LOOSE ENDS SEPTEMBER
The feedback has been coming in and so I have a rag bag for you this week. The first item is news I had from a man who is restoring a long case clock, more commonly known as a Grandfather. It was made in Salterforth in about 1765 by a man called John King. I've seen pictures of it and the man was no amateur! My informant tells me that he thinks it was most likely made at Lane Ends Farm in Salterforth, still the home of the King family of course. He also told me something I hadn't heard before, that there was a strong tradition of clock-making in the Quaker community. This fits in nicely with the religious history of Salterforth of course and I wonder whether John King was a Quaker?
The articles on the Letcliffe Tank resulted in my mate Chris Aspin contacting me and sending me an image of a publication dated April 16th 1919 called at that time 'The Silver Bullet'. This was the official bulletin of the National War Savings Committee. The title was changed to 'Saving' in December 1919 and the British Library have a run to December 1933. This edition is interesting because it names the 265 towns who had applied for the “War-battered tanks” and said that the first batch of tanks was already on its way back from France and they would be delivered as soon as possible. The most famous of the six tanks which toured the country advertising the savings campaign, “Egbert” had been awarded to West Hartlepool the town which contributed most to the committee's last savings campaign “Feed the Guns”, £31 pounds per head of population. This is a quite amazing response and demonstrates how important the savings campaign was. The list notes that Colne, Nelson and Skipton had applied for tanks but surprisingly there is no mention of Burnley. One last snippet of news was that some firms were paying annual bonuses to their employees in War Bonds instead of cash. This savings via wages was to become very important in WW2. Of course, attitudes changed and all the tanks bar the one in Ashworth, Kent, were scrapped in the 1930s. It's a shame really, I can well imagine what a landmark we would have if our tank was still sat on the plinth up in Letcliffe Park freshly painted for Jubilee Year. Ah well....
A short while ago a question was asked on Oneguyfrombarlick about the location of Hemp Butts cottages. The members did some really good research which included going back to the census records and retracing the route the enumerator took as he did his rounds. In the census the entries are in the same order as he put them down. This is something I have never thought of doing and it came up with some interesting results: “In the 1861 census the enumerator visits a blacksmith's forge when he is in the middle of the row of Hemp Butts Cottages, and the master blacksmith lives in one of the cottages. I was looking at the 1894 1:2,500 map and there is a smithy marked in the triangle of land formed by what is now Skipton Road, Station Road & Fernlea Avenue. The smithy is behind the cottages on Skipton Road. Looking on Google Street view, I can peep down what seems to be called Back Skipton Road, and there are old cottages at the back as well as on the main road. Could these possibly have been Hemp Butts Cottages? The proximity of The Railway and Croft House suggest that they were very close to this spot. Hemp Butts Cottages still exist in the 1891 census and the families who live there turn up in the 1901 census living at the same numbers on Skipton Road. The families living in Hemp Butts Gardens reappear in Forester's Buildings.”
So, it seems certain that hemp Butts cottages were in the jumble of buildings on Skipton Road and that Hemp Butts Gardens became Forester's Buildings. The thing that intrigues me about this detective work which has demolished my theory that the cottages were actually in Butts is that it feeds into the old controversy over the name Butts which I have always contended could just as easily refer to a field system as an archery training ground because 'butts' is a common suffix for names of individual strips within such a system and Hemp was a common crop. I think the name Hemp Butts still looks as though it derives from this source and it looks as though such a field system, if it existed, extended over the top of the hill between Butts and Skipton Road. This fits in with some clues I got when I was researching the CHSC because it appeared that the ownership of land in Butts was originally connected with the old Wellhouse Farm that used to stand on Church Street. All the signs were that the landholding originally extended northwards from Church Street and if it was originally carved out in the 16th century enclosures this would fit as it seems if there was a field system in the town (and there almost certainly was) Wellhouse Farm was formed by taking over the majority of this land. It all makes sense. Incidentally, though early, we know the enclosures were completed in the 16th century because they are marked on the 1580 map associated with the dispute between Foulridge and Barnoldswick. One more reinforcement is the siting of such a system covering the top of a hill. This is exactly the same topography as the field systems clearly shown on the Bracewell Estate map, it looks as though such siting was favoured round here possibly because of considerations like orientation and drainage. One further point, when John Clayton and I were puzzling over the 1580 map I came up with evidence that the slopes of hillsides were favoured for farming because they suffered less from frost gathering in very cold winters. The small hill between Skipton Road and Butts ticks all the boxes of proximity to the settlement and micro-climate. Nice! A perfect example of cooperation in research and also my oft-repeated public health warning that research alters conclusions!
The centre of Barlick in about 1850.
