TRAFFIC ROUND BARLICK

[Stanley]

TRAFFIC IN BARLICK.

Let's look at routes in Barlick in 1800. The roads out to Bracewell and Gisburn followed exactly the same course as today. The road out to Skipton changed at that time when the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was driven through the town. In most cases where the canal crossed a road it simply meant building a bridge as at Coates and Long Ing. If the canal divided a farm an access bridge had to be built, Banks and Eastwood bridges were good examples and a high level bridge had to be built over the access canal to Springs Quarry to cater for traffic from Salterforth to the church at Gill, all of them gone now as they became redundant. However, at Greenberfield Farm there was a bit of a problem.
The road from Coates to Gill Brow, Coates Lane, originally turned NW at what is now the junction with Whitworth Way and went down a steep hill to join Greenberfield Lane on the west side of the farm. You can still see the embankment and original road bed below the canal. As the canal was being constructed the company originally installed a timber swing bridge at this point. An access bridge was needed at Greenberfield and so, without consulting any of the local land owners the Canal Company drove a new section of road alongside the canal and combined the access bridge with a road bridge. Coates Lane now crossed the canal at this point and rejoined Greenberfield Lane to the East of the farm. There was a lengthy court case but in the end the company got their way and that is the route the road follows to this day.
The routes out of the town to the South and West were more complicated because of the difficult terrain. Let's take them one by one. The most important destination was Colne and the preferred route was via Wapping on to Colne Road (!) joining what was then the minor road Barnoldswick Lane at Bancrofts Farm and becoming Higher Lane which climbed steeply to the head of Salterforth Lane and from there followed the contour to the junction with the road from Barrowford to Foulridge. You turned left there, down Cocker Hill and joined the old Skipton to Colne road, Stone Trough Lane/Skipton Old Road since replaced by the 'new' road through Hague.
Access to Earby and Kelbrook was possible from Coates via Cross Lane but there were frequent disputes about that and it was very badly maintained. At one point the Manorial Court banned heavy wheeled traffic on it so the most usual route was to go up Colne Rad and Higher Lane then down Salterforth Lane, across Salter's Ford and on to Earby. This was a very ancient packhorse route and originally a Salter's Way.
Right, I think we have a picture now of how different the routes outside the town were. Next week I'll look at them inside the town. You may get one or two surprises!



The 'new' road layout at Greenberfield Locks.

[plaques]

One thing that most people forget is that the early roads only had to cope with horse drawn traffic. It didn't really matter how many bends and twists there were unless of course it was the estate itself that was paying for it. Then it was a straight as a die. The other day I was very surprised when talking to a young man and telling him that a big attraction as a kid was seeing a steam barge pulling two barges in tandem instead of the horse drawn barges. He never knew that horses pulled the barges!

[Stanley]

P, you're right. Horse drawn traffic is completely unknown to the young. The killer for the horses was steep hills. Not only going up them but coming down with no effective brakes.... See Jack Platt's account in 'Rock Solid' of a horse being killed when a load of stone overcame it, the cart went into the ditch on Tubber Hill and the broken shaft speared the horse and killed it.

[Pluto]

You are a little incorrect in this article. There was never a swing bridge on the original main road, as new swing bridges had been virtually prohibited by the L&LC 1790 Act. They could only be used where the local land owner agreed, and only two were built after this date. Instead, an over bridge would have been necessary. In view of the steep slope, which would have made construction of such a bridge extremely difficult, the canal company decided to build a road parallel to the canal on its southern side, with a single bridge over the canal to Greenberfield Lane. Mr Bagshawe, of Coates Hall, seems to have agreed to this when the canal line was first being set out around 1770, but by the time the canal came to be built, he was developing a limestone quarry close to the canal, and the road made access to this more difficult. The canal company tried to talk him round, even suggesting building a branch into the quarry with a bridge over the junction, but Mr Bagshawe would not have it.

By this time, the planned new road had been shortened, with two over bridges now (one was over the two-rise locks which were bypassed in the 1820s) being required, and their location made construction much easier than the proposed one on the original line of the road. After the road was built, Mr Bagshawe set his men to close it off with a gate, and he took the canal company to court, as he was entitled to do under the canal's Act. Eventually, the court decided in his favour and they declared the new road illegal and required the canal company to build a bridge on the old road. However, Mr Bagshawe died shortly afterwards, and the court ruling seems to have been conveniently forgotten. The new road was certainly much easier for horse-drawn vehicles as there was no steep ascent or descent from and to Greenberfield Lane.

[Stanley]

Thanks for the correction and the expansion. I often wondered why the road was left there after the court decision. I don't know where I picked up the swing bridge, perhaps it was only proposed but never done. It always puzzled me that there is no evidence of any sort in the banks of even a temporary bridge at the site. Nice!
Welcome to the site and please post more.... I suspect you are on my bookshelf already!
Re. swing bridges, were the bridges at Niffany and behind Dewhurst's Mill in Skipton later additions?

[Stanley]

Bumped and image restored.
I never got an answer to the question about swing bridges at Skipton.....

[Stanley]

Bumped again.....