FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Thanks Tom, I had an idea that was the case but wasn't sure.
I've often wondered whether the top-hatted jack in the bath was poking fun at Fred Dibnah. I can't remember where it was but I have seen a pic of him wearing a top hat.....

[Steeplejerk]

yes definitely poking fun at Dibnah.

[Stanley]

The title page of my copy of Fred Dibnah's book. He drew this and gave me the book after I pointed out to him that it was good manners to acknowledge where pictures originated, he had used several of mine in the book. This is what he sent me, possibly the most valuable copy of it in existence. He fell out with me seriously later when I gave the job of Ellenroad chimney to Brooke Edgeley and not him. Ah well, you can't win them all!

[Stanley]

Today's forgotten corner is my chimney climbing days. If you are supervising work on chimneys you have to be prepared to climb them and see what standards are being kept. Good steeplejacks like this as they have nothing to hide. The bad ones are the ones you need to catch out. This was Ellenroad in 1985. An 80 yard stack. (The old jacks always used yards.....) Never again so it's a forgotten corner.

[Steeplejerk]

A steeplejack firm did some repairs last year on the stack,absolutely dreadful work.

[Stanley]

Sorry to hear that Tom, and after all the trouble we took....



Tom Philips on Ellenroad chimney in 1986 drilling 1" holes with a hammer and star drill.

[Stanley]

Tom and Peter Tatham on the smallest building site in Newhey when they were replacing the drum on Ellenroad chimney in 1986. When the young jack from Brooke Edgeley laddered the chimney many years later he asked who had done the repair to the head and when I told him he said he wished he had done his apprenticeship with him.....

[Stanley]

Brass band playing on Jepp Hill. Early 1920s or 30s?

[Stanley]

Alder trees outside Cravenside. These five trees intrigued me because they seemed to have been deliberately planted. Alder wood used to be in great demand because It was the ideal timber for making clog soles out of, every clogger needed an assured supply. I did some digging and discovered that there used to be a well known clogger living in the house facing what is now the fire station. Further research revealed that there were more Alder trees in the immediate vicinity and I suspect there is a connection between the clogger and the trees. It seems more likely than not as Alders are not the most common of trees.
No use for them now so they are a forgotten corner but worth remembering as part of Barnoldswick history.

[PanBiker]

I did some digging and discovered that there used to be a well known clogger living in the house facing what is now the fire station.

There was Tommy Kendal as well on Wellhouse Road, next Charlie Morris's camera shop, a bit later, (40's/50's) than when I suspect you refer to Stanley

[Stanley]

Here's the article I wrote about the Alders at the time.
A CLOG MYSTERY

I’m always advising you to stop looking and start observing and questioning. I try to do this myself and sometimes it makes a lot of work! The normal way I come to these articles is with a subject in mind that has some sort of conclusion but today I have failed. Despite a lot of furtling in my archives and indexes I have to present you with a story without a clear answer.
I have always been mildly intrigued by the group of five large trees in line at the front of Cravenside on the Green. Recently I focussed on them a bit more and realised they are Alders. It struck me that this was a bit strange as they are usually associated with damp ground and water side locations. Then I remembered that the clogger’s favourite wood for clog soles was Alder. It is dense, waterproof and easily carved as it has a tight and very even grain. As these trees are close together and in a straight line I began to suspect they had been planted there deliberately.
Then I cast my net just a bit wider and realised there were two more, younger, Alders behind the building that used to be Stanley’s Crumpets, within fifty yards of the others. Convinced that there was a reason for this I started digging and here is what I found.
I started by looking in my index for cloggers in the area and turned up some evidence from Jack Griffin's memoir 'This is my Life'. Jack says that Ted Smith's builder's yard was on the site where the Fire Station is now around 1900. Shackleton the clogger had a red brick building there where Jack and Smith Shackleton used to do boot and shoe repairs. Old Mr Shackleton made clog soles in the cellar of his house opposite the yard. A man called Gledhill had a garage on the same site.
Assuming that old Mr Shackleton had been in business for possibly over 30 years, could he have had anything to do with the planting of the younger alder trees and possibly the larger ones as well? We're pushing the date back to the mid 19th century and this is possibly the case. It would make sense. We know quite a lot about clogs but nothing about where they got their raw materials. Given the number of clogs made each year it would make sense to arrange a supply of wood in the long term by planting Alders. Based on this thinking I believe that these trees are a last link to what was a very important trade, clogging, and a nice example of long term thinking on their part. It might even have been a cooperative enterprise.
As an interesting side issue could Gledhill be the man who founded the Station Garage in about 1920 on what is now the site of Cravenside when the first transformer for the new mains electricity supply was installed in the large red brick building on the fire station site and the site use changed?

[Stanley]

The sign put up by my friend Robert when he founded Black Dog Fisheries on the dam of the CPA works at Billington near Clitheroe in 1977. The black dog was Emma his old Labrador.... A long forgotten corner but I believe the fishery is still there...

[Stanley]

Butts and vicinity in 1963. This was before fire had destroyed the extension on the East end of Butts mill and what is now the Central Garage still had a double hipped roof. Even earlier than this, in the later years of the 19th century there were other enterprises. The stables were in full use providing accommodation for many of the draught horses that served the town. The 'Shambles' where the local butchers slaughtered cattle were behind the stables in the basements of the shops that fronted on to Commercial Street. I have also come across odd references to a fat refinery and possibly a soap works in the area but don't know where it was. (The town would certainly need a soap maker before rail transport made import of such things easy in the mid-19th century).
In short, Butts was a very busy and productive part of the town. There is still industry down there but it is nowhere near as busy as it used to be and so qualifies for one of my forgotten corners.

[Stanley]

The Jubilee Mill Engine in it's house at Padiham after the demolition of the mill. Robert and I did a number on it and moved it to Masson Mill, Matlock Bath because nothing could be done to protect it on the Padiham site. We had to apply for Scheduled Monument consent to remove it and if necessary, demolish the engine house. A big job that took many years but it is now safe and sound at Masson Mill so this is a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

We have records that show this Midland Railway locomotive working the Barlick branch line when it first opened in 1871. Definitely a forgotten corner!

[Stanley]

Part of the furniture of the shed was these tackler's benches that were under the lineshaft. In the days when there were 1200 looms in the shed and the tacklers spent most of their working day in there they used these benches and kept them stocked with tools and spares instead of traipsing all the way back to the cabin in the warehouse. Long gone and forgotten.

[Steeplejerk]

I remember transporting ladders and scaffold around a mill yard on one of those trolleys,it came in very handy

[Stanley]

This building today is Stanley House veterinary practice but in 1984 it was Stanworth's pot and leather shop. Having a pot shop in the town is now a forgotten corner.

[PanBiker]

Yes and it was a nightmare if you had to take two toddlers into the realms, don't touch that!

[Stanley]

1984 and I am down at Diss in Norfolk rebuilding my mate Roger Perry's Ferrari Dino engine so he can go to Silverstone with his mates for the Lancia Stratos Club's annual track day. It was completely stripped down and the workshop manual was in Italian..... It was a complicated beast and when I came to timing it I couldn't understand the instructions so I timed it like a steam engine and it seemed to work. Roger's mates in London had hit the same problem so he put them on to me and I told them what I had done. They didn't believe it would work but later got back and said it had worked like a charm..... Forgotten corners now to the world but individuals don't forget things like that.
(Roger Perry did the picture....)

[Stanley]

Roger's Stratos in 1980 in Brook Street when he was visiting. Raised the tone of the street!
A forgotten corner now.

[Stanley]

It's fashionable these days to poke fun at 'Dad's Army' but during WW2 they were a serious organisation and were ready to defend the homeland if the need arose. This is the Home Guard contingent at General Gas Appliances in Audenshaw Manchester and this picture was taken at the standing down dinner in February 1945.
(I've always been puzzled by the fact that the HG was stood down before VE day which was May 8 1945. The powers that be must have decided their time was up.)

[Stanley]

Ouzledale foundry in 1979. A good employer but the foundry trade was always dirty and dangerous. They tell me that all the work has been exported to India and China now and so it's a forgotten corner in Barlick.... Probably a good thing for us but I wonder about the ethics of exporting dangerous and dirty jobs abroad like that......

[MickBrett]

My first wife's dad, Tommy (aka Harry) Watson was a foundry man.
He worked on the furnace at both Bristol Tractors and Ouzledale in the 1960's and 1970's.

[Big Kev]

My first wife's dad, Tommy (aka Harry) Watson was a foundry man.
He worked on the furnace at both Bristol Tractors and Ouzledale in the 1960's and 1970's.

He would probably have known my neighbour, Colin Holt. He was an engineer at Bristol Tractors.