FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Tizer]

The Queen must have been out `hunting for bargains' - this pic was in the news. She looks as confused as I do when faced by all those variations on the same product!

[Stanley]

I somehow doubt she is worrying about where her next meal is coming from.....
Reading David Whipp's posts about his father's interest in poultry keeping reminds me how popular this used to be. It crops up constantly in the descriptions of life in the early part of the 20th century in Barlick and Earby. In particular Fed Inman's interviews for the LTP. We're not just talking about a few hens scratching round in the pen, Fred's father was picking up buckets full a day! Keeping hens or the house pig was an essential part of the household economy even when wages were good enough to buy all the food that was needed. I suspect that people were closer connected to the land in those days. You've only got to remember that at one time, almost all the garages in the town were old hen huts. I seem to remember that Cross Hills was an important breeding centre and 'Fancy Breeds' were a regular section at local livestock shows, some of them devoted entirely to poultry. Have a look at THIS list which only includes the 93 standardised breeds! The variety and beauty of the birds is amazing, not surprising that they were popular.
Have another look at Wilfred Spencer's short story on the site, 'The Decline of the Hen Pen'. It captures the atmosphere of what many of us remember.
LINK

[David Whipp]

1950s(?) picture of Bankfield which shows some of our hen huts on the land in front of and to the side of Bank House (with part of our house cut off on the left of the image).

Dad bred poultry in the 50s and 60s and supplied point of lay pullets. (I recall a 'treat' as a child was to accompany the delivery of pullets to far flung farms many miles away.) Eggs were also supplied to a packing plant and we had a retail egg round which took up one or two evenings a week.

[Stanley]

You can see from the extent of the huts that it is a significant enterprise! That's an interesting pic and one I haven't seen before. It's the only view I have ever seen that clearly shows the lodge for Old Coates Mill (demolished in the 1890s). Definitely a Forgotten Corner!

[David Whipp]

Just one of the hen huts is still standing where it was in this photo; it's the one closest to Bankfield Shed near the canal (it can be seen from the canal if you walk on the towpath nowadays).

It looks like there's a gap in the houses on Coates Avenue, the new Skipton Road bridge is yet to be built, the building at Coates Wharf (land which became a coal bunker for Bankfield) is still standing and... well, there are endless changes to be found!

[PanBiker]

This photo is mid 50's I reckon, the flagpole is there at the entrance to the park (1953) I think but the boating pool (1959) isn't. All the welfare accommodation blocks are still there, Coates estate not finished, new road over Gill brow not started.

[deebee]

A couple of more recent ones...

IMG_0224 by duncanbennett, on Flickr

IMG_0220 by duncanbennett, on Flickr

IMG_0217 by duncanbennett, on Flickr

Taken today from about 3000 feet.

db

[Stanley]

I heard a single engine plane about 10:00 yesterday. Was that you?

[Nolic]

And I always thought he was into sailing ......not flying. Nolic

[David Whipp]

Thank you deebee; looking at the first picture, I'd worked out it was very recent. Bang up to date is brilliant!

Hope you are OK with me posting one of these on facebook, with a link to this page.

[deebee]

Stanley, no it was about noon, Nolic I got fed up of getting wet, David, Facebook is fine, although I don't do it myself.

Sadly I only had my phone with me so the quality isn't that great.

db

[Stanley]

Not bad quality though DB.

[Stanley]

Old maps fascinate me. I find that the more I look at them the more I see. For instance, what is the 'ruin' behind the Dog? And notice the lane going up behind Hill Top Farm from Blue Pot Lane. That right of way was stopped, I think when the bungalow was built at the junction with what is now Park Road. I have always thought that this was originally a medieval track, possibly a precursor of what we now know as Manchester Road (Barnoldswick Lane on the map). You can pick out any section of the 1853 OS map and come up with similar questions.

[chinatyke]

Just a thought that crossed my mind, are there any traditional milkmen still doing doorstep deliveries?

[Stanley]

There is one that I know of China but basically you are on target, the milk chap as we knew him is dead.



This gives an idea of the scale of home deliveries in the 1960s, the West Marton bottled milk being delivered to the cold store in Wellhouse Road. These are the empties of course but obviously corresponds exactly to the daily delivery of full bottles. To this must be added the considerable amount of farm-bottled milk delivered and the sales of 'Paralysed' Milk (sterilised) in grocer's shops which was considerable.

[Wendyf]

We still get bottled milk delivered three times a week, though it's left at the end of the track.

[PanBiker]

There is still someone delivering milk in Barlick but I can't remember the blokes name. The milk cooler pictured is on Valley Road rather than Wellhouse, the old air raid shelter was adjacent to it but the site rapidly being taken over by garages in the mid 50's. We had goalposts on the roller shutter door on the old foundry used by Wilds transport, wickets painted on the wall at the side of the shutter. Among the garages there just over by the entrance to Wellhouse shed there was a bitumen painted Nissen hut, I think it was used for wood storage then, probably use during the war in association with the shadow factory operations.

[chinatyke]

Thanks for the replies.

[Stanley]

Ian, according to my maps and understanding Valley Road starts at Rookery Road. Wellhouse road was there long before Valley Road.

[PanBiker]

Yes and the cooler was the other side of that. The row that runs along the bottom of Craven and Stuart Streets is Valley Road from its junction with Wellhouse Road on the bend where Boltons decorators was. Cooler was effectively on the opposite side of Valley Road near the bottom of Stuart Street. Wellhouse Road as far as I am aware starts at Fearnlea where the level crossing was and runs down to its junction with Skipton Road. The extension through to Long Ing from Valley Road where the hen pens and allotments used to be is known as Valley Drive. Rookery Road loosely follows the line that ran down to Wellhouse Shed and the garages from Valley Road.

For me personally this is not a forgotten corner it was my adventure playground.

[Stanley]

You're absolutely right Ian. I have made this mistake before, I must have a blind spot about it.



By the end of the 1950s the cold store on Valley Road was no longer big enough for the Barlick milk so West Marton Dairies got the use of the disused farm buildings at the bottom of Vicarage Road and converted part of them to a larger cold store. I think that these buildings were originally outbuildings for Eastwood Farm but I'm not sure about that. I can't find them named on any of the maps.

[PanBiker]

Bill Craddock still kept a smallholding at the bottom of Vicarage Road into the early 60's. He kept hens in the loft and a few pigs in the yard sheds. He also still cut the two fields that are now the industrial site at haymaking time. I had my first driving experiences in with Bills tractor and Land Rover in the fields there, I was around 10 years old at the time so that would be 1963.

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Ian. I have always wondered why those buildings were there as I have never found evidence of a farmhouse and can only think they were part of Eastwood Farm. Those bottoms are named Eastwood Bottoms which could be a clue and I know they were part of the Eastwood Estate owned by the Gledstone Estate.

[Stanley]

One of my favourite little buildings. The Hovel in Walmsgate in 1982 when consideration was being given to demolishing it. I don't know how important my contribution was but I pointed out that it was doing a valuable job supporting the steep slope behind it and if it was demolished it would have to be replaced by a very substantial retaining wall which would be more expensive that embracing the concept of refurbishing the hovel which I believe was a squatter's house. That's what happened. See Ernie Roberts in the LTP for an account of who lived there in the 1930s.

[Stanley]

Here's a corner that is so forgotten I doubt whether more than a handful of people know about it. The object of interest is the gap in the building line immediately to the left of the New Ship Chapel in Walmsgate. Why has this piece of land been so neglected? It is where the culvert which carries Gillians Beck under Walmsgate runs. Up until 1815 the beck was open and there was a ford here in Walmsgate. Then, using money from the sale of the village green the Parish raised the level of the road and culverted the beck calling it Town Bridge. The chapel was built later and of course not over what would have been a weakness in the foundations, the culvert.