FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

The Town Square in 2018. At the moment this is a forgotten corner because it is still a building site and many of the lights like those in the trees haven't been installed. The end date for the contract was the end of October but that seems to be a distant memory now, I don't know if it is my imagination but what progress there was seems to have slowed. We will just have to be patient.

[Stanley]

Kev tells me in another topic that the flaggers are self isolating because of coughing in the stable. So a stable finished Town Square is a forgotten corner for this Xmas.



David Whipp posted this 4 years ago before work started at Bankfield. One has to wonder if the drivers behind these changes are still the same or are the changes proposed then now forgotten corners. so much is unclear about the future....

[Stanley]

Commercial canal traffic in 1944. The modern preoccupation with speed has killed canals and in many ways this is to be regretted. In the case of the transport of bulk traffic it is better to regard the canal as a pipeline. Speed doesn't matter, it is rate of flow that counts. If the delivery is sufficient to cater for the demand that is all that matters.
There are not the same opportunities as there used to be with coal but if speed could be discounted, there must still be opportunities even if they had to be created by legislation as was done in the Netherlands. The canals are expensive to maintain and should be exploited as much as possible.

[Stanley]

This view up the back of the original lock cottage at Greenberfield looking towards the west is a forgotten corner because it is the original course of the canal when first built. The canal came through the bridge in the background.
I have never fully understood why, but the course was changed on the grounds that the new arrangement of locks would use less water than the original.

[Stanley]

I think this view of the town was done round about 1930. The chimneys from left to right are Fernbank in the distance, Clough Mill, Butts Mill and over to the right of the gasworks is Crow Nest I think. Interesting that the Corn Mill Chimney has already gone at the time the image was made. These old photos fascinate me. Look at all the pens in the valley from Hey Farm over towards Bancroft. I note that the mullions are still in this end of Hey Farm, they were taken out by Grant Brown, the man I bought the farm off 30 years later. Like almost all of these images, I suspect it was done on a Sunday because none of the chimneys is smoking.

[PanBiker]

Would the one on the right not be Wellhouse from where the shot was taken?

[Stanley]

I don't think so Ian and if it was, Crow Nest, Bankfield and Coates would be in the frame as well so there would be at least four stacks there.
If I look really hard at that view I can almost persuade myself I can see the short brick chimney on Barrett's Steam Laundry to the left of the gasworks. I often mentally lick myself that I never got a pic of that. As far as I know it was the last stack to be be built in Barlick (post WW2) and one of the early ones for demolition.



I pulled this out of a 1963 aerial view of Barlick. Pitiful but at least we can see where it was.

[PanBiker]

The shot looks to be taken from around Poor Bones or thereabouts. I'm amazed that you cant see Wellhouse as it was a reasonably tall stack. I will have a look on Google Earth and draw a few lines on the map, curious.

[PanBiker]

Using Google Earth, if you draw a line from Poor Bones with Hey Farm just on the left and extend outwards towards Coates the line itersects the junction of Crownest Road and Skipton Road. Just about all the Wellhouse site is to the left of this line so should be visible from that point. Only thing I can think of is that it is hidden by Cobden / York Street which of course is as we have discussed in another thread a natuarl mound just off the town centre.

[Stanley]

Ian, The bottom line is that there is only one stack visible and it is Crow Nest. If you lay out a line an the 25"OS map using Hill Top Farm as a viewpoint, which I suspect is where the pic was done from, and just include Crow Nest stack, Wellhouse is further over to the right. Are you certain that Google Earth is a true projection?



Here's another view for you to ponder on. Shows almost the same view but this time from higher up Barnoldswick Lane, about level with Poor Bones I reckon. I suspect that this was done around 1900 from the condition of the lodge at Ouzledale and the fact that the lane is still limestone road, no tar.

[PanBiker]

Are you certain that Google Earth is a true projection?

Well it uses sattelite tracking to create the representation. Your mouse has exact Lat and Long coordinates wherever you point to, you can switch to various other location coordinate systems grid ref etc. I don't have a 25" map so cant directly compare. My point was there is not too much difference on the bearing line between Wellhouse and Crow Nest from that vantage point and I thought that it would have been in the first shot. I have checked with my pathfinder map and it would indeed just have been off shot at the right.

[Stanley]

Does that mean you think I might have been right in the first place?

[PanBiker]

Indeed, the first photo which I commented on ranges a lot further to the right than the second. The line on my map pushed through to the plantation in the background had Wellhouse in the frame so I thought it should have been visible. As I said not a lot of degrees of difference between the two stacks from that viewpoint just surprised not to see it in the frame. Not lost any sleep over it, living more or less next door to it for 20 years it's not a forgotten corner to me.

[Stanley]

When I was at Pendle Heritage we did a lot of matching a modern pic to an old one in the archive. It's not as easy as it looks. For one thing a lot depends on the focal length and design of the lens but then other matters can have a bearing. I remember once failing to line up a perfectly ordinary shot in a village street. It took me a long time to realise that what had happened was they had raised the level of the road four feet.

[Stanley]

No, not the result of Covid 19, this is the M6 near Preston in the early days. At that time in 1960, this was the first piece of motorway in the UK and was known as the Preston By-pass. It really was as quiet as this for most of the day. All that was to change and this is now a forgotten corner.

[plaques]

That could just be me on my motorbike (background). The only place you could get a bit of speed up.

[Stanley]

Can you remember when the first services were built how the locals went out for a sophisticated meal there? They had separate transport cafes then, they had pint pots for tea if you asked for them.

[Big Kev]

There was a documentary on the BBC about the M1. They showed the Blue Boar Services (Watford Gap) in 1958 and the diners, dressed in all their finery, with full table service watching the traffic go past.

[Stanley]

It was quite common Kev. I saw a wedding reception at Charnock Richard once and it was there, in the transport cafe where I was having a pot of tea one Xmas day when a chef from the posh side brought me a full Xmas dinner courtesy of the management. I was in my white boiler suit as I was tanking milk and they wanted a pic for publicity I think. They never asked me and I could hardly refuse. I had two Xmas dinners that day!
Those were the days when the quaint concept of long distance wagon drivers being 'Knights of the Road' still had currency. That's definitely a forgotten corner!

[Stanley]

Is it my imagination or did we used to have a Continental Market in Town square? I seem to remember buying French Cheese and Greek Olives.

[Big Kev]

There have been a couple that I remember since 2004 (possibly been more). I think the produce was quite expensive which may be why they didn't last long...

[Stanley]

You're certainly right about the price! But it was a breath of fresh air I thought. Not much chance of it happening again any time in the near future.



I went looking to see if I had any pics of the continental market but found I hadn't. However I tripped over this from February 2014 and thought it had quite a few forgotten corners in it. First is Elaine and her market stall, second is the memorial gormless and the third is a sight of the old flags to remind us of what they were like. I must say that the new ones are going to look a lot better!

[plaques]

The fountain in the town square will soon be a forgotten corner.

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Fountain .jpg

[PanBiker]

Moved yet again without consultation to make more room for tents. Apparently it is too difficult to put it back to it's original use with a water supply for animals. H&S and Legionaries disease are quoted as the main barriers.

[Stanley]

Refurbishing the top seems to have been more difficult than expected also. I note the old one has vanished from Town Square. One corner that has been forgotten in the square is air pollution. The small skid steer is used to transport everything, barrows and sack trolleys for flags are a thing of the past and all stones are cut with a Skilsaw with no dust suppression. Even the operator doesn't wear a mask. Stone dust is nasty stuff, ask hard rock miners and tunnellers about it.