FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

That explains the deficiencies in your character!
During WW2 much of the nation's vital infrastructure was in bad condition due to lack of maintenance. Enormous efforts were put into rectifying these and in particular, Many rail sleepers, electricity poles and telegraph poles were replaced. These had two things in common, they were good wood in large sizes and they were all pressure creosoted which made them virtually indestructible if out of the ground. From the 1960s onwards these redundant items were sold off to the public at low prices and farmers building new Dutch barns and silage pits were good customers. Sid was doing what many were doing round here, building substantial buildings with heavy timber frameworks and they will be around for many years.
The demand for redundant tele poles drove the price up and many small firms started up sawing sleepers into fence posts and rails. In the 1990s the advent of garden makeover programmes drove the cost of sleepers up at the same time that the supply diminished. The initial flush generated by the Beeching Axe had finished and soon gardening centres and DIY stores were selling sleepers for raised beds and decking at up to £30 each. I hadn't realised this until Gissing and Lonsdale required a large quantity of sleepers to build an access ramp into the Jubilee engine house to get the engine out. The sleepers came from Poland and were expensive! Terry said that this was no problem because when they had finished there was a ready market for them. They even import Jarrah sleepers from Australia!

[Stanley]

A 1911 Aveling road roller. . Almost identical to the one the Barlick Council bought around 1900. These were essential for maintaining the water bound macadam rods of the district. The powerful spike at the rear ripped up the surface and after being levelled it was rolled flat again. Daily maintenance was by the road sweepers who used to shovel up any material that had gravitated towards the pavement and scattered on the crown of the road where the normal iron wheeled horse traffic consolidated it. This function was so important that in some places there were by-laws that stipulated a certain width for the tyres on heavy carts and lorries. I know of no such law in Barlick but have found regulations passed by the Manorial Court in earlier years banning traffic over a certain weight from minor roads coming down from Whitemoor in the wet months of the year, September until March I think.

[Wendyf]

Just what we need to sort out our track!

[Stanley]

There are plenty of preserved ones Wendy and if approached they'd love to have a job to do! Go to a steam rally and ask a few questions.....

[Stanley]

I hadn't got a picture so I went on the web and found this ("Schneepflug pferdzug" by Thomas Springer - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... erdzug.jpg)
These Bavarian snow ploughs designed to be pulled by a horse are exactly the same as the plough used in latter days by BUDC as late as the early 1960s. By then it was being towed by the council wagon loaded with salt and grit. On one memorable occasion, 'Ticker' the driver and his mate coupled up and ploughed the top lane to Standing Stone gate where they got out to unhitch the plough so they could turn round. It wasn't there! They went back and the hitch had failed shortly after they set off. Plough it again Ticker! If I remember rightly it spent its latter days rotting quietly on a small lay-by near the Fanny Grey which used to be a roadstone knapping station.

[Stanley]

We used to have 'length men' on road maintenance. A man would have the responsibility for a certain stretch of road and knew it like the back of his hand. He had strategic piles of salt where a shovel full would do most good on a frosty morning. He knew which drains were likely to be choked by fallen leaves and kept the hedges and verges tidy. If there was anything he couldn't manage he reported it to the travelling superintendent.
There was a man who looked after the road between the Cross Gaits and Blacko chapel. A local once told me he was a marvel. He arrived on his bike first thing in the morning and laid it in the hedge, then he walked down the road, dropped his coat off at a certain point and his bait tin further on. Then he started working his way back towards the bike. They said that when he reached his tin it was time for his bait, when he reached his coat it started raining and when he got to his bike it was going home time! Probably embroidered a bit but there was no doubt that they knew their job inside out.

[Stanley]

I plucked this image from the Lancashire Evening Telegraph site (Thank you lads!) because I haven't a pic that adequately illustrates this morning's Forgotten Corner. We tend to forget that all the fields at the top of the picture were, at one time, the town tip for household rubbish. If you look at the eroded bank of Stock Beck as it flows towards Greenberfield lane you'll see bits of Keller marmalade jars embedded in the soil. It was abandoned long ago and landscaped. I think the next tip used was the old limestone quarry at what was then Gill Rock, just above Gill Hall Farm. When that was full they used Rainhall Rock. Holes in the ground were very useful!

[Stanley]

Gill Rock quarry in 1914. (Rolls is on because the ma[p was later revised.) Shows the original road as well.....

[Stanley]

There is another forgotten corner at Greenberfield locks. The original course of the canal was through a double lock behind the lock keepers cottage but it saved water to install the two separate locks which now carry the canal on a course in front of the cottage. You can still see the original bed.



Here's the original canal bed from the East. You can see the redundant bridge in the cottage garden.

[Stanley]

Accommodation bridges like this one serving Eastwood Farm on the right bank and their land in Eastwood Bottoms were forced on the canal company but as they became redundant they were removed.

[Stanley]

The canal side at what was Coates Wharf is a peaceful scene now but it was a very busy place right up to the early 1950s. It was an ideal site for a wharf as the yard was at a lower level than the canal which facilitated moving goods and particularly coal. You can still see the base stone of the crane used to unload boats. Much of the mill coal came in here, There was also a lime kiln in the yard burning lime for building mortar. Avery important place.

[Stanley]

Looking down across Eastwood Bottoms and Barlick from the canal bank. I've mentioned this before but it's surprising to realise that you are stood on the same level as the canal at Salterforth. All your senses tell you that it is uphill to Barlick from Salterforth but this is an optical illusion. Most of Barlick is actually at a lower level than Salterforth.

[Stanley]

Still thinking about topography, many people will not realise that one of the reasons why Barlick is relatively free from flooding even in very bad weather is because we are on the watershed between the Ribble and Aire catchments. Almost all the water that runs eastwards of Weets and passes through the town heads north and swings west again into the Ribble Basin. Very little flows east towards the Aire. The exception is County Brook which goes into Salterforth Bottoms and then forward to Earby, that all goes to the Aire. So, because we have no hinterland sending water down to us the only real danger of flooding we have is exceptional events on Whitemoor to the west. This, combined with blocked culverts, was what caused the 1932 flood.

[Stanley]

Still thinking about water and flood risks... These almost invisible exits are at the point where County Brook runs directly into the Leeds and Liverpool Canal below the Stew Mill. They are an overflow and as long as the summit level is high enough, the waters from County Brook flow out and onwards via the original course and forward to Salterforth Bottoms and eventually Earby. In the days when the canal was busy very little water went out into the original watercourse but as canal traffic declined almost all the flow went out this way. This is why flooding at Earby Lane Ends became much more frequent after canal traffic declined. In recent years the increased pleasure traffic on the canal has tended to alleviate this somewhat in summer when the traffic is higher but in winter, almost all the flow goes forward to Salterforth. This forgotten piece of water engineering has very important consequences down stream...... We forget that the canal is an integral part of water drainage management still and it should be watched carefully.

[Stanley]

I don't know where I got this image or where it was made but I love it. It reminds us of a time not so long ago when this level of 'comfort' was the norm for many people. Perhaps we should bear this in mind when complaining about the high price of energy and housing.... I have little doubt this old cock was reasonably content as he toasted his feet in the ash pan!

[Stanley]

Johnny Simpson next to his coal fire in 2003.

[Stanley]

The late Arthur Entwistle taking advantage of his coal fire. A contented man!

[Stanley]

When the coal man was delivering he used to leave the empty bags on the floor until he had finished the delivery so that the housewife could count them if she wanted to.

[Bodger]

A coal mans trick was to put an empty bag across his shoulders when carrying a full bag he then had two bags for the householder to count

[PanBiker]

Just read this over on the Barlick Talk Facebook page. David may well expand or comment on this. Its re a proposal to create a footpath in the field up Manchester Road to make it safer for pedestrians:

David Whipp "OK. Set the wheels in motion with an agenda item for the next town council meeting (it doesn't meet until late May - after the elections).

Have asked Jo to put the following on the agenda:

"To consider provision of a footpath on Manchester Road opposite the Letcliffe Park entrance; and to consider adopting ‘Poor Bones’ (the former workhouse stonebreaking yard on Manchester Road)."

'Poor Bones' is the unloved piece of land right on the narrowest section with the bend. In times past, this was used by the workhouse as somewhere the people in the poor house knapped stone for use in the highway. (As Stanley Graham would say, an important part of our social history!)."

Barnoldswick Talk

[Stanley]

Poor Bones has always fascinated me. I suspect that the owners could be the residual body that deals with the old Skipton Workhouse, perhaps the Local Health authority. That section of the old Barnoldswick Lane is a gem, a genuine piece of medieval road or even earlier. It is a valuable traffic calming measure and we should fight to keep it as it is but I can see no objection to cooperation with the land owner for a footpath.

[Stanley]

I'm not sure where I got this image of the coal yard entrance and Station Road in 1892 but it's interesting because it gives a very good idea of what the town looked like before the roads and pavements were paved. The coal yard was a busy place and Pete Bilsborough, an ex mill engineer for Billycock Bracewell, was one of the biggest coal merchants in the town supplying domestic and mill coal.

[chinatyke]

Croft House (now Windle and Bowker offices) in the centre. Thanks Stanley.

[Stanley]

I forget the name but in those days a big part of their business was dealing in stocks and shares...... It became a dentists in the late 1950s....

[Stanley]

I just realised this morning that the pic I posted yesterday was pulled out of this one which has been on the site for a while.