FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Christian, look up LIDAR on the site search. Your observation about Elslack is in line with what John Clayton found when he analysed the local results.
Ian you've reminded me, yes I remember the haberdashers. I bought a very good fishing tackle bag at Foden's for use as a camera bag, he apologised for the price, £8. I saw the same bag on sale in New York for $85.



A pic of the level crossing in the same year.

[Cathy]

Can just make out Batemans 1965

C__Data_Users_DefApps_AppData_INTERNETEXPLORER_Temp_Saved Images_barnoldswick-shops-in-the-post-office-buildings-c1965_b589030m_medium.jpg

Don't know what happened, tried 2or 3 times to remove photo info.

[Stanley]

Something to do with their strict copyright protection perhaps Cathy.

[Whyperion]

Post Office Corner in 1960. If you look very carefully at the end of Steele's chambers you can just about see the large window on the right of the gable end. I noticed it yesterday as I was sitting on the forms opposite and viewing the passing scene. It looks to be too big and I wondered if it used to be a taking in door but for the life of me I can't think why one would be needed.
Almost 60 years ago, can anyone remember what the shops were? I remember the one on the extreme right being a sports shop but can't bring the others to mind.
No guard rails, pillar box or telephone boxes next to what was then the Liberal Club. So many changes over the years.

Has it previously been noted what was built on this corner previously, if anything ?

[Whyperion]

Slip of the pen, (or keyboard in this case) from Stanley. Of course this is the former Yorkshire Bank. TSB (Lloyds) is over the road in the former Paragon Library block but also now vacant and boarded up.

That really will get you confused. I only knew this one as Lloyds, had it been a TSB prior to Lloyds acquiring the TSB (I have some 1980s literature on the forming of the TSB as a single entity if anyone is interested, I will try to post scans in due course) ? When commanded to split Lloyds Banking Group (that had acquired either/or a Scottish Bank or Building Society- I forget which ), some historically Lloyds Branches became the TSB ( should that be new TSB ?) and some that had been TSBs remained Lloyds, seemingly random or just to provide areas with the right geographical competition ?

[PanBiker]

Has it previously been noted what was built on this corner previously, if anything ?

I can remember before the Post Office Buildings (1958) there were wooden hoardings with advertising posters on. I believe there were wooden built shops on the site prior to that, probably before or during WWII. Not old enough to remember them but I do remember the hoardings.

[Stanley]

I can't remember them Ian because I didn't come to Barlick until 1959 when I bought Hey Farm. That's how the corner was always described and at one time a travelling theatre used to set up there each year. Multiple references to it in the LTP. I can remember Sneath's hairdressers and newsagents in the double shop at the Newtown end of Albert Road being the post office, the premises occupied by Singh now.



Albert Road in 1978.



And in 1982.

[Stanley]

Old postcards can be such a good source of information about forgotten corners. I've always loved this one which has been hand coloured and this picks out small details that would otherwise be less obvious. You can clearly see the original course of the canal when there was only one deep lock at Greenberfield. For some reason that I have never really understood, this was seen as wasteful of water and was converted to the present layout at about the same time that the pipeline was built bringing water into the summit level from the reservoir at Winterburn. This was the main road from Barlick out to Thornton and Skipton until the new road via Gill was built in the 1950s. The narrow roads and sharp corners were challenge even for the smaller vehicles in use then. Laycock's buses were probably the largest vehicles using it then. In later years I persuaded my mate Ivor Lucas to take his large modern coach down there when I had Carleton College in town and we only just managed the bends, particularly the first one coming out of Barlick over the bridge at the first lock. Ivor was not happy but as usual managed it!



Even terrible images like this can give unique information. This is the only pic I have ever found of the Isolation Hospital at Banks Hill.

[Stanley]

Over the years I have heard local legends about secret tunnels and culverts. When I first came to Barlick in 1959 I was told that there was a secret tunnel from Monk House at the bottom of Manchester Road to Gill church. Nonsense of course but nonetheless intriguing because there is often a kernel of truth embedded in these myths, always examine them carefully!



Monk House in 1984.

In later years I was talking to Newton Pickles about this and he told me he had heard the same story and asked his father Johnny about it. He said that these things often started when someone came across an old drain or culvert when excavating for something else and he said that there were many large drains like this in the town, disused now but originally connected with the manipulation of water in the days when it was so important.
Many of these rumours can be traced back to William 'Billycock' Bracewell in the mid 19th century when he was building Butts Mill and everyone knew he was short of water there. Atkinson mentions this in his 'Old Barlick' which you can find on the site.
Many years later I was contacted by someone who was very worried because they had been told that their house was built on top of an old mine shaft. I told them to rest easy as there had never been any such activity in Barlick. The most likely cause was that someone had found the remains of an old well under the house and allowed their imagination to run away with them. Private wells under the kitchen floor were quite common in the days before we had a public mains water supply.

[Nolic]

The story I was told as a nipper was that there was a tunnel from Monkroyd...the site of the proposed abbey....to Gill Church. Nolic

[Stanley]

Basically the same one I suspect Comrade. It was retold to me as a definite fact!
I always have a good nosey into holes in the road. A couple of years ago the Council had a major problem with a drain at the top of Butts and I was surprised by the depth they had to go to to get at an old stone culvert, it was at least 12 feet down and possibly more than that. I am still baffled by the need to put a drain in at that depth when the obvious route for surface water from the area south of Church Street is obviously down the natural slope to the beck in Walmsgate. The only reason I could think of was that this was an example of Billycock getting as much water as he could down to his new mill in Butts. At that time Church Street wasn't built on as it is now and a deep excavation like that in what was basically the Town Green would not have been so big a problem. If allowed to flow downhill to Walmsgate it would have been too low for use at Butts, a big problem for him for years only solved by coming to an agreement with Mitchell to divert water from higher up Gillians into a small reservoir in the Parrock behind the old Baptist Chapel at a level where it could augment Calf Hall Beck. We forget these days how important access to these water supplies was. fortunes were made or lost by access to water. Remember that, amongst other factors, the main reason for the failure of Bracewell Brothers at Old Coates Mill was lack of water.



Old Coates in 1890 shortly before it was demolished. Funny thing is that the Brother's problems came to a head just as Billycock, their cousin, was getting his new mill at Butts going and he controlled the Coates water both upstream and from the Bowker Drain. I have bits of the story and a strong conviction but no smoking gun! I really do believe Billycock wanted them to fail.

[Stanley]

When I got the job as firebeater at Bancroft in 1973 with the promise of the engine within 6 months I soon realised that I was very lucky. I was in at the end of both a great industry and steam power.





I soon realised that with a bit of luck I was going to be the last man standing who had run a steam powered weaving shed and this set the course for almost everything I did after that. I soon realised that an enormous amount of information was being lost and that in turn triggered the Lancashire Textile Project. That was before I went to Lancaster and luckily I found the men who would help me to do the project. In effect I was documenting an enormous forgotten corner and in retrospect, if I have done any good at all for posterity, outside the family it's the work I did in and on the textile industry. Very few people get an opportunity like that and I can only thank my lucky stars that I realised this early on and grabbed the opportunity.
So, if I go on a bit at times, forgive me. I can do no other.

[Tripps]

So, if I go on a bit at times, forgive me.

You do - and long may it continue - and you are forgiven . . . .

[Tizer]

I'll second that!

[Cathy]

Ditto and thankyou Stanley.

That second pic brings back a memory of our Grandma Tillotson. I can see her standing behind one of those machine. I can see the machines working and hear that deafening noise

.

[Stanley]

Thanks for the endorsement, I need reassurance at times.
Matthew Engels was asking about the weaving shed yesterday. He knows nothing about them. It struck me that that's probably true of most people today.



Here's a pic of some of my weavers sat in front of a loom ready for going out to Sutcliffe and Clarkson at Burnley in the last days of Bancroft. We got on so well together, it was like another family. Bancroft Shed might have been obsolete in terms of modern industry but nowhere today is as happy a place to be. That isn't rose-coloured glasses and hindsight, it's true, the weavers themselves described the place as being like a holiday camp. As I said yesterday, I count myself as being a lucky man to have had the experience.



That included my little kingdom in the engine and boiler houses. I think you can get a good idea of what John Plummer was like, he was a good worker and an even better fried. This was in 1977.
I told his son that one day and he told me later that as John lay dying in hospital he told him what I had said and he said it was the last time he saw him smile. Those are the bits of life that really count!

[plaques]

The one thing you can't get down on paper is the deafening noise a factory full of looms made. I remember as a young kid, possibly about 6 years old, having to go into my mother's shed to get the house keys having locked myself out. As a youngster your hearing is far more sensitive than an adult. I could hardly stand up never mind hear what mum was saying. No wonder that all those who worked in weaving were partially deaf.

[Stanley]

I've seen people vomit after their first experience of the full force of the noise. Mind you I suspect the person in question was a bit sensitive. Came from the South of course.....

[Marilyn]

I don't remember our gran in front of the loom, Cazza...too young for the memory I suppose. But I do recall she was less than 5 ft tall and as deaf as a post! ( she also had the best sense of humour, and loved a giggle)

[Stanley]

The thing that always struck me about the good weavers was that they spent their lives working out what was the quickest way to run ten looms. A good one was always stood there in front of a loom just as it stopped and could change the shuttle immediately. This attitude spilled over into the rest of their lives, they didn't waste time. For instance, they were always ready for a quick exit from the shed at stopping time.
I remember once going into the shed just as the shafting was slowing down (best time to hear a hot bearing squealing and you could chalk a cross on the pillar) and it was a Friday night and the last day at work for a 78 year old weaver. I saw her standing there watching the shafting and asked if she was all right. She asked me if the shafting always made that distinctive sound when it was stopping and when I said she must have heard it many times before she said no, all her life she had been out of the shed before the shafting stopped. As I say, no time wasted!

[Tripps]

I do hope Matthew Engels was listening closely to you on your phone call the other day, and you are credited in his book. He won't get information like that from anywhere else.

[Stanley]

I think that he is aware he has found a source, he was taking notes and told me he would be back after he had written them up for further clarification. I'm afraid I buried him, he had no idea it was so complicated.
Interesting to note that one of the advantages that the aero industry found when they moved into the Shadow Factories in WW2 was that they had an ideal work force in situ for training. Good time discipline, manually dexterous and very intelligent. Once they had seeded the original factories with imported labour from Coventry they relied almost exclusively on local labour.
One example I came across was a textile worker who was an amateur telescope builder. He bought his lens from a famous London firm but when he tested the lens they were faulty so he sent them back explaining why. The firm offered him a job in London as he had demonstrated such skill. He didn't go but stayed in the mill.
Another tackler built a working steam locomotive using only hand tools and no lathe. Johnny Pickles said at the time it was a good job. Praise indeed!
Another area where skills developed was running the ordering and wage system in the mill, the 'Standard List of Wages' was incredibly complicated. George Singleton told me that this was why when he volunteered for service in WW1 he was put in charge of managing the supply of shells to the front line. There were so many transferable skills in the industry.

[Tripps]

Good time discipline, manually dexterous and very intelligent.

Brilliant post. I think there is a research project here? I have over the years, given some thought to the differences in the 'working class' between now, and when I was younger. Compare what you experienced, and people you knew in your youth, with what you see now. (I'm thinking Jeremy Kyle show here).

Factors in no particular order - Religion / Non conformist / work ethic, Lack of opportunity for higher education, experience of wars, almost no 'benefits', National Service. No internet.

I think we need an updated version of Robert Roberts 'Classic Slum' if that's not too fanciful.

[Stanley]

I beliece you are right David. One of the factors I identified when I wsa doing the LTP was the fact that so many of the workers I interviewed were undoubtedly high enough standard for grammar school but for economic reasons like travel expenses, cost of uniforms or simply the fact they had to start work young to augment the family income. These men and women were potential university material but developed their skills in work along vocational lines.
So primarily then it was an issue of education and I suspect that still applies today. But in addition, there were fewer distractions from things like reading or taking an interest in music. Leisure time was either spent in healthy outdoor exercise which is its own brand of education for life or reading and playing board games or simply listening to stories told round the fire. This isn't a romantic view, in many cases it was their reality.

[Stanley]

School group pic taken about 1921 in Barlick. Newton Pickles is fifth from the left on the front row. NP was born on March 10th 1916 and he looks about five here so this would be 1921? The school would be Gisburn Road I think.
This image came to mind when I mentioned school uniform yesterday. No uniforms and a happy looking bunch of kids. (I wonder if Newton had to take his cap off when indoors.... I think so.)
As is often the case this triggered off thoughts of my own schooldays and in this instance, not happy ones. I never encountered uniforms until I won the scholarship for Stockport Grammar School in 1947. SGS had a rigid dress code, grey flannel suits in winter and the same trousers in summer but with a black blazer with the school badge on the pocket, yellow piping on the seams and brass buttons. The school cap in black and yellow was standard winter and summer.
Looking back, this was a considerable expense for my parents, there was only one shop that sold the uniforms and they were expensive. Add to this the fact that like all lads that age I was growing rapidly and you can imagine that over time, I fell behind the standards of my better off companions. There was an additional problem, round about 1950 we were going through a bad patch at home. Money was tight and occasionally my mother would vanish, she must have been under considerable strain and used to go walkabout for weeks at a time.
I gradually became more and more unkempt and in addition I was being bullied quite badly. 'Speccy four eyes' was an easy target. All told this was not a happy time, it improved as I grew older but even so it left a mark on me and so school uniforms don't fill me with enthusiasm! I admit I developed a hatred for certain tormentors and this is as strong today as it was then even though it is a forgotten corner.
All this came back to me when I was doing my interviews for the LTP and heard my informants recounting how they qualified for grammar school but never got to go because their families couldn't afford uniforms and travel. I could relate directly to the problem and in a funny way I suspect this improved my rapport with them and I got better and deeper information. Even vicissitudes can have positive consequences!