The outbreak of WW2 put paid to the Smith Brothers country club at the hall but things were stirring further afield which were going to affect the village. We get our first clue what was happening from the Minute Books of the Calf Hall Shed Company in September 1935 when they received a letter from BUDC asking for “details of factory space available for aircraft construction”. The German threat had been realised and in 1934 the government called for the design of a new fighter and engine. By 1935 Rolls Royce were well forward with the Merlin and were agitating for what was called the 'Shadow Scheme'; new factories for aircraft production beyond the range of enemy bombers. Surveys of available space started far earlier than anyone realised. Barnoldswick was to be very important! See the History of Rolls Royce, Vol. I, pp. 192-198 for the details.
The next clue is on September 12 1940 with an advertisement in the Manchester Guardian: 'MANUFACTORIES, WORKS ETC WANTED. Factory premises wanted, ground floor, about 300,000 square feet in North Lancashire. Information to A B Smith care of the County Hotel, Lancaster.' This was the Ministry of Aircraft Production looking for shadow factories for the Rover Company of Coventry. They identified Bankfield Shed and requisitioned it on the 25th of September when it became 'Number 6 shadow factory'. On the night of November 14th 1940 there was an eleven hour air raid on Coventry. It became imperative for safer premises to be found so the Rover Company took Bankfield and shortly afterwards Calf Hall and Butts Mill. In Earby they took the Grove and Sough Bridge mills and in Clitheroe they took Waterloo Mill. They also requisitioned the country club at Bracewell Hall near Barnoldswick for the company offices. See 'Vikings at Waterloo' by David S Brown and the official history of Rolls Royce for more details. All this happened with remarkable speed and I can well imagine the village being alive with gossip about what was happening. I have little doubt that some expected an aircraft factory to be built!
I have never found any definite evidence but suspect that when Rolls Royce took over responsibility from the Rover Company for development of Frank Whittle's jet engine at Bankfield in 1942 they also took over Bracewell Hall as office space. Whatever the truth about this, in 1945 the hall was redundant and shortly afterwards was empty. The country and the economy were shattered by the war and there was no interest in the fate of the hall. It stood empty, slowly deteriorating until 1957 when Briggs and Duxbury received instructions from the owner to demolish Hopwood's pile. As to who was the owner at the time, I suspect it was still the Riley family because from detailed knowledge of the governments procedures when de-requisitioning the mills they took over, the requisitioned premises remained the property of the pre-war owners who were paid rent by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. When they were handed back a calculation was made of 1945 value against pre-war value and a settlement arrived at. Once that was agreed the ownership reverted to the original proprietor. In many cases, where premises had been improved the owners had to pay the government for 'betterment' but in the case of Bracewell Hall I suspect the payment would be the other way because apart from essential maintenance nothing was done to it and it had probably deteriorated during the war. Harold Duxbury told me that he bought the hall and demolished it in the 1950s (1957, see below) and got more for the slates they reclaimed than what he had paid for the building. Worth noting that Harold hadn't bought the ground the hall stood on. He had paid for the privilege of demolishing demolishing the building and ownership of the materials in the structure.
That was the end of Bracewell Hall. There is little evidence on the site that it ever existed. I suspect that some of the stone was re-used in the house which stands next the King Henry's Parlour which also survived. Indeed, it is possible that some fragments of the hall survive in that house. All we have left are the imposing gate posts and the remnants of the gate at the end of the drive.
Over the years I have always had my eye open for more information and in September 2005 I talked to a lady whose father was farm man for Anthony Boothman at Newhouse Farm during WW2. She told me that Anthony's brother David farmed at Coniston. She remembered Whittakers farming Hopwood Farm before Bargh's took over. I remembered the two brothers, one of whom had a withered arm but it never stopped him from working. Indeed I was told once by a man who had experienced it that a clout behind the ear from that arm was a serious matter! I seem to remember that when they moved they went farming in Cheshire. She told me that she thought the house where the Bargh family live now was the bachelor quarters of the Hopwood rebuild. One of the walls of King Henry's Parlour was cement rendered because it had been used as a Fives court when the school was there. The three storey building behind the church was originally a servant's house for the hall and was rebuilt extensively when Anthony Boothman's daughter moved in there. She also told me that she was certain the hall was demolished in 1957 because that was the year she was married and she couldn't walk to the church because B&Ds had closed off the drive with a chain and it was badly torn up by the demolition work. I had come across rumours of the farm being an ale house called the Hopwood Arms at one time and she said that she thought this was right because there was a small door at the front of the old farm building which led directly into a beer cellar, the Whittakers used it for a proven store.
Two more snippets for this week. In 1880, Elizabeth Hartley of Admergill married James Whittaker of Hopwood Farm, she died in 1940, so Whittakers were there by at least 1880. Craven Herald of 27 June 1930 reports the death of Samuel Windle of Bankfield Terrace. Born in Newtown in 1858 he was at the National School in Butts until he was 13 when he became page-boy for Dr Roberts. After 18 months there he went into service for J T Hopwood at Bracewell Hall as pony boy and later coachman. He removed to Ketton Hall with Hopwood and remained in the service of different families until he got married in 1878 and moved back to Barlick. In 1880 he went into service in Kent and in 1898 moved back to Barlick where he worked until his death at Bankfield Shed as a warehouse man, his wife was a winder.
Bracewell hall and the church from the 1717 Weddell estate map. (Notice that the drive into the hall was on the east of the church and it doesn't look as though the farmhouse had been built then.
