FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Big Kev]

I like pointing Ian and thanks to my experience with tall stacks I think I had a fairly good grasp of how to do it and what mix to use. It's amazing how you can improve a badly weathered wall if you cut back properly and point below the surface of the stone. What always struck me was how hard old lime mortar gets after many years. It can be like glass!
In contrast, some of the worst work I have ever seen is bad pointing. I saw one 'expert builder' smoothing a thin layer of sand/cement into inadequately cut back joints with his finger! I wonder how much he charged for that job....



Whoever did this job should have stayed in bed.

I used to live there, it wasn't me

[Stanley]

I remember you rejecting it when I first posted it Kev. I believe you!
If anyone is interested in doing good pointing, seek out the booklet produced by SPAB (The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings). It is still the bible for all types of pointing and can be relied on completely.

[Stanley]

I tend to focus mainly on individual buildings in Forgotten Corners but there are other elements of our built environment worth considering. Two that struck me shortly after I started to take an interest in vernacular architecture in the 1980s were pointing and roofing materials, both easy too date. Before the advent of coal fired mills and the availability of ashes and mortar mills driven off mill shafting to make Ash Lime mortar lime mortar was the universal bonding agent. This change over started around 1850/1860. The change from Grey Slate (Stone slates) to Blue Slate had to wait until the advent of the railways and was slightly later. If you want to date a building, first look at the pointing and the roofs.

[David Whipp]

This picture from 2012 shows the change in roof material between Walmsgate and the Croft (with a third roofing material peeping up beyond).

[Stanley]

Good example David.
Another element of the builds in the town is the fabric of the buildings and mills. Vast majority pre WW1 are Tubber hill stone. The only major departure is the retaining wall of the old railway yard, now the Pioneer car park, which is Rainhall Rock limestone. In the late 19th century and early 20th there was a brickworks at Park Close quarry on Salterforth Lane but according to Harold Duxbury, very bad brick suitable only for interior lining of stone built houses. The only surviving buildings that I can think of in this brick is the range of buildings on Commercial Street including the old Shambles. The stables below were built of the same brick.



There was a brief affair with Accrington brick, the Co-op buildings in West Close Road, bungalows on Greenberfield Lane, the Model Lodging House in Butts and fire station, in the 1920s and 30s and since then planning has forced the use of reconstituted stone facings with the ubiquitous breeze block linings. The most peculiar aberrations in the district I can think of are the pantile roof on an outbarn close to Broughton roundabout and of course the crazy thatched roof of the new pub next to Nelson and Cole College! Thankfully nothing like that in Barlick. Perhaps the worst eyesores in the town are the two banks and what used to be the Labour Exchange on Church Street and the Post Office Corner buildings. I'd support any move to demolish any of them. 1950s of course.
The point is of course that if you know about the materials you can make a good stab at a building date, especially of you make distinctions between rubble and dressed stone. Mat Hartley liked his ashlar around 1900.....

[David Whipp]

View down Newtown (2012), with the impressive Midland Bank.

[Tizer]

Our Somerset house started life as a farm workers' cottage in the early 1800s and has been modified and extended ever since so that it now has brick, block, rubble stone and cob in the walls and we've added a small timber utility room on the kitchen recently. A bit of everything. Hanging tiles on the dormer and Roman tiles on the roof. In the early 1900s it had a flagged ground floor but one room was brick floored. In the 1800s it would have been packed earth. The remaining cob walling is now on the inside of the house and doesn't get the weather. All the external walls except the utility room are rendered.

[David Whipp]

The bridge over Stocks Beck at West Close Road in 2012 (above) and 2016 - after the deck was replaced (below).

[Stanley]

Cast iron pipes in the bed of the beck at the Corn Mill. Probably the outlet from the water turbine that was in there.

[Stanley]

The remnants of Tubber Hall in 2003. Just below the start of Lister Well Lane. I haven't been up there lately.... Do they still survive?

[PanBiker]

Yes, not much has changed, quite often on our walking routes.

[Stanley]

In 2002 Shirley Oldfield (Nee Alderson) told me that she lived at Upper Hall (corrupted to Tubber Hall) with her father Thomas Alderson until 1947. They kept pigs and she said that Sagars owned it. I believe Shirley but know that at one point the Roundel Estate at Gledstone owned the quarries and a lot of land up there. She said that originally it was a squatter's house. In a rate roll of 1892, William Bracewell is shown as the owner. (Not Billycock, he died in 1885)



This hovel in Walmsgate, pic done in 2004 before it was saved by the council, has every appearance of being a squatter's house as it is built on an odd piece of land.

[Stanley]

The weavers houses at the end of Calf Hall Lane in Wapping in 1890 . Note the buildings on the opposite side of the junction and the unpaved road.

[Big Kev]

In 2002 Shirley Oldfield (Nee Alderson) told me that she lived at Upper Hall (corrupted to Tubber Hall) with her father Thomas Alderson until 1947. They kept pigs and she said that Sagars owned it. I believe Shirley but know that at one point the Roundel Estate at Gledstone owned the quarries and a lot of land up there.

Alan Sagar (Cellar Bar) has a wealth of information relating to his family, the quarries and various houses in Barlick.

[Whyperion]

I rather like the Post Office Buildings. 1950s municipal (well state owned industries) pride. Similar with the E11R logo to other post offices around the country in 'county towns', which rather define my growing up from the 60s. The Yorkshire Bank does not really work for me though. But we are losing too many 1950s buildings and they need care just as much as older ones , to make them fit for use in the C21st without losing the style of their character.

[PanBiker]

I think its the fact that Post Office Buildings in Barlick are rendered and just stone painted or whatever is something to do with it. The fact that it is mostly windows doesn't help either. If it had been built of nicely dressed Yorkshire stone and pointed up properly it would probably look a lot better. Built for purpose with the sorting office above and and a row of shops I suppose it was considered acceptable in the mid 50's when it was designed and a lot better than the wooden shops and adverstising hoardings that were there before.

[Stanley]

In 1950 Club Row was scheduled for demolition when Ernie Roberts bought his house for £500. Now, like many other cottages and back to backs that were spared, they are desirable properties and sell like hot cakes!

[plaques]

Built by the Barnoldswick Friendly Society AD 1829.

P9140132AC.jpg

What is the history behind this building? Now identified as 'Quaker House'

[Stanley]

That Quaker House plaque was put up by Bob Parkinson, my firebeater and Vera's uncle, who lived in the end house and ran it as a shop. He confused 'Friendly Society' with the 'Society of Friends'. I pointed out the mistake and he took it down.



Bob in 1974.

[Stanley]

A bit off piste you might think. How can an old wagon from Buxton be a Barlick forgotten Corner? The old farmers will remember.... After WW2 the Min of Food and Agriculture gave heavy subsidies to farmers for spreading lime and basic slag on grass to raise productivity. An old established haulage firm at Chapel en le Frith near Buxton bought a lot of ex-army four wheel drive wagons, mounted spreader bodies on them and they were a common sight round Barlick for many years until the subsidy was removed.

[Stanley]

Click to enlarge this postcard of Greenberfield Locks around 1900. The forgotten corner is the gulley running down behind the old Lock Cottage (The white building on the side of the road mid-centre right) with the arch at the top of it. This was the original course of the canal through a double lock but was modified to the configuration we have now to save water. You can still follow the course of the gulley to where it originally joined the old line of the canal.

[Stanley]

Postcards are great. Here is one of the gala parade lined up ready to start at the end of Bank Street, around 1920 I think.

[Stanley]

I noticed something on Gisburn Road this morning opposite the butcher's and will have to remember to take my camera down next week to record it. A surveyors level mark chiselled into a gate post.

[Stanley]

A West Marton Dairies wagon in the Skipton Gala in the 1950s.

[Stanley]

This image cropped up a few years ago during some repairs to a house in Wellhouse Square and I asked for any information about it. What transpired is interesting especially after our look at Tubber Hall and Squatter's Rights. I had a phone call from a lady called Barbara about the picture. The bloke with the two lasses is Alec Haines father to Anne on the left and Barbara on the right. Robert is the lad in front. Ian is sat on his grandmother's knee and the old lady behind her is their great grandmother so there are four generations. The bloke in the breeches is the grandad, Jim Hird. Eileen, Barbara's mother took the picture on a box Brownie. She is still alive and remembers standing in the toilet door to take it. The place was Copy House, Eldroth near Ingleton and the date is 1962. Barbara says that Jim Hird used to live at Tubber Hall, the ruin on the right at the bottom of Lister Well Lane.