter in a similar mode to crumpets except without the restriction of rings or hoops. This gave them a pleasant lack of uniformity, although the practiced hand of the ‘uncles’ ensured fair portion size.
The Oatcakes were made much differently, and not without a degree of skill. A thin oatmeal batter was ladled onto an oat flake strewn, linen belt, which on the immediate flick of the wrist on a wheel, moved the belt and threw the batter out to one side. This was thrown onto a steel sheet also dusted with oatmeal; this resulted in an elongated thin oval, which was then dried in the hot cupboard until rubbery firm.
To consume this delicacy required the diner to dry the oatcake before an open fire until crisp, then break-off pieces, spread liberally with butter and eat immediately.
It was my father who introduced me to Whip’s Café and to the proprietor and his wife, whose names I sadly cannot recall.
The café also incorporated a bakery and shop, which was situated on the corner of the main street, opposite the then railway station, in Barlick. Here I spent many happy hours peeling potatoes, kneading bread for loaves, and passing tartlets through the lining machine and a myriad of other tasks. There was some suggestion that a job was awaiting me when I left school, but I had other ideas.
___________

Morning Bazshar, I think we are still floundering round what is in the batter to produce AN OATCAKE. Your description of the hot plate and the flour coated linen rollers sounds like the one I saw at Nelson and the method is similar, but believe me, just try to make owt like it at home and you'll end up with a 'orrid mess on the kitchen table and stove.
I think in the olden days, the dough for oatcakes was rolled out thin and baked on a Bakstone (Bakestone) at the side of the kitchen and it was the staple diet of the working man who usually worked outside in the fields or on the roads fire.
I suppose all us amateur oatcake bakers must experiment to come up with a batter that will cook an oatcake in a skillet or on a BBQ plate.
Aye Hatepe
R.W.King
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 

Have a look in the LTP to the evidence of Jim Pollard who was reared in his parent's backstone bakery in Red Lion Street in Earby.....

[Stanley]

Hackings backstone bakery in Wapping in about 1890.

The old backstone, actually a thick cast iron plate over a coal fire, the originals were stones hence the name, has been replaced by the modern iron griddle. They were standard equipment even for oven bakers as they were the only way to make oatcakes, crumpets and oven bottom cakes in the traditional way. It was a very quick way of making such goods and they were widely sold door to door. Stew and hard was still sold in local pubs as late as the 1960s. The Co-op had a backstone in the bakery on Co-operative Street.



I regret I didn't pull the curtains back when I did this pic of the interior of the bakery when the buildings were being converted to flats. They covered the oven and backstone. Ah well, you can't get it right every time!

[plaques]

Hackings backstone bakery in Wapping in about 1890.

Not being too pedantic, actually I am, but the Independent Methodist Chapel has a date stone of 1892. This makes the image sometime after this date.