STEAM ENGINES AND WATERWHEELS

[Stanley]

Bancroft yard in 1978. The coal stock is for use if deliveries were interrupted. The Clinker and flue dust piles are on the right and the gate was always open. I never had any incidence of coal being pinched.....

[Stanley]

There is about 300 tons of coal on the stockpile. All mills tried to keep a stock in case of interrupted supplies. I used to get Alwyn Simpson to come down with his front mounted tractor bucket to shift coal into the bunker if we needed it. he never charged us which pleased the management. What they didn't know was that this was because he always took a level bucket full back home with him!

[Tripps]

Time for a repeat of verse from my favourite Geordie folk singer Jez Lowe.

They tried to teach me Geography
But I found it much too hard
They asked me - where does coal come from?
I answered - next doors yard.

[Stanley]

Indeed David. It did happen. When I took over the engine one of my mates asked me how long it would take me to convert the management to burning Doubles! That was the next size up of screened coal and burned better on a house fire! If you look in Newton's evidence in the LTP he told a story about taking a bucketful of coal home with him when he was tenting and engine for a man who was off sick. As he drove out of the yard on his way home the mill owner asked him for a lift into town. He never commented on the bucket! Wise man.....

[Stanley]

There was a lot of variation in coal from different pits and seams and we could order the ones we preferred. When I first took over the engine at Bancroft we got washed, screened singles from Brodsworth near Doncaster. Later the pit closed and we moved to Open Cast which was OK but not the best. The Arley seam at Burnley was always reckoned to be the best local coal and I once had a load from Sutton Manor in Lancashire which was the best I had ever seen, burned like candle ends when it hit the furnace! The private drift mine at Cliviger mined Arley and the legend was that it was the coal preferred by the royal palaces.... The company still exists and sells coal but I don't know if it is still mined at Merrill Head. I once went down to inspect it and it was a clean 4ft seam. That meant that you were bent double all the time you were down there! For days afterwards I could only come down stairs backwards!



Miners at the drift head at Merrill Farm in 1983. No shortage of fuel for the stove!

[Stanley]

The drift down to the Arley seam at Merrill Head, Cliviger.

[Tizer]

One of my work colleagues in the 1970s had a father who worked down the pit and brought home coal. The son said there was so much coal in their back yard that you had to walk over it to get to the privy!

[Stanley]

Part of the miner's remuneration was free coal delivered to the house and many have told me they couldn't burn it all! I spent time with a miner at Newbiggin, John, who was a deputy in the pit after 52 years service. The mines there ran out under the sea and I was fascinated by the fact he said that during a big storm they could hear boulders rolling about on the sea bed. He told me that after fifty years they gave him what he called 'A cerstifticate'. I asked to see it and he directed me to the coal house in the yard. It was nailed on the back of the coal house door with clout nails! Hard men. He died shortly afterwards from silicosis.
When I first started at the mill I was told it was no good taking singles home because they wouldn't burn on a house fire. Not true! If you have coal that's not over eager to burn, pop a lump of cast iron in the fire with it, it acts like the coking plates in the furnace, encourages green coal to gasify, that means flame followed by heat and almost anything will burn. If you get it hot enough and get plenty of oxygen to it even cast iron will go exothermic!

[plaques]

I'm a regular visitor to Newbiggin by the Sea. The pit is long gone along with a lot of others in the area. Ashington is now a museum. My pal worked at Ellington one of the last deep coal mines. The seam went out 10 mile under the sea and at times he could hear ships passing overhead. His father worked at one pit where the seam height was so low that if you went in with your shovel the the wrong way up you had to reverse out again to turn it over. Not a place where I would have liked to work.

[Tizer]

...during a big storm they could hear boulders rolling about on the sea bed.

Well known to the Cornish miners! Submarine Mines

[Stanley]

Hard men and just imagine spending over 50 years down there..... John must have been a good man because he was offered the jopb of under-manager but preferred to stay a Deputy. He showed me the stick he carried, as a badge of office but also a tool.

[Stanley]

We burned about twelve tons of coal on a good week in summer and over 30 tons in winter because of the lower temperatures, heating and shed lights. When the bunker was full after a delivery the firebeater had it easy, all he had to do was switch on the auger to fill the hoppers on the Proctor Unit Wide Ram Coking Stokers. However as the level dropped he had to shovel the coal into the mouth of the auger. If we were on good coal he only had to ash out the furnace, a mucky job, twice a day at dinnertime and burning off at night. You soon knew if you had got a load of inferior coal. I have heard Newton talk of ashing out every hour at Clough when he and his mate were running the mill on sick and using Lease lend coal after the war. This was American brown coal, horrible dirty stuff. They sent us the worst!



We are waiting for delivery here and the firebeater is having to earn his wage. The planks at the front were augmented before tipping the coal in and retained it at the front. When it was low they were removed for easier access for shovelling. Notice that the 'Y' junction at the top of the auger automatically levelled out the coal in the hoppers.

[Stanley]

When we had a coal delivery John and I had to shovel the overspill in to the bunker so that we could shut the boiler house doors at closing time. We were a good team, we used Number Eight shovels rather than the biggest, a 12. We kept them sharp as well and we were a good team because as you can see John could shovel bang handed, I could only do right handed, and this meant we worked well together. He said he learned to shovel both ways when he was in the restricted stokehold of the steam trawlers he worked on fishing in the Barents Sea.

[plaques]

When all the mills closed down my Dad who had been a tackler took a job with Burnley Council mainly odd jobbing. Finally he finished up as a caretaker/ janitor at one of the primary schools. Near his retirement, and now suffering from angina, he found the loading of the boiler hoppers a bit too heavy. During the winter months it became my job at 6am to shovel all the coals into place. This would generally be enough until the 6pm loading. Nowadays we forget how much heavy work was involved in quite ordinary jobs.

[Stanley]

That's why we never had to bother about jogging or going to the gym P. They paid us to to do exercise. In the days of the old municipally owned gasworks most public buildings burned coke. Do you remember the Robin Hood Boilers that were almost universally used?

[Stanley]

When the coal strikes were on we had to burn all the stock, over 300 tons and when we reached the back we were into dark red coal. Newton told me it was a legacy from the Lend-Lease American Brown coal that came over after the war. He had suffered it at Clough Mill and I shared the experience as we tried to burn it. We had to mix it with good coal and you have never seen as much ash and clinker in your life! We were ashing out hourly. We struggled to keep steam up and it was hard work! We were glad when things returned to normal and we got back on Brodsworth washed singles again.
We had a stroke of luck one day when an eight wheeler turned up with a load of Sutton Manor, one of the best coals you could get! He asked if we were Bankfield mill and John had enough sense to say yes! It was a hell of a job getting him into our small yard but he was a good driver and managed. We had a lot more coal to shovel in before we went home but it was worth it. Lovely coal. It was of course intended for Rolls but due to the disruption in supplies many drivers were off their usual routes. I shame to say I forged an illegible signature on the delivery note. I wonder if we ever paid for that load? Never heard a word about it...... Desperate times demand desperate measures!

[Wendyf]

We spent the day investigating the remnants of the water powered flax industry along Fell Beck which runs through Smelthouses, now a pretty hamlet on a back road between Brimham Rocks & Pateley Bridge. At one time there were three, possibly four flax or hemp mills along a fairly short stretch of beck. There is still evidence of dams, races and rope walks to be seen on the banks of the beck. Janis & Liz are members of a group called NEWTs (Nidderdale Early Water Traditions) who plan to create a database of all the mills in Nidderdale.
There are coal pits, a silica quarry and somewhere, the smelt house itself.
The NEWTs have been asked to make a photographic record of the inside of Glasshouses Mill before it is turned into flats (I have given Janis your contact details Stanley, but they are waiting for news of a lottery grant before they make a start) and strangely as we stood beside the beck looking at an old pump house which extracted water for the silica quarry, a chap with a dog came along and started chatting away...then he introduced himself as Colin Atkinson, from the family who had owned Glasshouses Mill! He has an archive of material in his loft which Janis & Liz got very excited about.
Further down the beck we bumped into another man who happily let us onto his land to see where he has dredged & restored 2 mill ponds...he too shared all sorts of information. At the end of the day we were invited into what had been the mill owners house by a delightful couple who gave us tea & cake. It was also the place I went for riding holidays in the late 1950's so I was thrilled to see it again.
Question for you Stanley...in old pictures of the flax mill there is a separate three story tower known as the Brush Tower...any ideas?

[Stanley]

Sorry Wendy, nothing concrete, there is much I do not know about flax! However, I do know that basically the process was a very difficult separation of the flax stalk into fibres and this involved prolonged soaking to break the stalks down and what amounted to a sever combing process to separate the fibres while it was still wet. My guess is that the 'brushing' process is a final separation and drying one.
If Janet was to invest in a big memory stick and pop down to see me she can have anything she wants...... Hang on a minute.....
I can be quite impressive at times.... I have just had an extended furtle and found a CD of the pics I gave to Quarry Bank mill. Almost 400 images I think. Pop down and I'll give you it. I will make a copy.....
Later.... Copy burned and checked and it's ready for you. Impressive???

[Wendyf]

Marvellous! I can call in for it tomorrow morning if that's OK with you, or any time this afternoon that wouldn't interfere with your nap. Janis will be delighted.

[Stanley]

After 14:30 this afternoon would be fine Wendy, or tomorrow morning if that is better. Glad to be of service......

[PanBiker]

Cunning plan for a hug Stanley bet you get one anyway.

[Wendyf]

I'll be there tomorrow morning Stanley, about 10ish.

[Stanley]

That'll be fine Wendy.
Ian. None of your business! What Wendy and I get up to is nobody else's business......
To the pure, all things are pure!

[PanBiker]

[Wendyf]

No comment.