FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Mentioning Sough yesterday reminded me of one of my old subjects but I don't apologise for going back to it, it was so important. Here we have what used to be a corner shop on Hill Street part of a build of three houses. This would be financed by one of the working aristocracy, possibly a tackler or taper who built for his own accommodation, a shop to give an income and run by his wife and the other house for a retirement income in the days when there was no national pension, only the workhouse or charity.
All swept away by the advent of modern food retailing in the shape of the supermarkets. A forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

I tripped over this research note from Geoff Shackleton which is on the site already but buried in information about Barnsey Shed. I think it qualifies as a forgotten corner.

WELLHOUSE MILL, BARNOLDSWICK

Stanley has some comprehensive records of this mill so any common notes are not repeated here. I can however add some details for the engines and the change of ownership period around 1889.
C&NT 25/04/1885 Several engine breakdowns are being commented on. Large spinning mill engine in particular.
C&NT 20/08/1887 All the machinery is to be sold at auction.
C&NT 12/09/1887 All machinery to be sold on Mon, Wed, Thurs of this week.
TM 15/11/1887 A Company has been formed to take-over the extensive works which formerly belonged to Mr. William Bracewell. The weaving sheds contain 1078 looms which together with the foundry has been purchased for £15,750. (This refers to Burnley Ironworks and the shads attached to it.)
CFT 18/05/1888 WH Mill has now been stopped nine months.
TM 15/08/1888 WH Mill belonging to Messrs W. Bracewell has been stopped indefinitely and their other mill Butts will stop this week. Thus 500 hands are out of work. The estate is in Chancery and it is said that the machinery will be sold.
TM 15/09/1888 WH and Butts Mills remain at a standstill.
CFT 26/06/1889 Reports stating that WH and Butts Mills have been sold are not correct.
CFT 4/10/1889 The 768 looms in the shed have been disposed of. The larger part fetched only breaking up prices.
Yorks Post 23/11/1889 Matthew Watson to sell by auction at Wellhouse Mill on December 9th three powerful steam engines, shafting gearing, piping etc. The engines are described giving principal dimensions. A 1250 ihp twin beam engine which drove the spinning mill. A single beam engine of 300ihp which drove the shed and a single beam engine of 150ihp which drove the mechanics shop.
13/12/1889 All the engines were sold at auction on Monday last.
CFT 14/03/1890 A number of shareholders are to decide on Saturday whether to form a Company to purchase WH Mill which has been offered to them by the Craven Bank for £8,000. (This was Calf Hall Shed Company)
CFT 17/10/1890 The new engine house is being pushed on with but it will probably be next January before any looms are running.
CFT 17/04/1891 and NC 17/04/1891 Both describe the engine Christening which took place on Sat 11th. Mrs. W. P. Brooks Christened the engine 'Progress'. Made by Burnley Ironworks, and it was hoped that they would soon be asked to provide the other half of the engine.
From Burnley Ironworks Drawings:

BIW's O/N 111 1890 A tandem engine for the CHSC being a left hand engine. hp cylinder Corliss all below and lp cylinder had double ported slide valve. Flywheel and flywheel shaft prepared for a second side.
BIW's O/N 149 1895 (Jan) The order for the right hand side engine to be supplied. Same design as the existing left hand engine.
BIW's O/N 129 1915 A single cylinder barring engine.
BIW's O/N 165 1927 Rebuilding of the original left hand engine with new cylinders, new hp engine bed new valve gear and connecting rods. New cylinders were both Corliss with valves at the four corners.
The original governor was a Porter Governor on a stand to the left of the FW and just behind (meaning toward the engine cylinders) the main crankshaft. Govs later changed for Whitehead.

[Stanley]

Wellhouse engine 'Window Side'. This was the first side of the engine to be installed and was later the first to be refurbished, after this it was called the 'New Side'. This is confusing as the right hand engine was called the new side originally as it was the last side to be installed. Pic taken 1965. Notice the governor in the top right of the image. As Geoff said, it had been changed to a Whitehead by this time.

[Stanley]

Gate at 9 Cragg Row Salterforth. Made by Hartley Wilkinson, blacksmith of Earby and Kelbrook who I think lived here. Rebuilt by SG in 2003. I haven't looked lately, I hope they are looking after it!

[Stanley]

High pressure advertising like this 1930 Hoover advert.

[PanBiker]

Aye, and now apparently we need lasers to detect "invisible dust" and deal with it with a microprocessor and a motor that is scientifically impossible. Free postage though for the £600.00 snake oil sellers machine.

[Stanley]

John and Mae Wallbank at Brown House Farm, Gisburn Old Track in 1957. This is an old favourite of mine. Both dead long since but a lovely couple, pity they never had children because they'd have made good parents. Brown House is only a small holding and was unchanged from how it had been farmed for the last three hundred years apart from getting electricity and a milking machine. Milk production gave them a small but regular income and they could survive, just. In fact I have an idea that for a long time Mae worked as a weaver as well as a housewife on a farm.
All gone now, no room in this madcap world for people and jobs like this. But notice one thing, they are happy and it shows. That in itself is a forgotten corner today!

[Stanley]

Looking at that picture of John and Mae Wallbank I think back over 50 years to how it was up on those hill sides. Mains electricity was only just reaching them and when I first knew the farms up Gisburn old track they were still using oil lamps in the house and Tilley lanterns everywhere else. Some farms had modernised and had Lucas Freelite systems. See THIS short article on the Freelite. Essentially, in it's simplest form, it was a 24 volt dynamo, weatherproofed and wound so that the slower speed generated by a twin bladed propeller would give enough juice for perhaps 3 or 4 bulbs in the buildings, usually the shippon and used at milking time. Not a very good light but better and safer than a paraffin lamp.
No electricity also meant no labour saving aids in the house and so as far as the housewife was concerned it was exactly the same living conditions as in medieval times. Cooking on the fire or in some cases a paraffin stove and oil lamps and candles for lighting. Washing done by hand in the dolly tub. Battery driven wireless sets.
Difficult to imagine and a forgotten corner now but everyday life up on the moor 50 years ago.

[Stanley]

Here's a long forgotten corner for you, the Barlick gasworks in 1963 when it was already being dismantled as the advent of North Sea gas first made the retorts needed for making gas from coal redundant and eventually the gas holders themselves. By the 1970s the gas holders had gone and no longer dominated that part of Barlick.



What is largely forgotten now is that the genesis of gas in Barlick started with plants at some mills to provide gas for lighting. There used to be a plant at Wellhouse mill but by the time the Bracewell estate was being sold in 1888 after Billycock's death in 1885 the new gas works that Bracewell built to supply the town was up and running. Over the years it developed into a municipal holding with two gasometers.

[Whyperion]

I always said when Gas holders were decommissioned where would the excess spare capacity for high load be stored ? Although some non north-sea is pumped into undersea voids, it does not seem enough given the high demand this cool autumn is bringing + demand for electric generation

[Stanley]

With the demise of coal generated gas at the gas works we lost a source of cheap fuel, coke. Many houses had a two wheeled cart made out of an old packing case and an axle with two pram wheels on it that was used to get coke from the gas works.These became redundant as well.
Coke wasn't as easy to light or burn as coal but housewives soon got the knack of it and of course it was smokeless but gave off some fumes that made you cough if you were down wind.

[Stanley]

This image of the Butts area in 1963 is well worth studying. The Butts Mill was basically unchanged since it was built apart from the gatehouse. I can spend hours looking at these old images, they contain so much information!

[Stanley]

If you look to the left hand side of the aerial view of Butts you'll see a bowling green. I don't know who owned it in 1963, it looks as though it was already part of the Butts estate but in the 1930s it belonged to the Conservative Club, or at least they used the bowling green. See Ernie Roberts' evidence in the LTP about the annual sizzle that was held each summer and the local kids all got a free meal. That in itself is a forgotten corner.
Notice also that the Clinic buildings are there on what used to be the site of the Alhambra Theatre and later roller skating rink. I can't tell from the image if the footpath down the side of the mill has been stopped off and diverted down the side of the clinic.

[Stanley]

This is the entrance to Rolls Royce in 1963. If you look at the houses directly opposite the entrance to Bankfield and then look below them, nearer to the town, you'll see a large building opposite Crow Nest mill. This was a wooden hut and for many years was a cafe which did well out of the fact that there was a mill across the road and later Rolls Royce. West Marton Dairies delivered their milk each morning and the main thing I remember is the stale cooking smell that pervaded the cafe first thing in the morning before it got going for the day. I think it was perhaps because the wooden construction was permeated with the fumes from frying over the years.
Long gone, so a forgotten corner.

[Big Kev]

Is that what's now the garage (was Brown Brothers)?

[PanBiker]

Yes Kev, Belford's Cafe I think it was, painted green from memory. I remember them knocking it down and digging the holes for the fuel tanks when it morphed into a garage forecourt it was Jet brand fuel.

[Stanley]

That's it Ian, I couldn't remember the name. Belford's, I must make an index card immediately!
(Done it!)
Now then, Jet Fuels will do as a Forgotten Corner. See THIS Wikipedia article about the start of the company in 1954. I haven't seen the name for a long while but see that the brand still survives.

[Stanley]

This mound is Castle Haugh, a tumulus that lies between Gisburn and Newsholme on the Long Preston road. Local legend is that it is the burial site of the bodies of fighters in an ancient battle. However, THIS article from the Journal of Antiquities may be more reliable. They say it is a Norman 'motte' the base of a temporary wooden castle built in the 11th century.
Whatever, it is definitely a forgotten corner.....

[Stanley]

If the present trajectory of research and remediation into global warming continues, one enormous forgotten corner is going to be chimneys on houses, they are going to be unnecessary!

[Stanley]

Two former banks, both empty now that William Hill have closed. They seem to have become forgotten corners as there is no obvious use for them.
Just imagine what that corner of Church Street will look like when (and not if!) Barclays closes.....

[PanBiker]

I reckon the top picture is of the two ugliest buildings in Barlick. The bottom one of Martins Bank (HSBC, and the the bookies) is now just part of a building consortium's portfolio. I know as our group (Bosom Friends) put a realistic offer in to buy it but they want too much brass and would rather sit on it and let it rot further. The nice outside of the substantial building hides the horrors inside. The ground floor was effectively internally tanked with wall boards, the rest of the building has been left and is in a pretty sorry state inside. It will probably become flats when the market is right.

[Big Kev]

It will probably become flats when the market is right.

I suspect the same but is there not a requirement for parking with any housing or is that just 'new build'?

[PanBiker]

Not sure Kev but there are plenty of upstairs flats in Barlick over the shops which don't necessarily meet the parking requirements if that is the case. The space is normally taken up with the traders operating below.

[Stanley]

I agree about the two ugly buildings at the end of Church Street.



This has always been my candidate for third place closely followed by Post Office corner and the fire station. This pic was taken in 1980 and it has improved slightly since then but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The original build was I think offices for Craven Water Board. That's what I was told but look at the roof, it's grey slate and this usually marks a build date earlier than about 1850. Could be a re-use of an earlier build.

[Stanley]

Something caught my eye this week in Town Square. If you look across the square into the back area behind the shops in Frank Street you'll see that the second and third buildings up are quite obviously blocks of toilets, you can tell from the fenestration and the waste pipes. My question is why? There appears to have been more than one set.