'Owt else or Any Other Business

[Stanley]

I remember when I bought my first PC. When I got it and assembled it I switched the power on and couldn't get anything. In the end I rang the supplier up and he suggested adjusting the contrast knob on the monitor......

[Julie in Norfolk]

i think there are many tails (see what I did) to tell on that subject.

Hunting around for the glasses that sit firmly on top of my head is my most frequent I think.

I always take my glasses off when I am sewing, but as I am short sighted i can never find them afterwards. I have to shout Bob to borrow his eyes and invariably they are on the table next to my machine ……..

My grandma always used my grandad's glasses to find her own. He'd been dead years but his glasses were still in use.

[Stanley]

My regular glasses mistake is to go out into the town with my readers on. No big problem actually because since my cataract surgeries I see almost as well with no glasses as I do with my distance glasses on....

I tripped over this article from 2006 this morning....

WORKING AT HEIGHTS.

The highest the normal citizen ever gets from the floor is whilst using a step-ladder for decorating or a spot of DIY. Occasionally some brave (or foolhardy) soul will hire a ladder and clear the gutters out. Yet you only have to look around you to realise that there are many high structures even in a small town like Barnoldswick, and someone had to get up there to build or maintain them. Working at height has been part of our history as far back as prehistoric times, think of the ‘brochs’ in Scotland, round stone defensive structures up to 50 feet high and all built to a similar design. Archaeologists have surmised that, because of the almost standard design, there existed a specialised group of itinerant masons who roamed the country building these structures to order.

The bronze and iron ages saw building in stone develop from crude piling of dry stones on top of each other to the complicated building techniques of the Romans who incorporated mortar, fired clay tiles and even concrete into their buildings. This meant that skilled men specialised in making these structures, the craft skill of the mason was born. Fast forward to the 11th century and the Norman invaders started the biggest programme of castle and church building this country had ever seen. These structures stretched the masons to the utmost as all these buildings demanded higher and higher constructions culminating in the massive keeps in castles and the towers on monastic churches. The achievements of these men in supporting and building tall structures using nothing but stone has never been surpassed. By 1310 they were capable of building the spire on Salisbury cathedral to a height of 404 ft. (123 metres).

We shouldn’t forget that the masons had another skilled craft working with them as they pushed their constructions higher and higher. Many high structures, particularly spires on churches depend on an internal timber framework and scaffolding was needed for the mason’s work so the carpenters were essential partners in the work.

Until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-16th century almost all civil building was in timber. The masons worked almost exclusively for the crown on fortifications, and the monasteries on church and cathedral building. The explosion of economic activity from the 16th century onwards meant that the masons became part of the wider economy and most of the civil building in stone that we still enjoy today stems from this upheaval. The speed at which building in stone was taken up by the yeomen and gentry depended solely on the wealth of any particular region. In Barlick this was almost certainly from the mid-1600s onwards. These buildings were of modest height and so the specialist skills of the masons capable of working at great heights were not needed.

It was the advent of industry that put pressure on the masons to once more build higher structures. From 1800 onwards three storey mills up to 50 feet high became common. Before 1827 the first factory chimney was built in the town at Clough Mill. This was to serve the new steam boiler installed there to power the engine. William Atkinson (In ‘Old Barlick’ which you can find in the library) said that the mill was built by Barnoldswick masons but the chimney required a specialist, David Carr of Gargrave. I can’t tell you the exact height but would guess it was about 100 feet, stone and square built. This man was evidently following in the footsteps of the broch-builders in Scotland, he was specialising in high structures and going wherever his skills were required. Today we would describe him as a steeplejack but the earliest reference I have been able to find for this term is about 1880. Whatever he was called, a new trade had been born.

By the mid-nineteenth century the modern chimney builders had surpassed their mediaeval precursors. They were building chimney stacks in brick, with no other material to support them, to enormous heights. The stack at Blinkhorn’s Chemical works at Bolton was over 350 feet high and this was surpassed by ‘Tennant’s Stalk’ at Glasgow, reputed to be the tallest chimney in the world at 455ft. I’m not sure which was the highest chimney in Barlick, it’s a toss-up between the octagonal stone chimney at Butts which started at about 120 feet and was later extended in brick by 40 feet or the round stone chimney at Wellhouse which was about the same height originally, both Bracewell mills.

As the trade of steeplejack became established it became clear that a very special breed of men was needed to work at such heights. If they needed another trade it was difficult to find carpenters and ironwork fitters who were willing to do the job and so the builders became ‘Jacks of all trades’. I suspect this is where the term steeple jack originated. Men who could tackle any high level job that faced them. They needed to be carpenters because the standard method of building a chimney was to work off a wooden scaffold inside the flue. For some reason I have never been able to fathom, the ‘pudlock holes’ they made in the internal wall to support the scaffold beams were never filled in and can be seen to this day. As for where that name came from, I haven’t a clue! The jacks needed to be able to work with iron as well, many chimneys were strengthened with heavy iron bands to resist cracking due to movement. All high structures move in the wind, a 200 feet high chimney can move as much as a foot either way at the head.

So, next time you are walking round Barlick and you look at Bancroft, Crow Nest or Fernbank Shed chimney, give a thought for the skilled men who built them straight and strong. They served the town well by making the steam powered textile industry possible. It will be sad day if we ever lose them. Bancroft should survive because the structure is protected by the Ancient Monuments Act and could eventually be the last reminder of the steeplejack’s craft in Barlick.
SCG/20 November 2006



The view from Bancroft chimney in 1981.

[Sue]

i think there are many tails (see what I did) to tell on that subject.

Hunting around for the glasses that sit firmly on top of my head is my most frequent I think.

I always take my glasses off when I am sewing, but as I am short sighted i can never find them afterwards. I have to shout Bob to borrow his eyes and invariably they are on the table next to my machine ……..

My grandma always used my grandad's glasses to find her own. He'd been dead years but his glasses were still in use.

I am afraid that wouldn’t work for me. Bob has astigmatism and his glasses are really weird…..