OneGuyFromBarlick

Cathy wrote: ↑31 Jan 2026, 04:22 I can still see our Grandma Tillotson (Tillum) behind one of the weaving machines..
And hear that awful noise.

When I was a young child and my parents were both on shift work to pay the rent I can remember my dad taking me with him to Haston Lee Mill in Blackburn to give my mum some lunch. As you say Cathy, an awful noise, what we usually called it was a `din'! Also I can still smell it but can't think how to describe that characteristic smell. Anyone who's been in a working in such a place would know the smell.

NB: At first I wrote Roe Lee Mill aka Haston Lee Mill because it seems to go under both names on the web when I looked but then I remembered why it gets confused so often. The local area is known as Roe Lee and its on Whalley New Road on the way to Brownhill roundabout. A street goes off to the left, under the railway bridge and round to Roe Lee Mill. Another street goes off the main road to the right and up the hill to Roe Lee Park. Before reaching the park you pass Haston Lee Mill on the left. I'm writing as if they still exist but they might not now.

The smell was mainly Raw linseed oil and whale oil, both of which were used in the shed for treating wood and leather connected with the looms.



Mary Wilkin putting a full pirn in a shuttle. Jim Pollard reckoned she was the best weaver in the shed.
The thing that always struck me about her was that she was one of the weavers who looked just as clean and tidy when they went home at night as they were when they started in the morning.....

I used to mend Mary's TV, she lived in Salterforth in one of the houses on the left of Earby Road before the former railway bridge.

Mary always had a clean tablecloth at dinnertime....

Thanks, Stanley and Ian, for those photos and comments about Mary. My mum was always smart and would have been like Mary in the mill. Of course it was all a bit off a shock for my mum coming to Blackburn after growing up in South Africa and having worked in the equivalent of a John Lewis shop in the Mediterranean climate of Port Elizabeth!

Thanks for commenting Peter. There was a very well established culture in the shed. It always struck me as being an extended family....

Photos from Abigail Von Essen (via Facebook) from her late mother's collection.
The 1932 Barlick flood

I've not seen any of those before....



Bancroft dam showing the ruins of Wilds' garage in the field above the dam where they stored the skeps and boxes that washed down and blocked the culverts....
Bancroft was blamed for the debris but nothing was stored outside, it all came from Wilds'

Bancroft shed awaiting demolition in 1979. I kept going back to take pictures even though it was all water under the bridge and we had no inkling that anything could be saved.

I enjoyed my dogs. Here I am with Joe in 2004. He was a rescue dog and I failed to bond with him. I had to take him back to the kennels but I tried and still have good memories of him.....

There was a time when I wore clogs and did my own repairs at home. Part of the kit was a supply of irons and I still have some even though I will never wear clogs again. They were the best footwear ever and you're feet were always warm and dry in well maintained clogs. The reason I stopped wearing them was when I went in the engine house in 1972.... They would have been dangerous on the surfaces I was walking on. I changed to Doc Martens boots and while they were comfortable and well made they did nothing for my foot health.

Sorry about the quality. The only image I have of the Congregationalist Church on Gisburn Road. I can't be sure when this was but it is up for sale in the image. My best results from research are that it was built in 1913 and sold and demolished in 1970.

The railway bridge over the canal that carried the branch line into Barnoldswick around 1900

Salterforth Bridge in 1900 before Kelbrook New Road was built. The shop in the background is the Co-operative.

Billy Lambert (Also known as Billy Two Rivers) was a tackler who took up weaving after being injured by carrying beams into the shed on his shoulder. He was my secret weapon in the shed. I used to pop in in the morning and he would let me know whether to speed up or slow the engine a fraction to get the perfect speed for the days weather conditions. it must have worked because Jim Pollard the weaving manager told me I was the most popular bloke in the mill because I had put the weaver's wages up by an average of 30/- a week. Happy days!

My desk in the engine house at Bancroft shed. HQ for all my activities!

In 1976 I had a leak in the front lid of the HP cylinder so I rang my mate Newton. He cut a new proofed asbestos gasket and after closing time we took the lid off and fitted the new gasket. You couldn't have had a better support system and Newton was the perfect source. He had forgotten more about steam engines than I will ever know. When we shut the engine down in 1978 newton said it was a shame because I was getting to be a half decent engineer..... The nicest thing he ever said to me....

The Weaver's Institute in Frank Street. HQ to the combined textile trade unions in Barlick.

Morphed into the GMB, Barlick Labour Party HQ through the late 70's and into the 80's and 90's. I had our lithograph printer in the no longer used board room, the big mahogany board table was ideal for knocking 5,000 sheets of A4 up ready for the printer. That was in the space that is now the right hand side counter in the Post Office. The photo pre dates our noticeboard which used to be on the wall. I used to put all our cut and pasted posters and notices in there before computers and colour printers came along. Cricket Club above of course accessible from the side door which is bricked up on your photo.

David Blunkett, our guest speaker with his dog Offa at one of our branch meetings.



This is around 1992 or 3 I think looking at our Jacks age. Gordon was our PPC at the time.

Frank Bleasdale, winding master and Mary Wilkin, weaver at Bancroft shed in 1977.

Coal delivery at Bancroft Shed. This was how UK industry was powered until recent times....

The engineer in 1977. I know people have difficulty believing me but even though I was fast asleep, one small variation in engine sound would waken me.
Our managing director once found John my firebeater asleep and when he came in the engine house to complain he found me asleep as well. He told me he didn't pay us for sleeping but I pointed out that John and I had done an all nighter repairing a pipe so that we could start the mill on time that day. He never complained about us sleeping again..... Those were the days!

Peter Birtles, Managing Director at Bancroft.....

Newtown in 1986.......