FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Marilyn]

I will. And if I find anything I shall tell you. I do remember the radiators being on, and we were far too warm, but were left no instructions how to reduce the heat. But that is a minor thing (so we sat round in our scanties, still worried a car would land on our laps, or an errant truck would take our faces off)

[plaques]

The Toll House 'Higherford' at first glace looks like its been wrongly located since the Barrowford bridge on Colne Rd is clearly marked 'Barrowford Bridge with the one higher up the river being Higherford bridge.
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In actual fact the Ward boundary goes down the centre of Colne road placing the heritage centre in Barrowford and the Toll House in Higherford. The pub The George and Dragon also being i Higherford.

Initially the Barrowford Bridge was named the Park Hill Bridge. Park Hill being the Heritage Centre.
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[Tripps]

Speaking of Higherford - I've had this Youtube video on my list for long time now.

It's very clever. Higherford Mill

[Stanley]

Opening Higherford mill was partially a Park Hill initiative, it was done while I was there.....

[Marilyn]

I tried the storage device for those pics of the Toll House, Stanley. Reckon we holiday end there in 2003...my storage device has pics from 2005 onward. Must have them somewhere on a disc perhaps.

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

One of the jobs we tackled was the building of the tearoom at Park Hill. I wasn't directly responsible but the foreman of the builders used to consult with me about the jobs they were doing especially if they hit a problem. One of these arose when they were building the tearoom. He told me one day that they had hit a problem. They had just finished installing all the roof trusses when the committee decided they wanted the ceiling in the room higher!
We came up with a solution, a firm I knew lent us some equipment and materials so we installed 40 gallon drums filled with water for raising blocks, put a long RSJ down each side and used 4 hydraulic jacks to raise the whole of the roof enough to get another row of breeze blocks in and then repeated the process to put a second row in. Perfectly safe and solved the problem nicely. That was the nice thing about working at PH. we could get our heads together and find effective solutions to put the aspirations of the committee into practice. I don't think they ever realised what we did!

[Stanley]

Raising the new beam in 1983 at Park Hill.

I was given an interesting job one day. At some time in the past, the location of the main staircase to the upper storey had been changed and one of the main beams in the large room at Park Hill had been cut and modified to allow the staircase to be altered. It was decided to replace this beam and put the stair back in it’s original position so I had to find a beam and install it. We decided that as it was so large we had better get a new one cut. Ed Furgol and I went up to Boddy’s timber yard on the Great North Road at Boroughbridge to select a tree and get the beam cut. We went into the yard with the foreman and he took us right to the back where there was a massive oak trunk lay on timbers to raise it off the ground. He said it was the only ‘stick’ as he called it in the yard big enough to get our beam out of. It had been felled in 1940 on the Hovingham Estate and he reckoned it would be dry! The agreement was that they sawed the beam out and then converted what was left in whatever manner they thought best and we took the lot. I forget the price now but at the time I thought it was very reasonable. They lifted the stick out while we watched and put it on the band saw. Twenty minutes later we had our beam and very impressive it was too.
One strange thing about Boddy’s was that old Mr Boddy was still about though he had been retired for many years. As we were leaving the men were coming back into the yard after lunch and clocking on. Old Mr Boddy was going up and down the queue poking the blokes with his stick and telling them they’d have to work harder to keep their jobs. I looked askance at the bloke who was running the yard and he told me that they’d tried to stop him but couldn’t, he still acted as though it was the turn of the century and the men didn’t seem to mind. I don’t know what it says about me but I’m afraid I’d have taken his stick off him and broken it! Ed thought it was hilarious that men would put up with this sort of treatment!
A few days later the beam and the scantlings were delivered at the centre and we set two lads on with adzes to shape it as we wanted. After some very complicated cutting and lifting we finally got it into position and it was magnificent but then the management decided they wanted it staining to match the other beams in the room. I thought this was sacrilege but they had their way. What it did teach me was that what we regard as a typical Jacobean or Elizabethan interior of dark oak panels and furniture is actually wrong, it was only the years of smoke and soot that made the wood that colour. When first built the interiors would be a beautiful straw colour and the whole effect would be more what we would describe today as Scandinavian. Ed got quite excited about this and did some research of his own. We are all familiar with tapestries and needlework of the period, Ed came up with the suggestion that the colours were a lot clearer and brighter in those days so the overall effect of a room would be of light and space and plenty of brightly coloured scatter cushions and tapestries. This was regarded as heresy by some of our advisers but I think it’s pretty close to the truth.

[Stanley]

Going to hospital yesterday I was reminded that for as long as I can remember, plans have been mooted to do away with Steeton level crossing but it is still there. It's a busy line and there are frequent delays. I was reminded of something a policeman told me once about Hull. It had the lowest incidence of smash and grab raids in England in the days when that was a popular crime. He said it was because of all the level crossings and lift bridges over the docks, the criminals could never rely on a quick getaway!
That reminds me of an accident at an unmanned level crossing in the Midlands on a country road. The sign read "Wait while lights flash". What they had missed was that as you get further north 'while' means 'until'. A car stopped, waited until the warning lights started flashing and then set off in the path of the oncoming train. I think they revised the notice after that.....

[Whyperion]

We walk past the eyesore that is the old Trustee Savings Bank every day and it is so familiar that it becomes a forgotten corner and isn't even nice to look at because of the brutalist design, completely out of kilter with the rest of the town. What happens when Barclay's inevitably goes down the same route?
When it does happen will there be the funding to rectify the planning mistake and demolish both of them? I doubt it. We should never allow this to be forgotten.....

Was it TSB ? I didn't think Yorkshire Bank took over from the Savings Banks ( which were at one time indeed organised regionally I think as the Yorkshire Penny Savings Bank at one time ?) . Happy to be corrected though as maybe they just acquired the building rather than the business.

I think some 'modern' buildings do , if they work well for their purpose, are important as they show development of thought and a lot of our near history is being eliminated , either to recover a faux past, or in modern standarised designs.

[PanBiker]

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.

[Stanley]

I always got the two mixed up...... No problem now of course, hight street banking is almost a forgotten corner in Barlick now as the only one left is Barclay's.



How banking started in Barlick.



It ended with the advent of the big betting shops and as the maximum stake on FOBTs has been lowered they might be a future forgotten corner!

[Stanley]

Looking at the present day preoccupation with encouraging young people to participate in sport I reflect that it didn't need to be emphasised when I was a lad, we got plenty of outdoor exercise in our normal lives apart from compulsory sport at school. We were even taken out from primary schools to lift potatoes and gather hedgerow fruits to help the war effort. Then when we left school most of us went into physical work, I remember a woman in the Tempest Arms at Broughton once asking me if I lifted weights. I told her yes, all day! And I got paid for it.
These days things are totally different and this is a forgotten corner. We even went haytiming in the evening after work for light entertainment and a bit of pocket money.



Think about the consequences, we have been told that for the first time, there is a halt in the annual advance in life expectancy, an ominous sign. I know it's a symptom of my age but we have gone wrong somewhere and it is worrying.

[PanBiker]

There is a post raging on one of the local FB sites about the parking problems up at the Sports Centre due to the school run for the Church School next door. Also the number of parents that sit in the car with the engine running. One of the contributing mums said the school had suggested parking in the Rainhall Road car park. She apparently tried this once and she said it took 20 minutes to get up to school and back from there. I asked her if she went round via Bracewell to get there! She replied that it was due to the short legs of a six year old and also the wait at school after delivery until the kids went inside as it would be bad parenting to leave them?

I pointed out that I walked to and from school by myself from 4 years old once I knew the way. I was never molested or abducted and neither were any of my friends. We all walked, I never considered my mum or dad bad parents for this but thankful that they taught me at an early age how to cross the road safely and had the confidence to give me the independence. Of course there was a lot less traffic but even so there is still safety in numbers and any kid that lives in Barlick should be able to walk to school. School run is an absolute nonsense for the majority. The bad parenting is not teaching their kids and giving them the wings to fly.

[Big Kev]

They park here (Park St), Moseley St and over the road on Harrison St. I'm sure most of them would be quicker just walking from home...

[Stanley]

"School run is an absolute nonsense for the majority."
Quite right Ian, as are most trips to the shops.....



I love forgotten corners like this image. These men would be tacklers and perhaps twisters also, working class aristocracy in the mill, or so they regarded themselves. There would be a separate party for the weavers and labourers!

[Stanley]

Today's forgotten corner is a bit different and not directly related to Barlick. This image is of Whessoe oil storage tanks being erected. I used this because it gives you an idea of the scale of them and the internal construction.
I was remembering a job I was on once when I worked for Rochdale Welding. It was the removal and re-erection of two very large Whessoe tanks from a tank farm. Not many people know about that!
The first stage was to get Neston Tank in to clean the interiors, they had been used for black oil which when cold is the consistency of treacle. We see Neston tank wagons regularly in Barlick as they deal with waste from Rolls. It was seeing one of their tankers this morning on my morning walk that reminded me of this corner. Neston are good at their job, when they have finished you could eat your breakfast off any surface in the tank. They issue a gas certificate which is valid for 24 hours and within that period a large access hole is cut in the side of the tank to give access and just as important, ventilation. Once that is done the interior of the tank is safe for naked lights and cutting sparks.
Then a start could be made on dismantling the tanks in such a way that they can be transported and re-erected. This involves cutting out the lid and dividing the walls by vertical cuts into four quarters. Before that can be done the internal braces have to be cut out and removed. This was the interesting bit!
When a tank is built from the original manufactured sections they don't fit perfectly, as they are being welded together expansion and contraction builds up stresses. In order to make the pieces fit they have to be dogged and wedged together and the result is a large vessel with many internal stresses. These stresses are concentrated in the structure of internal braces which has to be in from the beginning to support the construction.
The first job on dismantling is to cut the braces to allow the rest to be unzipped and taken down and that is where it can get dramatic and very dangerous. There is no way of knowing how the substantial members will react when cut, They are usually very heavy angle iron up to 6" in the web. I was warned about this and when we started cutting I found out why it was regarded so seriously. Some could be cut and only sprung about an inch or two but some could move a lot more, the worst I saw was over two feet and if you had been in the way of it it would be like being hit by a truck.
So, the message is if you have a tank to clean get Neston Tank in and if you are taking one down, be very wary of how the members are going to react! It could save you a lot of grief.
There you are, not many people know that. It must be a forgotten corner.
By the way, one funny incident was when the safety officer chided us for having a smoke in the tank. This when a torrent of molten metal was showering down from the electric arc cutting rods that were being used high above!

[Stanley]

There was a time when large cast iron bollards were used to prevent vehicular access on dangerous ginnels like this one off Commercial Street down to the stables in Butts, now they are seen as essential street furniture to stop parking on the pavement. This one is still there but the pic is in 1982 when demolition of the old stables had just started.

[Stanley]

This seems appropriate today as we are expecting a hot day. Swimmers at Greenberfield Locks in 1958.

[Stanley]

I wonder how many people in Barlick ever think about Elslack reservoir or even know it exists? As the town expanded in the late 19th century it was obvious that good as the Whitemoor wells were, we needed more water to give assurance of a surplus. Many sources were considered including a reservoir on the side of Whitemoor above Bancroft but eventually the site at Elslack was selected and this reservoir built between the wars. Vicki told me that most of the pipeline down to Barlick has already been renewed and the last section is under way. This is the large pipe that crosses the canal at Cockshott bridge near the marina. She tells me that she understands that the replacement will go under the canal. I hope this won't mean the loss of the old lime kiln next to the bridge.

[Stanley]

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.

[Cathy]

Steele and Sons, Stanley you have just reminded me of an old grumble. Not you, no no no, them.

[Stanley]

I understand Cathy and sympathise, I, like you, have a long memory.

[Christian]

What always amazes me is the abundance of old settlements littered down the moor from Elslack res into Elslack and Carleton. Tie into that the "Roman Road" and a couple of old forts, it strikes me as quite an important little bit in its time.

https://thejournalofantiquities.com/201 ... yorkshire/

[PanBiker]

Post Office Buildings, left to right, Batemans Bakers, Button/Wool Shop, Donald Fodens Sports Shop, and then a Butchers, was it Gerry Rodgers?