FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Automatic cinema ticket machine in 1940. This was the height of automation in those days, things have changed a bit in the ensuing eighty years!

[Stanley]

Doc surveying his view from Prospect Farm in August 2001.

[Stanley]

The heavy gang from Brown and Pickles in 2002 at Queen Street Mill fitting new piston rings to the high pressure cylinder. The last repair that was done to the engine before the mill closed. Bob Fort on the left, Newton Pickles on the couch and Jim Fort on the right. These three had gone to school together and ended their working lives together. That's a forgotten Corner these days!

[Stanley]

In 1977 when my mate Robert was on the verge of buying Swab's chimney at Middleton and I was trying to dissuade him Peter Tatham, Daniel meadows, Robert and myself fought our way into the base of the chimney through ten feet deep flue dust in places. Here's Stanley on the final stretch into the base. Pic by Daniel.
In case you're wondering, we persuaded Robert to pass on this one but it was a close run thing!

[Stanley]

One of the things that attracted me to working with steam engines was the quality of the build and the engineering. There was no skimping on the weight of components and the results showed in areas like this, the linkage between the Low Pressure piston rod and the bell crank that drove the air pump.
I have heard people criticise what is described as 'profligate' use of materials but I have always argued that this is not the case, all this metal can be recycled.

[Stanley]

Bancroft engine in running order just before we closed in 1978. This was my office for five years, best job in the world!

[Tripps]

I watched this film on TPTV yesterday. Definitely falls in the category of 'Forgotten Corners' in many respects.

I think these are the 'working class' people that Sir Keir is pledged to care for. The problem is there aren't any left, as machines now do almost all the jobs and avocados have replaced Shippams Paste.

PS There seems to be no sound - but the absence of Mr Cholmondley Warner is probably a win.

[Stanley]

You're right David things have changed a bit since 1940! (I Know, I was there.... )



1983 was when the Cenotaph was moved to its present position in the centre of town.

[PanBiker]

They were using the hose tower for purpose then as well. The foundations were made with bricks for the memorial, not really substantial enough as it weighs 7 tons. 40 years later it is now slightly away from the vertical.

[Stanley]

Butts Top. Jack Savage's greengrocery and fresh fish in 1982. There have been a few changes since. Can anyone remember the name of the lady's outfitters?

[Stanley]

Daughter Susan's Leather school bag 50 years ago. I still have it and it's as good as it was then. Will today's ubiquitous rucksack last as well?

[Stanley]

Horses being requisitioned by the Army in a market square somewhere in England in World War One.
A sad sight when you think of what their fate would be. Even the ones who survived the war were not brought home but sold on the continent, mostly for horse meat. Yes, it was a cruel business.

[Stanley]

Horses were being used on some small upland farms surprisingly late. Here's Abel Taylor in 1956 at Green Bank Farm Gisburn Old Track mowing a good crop of grass with Dick his horse and his Bamford Two Horse Mower. It was called that because it had a four foot cutter bar normally only found being drawn by two horses but this one was driven by a small petrol engine. All Dick had to do was pull the mower along.....

[Stanley]

In 1982 the hovel in Wapping was falling into disrepair and the council were considering demolition but then realised it would cost more to do the necessary revetment works than it would to refurbish the hovel and declare it of historical interest. That's why we still have it today together with the old telephone box. See Ernie Roberts' evidence in the LTP for the last inhabitant of the hovel.......

[Tizer]

If an estate agent advertised it I guess it would suddenly become a bijou pied à terre!

[Stanley]

Around the start of the 20th Century if you lived in a cottage and had one of these you were at the height of modernity. The cast iron 'cottage range' was the small version of the big CI range used in larger houses and was very popular. Some later ones were porcelain enamelled.

[Stanley]

The corner of Frank Street has changed a bit in the last 40 years......

[Stanley]

The old Baptist chapel in Wapping in 1982 when it was still Procter's furniture shop......

[Stanley]

Barnoldswick railway station in 1960.

[Stanley]

The Model Lodging house in Butts in 1920 when it was still in use as lodgings for itinerant weavers. (Barlick had more looms that resident weavers to man them!) Later in the 1930s as the mills closed down the need for the lodgings faded away and Briggs and Duxbury bought the building which then became the Model Joinery Works. Time moves on and even this is a forgotten corner now, it is Merritt and Fryers.

[Stanley]

For many years the road down Butts was unpaved from the Pigeon Club onwards.
Easily forgotten once the tarmac has gone down.....

[Stanley]

The last demolition of a weaving shed. Cudworth's at Baitings Mill, Norden, Rochdale in 2000. Conveniently that left Queen Street at Harle Syke as 'The last steam driven weaving shed'

[Stanley]

Peter White, Her Majesty's Inspector of Ancient Monuments North West, talking to Newton Pickles in Bancroft Engine house in 1978. It was on this visit when I proposed Bancroft Shed as the best one to save as the last steam shed. It was a good and comprehensive idea and would have worked but his mind was already made up.

[Stanley]

When we moved the Jubilee Engine from Padiham to Masson Mill in Derbyshire and re-erected it there it was a big job. You might wonder why we went to these lengths just to back a wagon down to the engine house door.
There were cellars underneath and the roof was not very substantial so we made a bridge and put it in over the weak part of the yard. All forgotten now of course.....

[Stanley]

The Loch Mor, the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry that served The Small Isles into the 1970s. Here seen hove to off Eigg in 1969 waiting to offload to the Muck fly boat. I always knew she was a tough little ship and this was confirmed when daughter Janet reported from the Strait of Magellan, one of the stormiest and most dangerous sea passages in the world that the tender which serviced the Chilean Governments lighthouses in the Strait was a carbon copy of the Loch Mor built by the same firm in Scotland.