FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

One of the most forgotten corners in Barlick is the sewage treatment plant down at Greenberfield. Together with mains water, probably the biggest improvement in the town in the last 200 years. How many people give a thought to what happens when they flush the toilet?

[plaques]

I've been looking at the very same photo on display in the Colne library. The content of the display is intended to show 'Old Colne'. Could it be that someone is trying to steal someone else's thunder?

[Stanley]

Couldn't say P. I don't know where I got that image from. I can be sure about this one though, it's one of mine!



Pendle night soil collection in King Street in 1982. By this time their main customers were disabled people who couldn't climb the stairs to the flush toilet and had to use a commode downstairs.

[Stanley]

Not the most popular job on the council. Mind you, I'll bet the management left them well alone!

[Stanley]

An extinct species now but when it first appeared in Barlick in the late 19th century the tippler toilet was a wonderful improvement!

[PanBiker]

It's still there at the Clarion and fully functional, most folk tend to favour the inside ones now.

[Stanley]

I saw this bucket standing forlorn in a field down Long Ing in 1979. It was only when I looked at the pic afterwards I realised it was a night soil bucket from a dry toilet. The flared top helps to catch the deliveries. I suspect you'd have a long weary march to find another one.... If I'd realised at the time I would have snaffled it!

[Cathy]

What on earth would you have done with it Stanley??
Maybe I don't really want to know...

[Stanley]

Cleaned it up and kept it safe Cathy.... It was probably the last of the breed.... My mind works like that. It was a direct reference to a piece of social history long gone. Do we teach kids about the history of sewage disposal? Is it important to do so?
We take the sewers for granted but many of them were put in during the amazing burst of modernisation in Barlick in the late 19th century. Just think of the disruption as deep trenches were dug by hand to install the network of pipes.

[Stanley]

Sorry for the quality but I love this pic of the shops next to the Seven Stars in about 1900. Bruno Flake at 4d an ounce! Even though it is not crisp you can learn so much social history from this from the advertisements to the dress of the lads and the women in the doorway of Shaw's barbers. See Ernie Roberts' transcripts in the LTP for an account of his time as a lather boy at the barbers and his trips to the illegal bookmaker in Wapping to put bets on for the customers.....

[Cathy]

It is a wonderful photo... If building 's could only talk eh? Would love to know what the sign says about London.

[PanBiker]

If you zoom out the photo to maximum I can just make out:

DISPATCH
SHOCKING
------- TRAGEDY
IN LONDON
----- ------- WERE
ASPHYXIATED
_______
ENGLANDS TEAM
---- ---- ---

[Cathy]

Yes , I got most of that too.

[Stanley]

Here's the original picture. Click to enlarge.

[Stanley]

Park Road in about 1900. Not in itself a forgotten corner but Harold Duxbury told me that most of the older houses on Park Avenue had a well under the kitchen floor and a pump at the sink. [This was before the days of mains water of course] I wonder how many of the present day owners realise this.....

[Cathy]

Love the well to do fashions and substantial looking houses.
It all looks very English and civilized.

[Stanley]

Very well observed Cathy. At that time Barlick was at the height of success in the mills and was a very prosperous town. This was when the major streets outside the town centre were laid down and the houses and services put in. A forgotten corner in itself, we still benefit from the decisions they made....

[Stanley]

The surgery on Park Road in 1983 before it was altered and extended. The framework above the roof was the base for a water tank that collected the rainwater off the roof. This was the water supply for the house before the days of mains water.

[Stanley]

The frame for the water tank at the surgery as it was in 1982. Made by William Bracewell's foundry at Burnley.

[Stanley]

The two corbels on the top right of what is now Taylforth's estate agency were for a rain water tank. Lost when the building was altered.

[Stanley]

Keep your eyes open. The old infrastructure left clues like the corbels and many of them are still visible. This is a flag cut out to accept the base of a tippler toilet pedestal.

[Stanley]

Some forgotten corners hide in plain view, we pass them every day but don't see them. This example of really bad pointing leaps out at me every time I pass it but I doubt if many other people even notice it. We see but we don't observe and draw conclusions. Barlick is full of clues if you just take the trouble to educate your brain......

[Cathy]

Which part is the pointing Stanley, what's wrong with it ?

[PanBiker]

There is more mortar on the stone faces than in the joints Cathy. It looks like it has just been chucked in. For cut pointing each horizontal joint should be squared neatly on the bottom joint and beveled on the top for clean water run off, the verticals beveled on each side of the joints. I'm not a builder but my dad was and it is a joy to watch a proper job being done. On our first house I picked out and help point 96 course of Yorkshire points on the gable end, a job and a half and a lot of lessons learned.

[Tizer]

I hate to see the type of pointing where the mortar protrudes above the stone. Some house here have it, with a vertical front face, no slope on it and it sticks out by at least a quarter of an inch. It results in a network of protruding mortar surrounding sunken stone. Horrible!