FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Sorry about the quality but this is the only image I have of a horse-drawn sledge being used during hay-time on an upland farm where a wheeled vehicle would be uncontrollable because of the gradients. This was in 1969. Definitely a long forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

The only image I have of the Wesleyan Church that stood on Rainhall road. The manse is still there as the care home but the chapel is a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

What was left of Bancroft immediately after the end of demolition in 1982 when the site was ready for building.

[Wendyf]

On Sunday Stanley posted a photo of a sledge being used for collecting hay. We have these photos of rushes being collected in the Colne collection, they were taken at Foster's Leap Farm, Wycoller in 1948.

47.397 - Fosters Leap Farm, Betty with sledge and rushes, 1948.jpg

47.396 - Fosters Leap Farm, Betty with sledge and rushes, 1948.jpg

[Stanley]

The second image demonstrates how uneasy the land is. A wheeled cart would be a big strain on the horse trying to hold it back all the time.



Wellhouse Shed roof in 1978.

[Stanley]

Henry Brown's Wellhouse Shop in 1922. Johnny Pickles was his foreman at the time and they were building the foundry at Havre Park. This was where you went to if you were in need of a heavy repair.

[Stanley]

This morning's forgotten corner is small but so important. This is a small cutter made for use in a lathe about 100 years ago. It has been shaped by the smith who has forged it to this shape before it was finished by careful grinding by the turner. I say careful grinding because this is high carbon steel and if it is made too hot by grinding it loses its temper and is useless as a cutter. The invention of alloy steels which came to be known as High Speed Steels by innovators like Mushet was seen to be almost a miracle. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 visitors were amazed to see tools cutting steel that retained there hardness even when cherry red. Eventually HSS became common and Carbon Steel cutters like this was a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

I asked Ernie Roberts, a tackler at Bancroft Shed, to empty his pockets one day and here's the result. Any tackler in the town would be carrying the same essential tools with him all day.
Note the Fox's Glacier Mint. Ernie always carried a sweet to be given to a weaver who had had a bad smash and faced a difficult and lengthy repair.
A forgotten corner today........

[Stanley]

I found this image in the archives of an insurance company. This is a little known source of images, many insurance claims were accompanied by photographs. This image was in a file documenting a claim for compensation following the collapse of the chimney. What wasn't clear, (because the documents were mixed up), was whether the collapse was due to lightning strike or that it happened while work was being done on the chimney to straighten it. This was done by removing courses of brick and allowing the stack to settle slowly nearer to perpendicular.
Whatever, either would make an interesting story.

[Stanley]

The broken flyshaft at Victoria Mill Earby in 1954. Brown and Pickles made a new one and replaced it. A forgotten corner now but in 1954 the reasons why the biggest mill in Earby was stopped was the main news.

[Stanley]

A bearded John Kelly inspects progress on the Whitelees Pit in 1991. Digging a hole this size next to the engine house and its foundations in ground that was cursed with running sand and erratics was always a very risky operation and John was the man who gave me the solution. We succeeded, but it could all have been much different! Nobody thinks about this now when they look at the Whitelees engine running at Ellenroad.....

[Stanley]

This was in the days when we had an army...... Joe Ives and Nellie Brooks backfilling a 17pdr gun pit in the Grünewald, Berlin, 1955. We used to go there to practice our trade of tank destroying. Almost seventy years ago, Joe and Nellie were both regular soldiers but I was national service, they only had me for two years......
We were in the Cheshire Regiment, the 22nd of Foot. Part of the Berlin Independent Brigade which was a separate entity from the British Army of the Rhine. (BAOR)
All a forgotten corner now but who knows, we may have to go back to conscription eventually. That will be a bit of as shock to many.......

[Stanley]

In the days when my beard was black this was the standard army 'ammunition boot' and in civvy street, the hobnailed boot. I doubt if many wear them today but I'll bet they are still available if you really searched for them!
(I went for a furtle and found I was right. £200.00 will secure you a pair of genuine army surplus ammunition boots. Go for it!)

[PanBiker]

I have a genuine pair in my wardrobe. Problem is I can no longer get into the battle dress that goes with them. One thing I noticed when kitted up is that they are useless on manhole covers and no grip whatsoever on sloping smooth tarmac pavements.

[Stanley]

Walter Johnson of Crawshawbooth in 1976. I used to recondition Land Rover engines for Walt and had just bought a new Land Rover Safari off him when they were rarer than hen's teeth! (If memory serves, it cost £4,800)

[Stanley]

When I ran Bancroft engine the governor was an endless source of fascination to me.....

[Stanley]

The Wild Bunch on Letcliffe Park in 2008.

[Stanley]

Wild Brothers ran a bus service for the workers at Bancroft. Here it is on a winter's evening in 1976 leaving the mill.

[Stanley]

It's 1985 at Ellenroad. We had done all we could to save the rope race but on this day I had to make a decision. I knew that if we went further in our efforts to save the race we would bleed our funding dry. There was only one thing to do, drop the race. Norman Sutcliffe has balled the walls down and here he is stood on the rubble directing the crane to position the man-cage to where his man could tidy up the rough edges.
It was a hard decision but the correct one. We lost the rope race but kept the engine!

[Stanley]

I have reminded myself of something that I am sure is a forgotten corner. When I was documenting the demolition of Ellenroad Mill I noticed one day that the access tower appeared to be leaning outwards. I asked Norman Sutcliffe If it was an optical illusion and he told me no, I was not mistaken. He said that when a large structure like the mill was demolished and removed the ground, relieved of the pressure, swelled up and this was what was making the tower lean. He also told me that the towers were left standing alone because there was no plunder in them, no scrap metal and so no profit.

[Stanley]

Stockport market around 1930?

[Stanley]

I tripped over this this morning in the archive. I can see it's on Manchester Road outside Heather View and it's between the wars because the iron railings are still mounted on the wall tops but can anyone tell me what is happening?
(The Caption is 'Moreland Johns third from the left. 1920)

[PanBiker]

Looks like we have Little Bo Peep following behind. Looks like some kind of procession before a gala or Church event. I think the class poster belongs to the horse.

[Stanley]

Well spotted. I hadn't even seen the horse! (But then my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. )



Today's forgotten corner is a firelighter made out of a sheet of newspaper. This was my mother's standard way of lighting a coal fire. I doubt if many are used these days!

[Wendyf]

I use a very similar knot of newspaper.