FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Nice one Wendy



Dye House Farm in 1930.

[Big Kev]

I walked down the track from Foulridge Hall Farm that comes into Station Road recently, completely unaware that I was crossing the railway track. So that's where the station was! I'll know next time.

Gus Brennan posted this one on the Foulridge Facebook page

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[Wendyf]

[Stanley]

Let us not forget Buttercup when talking about Foulridge.....

[Stanley]

This is a forgotten corner. There used to be a wooden shed on this corner of Harrison Street. A man called Crabtree used to run a loom-shifting business from it. He was an iron merchant who moved looms from shed to shed in the 1930s. See LTP 78/AC/6. He was a scrap merchant as well. The BUDC minutes for 18th September 1957 note that the building is in a ruinous condition and set in motion a compulsory order to repair or demolish. This is what replaced the shed.

[Stanley]

A farm chimney at South Queensferry from Walter Pickles' book 'Our Grimy Heritage'. Once a common sight on large farms where a steam engine was used to power the barn machinery but now a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

'Swab's Chimney' at Middleton in 1976. Originally built by Simon Schwab for his dye-works, later called Rhodes Mill, in 1976 it was owned by the Bernstein family who used the old dye-works for manufacturing furniture. The stack was redundant and Bernsteins were looking for a way out of ownership. That was how I came to be involved. Standing 340ft high the stack was believed to be the biggest brick chimney in Europe. Eventually it was bought be a local builder and after a long process involving several knock backs from the building inspectors and a couple of bankruptcies it was removed. It had to go of course as it was only three feet from the pavement but it was a miracle of construction as the ground in that valley bottom is very bad for foundations but Swabs ignored the problems. It's a forgotten corner now but I'm glad I got to know it before it came down.
( If you want to know more do a site search for Swabs. We have a lot on the site about it.)

[Stanley]

The QE2 at South Queensferry in 1968, the year it entered service as the last of the Cunard transatlantic liners. A forgotten corner as it is now retired, anchored at Dubai and has become a floating hotel. I have a different memory of it..... Here's a bit from me memoirs. At the time I was driving the cattle wagon for Richard Drinkall. It was early 1968....

I was at a farm near Troon one day in 1969 to pick up a load of cattle and the man’s wife was making me a cup of tea and a sandwich in the kitchen while we waited for her husband to turn up. The farm stood on the edge of a sort of cliff which dropped down to a flat piece of land where the main road was and the sea shore was on the other side. It seemed fairly clear that at some time the land had risen and the sea had moved away from the bottom of the cliff. The farmhouse was near the edge of the cliff and the result was that the view from the kitchen window was of a short stretch of grass and then open sea as far as Arran. Only one thing spoiled the view and that was an electricity supply pole bang in front of the window. I asked her what had possessed the company to put it there and she said she didn’t know, it had been installed one day while they were on holiday and they were in the middle of a battle to get it re-located. As I stood there looking out of the window I noticed a ship out in the Clyde moving at incredible speed for its size. I pointed it out to the lady and she said it was the new Cunard liner doing its sea trials, it had been going up and down the Clyde for a couple of days. It must have been doing speed trials that day and as we watched the helm was put hard over at full speed and it made hundreds of acres of white foam as it turned. I watched it for about a quarter of an hour and it was one of the most impressive things I have ever seen in my life. Of course, I realised later it was the QE2, Cunard’s last great Atlantic liner on its trials before being accepted by the owners.

[Stanley]

It would be easy to miss these stones in the bed of the stock Beck below Bracewell seen from the footbridge on the path from Bracewell to the lost village of Stock. They are what is left of the paved ford where Hall Lane crosses the Beck. Hall Lane used to be the well-used way to get to Stock from Bracewell. Today it is all overgrown and in the case of the ford, being eroded by the beck. I think it qualifies as a forgotten corner....

[Stanley]

Peter Tatham brews for his two jacks Higgy and Andy during a break in the demolition of the destructor chimney at Salford in 1976. Apart from the fact they are all dead now, this was before the days when Elfin Safety had grabbed hold of the trade. No hard hats, safety gear or creature comforts. Even your working gear was your oldest clothes. I make no comment about whether improvement was needed, I think that's obvious but blokes like this were heroic workers in the best socialist traditions. Those days have gone, this is a forgotten corner.....

[Stanley]

Daniel was taking a pic of me but I was interested in these women who lived in the back streets near the chimney. This was the real Coronation Street and just look at these three faces all telling a different story. I don't doubt that some of this still survives but it will eventually be a forgotten corner. That's one of the reasons why snaps like this are so valuable.....

[Stanley]

On 1st of August 1923 the new engineer at Butts, Charlie Watson, got water in the LP cylinder and cracked the piston. Brown and Pickles made a new one at Havre Park and installed it. The LP piston seen here ready to be go into the bore. Norman Gill is the fitter and worked for Henry Brown and Sons who were doing the repair, they cast the new piston in their new foundry at Havre Park, now the site of Gissings works.
A repair like this and the machine that was being repaired are both forgotten corners in Barlick now.

[Stanley]

More heavy maintenance. I was trying to get the delivery plate out of this air pump at Ellenroad so that I could install new rubbers on the valves in the piston. Despite the pressure I was able to exert using this set up I failed and had to leave the problem for someone else in the future. You get to the stage where you are in danger of breaking an irreplaceable casting if you carry on. Thank God these are forgotten corners for me now.....

[Stanley]

This is, strictly speaking, a cheat because though dead this dog is not forgotten. Over twenty years ago this Patterdale bitch was found on Old Bett's moor by a friend of mine and I took her home in my pocket and named her Jess. In those days she was jet black. About two years later my friend John Ingoe told me his cab dog had died and he was looking for another. I had three terriers at the time and gave him Jess. It was a good move, John must have looked after her well because here she is at over 14 years old and the thing I think is remarkable is the fact that she has become totally grey. All Patterdales do this to a degree but she was the only one I ever saw change colour completely.
Every time I called at John's Jess would jump on my lap and greet me. John always said she was still my dog but he fed her and paid the vet's bills! So not forgotten but I thought interesting enough for a mention.....

[Cathy]

She lived to become a lovely old dame, and never forgot your kindness Stanley. Aww .

[Stanley]

She brought a lot of people happiness over the years, a perfect dog.....

[Stanley]

Era and Moss Mill chimneys at Rochdale in 1979. Both scheduled to come down. Redundant chimneys were an expensive luxury, too costly to insure and maintain. They are all forgotten now.

[Stanley]

Moss chimney at Rochdale followed Era in 1979 and here it is coming down. Note the figure stood behind the skip in the bottom right of the image. He thought he was safe but had to duck when the chimney sprayed bricks well in front of the actual space it fell in. Elfin Safety would not have approved.

[Stanley]

Mitchell Terrace and the houses above on that side of Manchester Road share the peculiarity that even though there is ample road width to accommodate them, there is no paved footway. This has been puzzling people for many years. In his book 'Old Barlick' William Atkinson says:
"Barlick in years gone by was under the rule and authority of Skipton where all plans for building here had to be submitted and passed before any operations commenced. Several blunders were allowed to pass whilst to rectify some of the same will be a great expense for the town. One specimen will suffice (out of many) in proof of this assertion. Mitchell Terrace, Manchester Road being allowed to build their front garden walls right close up to the channel and thus ignore their neighbours causeway, namely Bethesda. At the south side of Butts, Mr. Bracewell was allowed to dig a hole on the side of the street and furnish a weighing machine. However after some years the same was removed elsewhere."
He blames Skipton Rural authorities. This is the only mention I have ever found of a weighbridge at the top of Butts. I wonder if it was done away with then the Memorial Fountain was installed?

[Stanley]

Ribblesdale Terrace on Gisburn Road. Built in 1900 I think and a very imposing group of houses setting the standard for further building down Gisburn Road. Emma Clark told me, when I interviewed her for the LTP, that before 1900 there were no houses North of Forester's Buildings where she lived and that as soon as Ribblesdale Terrace was built her father bought one of the houses. I was told later that the Co-op had an interest in building them but have never had any firm evidence of this.
I wondered for years why there was a gap between the end of the terrace and the beck. I found out later that at one point the fire brigade had a large wooden building on there and kept the engine in it thus blocking the land for building.

[Stanley]

The clock on the new bus shelter on Station Road on 15 July 2002. The eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted that it speaks with forked tongue.Over 20 years later and it has still not been repaired and replaced. I think we can safely call it a forgotten corner!

[Stanley]

RMS Majestic. When it was scrapped in 1913 Matthew Hartley bought panelling and internal fittings and used them not only in the Majestic Cinema (That was how it got its name) but in terraced houses he owned on Ellis Street and in the bungalows he built for himself and the family.



A door panel in the late Boris Hartley's bungalow on Greenberfield lane. It came originally from the RMS Majestic.

[PanBiker]

Booking office on the right at the top of the stairs at the Majestic was the former Pursers cabin.

[Stanley]

I once went to the toilet in Theresa Hartley's house on Ellis Street and mediately felt seasick because all the old panelling from the Majestic that had been used in the house was built to fit in a space that wasn't square so the panelling was all at subtle angles, a bit like the old Crazy House attraction at fairs....



Here's a forgotten corner for you. A long time ago I was a good enough shot to qualify as a marksman in the army. Those days are long gone!

[Stanley]

66 years ago in the Grunewald in Berlin. The Anti Tank platoon of the Cheshire Regiment are practising their trade. The army called them 'schemes'. We used to call it playing silly buggers. A modern soldier looking at this would have the same reaction as we would to muzzle loading cannon. The 17Pdr ant tank gun was obsolescent even then. Today all the killing power in this picture (and more) could be contained in a suitcase..... This is a forgotten corner.