OneGuyFromBarlick

As well as carrying psittacosis, pigeons - like all birds and reptiles - carry salmonella. Also they now often carry a disease that is killing greenfinches. It doesn't affect the adult pigeons but they carry it and contaminate bird feeders and water bowls. Greenfinches are very susceptible and chaffinches less so. It affects their throats and they starve to death.

My mate Robert Aram found out about pigeon droppings to his cost. He cleaned out a roof space he wanted to use and ended up with a collapsed lung. I don't know what the actual infection was but it nearly got him. I was once asked what was the best way of dealing with very heavy pigeon contamination in an old disused engine house that was to be gutted and totally rebuilt. I advised them to set fire to the building and blame it on vandals..... naughty I know but safe! They didn't do it.

When Tom was cleaning out our jackdaw nest, he was kitted out with disposable protective suit and facemask.

Sadly, he violently objected to me taking a picture...

In the past when the old thatched cottages hereabouts were condemned they used to set fire to the thatch and burn it off. That solved the problems of rats and pigeon dung.

Very sensible Tiz. Today it would be a very expensive, fully HSE protected and dangerous exercise! Fire is very cleansing.

Prompted to post this following a comment in another thread... who knows which forgotten corner this is from?

Barnoldswick Water Works. Total guess. But if it still exists please tell me so that I can add it to my collection.

I'd say you were right P but let David confirm it.
On the subject of pressure... Bancroft's sprinkler system ran off the water main from Whitemoor which passed the front gate. Here are some figures from the insurance company's report dated 7th September 1925. "The connection is by 6" CI pipe to the 9" CI water main. The standing pressure on the main is 102/108psi There were 334 sprinkler heads and the pressure at the highest head on the second storey under full flow conditions was 72.5psi which is very satisfactory and complies with the highest standards required for a single supply installation."

Yes, Barnoldswick Water Works at the Whitemoor borehole. The plaque is besides the top road on Higher Lane at Salterforth.

The borehole stopped being used around 2001. The buildings on the site are currently being converted into houses.

Brown and Pickles did many repairs at Whitemoor for the water boards. Well worth having a trawl through Newton Pickles' transcripts in the LTP for a lot of information about the bores and pumps. They served us well for over 100 years and it was very good water because it came from a good source, deep in the sandstone bedrock.

Another forgotten water related corner is Kelwell at East Marton. This was a spring that was never failing in the bottoms behind the Cross Keys pub. It served the private water supply for the Gledstone Estate and this is one of the engines which pumped water up to a service reservoir. The supply isn't used now and this engine is in preservation but I can't for the life of me remember where.

The water from the Kelwell was very hard and the thing I could never understand was that we regularly delivered a load of hydrated lime to the site where it was added to the water in a bank of steel cylindrical filter tanks to reduce the hardness!

Water hardness is largely due to dissolved bicarbonates. Adding hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) converts these into carbonates which are less soluble and precipitate out from solution. The process is therefore known as precipitation softening. It gets confusing because the word lime tends to be used loosely to cover calcium carbonate (chalk, limestone), calcium hydroxide (slaked lime, hydrated lime) and calcium oxide (quicklime, burnt lime).

David Whipp wrote:The borehole stopped being used around 2001. The buildings on the site are currently being converted into houses.

Thanks David for the plaque location. I talked to the builder (Dan) who showed me an old picture of the pump station buildings. He is doing some very good work up there retaining many of the features. He said that he was considering rebuilding the chimney again but didn't have any details. I pointed him at the OG site with a couple of names which he said he recognised but had forgotten. Look out for some possible contact on this subject.

I'd like to see that picture. I have no good picture of the waterworks as it was.



I just have this one very small image.

Yes, that's the one he showed me. I commented on the stack being cut out of the picture and that's when he said he would like to rebuild it. He was really keen to learn more about its history and took time out from what he was doing in the hope I could help him. Unfortunately other than having driven passed it thousands of times I knew nothing about it.

More of a forgotten corner than a view from up here. I think nearly everybody in Barlick will have passed this many times but not from this angle.A view of White Moor Reservoir from the overflow outlet. The clouds look very threatening but actually it was quite a pleasant day. Typical Barlick weather.

Whitemoor reservoir in 2005 when we had a drought. Old field boundaries revealed.

Here's a personal Forgotten Corner.



My first school photo at 4 Years and 4 Months. Notice the string round my neck, this was an identity disc and I later found out that the free school photos were also for identification should I be killed in the bombing. We may complain about schools today at times but we don't need measures like these....

We had to carry our gas masks round with us at all times as well.....

We've all seen this 'waterfall' behind Briggs and Duxbury's Model Joinery works in Butts but not everyone realises that it was built for a purpose. It gave the necessary head to feed the mill race through what is now Valley Gardens and was the water supply for the Corn Mill in the days when it was water-powered, at first by a wheel and later by a turbine. It became redundant much later when a steam engine was installed.

The same applies to the 'waterfall' on Forty Steps. The remains of the water supply for what is probably the oldest water power site in Barlick, Ouzledale Mill.

The Old Spiritualist's hut at the bottom of this pic of the gas-holders (1982) has been a forgotten corner for many years. Development has been hampered by the fact the sight had a covenant on it restricting the use to religious purposes. I see that there is a move to convert it to a mosque.... I suspect it will be forgotten no longer.

Gospel Mission Hall Stanley but you are right about it no longer being forgotten. The diatribe of some comments over on one of the local Facebook sites regarding what at present is only rumor is unbelievable, some of the comments would make you ashamed to be a Barlicker.

I wonder how many people know that we already have a prayer room in Barlick. As far as I am aware it has never caused a problem either.

Entirely predictable Ian. There are some very poisonous, narrow minded morons out there. Mind you, I have to say that some minorities don't help their cause by trying to be closed communities. It's always struck me that when families like the Singhs and Chaudreys enter into trade they integrate far more quickly.