FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Wellhouse Corner in 1982. All the buildings have gone now. At this time the Showman's Guild was I think still using the space for the annual fair. The land in front of the mill was always vacant and when the mill was being built was used as a sand quarry by the builders for the mortar needed in the construction. It was digging this sand out that was thought to be the reason why the Reverend Milner's house well dried up at the vicarage which is at the end of the plot. The engine house was still there at the time and the stone mason. At one time there were other small businesses in the yard including a reed-maker.

[Stanley]

I pulled this out of the larger pic. Fairchild's were the stonemasons in Barlick for many years. Newton told me that the original Fairchild had a good reputation in the mill-building days for being a specialist in installing engine beds which had to be perfectly accurate and level.

[Stanley]

Looking down on part of Wellhouse Mill from the water tank in 1978 before demolition had started (apart from reducing the original stone chimney to a stump). Silentnight had just bought the mill from the Calf Hall Shed Company. Lots of goodies on here. The engine house on the right with the attached boiler house with the new tin chimney. beyond that is what was always known as the laundry because before the war it was rented by Barrett's Steam Laundry. It's original purpose was a bobbin mill, then it became the carpenter's shop and after Barrett's it was taken over by Brown and Pickles for heavy machinery during WW2. The far building with the chimney stump behind it is an old block originally used for spinning but then becoming Bracewell's engineer's shop, then H Brown and Sons and later taken over by Johnny Pickles for his new firm John Pickles and Son after Henry Brown closed down.
In the distance you can see the small business buildings in the corner of the spare ground that was rented by the Showman's Guild and of course the gas holders at the Gas Works, originally built by Billycock Bracewell to replace a small gas plant at the mill providing gas for mill lighting and also selling some gas to the nearby houses. He took the lease on the Corn Mill as well at about the same time.

[Stanley]

The 'laundry' in 1978. They had their own borehole well for water, it'll still be there under the new buildings on the site.

[Stanley]

There is another very deep borehole on the Wellhouse site. Harold Duxbury marked this 1887 sale plan of Wellhouse for me and showed the position of the well at the SW corner of the lodges. He also marked the pump house which drew water from the Bowker Drain and the position of the overflow pipe.

[Stanley]

The 1888 sale plan for the corn mill and gasworks. The original lodge for the corn mill was the small circular one but Bracewell enlarged the dam because he had visions of it being the water source for Wellhouse Mill as well. He laid a 6" CI pipe from the dam to Wellhouse. We know it was still in place when the Calf Hall Shed Company bought Wellhouse because they approached the than owners, BUDC, for permission to use the water but in the end never did. That pipe is still there.

[Stanley]

If you look carefully at the map of the lodges you'll see an overflow pipe marked by Harold Duxbury. At one time, as a director of the Calf Hall Shed Company he was interested in where the water went from the overflow. The natural course is downhill back into either the Bowker Drain or more likely into Crow Nest Syke, both of which originally fed the lodge that served old Coates Mill, run at that time by his cousins, the Coates Bracewell Brothers. Harold dyed the water in the lodge at the outfall and kept his eyes open. He later found that it all discharged directly into the beck in what is now Victory Park, crucially, below the level of the Old Coates dam. This puzzled Harold and he investigated to find out how this could happen. He found that the overspill was piped directly to the beck via a 6" Cast Iron pipe, a considerable task and not cheap. Harold had no explanation for this but years later when he told me this I told him about my suspicions that Billycock had been actively attacking his cousins and all became clear. By pumping water out of the Bowker drain and making sure the overspill couldn't end up in his cousin's dam he was hampering what was then a mill still relying mainly on water power even though they had an engine in by that time. (I know this because of separate evidence from Billy Brooks.) In addition he had the capacity to divert water from the Corn Mill down into the dams and hence to waste in the beck instead of feeding the Old Coates lodge. I don't know whether he did the latter but it was certainly within his power because much later the CHSC considered buying water from BUDC who were the then owners but in the end relied solely on the Bowker Drain.
All this is the basis for my contention that Billycock was actively trying to hamper his cousins. They were in serious trouble by 1860 and had to cease trading shortly after. Much of this was no doubt due to trading conditions and the fact they had an old and inefficient mill but you can't help thinking that shortage of water wouldn't have helped. Billycock won in the end but there is some poetic justice in the fact that the main reason why his firm failed in 1885 on his death mainly because he was running on an outdated business model. No coincidence that the Earby Bracewells failed in the same year for the same reason. (Funnily enough, they too had a reputation for using control of water as a commercial weapon!)

[Wendyf]

Talking of the Bracewell family, a few days ago I asked what you thought about the use of the weir on Earby Beck downstream from the old corn mill site and you suggested it could have been a way of building up a head for the Bracewells mill to use. The Old Green End shed was a distance away from Earby Beck and must have got it's water from the New Cut coming from Kelbrook but there is no sign on the 1853 map of any water supply coming from the cut. Do you think the small rectangle on the other side of the road is a lodge?




Going back to the weir, could it have been a place to dip sheep?

[PanBiker]

Stanley, Gus has put the photos up of the road widening at the bottom of Manchester Rd on the Barlick Then and Now Facebook site. Someone has asked why they didn't carry the widening all the way to the top. Have you any idea on this, were you at Hey when the road was widened?

[Big Kev]

The Manchester Road widening pics came from a friend of mine, he worked with the civil engineer who did the job. Story was that it was down to money. There was originally intention to widen more.

[PanBiker]

Makes sense I suppose it would have cost a fortune to take it through to the top. It would have eradicated poor bones as well. Not that many require encouragement but it would have been a lot easier to go faster. Better with it left narrow and windy apart from when you meet someone when you are on your way up who has no idea of priority.

[Stanley]

Wendy, the weir could easily have been a sheep dip. If it was for the water supply at Big Mill the head isn't the important factor it's the ability to have a reserve of water, bit like a mo0dern KERS system on a race car. Harvest it during the night and then use it to augment flow at the mill when needed. The small rectangle on the map could well have been a lodge. One thing that always struck me about that site was that it must always have been on the edge of having too little water.
Widening the road. Yes I was there, it was my barn they demolished to do the widening! I never questioned why they stopped, it was a given. However I did question the way they had left a wall of earth at the stop end, it cut down on visibility and looked dangerous to me so I 'borrowed' their Cat bucket one weekend and graded the field myself. I made a good job as well, go and have a look at it! I agree about leaving the narrow bit alone, apart from the fact it is a good example of an untouched medieval road it's a good safety feature. They call it 'traffic calming' these days.....

[Stanley]

The stone from the demolished barn was used to alleviate the bad bend on Stoneybank.

[Stanley]

I gave a warning this morning pointing out how quickly drains and particularly grills like this can get blocked when we have the first high wind and heavy rain of the winter season. I have seen this grill at the culvert entrance at Gillians completely blocked and water running down the field to the dam at Bancroft. Such an event now can't do this, it floods the gardens at the new housing development instead. I hope someone has taken notice.....



This is what used to happen. This was in 1977.

[Stanley]

The culvert at Clough is particularly vulnerable, this was in 2004 and the screen is blocked and almost overwhelmed. If ever it does, properties in Walmsgate will be at risk. This is what happened in July 1932.....

[Stanley]

Lower park Marina in 2003 when Peter was boat-building there. The object of interest in this pic is the large cast iron pipe in the foreground which spans the canal next to the bridge. This is the main supplying the holding reservoir behind the council houses on the other side of the Kelbrook New Road. When it was first installed it was as a supplement to the existing main which came down Manchester Road from the boreholes at the Whitemoor water works. I don't know what our main supply is now, I assume that Whitemoor is still pumping. It's a forgotten corner, most people don't give a thought to how the water gets to the tap. A lot of hard work went into it and we still rely on it.

[Stanley]

When the main from Whitemoor was in full use there was a valve in the main pipe at the bottom of Manchester Road somewhere near the junction with Walmsgate. A member of the fire brigade once told me that if there was a serious fire in the town they got on to the water board and asked them to open the valve to its full extent, in normal use it was cracked down so as not to put too much pressure on the distribution mains because there is a significant head from Whitemoor. The valve had to be opened slowly so as not to impose too much of a shock on the main and when the need had gone it was closed down again.
I remembered this a few years ago when I noticed that suddenly we had a lot more pressure in the water main. I made enquiries and learned that this was due to some problem with the supply in Barlick and pumps on Wysick were speeded up to rectify the situation. There were ball cocks on lavatory cisterns leaking all over the town! I know of one old service pipe in East Hill Street that gave up under the strain and cracked the concrete yard it ran under. There must have been many more because it is surprising how many older houses are still served by lead pipes. When they cut the failed connection out and repaired the pipe I did this pic of the pipe.



It's like something from a horror movie isn't it! There must be many such pipes still in use in the town (and gas pipes as well!). Definitely a forgotten corner.....

[Stanley]

This wall top on Philip Street at the back of the old properties near the Legion Club always fascinates me. The top stones are obviously architectural stone and very old but I can't for the life of me work out where they came from. There is no obvious source in the buildings like modernised windows (these look like window surrounds or cills). Was there an earlier building somewhere near?

[PanBiker]

I cant remember what the wall was like 50 years ago when my grandparents lived at number 15 and my aunt and uncle at number 17. The fencing is a modern addition, the top stones do look like very much like old cills though.

[Stanley]

The old mullion windows often had cills that were not like the modern ones but repetitions of the mouldings around the rest of the window, the strength came from the mullions that supported the weight of the wall above.
Walls can often tell stories about what came before because demolition stone was always used if it was on site. Far too heavy to move around, far better to re-use it. On water sites rack stones and even old mill stones were used. Very old field boundaries are often made with the larger stones recovered from cultivation instead of being quarried. The big exception to this rule is enclosure walls that were made from shallow stone recovered from small delphs close to the wall and always uphill from the place where the stone is needed. It wasn't until the mid 17th century when stone buildings started to become common that quarrying really got going as a source of building stone. Prior to that the masons worked exclusively for the monasteries, in fortifications and for building by the monarch. The dissolution of the monasteries threw the masons on to the open market and they were quickly given work making 'ordinary buildings'.

[Stanley]

I think that this head on the back of Hudson's Buildings is Saxon and could possibly be from the ancient church demolished by the Cistercian monks. Could some of the other stone be from the same source? Using ruins as quarries was very common. The best example I know is a large barn across the river from the ruins of Sawley Abbey. It has lots of features which can only be from the abbey.

[plaques]

possibly be from the ancient church demolished by the Cistercian monks

This is one of the window corbels on St Mary's Thornton. Pointed out to me by Wendy who is the real expert on these things. The ones on the church are more heavily weathered than Stanley's example but this could just be down to the quality of the stone.

[Stanley]

It looks older than the church to me P.

[Stanley]

We walk past some buildings every day and then suddenly they are gone and forgotten. Wild's garage being demolished in 2002 to make way for a housing development. Part of Barlick history but totally forgotten now.....

[Stanley]

I'm glad that Ian reported the screen in Clough is clear.... Some hero somewhere is evidently being diligent. Long may it continue!