It's nine weeks since I started banging on at you about Salterforth and some of you might be relieved to hear that I shall stop for a while! Mind you, this isn't an apology because I think you know that I believe that the more we know about how we got here, the better we can decide the route forward. How I wish that the politicians who are 'guiding' us through the current economic problems would take the same view! It seems to me that they have a very poor grasp of history. I was once told that if you're explaining anything it's a good thing to finish by rounding up the various elements and trying to build an overall picture. That's what I want to do this week.
One of the clichés that annoys me is hearing presenters saying that a town is 'over a thousand years old' based on the fact that it was mentioned in the Domesday Book. What they don't make clear is that if it existed in 1086/87 this means that it was an established village then and so is much older. This applies to Salterforth. Like all the other hamlets in our area it is far older. What we need to understand is how it got to the size it is today and what prevented it from growing larger. The genesis of the village lies in the fact that it is in good farming country, well watered and straddles a crossroad. Unlike Barlick, Salterforth hadn't the advantage of water-power and so there was no organic development generated in the village itself, it took a man-made intervention to trigger development, the advent of the canal in 1800. Recognise that as with the crossroads, it was transport routes which effected the change. The canal made it possible to exploit the natural resource of the quarries by making it economic to move large weights economically over long distances. Of course there was the earlier development of supplying stone for the expansion of the building trade but this was small beer when compared to the coal, road-stone and lime trade. In 1888 the availability of coal in the village enabled the building of Salterforth Shed but further mill-building was not possible because steam mills also require water for the efficient running of the engines and there was only enough for one mill. With the closure of the mill and the quarries the need for a canal wharf vanished. When commercial traffic on the canal ceased under pressure from the railways the village stopped developing and settled down to being a habitation supported by the resources that were in demand, a source of labour for the local industries, the leisure traffic on the canal and of course the one constant, farming.
You have recently found out that you have new resource, room for house building. I know that this has been controversial and your personal views are your own business but as an outsider looking in I see no difference between this source of development and the others we have identified. I hope the added houses and people integrate with the village and in the end prove to be beneficial.
It raises the question of where Salterforth goes from here. Worst case is that it will continue in its own sweet way and gradually become a dormitory town. The best case is that local people will do what they always have done, use the resources available to them, protect the school and do everything they can to develop new businesses. The more attractive village based activities there are the quicker the incomers will integrate and become part of the community. I wish you well!
Right! I've been resisting telling you any stories because if I had there would have been even more episodes. I shall indulge myself. Some of you may remember that I did a series of articles called 'Rock Solid' based on conversations with my late friend Jack Platt. Jack spent his boyhood wandering round the quarries and eventually worked for John Sagar on the stone and later as a wagon driver for many years. He told me about going to the quarry at the end of the day when he was a lad and being allowed to ride on the horses as they were led up to one of the quarries above High Lane where they were turned out for the night. He also remembered one horse taking a load of stone down to Barlick via Tubber Hill and the load taking charge because of excess weight. The horse and cart left the road just before the entrance to Lane Bottom Cottages, the shaft broke and the end speared into the horse. Jack waited with the carter until someone came down from the quarry to shoot the horse. It was cruel work and more than one horse suffered this fate.
Jack and his mate found some small brass tubes at the quarry one day and he realised it was exactly the right size to hold a pencil stub so it could be used down to the bitter end. He had a piece of wire in his pocket so he poked out the white powder in the bottom of the tube. It was fulminate explosive and the detonator, for that was what it was, exploded and blew two of his fingers and part of his hand off. When I interviewed Billy Brooks in 1978 he was over 90 years old and remembered the men working in the quarry. Many of them were 'banker hands' working at low benches cutting setts for road-making. In frosty weather the stone wouldn't cut properly and they were laid off. Both Billy and Jack told me that if it was snowing at the same time they could get work with the council snow-shifting. This was good because the council paid more than Sagars!
We tend to forget the scale of the operations in the quarries. Some of the blocks they dragged out of the face with the steam crane weighed well over fifty tons and these had to be split with 'plugs and feathers' into sizes suitable for sawing or sett-making. The saws in Sagar's lower quarry were run off gas produced in the quarry driving a gas engine. Jack Platt worked on the saws for many years. He reckoned that Sagar first gave him a job because he knew he was culpable, the detonators should never have been left about, if Jack was working for him he reckoned he wouldn't complain and cause a prosecution, keep it in the family. Billy Brooks also said that he thought the main reason the quarries stopped working was because of new regulations which made the quarry owners liable for compensation cases after the Workmen's Compensation (Silicosis) Act of 1924. At first this was directed mainly at miners but when quarries were included it finished the quarries.
Thanks for being so patient. I hope I have been able to remind some of you about the long history of the village. Here's to the next thousand years!
SCG/18/06/12
One pic attached. Caption reads: Park Close quarry shortly after closure.