FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[David Whipp]

Thanks for Bowker Drain plan Stanley. Not sure if they still do, but until quite recently, Rolls-Royce used water from the drain at Bankfield. I think Silentnight would be quite glad if it didn't exist; I recall it contributing to flooding problems at Moss in the past.

[Stanley]

Click to enlarge. This is essentially the 1930 OS revised for major changes in 1950. Crow Nest Syke is named and the confluence is with Fool Syke (probably a corruption of Foul Syke, I think I have seen it called that.) You'll see that I have marked the Bowker Drain on the map running from near Kelbrook Road to Stock Beck in Victory Park. The building of the New Road seems to have affected the supply of water to the spring which is the source of the Bowker Drain. The dotted line from Wellhouse Dam to Stock Beck is my addition and shows the approximate location of the CI pipe that Bracewell installed to convey the overflow from the dams direct to Stock Beck thus avoiding his cousin's dam for Old Coates Mill. The water for the Wellhouse dams was pumped from the by-pass in Eastwood Bottoms. This was discovered by Harold Duxbury who coloured the water at the overflow and noted where it entered the beck. Bracewell was deliberately handicapping his cousins by stealing the water before it got to them and ensuring it was at a lower level than their mill lodge which was essentially the large car park which serves Bankfield now. With relations like him, who needed enemies?
I've just seen your post David. You are right, RR used it for non-potable water supply at Bankfield and it was they who paid B&D to re-pipe a lot of the drain with 12" concrete pipes. Until a few years ago there were still some of these pipes in B&D's yard. As for flooding at Moss. Stanley Fisher told his son Walt that there was nowhere near as much water in the Bowker Drain as there had been previously. Moss used to steal water from a manhole into the Bowker Drain in the yard between the mill and the canal, it's marked on the Bowker Drain Plan, this saved on dues to the canal company for using the canal for condensing. In 1932 when Moss shed flooded after the flood Stanley said he saved the shed by pumping water out of it direct into the Bowker Drain.
By the way, I think the cartographers made a mistake when they revised the map. If you look carefully, what they describe as 'Bankfield Shed' is actually an irregular shape coinciding with the present car park and I think it is actually the old lodge that served Old Coates Mill, the only depiction of it that I know.

[David Whipp]

Thanks again Stanley.

A further morsel to add to the above:

Several posts previously, there's a plan which shows Crow Nest Syke swinging west before it reaches Skipton Road. This is the general line of a stone culvert which passes under Skipton Road near Vicarage Road, then under Crow Nest Mill before emerging into the dam between Crow Nest Mill and Stocks Beck. This was camered a couple of years ago and found to be badly silted up, with an odd collapse here and there.

This culvert is almost redundant nowadays, as the county council installed a diversion from where the Spar Garage is now across Skipton Road down Crow Nest Road and into Stocks Beck. Memory tells me that that is a 12" pipe. Now that the whole of the culverted section above this section is now a wider bore, this stretch is now the potential bottleneck for future flooding.

The redundant section under the mill could be brought back into use and serve to relieve the flood risk in Eastwood bottoms.

Both projects are in my pigeon holes, to come out as opportunity arises.

[PanBiker]

All interesting stuff for that end of Barlick but the copy of the map above does not show enough detail to shed any light on the small beck at West Close. Modern OS maps do not give it a name and on the largest modern scale map I have it's difficult to trace its source but as posted above I suspect that it's origins are on the moor above Fernbank and Cow Pasture. Not really my stamping ground when a lad so don't know all the nooks and crannies of its route. Cloggers Beck was well known though right up to Brogden farm, some belting trout to be had from there if you knew where all the best under bank hiding holes were, and as young lad I did.

[Stanley]

David, I think the culvert you refer to is the original that carried the Bowker drain. It goes under Crow Nest cottages as you say and I was told once that it is marked by a blue limestone block in the foundation of the cottages. Originally it flowed into Old Coates Lodge (where RR car park is now). There used to be a manhole in the car park which gave access to it and Harold Duxbury told me that RR did a flow test on it before forking out for the concrete pipes. I think he said it gave over 5,000 gallons an hour. At one time it carried all the water from the bottom land back to Salterforth plus leakage from the canal plus some from the meadow to the North of the canal opposite Lower Park Marina. If you look carefully on the plan you'll see that there are two oak trunkings beneath the bed of the canal. This fact and the culvert under the cottages make me suspect that the drain was originally put in Late in the 18th century. I have no idea who Bowker was.

I've been searching for the Bowker Drain drawing but can't find it. I wonder if I lent it to someone when I was warning them about the fact it existed? If so, bugger! However, I have found the drawing that shows the trunking under the canal. Joe Moran gave me these and said they were a copy of a working drawing, I don't know where from but could be B&D. Here they are, click to enlarge.

[Thomo]

"Clogger's Beck" There is obvious confusion here, the beck named as Fools Syke on Ian's Map is what most locals call Clogger's Beck. The origins of this are obscure, but the beck is crossed to the North West of Aynams Farm by a single stone slab footbridge. This shows signs of heavy useage and was possible at one time a part of a footpath from Stocks and Bracewell into Barnoldswick. Steel shod boots and clogs could have been the cause of the wear on the stone, add to this the old practise of striking sparks from clogs on stone slabs may be the origins of its local name. It is also odd that the current LCC map puts Fools Syke as passing under Gisburn Road by the junction with Brogden lane, there is no watercourse at this place.

[PanBiker]

Well that's Lancashire for you Peter! I have more information gleaned from the OS Explorer map that I have to hand regarding the stream at West Close. I'm on dinner break from work at the moment but I'll post the details later.

[PanBiker]

Right, back from work to find that Tizer has put up a rather useful link in Wildlife Corner by the way of the Grab a Grid Reference site: http://www.bnhs.co.uk/focuson/grabagridref/html/

The right hand pane of this uses the Ordnance Survey Open Space online mapping facility. You can drag and zoom the right hand panel into Barlick. If you zoom up to maximum on the bottom of Gisburn Road to start with you can pick up the little beck starting from a point which looks to be on Gisburn Road and running on past West Close Farm and onward past the back of the football fields and cricket grounds to a point near Broad Ing Bridge which is the one over Stock on Greenberfield Lane. Although not shown on this online map the beck flows under the lane and onward round the periphery of the sewage works and joins Cloggers at a point just before it's confluence with Stock.

There is a reasonable flow in this little beck at West Close so to create and maintain this it must have a reasonable head of water to draw from. There is what looks like a field drain or dyke running parallel to Brogden Lane on the South side and other feed sources that approach from further South of Fernbank MIll. The source of this water is Dark Hill Well and not Brown Hill as I first thought, same direction but a slightly lower source off Weets. The stream passes Limekiln Delf and what is marked as Little Spring on the OS map flowing then to the south of Cow Pasture and down to Fernbank. Other small tributaries from the North of Cow Pasture join around here as well. It looks like the stream is culverted around Fernbank and Carr Roads to emerge again lower down East of Gisburn Road just before the last terraced row. It is not named but just another tributary and part of the Weets watershed feeding Stock and the Ribble of course.

[Stanley]

Not local but this is the best place for it I think. Sent to me by John Burlison. The Times Mill Company, Avon Mill, Middleton, 1912, Left-Thomas Burrows, Minder, Centre-His son Thomas Jr, little piecer. The man on the right unknown. They were working on a fine spinning mule. I wonder what part they played in WW1?

[Stanley]

Again, not local but a nice picture of mill girls on strike in 1912/1913 at Times Mill Middleton.

[Stanley]

Steve's ice cream at Townhead in the 1950s. Spiritualist's chapel in the background?

[chinatyke]

The spiral gas lamp post - I'd forgotten those!

[Stanley]

We had a lovely thread on this pic on the old site. Here's the same corner in 2006.

[Stanley]

Pic from West Marton, taken 1950. Sent to me by Harry Widdup in Feb 2004. Back, L to R ? ? Eddy Lancaster, Doris Rushton, Brian Smith. Front row; Elizabeth Iveson and Harry Widdup. Info from Leonora Hodgon in July 2004 that the two lasses on the left on the back row were students from Denmark or Sweden on work experience at the dairy. How WMD was ever allowed to fail beats me.....

[Stanley]

Mary Southwell from Salterforth (later married David Drinkall) in the pasteuriser room at Marton in 1950. Mary worked in the laboratory for many years.

[Big Kev]

Steve's ice cream at Townhead in the 1950s. Spiritualist's chapel in the background?

The grandfather of one of my wife's work colleagues. ?? Wellock.

[Stanley]

Don't know but he looks like a bit of a scamp to me!

[Big Kev]

Steve's ice cream at Townhead in the 1950s. Spiritualist's chapel in the background?

The grandfather of one of my wife's work colleagues. ?? Wellock.

I stand corrected, just been told it's her dad, Danny Wellock. Well into his 70's now.

[Stanley]

Same corner in 1982.

[Stanley]

Dick Lancaster in his office at Paradise Farm in 1969.

[Stanley]

The lad about his business at Bancroft in 1977 on a normal working day. The looms are running, cloth is rollong off and all is well. Definitely a forgotten corner today!

[Stanley]

You might wonder why I class this as a forgotten corner, after all the view from outside the old school is essentially the same now as it was in 2002 when I did this pic. What intrigues me is the fact that the end houses on the right near Kelbrook Road retain their original cast iron railings. During WW2 when metal was in short supply cast iron railings from all over the country were cut off and went for scrap. Usually, the only exceptions were those that protected drops into basement areas (And the royal palaces of course!). Somehow these in Salterforth survived. Curious....

[Big Kev]

You might wonder why I class this as a forgotten corner, after all the view from outside the old school is essentially the same now as it was in 2002 when I did this pic. What intrigues me is the fact that the end houses on the right near Kelbrook Road retain their original cast iron railings. During WW2 when metal was in short supply cast iron railings from all over the country were cut off and went for scrap. Usually, the only exceptions were those that protected drops into basement areas (And the royal palaces of course!). Somehow these in Salterforth survived. Curious....

and along the front of Montrose Terrace

[Stanley]

Yes Kev, a good example of railings for safety, protecting the drop into Skipton Road. Funny thing is that the gate survived as well.

[Stanley]

Hey Farm in 1969. A tidy little holding.....