FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Very possible, and there could have been proven as well but still not the sort of day to day activity you'd need to justify such a big investment.

[Stanley]

Earby station in 1892.

The late John Harrison's father, William, farmed White House Farm for many years. He was a cattle dealer specialising in good milking cows which he bought in Scotland both privately and at the markets. He and another big dealer in Skipton used to join in the hire of a rake of cattle wagons which came down from Ayr every Tuesday evening. His cattle were unloaded in the siding in front of the house and driven straight into the farm yard via his access road and the underpass under the railway line. John once told me that it was a very good and reliable service and the cattle came down the country almost as fast as his father could get back by car. It couldn't have been more convenient.
The station and sidings served Earby in other ways also and it was access to the coalfields of Yorkshire and Lancashire that enabled the steam mills in Earby to function economically, prior to the building of the line all coal had to come into the town via the canal wharf at Salterforth using tipping carts of about two tons capacity. There was also fish, newspapers and general goods. We forget today how efficient and useful rail transport was and what a benefit it was to the surrounding district.
Late on, in the days when I was at Ayr Market every Tuesday the cattle siding at the market was still in place but disused.

[Stanley]

In the early days big cattle dealers were powerful men. William Harrison had a dispute with Lanark Auction for many years about the fact that they were one of the last big markets to operate under 'farm sale conditions'. This meant that at the fall of the hammer the deal was struck and could not be altered even if the buyer found a fault. other markets allowed what was known as 'throwing up' or giving backword. William got caught with a couple of 'three wheelers' on day, these were cows with a defective quarter, usually caused by a bad attack of mastitis. He was furious and decided to do something about it.
He had a man working for him in SW Scotland as a buyer and instructed him to buy at least a dozen three wheelers. He put these in the sale at Lanark and sold all of them as correct. When he went into the office afterwards to settle up he declared in a loud voice that Lanark was the best market in Scotland. It was the only one where he could sell three wheelers as correct with no come back.
The market policy changed that week...... John told me that his father went to all the farmers who had bought the cattle and compensated them.
That's a forgotten corner. I saw my old boss Richard Drinkall recently and he told me that those days were long gone and what we did in those glory days of the 1960s could never happen again. I'm glad I was in at the end of it.

[Stanley]

In those days the old custom of 'luck money' or the 'luck penny' was still almost universal in the markets. The vendor always gave the buyer something back 'for luck' and it was always cash in the hand. There was no paperwork in these private sales, just a handshake backed by trust. Richard's accountant lived just above Ingleton and I used to deliver his accounts to him once a year, it was a very slim folder. I once asked Richard how he could get away with this in modern conditions and he said that he didn't know, he left all that to his accountant! I doubt if that could happen today, HMRC wouldn't be trusting enough! Richard tells me that all this has died out now. Another forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

I listened to Michael Morpurgo on R4 yesterday doing 'Point of View' . He is 76 and so almost contemporary with me. He was talking about the changes in childhood and cited a statistic that I haven't heard before. He said that on best estimates available today's children have only a ninth of the free unsupervised play time that we had. I trust him.
This c. 1900 pic of kids playing in the beck on School Lane in Earby is a good example. They are free to roam and doing what takes their fancy, none of it dictated by an electronic editor in a bedroom! His point was that they were leaning from nature, accepting the results of their decisions and building up experience that would influence the way they develop. Today these same kids could be in a bedroom with access to the web and in many cases absorbing some of the most toxic material available.
He regrets the change and says that he believes it is significant and I believe him. I don't apologise for going back to this old topic which I have covered many times before. I cringe when I think of some of the things we used to do and remember how our kids had the same freedom at Hey Farm with access to the farm animals and the fields around us. They roamed with their friend Ted Waite...



Digging up earth nuts and eating them, tickling trout, and learning about reproduction, they knew the calving dates of all the heifers. Today, a friendship with an old man like this would be regarded with extreme suspicion, they spent hours with him in his caravan in the orchard. Their memories of Ted are wonderful and completely above suspicion.

[Bodger]

When we first came to Ireland c. 1970, we lived next door to an elderly couple,Biddy & Johnny , we have four daughters three who at the time were 7, 6, & two, Biddy called to the house and asked if the two eldest would like to go on the bog with Johnny and his donkey & cart to save turf, it was agreed and away they went with this elderly man to spend a day on the bog, there he would do a fry up and toast with butter on the open peat fire, and the girls spent the day "helping" in the fresh air and sunshine, the girls were being taught through Gaelic at school and Johnny who was a native speaker helped in their progress of the language, these bog visits became a regular thing over the school holidays and forty+ years later the girls still speak fondly of their time with Johnny I'm not sure if we would do the same today, is it because we were naive and are now older and wiser !!, or have times and people changed ?.

[plaques]

I'm not sure if we would do the same today, is it because we were naive and are now older and wiser !!, or have times and people changed ?.

In the old days communities were much closer knit that they are today. Everyone knew who to keep an eye on and kept a close watch on the 'doubtful' ones. Things are just the same as before but now more people are strangers to the community until proved otherwise.

[Stanley]

I think the bottom line is that we made a judgement and trusted it. All right, sometimes it went wrong in some cases but we never had a problem. Bit like the visits to the bog Bodge. Ted used to fry up for the kids in his caravan, all the windows open and blue smoke issuing forth! They got used to leathery fried eggs and even preferred them! It never stopped them eating another meal at home. Ted told me one day that Susan, aged 6, had corrected him on the calving date of one of the heifers, he said she was right! That's important education and is never forgotten.

[Marilyn]

It is great that you have rosy glows about the folk you entrusted with your kids...but did you ever have the chat with your kids about what to do if they ever felt uncomfortable, or had a funny feeling in their tummy about someone, or where it was appropriate on their body to feel someone else touch them ( and where it wasn't) and what to say or do (and who to tell) if they felt uncomfortable? Did you just trust implicitly...or did you educate your children about what was appropriate and what wasn't? See...I think that is what is different today. We need to provide children with the tools to know the difference, and let them know they can come to us with concerns if they have any, and let them know they will be believed.
I'm glad for you, but these days we cant just be glad our kids were lucky and made it through unscathed. (Child abusers are successful because they are trusted and known to parents in most instances...that's how they operate!)

[Stanley]

We didn't need to Maz. They kept us informed. Indeed in one case they raised doubts about someone we disliked but didn't actually mistrust. Years later he was prosecuted for child bothering, the kids were right. You see, we trusted them. Vera and I had noticed that he insisted on his son's hair being left to grow long and curly and then teased him constantly for being 'girlie'. Obvious really but the kids were on to it long before us.
That got me to thinking about local 'seven day wonders', stories that were never reported in the papers but spread like wild fire. On the whole they were accurate and we heard one day that a local Councillor's son who was employed as a clerk in the town hall had been sacked for being found with his hand in the till. We didn't believe it at first but it turned out to be right.
While I was interviewing for the LTP I came across a story that a local lad had been heard uttering slanders about a young lass. Her family forced him to pay for an advert in the local paper admitting he had done it and saying that he had lied. I checked the archives and eventually found it. I always think about that when I see reports of bad behaviour on social media. A forgotten corner but perhaps it needs re-visiting!

On a different matter, this is the time of year when I remember Gresford Colliery, 22nd September 1934. The Dennis Main seam fired and killed 266 miners, 200 widows and 800 children left fatherless. Eleven bodies were recovered, the rest were sealed in the seam and remained there until the colliery closed in 1974. (LINK)
Then there was Aberfan on 22nd October 1966 where the spoil tips above the village collapsed due to bad management and millions of tons of mud swept down onto the town killing 116 children and 28 adults, mostly in the local school as it happened at quarter past nine in the morning. (LINK)
Let's not forget them.

[Marilyn]

Funnily enough, we met a man yesterday for the first time and the first thing I noted about him was his strange/repetitive mannerisms. He kept checking his fly and adjusting his belt and gently stroking himself all over his belly and chest as he spoke. He didn't leave himself alone for a moment. He made my skin crawl and the hairs went up on the back of my neck. (Probably a very normal man...but there was just something about him... maybe he had indigestion or something). He was weird.

[Stanley]

Always trust your instincts Maz!

[Stanley]

Lancashire Gill 1892 OS map.

Today's forgotten corner is a simple feature on the map between Foulridge and Kelbrook. Since the Saxon invaders put in place the Shire system, Lancashire Gill was part of the Shire boundary right up to modern times when the government assumed incorrectly that they could alter the boundaries. It is a small watercourse that continues to the west under the New Road and eventually joined Black Brook, by then County Brook where it met the New Cut which drained all the water in these bottoms out towards Sough and Earby. County Brook was so named because it too was part of the Lancashire/Yorkshire boundary.
After years of dispute the government eventually conceded the point that whilst they could alter Administrative boundaries they had no powers to meddle with Shire and Parish boundaries. Today Lancashire Gill is once more part of the boundary.
Incidentally, during my times of close cooperation with what was then English Heritage I knew the man who was tasked with finding the most efficient system of dividing up England for the purposes of a new Listed Building Survey. After many months of deliberation and discussion it was agreed that the old system of Shire and Parish boundaries couldn't be improved upon so the modern listings are on this basis. Sometimes the old ways are best even if we forget they are there!

[Stanley]

The Whitemoor Map of 1580.

We are so lucky to have access to superb mapping from the late 19th century onwards. My image today is of an earlier map, the map made to support the Chancery case between the manors of Foulridge and Barlick in a dispute over rights to the land on Whitemoor. (Barlick won!)
Over the years I have spent a lot of time with this map and one of the things that struck me was the fact that the north quadrant has been collapsed and is out of scale with the rest. There is an explanation for this. In the 16th century as in previous times the only way to map an area was to scale the high points and draw what you see, the different views were then converted into a map. This is exactly how the Perambulation of the 14th century was accomplished when de Lacey was mapping the boundaries of the Manor of Barlick before granting it to Fountains Abbey.
You have perhaps noted names on the map like Simon's Seat near Skipton. There was an Allainset mentioned in the de Lacy perambulation, this was 'Allans Seat' and is the modern Burn Moor near Blacko. At the summit the scribes would do the drawing of what they saw while the Lord had a rest, hence the seat. Given this it isn't surprising that they got some of the parts they were most distant from wrong.



The 1892 OS of Burn Moor, the summit was Alainset. Notice that de Lacey made a mistake and his boundary is perpetuated in the boundary up Claude's Clough that delineates 'Brogden detached' and is still regarded as part of Barnoldswick. The boundary should have been further east along the line of the Black Dyke.

[Stanley]

If you search for and collect old images one of the striking things as that so many of them portray collective pursuits and most of them are outside in the open air. This image illustrates what I think is one of the most insidious and damaging current trends. 'The Connected Family'.
Connected to what? It's not each other, neither is it a cooperation with local neighbours. In days gone by home entertainment was limited to the radio, reading or indoor games on rainy days when we couldn't play out. Our parents went to church, political meetings and joint endeavours like the Whit Walks. No too long ago we had a gala once a year, so did Earby. My mother used to take us on long rambles collecting berries and wild fruit, she also took me to performances of Oratorios in local halls, often with famous soloists. Once a year we had pantomime and circus at Belle Vue. today the pull of the screen in the home has killed almost all of these activities.
I have to confess that in some ways I am as guilty as the rest. The last truly cooperative local endeavour I took part in was 40 years ago, a DIY Messiah at the Inghamite Chapel in Salterforth. There is also the small matter of age and decreased mobility but even so I keep up with my walks round town. If modern statistics are to be believed I spend more time outside walking in a single day than most people do in a week.



Will we ever see a gathering like this on Jepp Hill again? I very much doubt it. Truly a forgotten corner.

[PanBiker]

Not everyone is tarred with the same brush as your first photo Stanley.

[Stanley]

Two forgotten corners for the price of one in this David Whipp picture.
The first is Bank House, built in the mid 19th century by Christopher Bracewell when his family seemed to be completely in control of Barlick It was sold in about 1890 when the Bracewell firm collapsed in insolvency. See the Bracewell Story on the site for the full story. It was mooted as a candidate for conversion into a cottage hospital at one point but this scheme never got off the ground. It was eventually abandoned and fell into decay and has since been demolished.



Pictured here in 1905 it was the most prominent house site in the town.

The other element in the pic is David's father's hen huts. At one time keeping hens was a very popular hobby and it's quite surprising if you dig into the results of the frequent shows where breeders competed to see who had the most exotic birds. 'Fancy Hens' as they called them, you'll find manufacturers as well as working men. If you look at Fred Inman's transcripts in the LTP you'll find a good account of the practice, his father kept hens on a commercial scale. Just after the war when the ability to sex day old chicks was developed in Japan, this area was one of the first to take it up and I remember a bloke called Hartley who was one of the first in the field and made a very comfortable living out of it. If you look on garage sites you'll find many hen huts got another lease of life as garages.
I suspect local by-laws killed the practice together with the cottage pig.
This has reminded me, time we bumped Wilfred Spencer's story about the decline of the hen pen!

[Stanley]

I love this old postcard of Greenberfield Locks. There is so much information embedded in it. However, what's on my mind this morning as a forgotten corner is the overall effect of the canal construction round about 1800. It must have been an earth-shaking event (Sorry about the pun!). Large numbers of navvies descended on the district and cut a big hole right through the town. That was disturbing enough but consider the effects. 40 tons of canal boat could travel drawn by just one horse! Up till then the biggest loads we ever saw were the timber drags exporting large baulks of wood from the town to places as far afield as Clitheroe and beyond Skipton, we have firm evidence for this trade. Leaving aside the enormous consequences that access to the Yorkshire and Lancashire coal fields made to us there was also the small matter of disputes that arose between land owners and the Canal Company who had to be hard-nosed about maintaining progress.
One such dispute was between John Bagshawe of Coates and the Company which ended in the Company simply ignoring him and driving through the Greenberfield section anyway. For some reason the Badgery Papers keep coming to mind and I though they were on the site but if they are I can't find them. I've been furtling and here's what I found....

"JOHN BAGSHAWE. (1758-1801)
Taken from ‘A Study in Engineering History: Bagshawe versus the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 1790/1799’ by R B Schofield. Printed in the Bulletin of John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. Autumn 1976.
John Bagshawe inherited the joint estates of the brothers William and John Bagshawe in November 1791. These were the Oaks, Wormhill Hall of Castleton and Coates Hall Barnoldswick. He had trained as a lawyer and for a time looked after his Uncle John but when he died and John Bagshawe inherited he devoted the rest of his time to managing his estates.
The Coates Hall Estate included tenanted farms at Coates Hall, Greenberfield and Coates Flatt. He owned the Corn Mill and worked Greenberfield Quarry. His uncle William Bagshawe who was in possession of Coates in 1770 when the first plans were being made for the canal, realised that he owned the nearest limestone to Lancashire on the line of the canal. (Greenberfield and Coates lie on the limestone side of the Craven Fault, which divides the grit stone to the south of Barlick from the limestone to the north.)
Around 1770 he constructed a ‘deep drain’ to dewater Greenberfield Rock and during negotiations about the canal passing through his land he negotiated with John Longbottom of Halifax, the Canal Co’s principal Engineer and Surveyor for an ‘arched road’ under the waterway to allow the drain and a road to the quarry to pass. Longbottom agreed to put this before the general committee of the canal and assured him it would be ordered. (9Sept 1770)
In 1790 when canal plans were revived, tenant at Greenberfield was Thomas Thornber and at Coates Flatt, Peter Hartley. Peter Hartley attended a meeting in Colne on 24/11/1790 and reported to JB that it appeared plans had changed and his underpass was not to be built. This plus the rough way the contractors treated the locals as digging commenced seems to be the start of JB’s troubles with the L&L Co.
The canal company proposed to do away with what was the existing Skipton Road at Greenberfield and take the line down the east side of the canal to Gill thus saving two bridges and in the process, destroying JB’s plans for his quarry. He also learned that the underpass for the drain was not to be built.
JB believed that the lime in Greenberfield was better quality than that in Gill Rock Quarry opened by Colonel Farrand shortly before 1790. He suspected that the company wanted to prevent him from exploiting his quarry as they had their eye on opening a quarry of their own. In later years when Canal Co. bought land from Mr Parker at Rainhall for a quarry it seemed he was right. Schofield thinks however that it wasn’t deliberate, just shortage of capital putting pressure on the company to make least accommodation roads and bridges.
Bagshawe went to Joseph Outram [1732-1810] (father of Benjamin Outram (1764-1805)) who was to act for him until JB’s death in 1801. The matter was settled by a payment from the Canal Co to JB, or so it seemed at the time.
The Canal Co seem to have gone ahead with their original plan which was to divert the Skipton Road down the east side of the canal to the existing Greenberfield bridge. They built the bridge and after a period of worsening relations a discussion was held on 11 Nov 1797 with the canal co reps in a pub in Barlick and JB in Coates Hall, communications were by notes! Not surprisingly, it ended in deadlock.
Round about 1798 a new tenant, John Waite moved into Greenberfield and obstructed the new road with hurdles and brushwood. They stopped the road over twenty times but the Canal Co threw it down each time.
Late in 1798 Benjamin Outram came to inspect and reported on ‘Mr Bagshawe’s estate on the Banks of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.’ By February 1799 Bagshawe had won his case against the Canal Co. The canal co built the accommodation bridges for Eastwood and Banks but seem to have put only a ‘swivel’ bridge in on the line of the old road. No trace of this remains and the present road follows the new line put in by the Canal Co.
After this victory JB died in Staines on 21 August 1801. The Greenberfield Quarry was never exploited, the canal co’s road line to Greenberfield survived. The canal Co’s quarry at Rainhall prospered, as did Farrand’s at Gill Rock." SCG/15/09/00

Sorry about that but it gives a glimpse into one facet of the problems that had to be overcome.

[Stanley]

When most historians evaluate the impact of the canal they concentrate on the transport aspect. Nothing wrong with that and this improvement undoubtedly enabled Barlick to enter the most prosperous period in its history once we had efficient access to coal and the export of limestone and finished stone like the setts for East Lancashire roads. However they generally miss two other significant aspects. The first is that it altered drainage. Barnoldswick lies on the watershed between the Ribble and Aire basins and the canal cutting the drainage system in two forced improvements. The second and more important asset was that the canal solved a major problem, the supply of cold water to steam engined mills, essential, not for boiler filling as is often quoted, this is a relatively small component of water use, but for cooling the exhaust from the engines to produce a vacuum which improved the thermal efficiency of the engines by 10%. By 1850 the natural water resources of the becks draining Whitemoor had all been utilised. There were big problems where you got a mill like Calf Hall sending warm water down to Butts below on the beck.
The solution was there all the time but hadn't been recognised, the canal was a superb source of cold water. If you look at the mills built after 1865 you'll find that most of them were sited next to the canal for this reason. There were some exceptions like Westfield and Fernbank which, because of efficiencies in the latest engines could utilise natural flows that hitherto had been judged too small.
This was a very significant advantage and should be more widely recognised.

[Stanley]

When I was teaching my US students and brought them to Barlick I used to walk them up to the trig point on Weets and make them look at the landscape and recognise how the town developed and what were the causes. It's always well worth doing, think of Alainset and Simon's Seat.
It's an interesting exercise and the conclusion I always came to was that, for a variety of reasons, you couldn't move any feature more than five feet from where it was, the topography set the rules. If you don't believe me try it one day. The canal is a good example, it follows the 490ft contour, you can't build a sloping canal! I have always marvelled at the way the contours can fool you. If you stand at Salterforth Wharf and look towards Barlick it's all uphill and yet Coates Wharf is of course on exactly the same level as Salterforth and the road from there into the town is downhill!
Look at any road junction and consider whether you could move it at all, you'll find that it would be impossible, the combination of local factors and influences sets it exactly where it is.
Over the years I have developed a skill which enables me to see possible water power sites even if there was nothing evident on the ground. I always say that I would have been a good man at finding these sites in the days when they were being first developed. Every mill site I have ever seen is placed in the landscape exactly where it had to be. If they got it wrong it didn't succeed. There are many cases where you can see a superb site but it is not developed, the answer is always bedded in Riparian Rights or land ownership. That's why Bancroft Shed was so late. It is one of the best sites in Barlick but couldn't be exploited because Mitchell's Mill owned the water rights on the Gillians Beck. It took a marriage alliance between the Slaters at Clough and the Nutters at Bancroft to unlock the site and even then there was provision for Bancroft to divert the flow round their lodge in very low water conditions.
You have to observe and think and if you do you can unlock these forgotten corners.

[Tripps]

Thanks - I enjoyed reading that. It made me think.

I have a 'thing' about the expression 'psychogeography' . I think my version of it isn't exactly the same as the world thinks, but I'm not bothered. I wonder if your surroundings influence your personality. I think they must. It's Private Eye day today, and I risk making myself eligible for the OBN. or Pseud's Corner, or both.

Associated with the subject is the word flaneur I think you qualify in many respects. Keep it up.

[Stanley]

Thank You David, that's a nice compliment and I accept it. I knew the word but not the meaning and yes, on that measure I am after the same thing as Ms Baudelaire. If you qualify as a pseud so do I!
I regard the pursuit of history as needing exactly the same thinking I employ walking down stairs. I take in the evidence, analyse the situation and go carefully forward to a conclusion. In the case of the flaneur it's visual evidence and that's just as valid as the Ten Commandments. That's why I am always nagging people to recognise the difference between seeing, looking and observing followed by analysis. Bit like Sherlock Holmes really.
"Thanks - I enjoyed reading that. It made me think. "
You've put your finger on it there. That is always my aim, to make people think. That's why Mystery Objects is the most popular topic on the site.

[Stanley]

For over 100 years we have taken it for granted that we will have well paved and drained roads and good pavements. I'm sorry to say that this is getting to be a forgotten corner. Road maintenance has been neglected for years and the evidence I see is that it is getting serious. A few potholes can be accepted but what I am seeing now round the town is tarmac breaking up, gulley grates blocked and most annoying of all, some small covers in the road that have come loose and when it's raining, if a car tyre hits them squarely a shower of water is thrown up which reaches the pavement. There's one in particular outside Gisburn Road school that has got me twice recently.
I fear that we may be reaching some sort of a tipping point. These matters have been neglected for far too long and there comes a point when we aren't talking about patching, only a complete re-surfacing job will do. I have pointed out so many times that one of the noteworthy aspects of old images of the streets is the good condition of the roads.
It's got to the stage now that if a proper assessment was made of what is necessary to get us back to reasonable standards the resulting estimates of the cost would be eye-watering. For that reason alone I can't see that there will be any meaningful action. So get used to bad road surfaces and drainage, it is going to be a fact of life. I don't know what the old councillors would say, they left us a good legacy and it has been squandered.



BUDC bought its own roller like this one in 1911.

[Wendyf]

We could do with one of those right now! Col has spent the last few months scraping the track level and laying the scalpings he bought when the road was being resurfaced. He rolled it yesterday with the quad bike and mini roller I use on the pony paddocks, but a machine like that would do the trick!

[Stanley]

Consider hiring a vibratory roller for a day. It will do the trick and could be a good investment as it will make the road surface far more resistant to weather and wear.



I'm repeating this image I posted in connection with the Central Garage because it has so much information in it. This was 1963 when Butts Mill was still (just) under the control of CHSC and had not been altered much. The chimney still stands and all the original buildings are there. You can also see the Conservative Club bowling Green behind the Pigeon Club. Ernie Roberts told me that in the 1930s the Con Club used to have an annual summer fry-up there for the locals, it was free and Ernie says he still remembers having a good nosh there when things were very hard. The building to the right of it is a new one put up by the Ministry of Aircraft Production during the war. Just in front of the green is the new Clinic Building.
Spend a bit of time studying the rest of the pic, you won't be wasting your time.