FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

The Cross Keys at East Marton in earlier days. I got to wondering what the significance of the pub name was. Here's what I found...

CROSS KEYS

These pubs would at some stage have had strong religious links. The Cross Keys are in fact a symbol of Peter, one of the disciples who was the first leader of Jesus's followers after his death. Peter was crucified upside down because he didn't want to emulate his Lord's way of dying and in subsequent images in paintings and sculptures, Peter is seen holding keys - as heaven's guardian he was able to unlock its gates.

[Stanley]

Hill Top Farm around 1890



Same view in 2003.

[Stanley]

The British Legion topic is a good example of a forgotten corner. Well worth a look!

[Stanley]

We pass it every day. Seven Stars Yard. It was always the location for various small businesses and even had a cottage at the end nearest the road. This was in 1982 when it was still the home of three small businesses. The LTP mentions it frequently, see Arthur Entwistle's transcripts. In WW1 it was used in the initial stages of the war by the local authority to hand out food to families who had been left temporarily destitute by their man volunteering for war service. Always a busy little spot.....

[PanBiker]

Round the back to the Stars Tap Room and Snug, whatever happened to them, more forgotten corners.

[Stanley]

Tap rooms in pubs were a great institution, no problems with work clothes or swearing! Always men only in the old days and I have many happy memories of the tap room at the Hole I'th Wall at Foulridge when Dixon had it. Remember the jug and bottle department? Old ladies turning up with a jug for a pint of mild in the days when a lone woman in a pub was frowned on.



January 2010. Such a shame......

[Tizer]

And children getting a jug filled to take home for dad! It was arranged so that you could see the landlord serving you but couldn't see what was going on in the pub itself. Which of course meant that, as a child, you assumed there must be all sorts of naughty things happening in there! It was a bit of an anti-climax when the time came that you were old enough to `join the men' - usually just a bunch of owd fellas smoking pipes, drinking stout and playing dominoes!

[Nolic]

A couple of us who used to go to Bethesda Youth Club braved it one night to get served in the Seven Stars tap room - I think we were 14 at the time. Two halves of mild a game on the football machine or darts , perhaps a tune or two on the juke box and then leave quietly. This became a regular though not too frequent an ocurrence.....until the Saturday night disco. Again we left the disco and down to the Stars but as it was weekend it was a refill on the halves and my turn to go to the bar. Confident me is stood there talking to an old mate Bobby Smith and I just happened to glance through the bar into the main lounge to see my dad looking daggers at me.
When I got home he was not happy and had a few, not gentle words, about breaking the law and putting the landlords livelihood in danger. I think it stopped me going in for about 12 months!!

Norman Partington rings a bell as being the landlord at the time. Nolic

[PanBiker]

That would be right Nolic a similar story from me but when I was about 16. Normans lad, Kevin was in George and the Dragons with my brother. They used to practice in the front function room which is the reception for the funeral directors now. I used to win the gallon of ale for the best score on the pinball when my mates and I used to visit the tap room. Football machine was still there and the juke box. Eric, cant remember his last name was landlord then and I remember going in on my 18th birthday where he gave me my first legal pint on the house. There were always two older ladies who sat in the back snug on Friday nights, drinking Mackey and Black

[Stanley]

Love the story about you getting caught by your dad Comrade....
Ian, the Craven Heifer had its two resident old ladies but there was no snug, so they always had the two best seats in the bar on the long wall seat nearest to the fire. Black Mary and Mrs Turner. God help anyone who was in their seats when they came in. We used to jump up straight away and hand over! My Terrier Bess was always welcome, Gladys Talbot used to wash an ash tray and give her a drink of the beer from the drip tray.... By the way, Bess wouldn't touch OBJ if I was in a different pub so I gave up drinking it, I reckoned she knew something I didn't!

I tripped over this forgotten corner in the archive this morning. The old ambulance garage in Bank Street in 2000, later demolished and the site used for the housing association flats.

[Nolic]

Ian, I remember the two old ladies in the snug.....barely room to seat three in there. Nolic

[Stanley]

The men were trading dirty jokes in the Tap Room and the old ladies whispering gossip to each other in the Snug.
There used to be a corner in I think the Commercial where, at the end of the day, the aristocracy of the mills, the engineers, used to gather each evening for a well earned pint and a mutual support society. If you read between the lines of the CHSC Minute Books you'll get clues to how they operated.
When I was working on the LTP in Helmshore and Haslingden I was introduced to the Back room at the Crown where, of an evening, the local manufacturers gathered in conclave. That was definitely a centre of power in the area! They had their own rules, guests were not allowed to pay for drinks and spirits were not consumed before 6PM. I put the cat amongst the pigeons when I was offered a drink and chose whisky at 5:30PM. They all went on the shorts and I was told afterwards that it caused a lot of trouble when eventually they all staggered back home. I was never invited again......

[Stanley]

The kissing gate at the bottom of the track through Letcliffe at the top of the lane behind Hill Top Farm. The bank on the right which carries on to the top of the hill is very ancient and probably either defensive or a boundary marker.

[Tizer]

The men were trading dirty jokes in the Tap Room and the old ladies whispering gossip to each other in the Snug.

Or was it the other way round?

[Stanley]

You're right Tiz, I simplified..... They were all doing both!

[Stanley]

Wendy's pic reminded me of this forgotten corner. One day in 2011 the council men started to demolish this piece of wall, they told me they needed some walling stone for another job and it was to be carted away. I immediately kicked up a stink and alerted other people on the grounds that the wall was part of the history of the park and should be left alone. Within a week the wall had been rebuilt, just for once we got a result. So technically it isn't a forgotten corner but could very easily have qualified!

[Stanley]

Incidentally, the two fire damaged posts on each side of the gate post were the result of a fad for setting plastic dog dirt bins on fire. Strange what motivates some people.



At about the same time some campers did this to a tree which of course died. I blew the whistle and I think they identified the miscreants and charged them for planting another tree. Were they malicious or simply ignorant of what the effect would be on the tree?

[Stanley]

This literally a forgotten corner in the engine house at Bancroft Shed. Daniel Meadows' pic of me with Dr John Wilfred Pickard on one of his frequent visits to the mill after he retired. He was a fascinating (if sometimes eccentric) man and our conversations ranged from venereal disease to the effects of the engine on our body when exposed to the regular rhythm of something running at 78rpm. He proved to me that our heart rates settled down to that speed after about ten minutes exposure. Funnily enough that is still my 'normal' heart rate.
John Wilfred was the last of the old breed of doctors who were, in the main, revered by their patients and trusted completely. It was a privilege to have known him.



He was a regular visitor at Hey Farm as well because I looked after his little Ford camper van. Lovely days!

[Stanley]

John Wilfred and I were talking in the workshop at Hey Farm one day when he raised one leg and put it on the bench. I asked him why. He said it was because that relieved his heart of the effort of lifting the blood up that leg. He recommended that wherever possible you should raise your legs above the level of your heart. So your mother was right when she advised putting your feet up when you were tired after prolonged effort. That's the sort of thing I want to hear from a doctor but I'm afraid common sense advice like that is largely a Forgotten Corner.

[Stanley]

1984. We had a council and proper offices.....

[Big Kev]

Possibly some Forgotten Corners in here. The July 1985 Lancashire Life, for those that may be offended by Barlick being featured in LL, it's still Barlick








Click on an image to enlarge

[Stanley]

I've still got a copy of that edition. Not a bad article really, far better than some I've seen written about us! It is definitely a forgotten corner Kev. I was in better nick then..... Only thirty years ago..... I wonder how many people remember I was the first chairman of the Bancroft Trust?

[Stanley]

This is a forgotten corner. Newton supervising the oiling up of the Bancroft engine on the day after we stopped for good. We kept the boiler lit overnight and ran the engine while we flooded it internally with oil then we slathered thick oil over the whole of the exterior and put anti-freeze in the air pump so it couldn't freeze and crack. Then we blew the boiler down and left it with the lids off so it would dry out. We couldn't see any prospect of the engine ever running again but it seemed right to do everything we could in case that ever happened. When eventually the volunteers went to it it was in good nick.

[Stanley]

Bancroft Dam being back-filled in 1980. Funny thing is that when I took this pic they hadn't started putting the big concrete culvert pipes in to carry the flow. I have an idea they wanted a harder base for the big back hoe to work on.

[Stanley]

The dam in 1977 drained for silt shifting at weekend. You can see the mouth of the culvert bringing Gillians water into the dam at the far end and the ext clow into the culvert under Colne Road which is under my feet. As I remember it N&R laid 48" concrete pipes down the dam to the exit clow. I told the Council at the time that a better strategy would be to divert the culvert under the field across the road and directly into the beck below the road via a new culvert using twice the size of pipe. I was ignored and in consequence there is still the danger of flooding in the new properties just above the mill site. I suppose it was regarded as too expensive.....