ROCK SOLID. PART NINE.

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Stanley
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ROCK SOLID. PART NINE.

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ROCK SOLID. PART NINE.

The opening of Foulridge tunnel on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1796 was a red letter day for Barnoldswick. The forty foot high embankment across Burnley was opened in 1802 and made the transport of heavy loads to and from Lancashire practical. It is very hard to over-estimate the importance of this to the economy of Barlick. By this time, the roads were reasonable but horse power was unable to move loads of much more that two tons and was slow and expensive. The effect of this was that heavy materials such as stone and coal were only moved in small quantities.

The canal changed everything. Loads of 50 tons could be moved by one horse at four miles an hour. This opened up the market for high quality stone in Lancashire and the carriage of coal as a return load. Eventually, this enabled the development of steam driven industry in Barnoldswick and drove the development of the quarries.

From 1880 onwards the towns along the line of the canal were improving conditions in the town centres by paving the roads with setts. The tough gritstone of Park Close and Salterforth Quarries was ideal for this purpose and tens of thousands of tons were cut by the banker-hands. Billy Brooks mentioned the names of three men who worked on the bank; George Smith (who later became a grocer), Harry Cawdray and Peter Sugden. The setts were carried down to the canal by tramways and taken forward as far as Burnley by canal boat. Further into Lancashire it was cheaper to bring in granite setts by rail from the huge quarries on Shap Fell.

In the 1920s Sagars had two canal boats, Ida and Alice, named after the daughters. The boatmen were Hartley and Oates Barrett (Walton Barrett’s father) from Foulridge. They would load up with setts at the wharf near New Road Bridge and take them to Burnley. Jack would load his Dennis wagon up with setts as well and take them to the council yard at the top of Manchester Road in Burnley. He would then go down to the wharf, load up and take the setts up to the yard. He carried on doing this until the boats were empty. Jack got on well with the boatmen and he said he enjoyed this job especially having his meals with them in the living cabin on the boat. He went home every night and brought another load the following morning but the boatmen stayed on the boat.

Back in Barlick, apart from the stone paving in the town centre most of the roads were still dry macadam. Jack told me he could remember seeing old men knapping stone at Poor Bones just below Bancrofts and Windy Harbour. He said their was a yard up on Whitemoor as well but I’m not sure where this was. He said that the old chap up there had a pile of stone as long as a row of houses. He worked in the open and the only protection he had was a couple of sacks, one to sit on and one to put over his head and back if it rained. This was exactly how it had been for centuries but things were about to change.

In the 1920’s the depression started to bite. Unemployment was rising and the government financed public works to give employment. The first sign of this that affected Barlick was around 1927 or 1928 when the road from Skipton out to Keighley was rebuilt at Snaygill. Sagars got a contract for supplying infill for building the roadbed and started clearing the huge waste heaps below the quarry and carting it to Skipton. This was a big job and Jack said that about six hauliers from Barlick worked on the job, Emmott Garnett, Aspin and Harry Platt were some he remembered.

Jack remembered a curious incident at Snaygill. The contractors dug a box up one day and when it was opened it was full of jewellery. It turned out that it had been stolen from Fattorini’s at Bradford and hidden. The thieves were in gaol and were doubtless hoping for a good little earner when they came out. As Jack said, “Hard luck lads!”

Barlick got it’s chance for a government project and this was when Salterforth New Road was built. This was another outlet for stone from the waste heaps and a source of employment. When I worked at West Marton Dairies George Dillon told me that was how he came to move to Salterforth, he got a job on the New Road and never went back down south. The New Road altered the geography of Barlick. Tubber Hill, Higher Lane and Salterforth Lane ceased to be main roads. The back lane from Salterforth to Coates fell into disuse and the steam winch at the top of the drag was dismantled.

So, by the 1930s our hero has seen some fundamental changes. Horse transport had virtually died out and motor vehicles taken over. The New Road has opened. On the home front he’s married Mona in 1928 and they are living at Tubber Hill. The recession in the textile industry is getting worse and most mills are on short time. Further afield there are even greater problems. In 1926 the general strike paralysed the country for a week and over in Germany, a man called Adolph Hitler arranged for his National Socialist Party’s annual rally to be held in Nuremberg. The clouds were gathering but for the time being Jack is all right, he’s in work and there are rumours he is about to get a new Leyland wagon.

My picture this week is a canal boat loading setts. I think this is at Whitham’s wharf just behind Burdock Hill at Foulridge. The two men on the bank are wheeling low sided barrows across planks to tip the setts in the boat. On the original photograph I could see that the man in the bowler hat has a cravat, waistcoat and a heavy watch chain. I think he has spats on protecting his polished boots and the little girl is well turned out. Could this be Whitham the quarry owner?
SCG/24 March 2003

Image


Horse drawn canal boat loading 50 tons of setts.
Stanley Challenger Graham
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"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
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Re: ROCK SOLID. PART NINE.

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More essential history.....
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net

"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
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