FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Big Kev]

Here's one to tax the memory. Where was Grove Engineering?

[Stanley]

I did an article for the BET not long ago about them. They were in Butts just after the war.... (LINK)

[Big Kev]

Nice one, thank you.

[Stanley]

If you look in the Calf Hall Shed Company minute books (on the site) and examine the post war years you'll find that many new businesses started in the refurbished mills vacated by the Ministry Of Aircraft Production. Some of them like Silentnight (At Butts and Clough)and Bristol Tractors, Forecast Foundry and Kelbrook Metal Products (At Sough Bridge Mill) survived long term. Many others failed relatively quickly, everything from ice cream and caravan manufacture to general engineering.

[Stanley]

Butts Mill in 1890 as built by Bracewell in 1843. It was the first purpose-built steam driven mill in Barlick and long term, one of the most effective. It was the foundation of Billycock's success and though greatly altered, the core of the original building and subsequent extensions is still used today by Carlson's.



Butts as it is today, the original boiler house still survives. The chimney came down in 1980.

[plaques]

Butts Mill in 1890 as built by Bracewell in 1843.

It looks like it was fitted with a bell tower very much like the one that used to be on the Cloth Hall at Colne. Fortunately for Colne, someone had the good sense to preserve it. I wonder if Bracewell's used to call the workers in, a bit like going to church.

[Stanley]

Yes P. That was the function, Clough mill had one as well.



If I remember rightly it was on the gable end of the white building in Clough Yard.

[Stanley]

The key to the siting of Butts Mill in 1843 (before Calf Hall was built, this map is 1892) is that it had access to the water of the Calf Hall Beck. Over the years this resource was improved by the Bracewells by leasing Springs Dam and maintaining it so they had a reserve upstream that could be gradually released in dry times to give adequate cooling water for the condensers on the engine which were the key to fuel efficiency. Other waters were captured and fed into Springs, notably the overflow from Dark Hill Well. These improvements sometimes got Billycock into disputes but he was single minded and persisted.
Despite all his efforts, as Butts expanded he was short of water. Eventually his solution was to come to an agreement with the Slaters at Clough mill whereby he took surplus water from their dam and piped it to a balance pond in the Parrock land next to Butts where it was at a high enough level to feed into Calf Hall Beck and augment the supply to the mill. I have no firm evidence for this beyond the logic of the evidence in the Calf Hall Minute Books and the sale plans of Butts after the Bracewell Brothers failed.. I have marked the logical location of the balance pond on the map. I am certain that this is what he did but all the evidence on the ground has long been destroyed. I would love to see a detailed map of the area dated 1960/1870!
As the mill succeeded over the years, the power plant was changed and improved, the sheds were extended and it eventually filled the site as seen on this 1892 map. As engine efficiency improved the Calf Hall company who had bought Butts planned to build a further weaving shed on the Parrock land but this was dropped eventually and the land sold for housing. You can find all the evidence for this in the CHSC minute books on the site.

[Stanley]

I've reposted an article I wrote in 2009 'Bracewell and Butts' as it gives more information about Butts.
When first built, Butts Mill had at least two large beam engines and 'haystack' boilers. The boilers were replaced in the 1860s with Cornish Boilers built at Sandbeds at Keighley and delivered by horses over the bad roads of the time. Eventually the beam engines were replaced by one big second-hand Musgrave engine which was far too big, slow running and in Newtons words, a wastrel. In other words it was expensive to run. Despite constant troubles with bad running and in particular a flywheel that insisted on trying to destroy itself all the time it was running (See the CHSC minute Books for all the gory details!) this engine survived until 1931 when Butts closed, never to weave again.



Albert Hoggarth the engineer with the Butts Musgrave. Master of all he surveys! The days when the engine tenter was the most important man in the mill have long gone. Definitely a forgotten corner!

[Stanley]

The Musgrave engine was the largest in Barlick but far too big and it was never run hard. Despite this ist had a chequered history. See the CHSC Minute Books for some of the repairs, usually caused by bad running by the engineer.



One of the most serious accidents was the cracking of the LP piston in the 1920s. Henry Brown and Sons cast and fitted a new piston. The damage was caused by bad boiler management allowing a slug of water to enter the cylinder. A big job and indicative of the resources available in Barlick.

[Stanley]

Notice the unpolished HP cylinder cover. This had to be replaced after being cracked by another slug in the steam pipe.

[Stanley]

Newton once told me that a regular job was replacing the seal on the LP cylinder cover which was made out of lead pipe, very unusual. He said thaty when he went to it as a young lad in the last days before it shut down in 1931 he could walk into the cylinder without stooping.
The best description of the engine can be found in Geoff Shackleton's 'Textile Mills of Pendle. The Musgrave engine was originally built in 1884 and installed second-hand at Butts in 1899 when the mill was converted to four weaving sheds, spinning was abandoned. The Low Pressure cylinder was 56" diameter and the HP 32". It was 6 feet stroke and ran at only 36rpm on steam at 140psi. Newton said it was painful watching it run at this low speed, the normal speed of mill engines in Barlick was around 70rpm. He reckoned it would have been a far better engine if it had been speeded up but this was never done. The mill was stopped in 1931 and in 1940 when the Ministry of Aircraft Production took the mill the engine was scrapped by Dixons of Burnley who paid £140 for the privilege.

[Stanley]

Butts before resurfacing, I think this was in 2002. Butts has always interested me, when first made it was a road that went nowhere and over the years I have come to the conclusion that it was most likely originally access to a medieval field system that extended over the hill to Skipton Road on the right. I know that the most common belief is that it was an archery practice ground but sometimes I like to differ!
In later years Butts was lined with market gardens supplying the town with fresh vegetables, we have evidence from the trade directories and Harold Duxbury could remember some still working in the early 20th century. What is now B&D's yard on the right was such a garden supplying the shops in the town. I suspect that before the Model Lodging House (Now B&D's works) was built the whole of that side was devoted to growing cash crops.

[Stanley]

One of the biggest changes to the town centre over the last twenty years has been the slow death of the pub trade driven by changing habits, cheap supermarket booze and the appalling management of the companies that owned the pubs forcing tenant landlords to stock only their beers and driving them out of business. This came to mind yesterday as I passed what used to be the Commercial then the Barlick and now the Fountain Inn. Thankfully it seems to be surviving. The only other survivors are the Dog and the Cross Keys.

[Bruff]

Evocative picture of Butts for me that, the rain and dour sky and rather unkempt shrubbery to the left. Brought back memories of walks down there to the ‘Mission’ on a Sunday morning.

The future for the ‘wet trade’ would seem to be the micropubs – small, limited opening, good beer, no frills. This and a focus on chat or (the very underrated) old-fashioned quiet contemplation means small overheads and a living. The odd ‘landmark’ wet trade pub will remain as well as some of the very busy city centre pubs (I’m thinking pubs, not ‘bars’ or other vertical drinking dens for the young). But for many pubs, unless they diversify as The Fountain there does so admirably, the future would appear bleak.

Richard Broughton

[PanBiker]

Barlick Tap of that breed (micro pub) on Newtown in Barlick, not been in yet but mean to at some point.

[Bruff]

I was in there the other week on a trip back, and I thought it a great example of the type. You should pop in.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

My best pub memory is still a quiet sit and a smoke in a bare taproom at the Dog with my old mate Dan Smith....

[Stanley]

It struck me that tap rooms in pubs are a forgotten corner. Originally 'men only' they were the place where bad language, non PC topics and darts and domino playing went on. Every pub had one and the most palatial I ever frequented was at the Hole I'th Wall at Foulridge.... That reminds me, can you remember when I think it was the Hare and Hounds at Foulridge was branded the 'worst pub in England'? ( or was it the New Inn....)

[PanBiker]

Seven Stars had a tap room and a snug for the ladies. I used to alternate the prize of the gallon of ale given for the best score on the pinball machine each week with another lad. Eric gave me two gallon when I called him over to watch the score roll over from 999,999 back to zero, (a good score was about 150,000) anywhere around here would normally secure the ale. I remember I got 38 replays which I had to leave on the machine as there wasn't enough time in the night to play them all, happy days.

[Stanley]

When Gladys and Jimmy Talbot moved from the Craven Heifer at Kelbrook to the Station Hotel at Nelson I used to call in and see them occasionally. Jimmy told me that when he took the pub he was impressed by the spirit sales but disappointed by the profit margin. He soon found the connection. The tap room was served through a small hatch from the main bar and the spirit optics were mounted just above the hatch. The tap room regulars ordered their beer and when the landlord's back was turned dropped a measure of spirits from the optics into a handy glass..... Jimmy altered this and he said that attendance in the tap room mysteriously dropped off somewhat....

[Stanley]

This is a forgotten corner today. The crowds at Barlick railway station waiting to board the train (possibly to Blackpool) at the start of Wakes Week at the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1970s the town shut down completely for the annual holidays. There was a famous story at that time of a delegation being sent up by the Board of Trade to investigate the extent of short time working in the mills of Oldham. The civil servants arrived by train and were horrified to find that the town was almost deserted. It took them a while to realise that things weren't quite as bad as they thought, it was Wakes Week.

[Stanley]

One of the series of standard questions I used when I did the interviews for the LTP was about holidays. This was where I first learned about the custom of boarding on a 'bed and cruet' basis. I was told about one man, who was also going on holiday, who made a bit of spending money selling 'hat guards' on both Barlick station and on arrival at their destination. These were a safety pin attached to a piece of light chain with a hook on the end which stopped your hat blowing away in the sea breeze. There used to be a similar thing called a 'dress guard' which was slightly heavier but the same principle, used to keep long skirts off muddy ground in inclement weather. Remember that in those days most streets and pavements weren't paved.

[Stanley]

The band stand at Letcliffe in 1920...



The same view in 2010. One of the most significant changes in Barlick in the last 100 years has been the fact that we have far more trees and foliage than we had then. I can remember when the Wild Bunch were meeting each day on the benches in the park they all thought that the trees to the North should be cut back because they were gradually cutting off the view they had enjoyed for years....

[Cathy]

Looks lovely, so nice to see that it is looked after so well. I remember playing up there as a child
(Funny thing is that for years I always remembered it as a Boxing Ring, so nice when I learnt it was a Band Stand)