SECRET TUNNELS IN BARLICK

[Stanley]

I'm not sure if this is recorded anywhere as it is a reply to a query so to be on the safe side I post it here...
SECRET TUNNELS IN BARLICK
Barrie, I have come across this story many a time and the myth is also that it was from the monastery/church etc. I have always believed that behind every myth there is a kernel of truth and in my opinion this is no exception. I talked to Newton Pickles about this and he told me that he had asked his father, Johnny Pickles. Now Johnny was a very practical and down to earth man and what he told Newton was this. He had also heard tales from his elders about secret tunnels and had done just what Newton did and asked questions. Remember that we are reaching back here in the oral tradition to the last half of the 19th century when a lot of digging of foundations was being done in Barlick. What he was told was that occasionally there had been voids found but these were water courses and drains. Johnny also suspected that part of the myth had risen because of Billycock Bracewell's activities diverting water from one site to another to supply his mills.

This rings true to me because I know that at one point Billycock bought the Ouzledale Mill estate and I have never been able to understand why because the water was controlled by Mitchell's Mill [later Clough Mill] and I couldn't see what advantage he could gain. Later on when the Calf Hall Shed Company owned Ouzledale, having acquired it when they bought Butts Mill, there is mention of a Lea water meter [used for measuring flow] owned jointly by Clough Mill and Butts. The question is where was this meter and why was there any need for it. If there was a culvert running underground from Ouzledale Dam to Butts lodge [which is underneath the mill] the meter would make sense, otherwise it baffles me. Bear in mind that the only water that Clough could be interested in was anything upstream from their mill. The meter would have no value below their site. The only thing I can think of that would fit the bill would be water diverted from above Clough and this would need a culvert.

Atkinson's 'Old Barlick' has a puzzling passage. He is talking about the water supply for Wellhouse Mill and says that it depended on improvements made at Butts Mill. Suppose these 'improvements' were a supply from Ouzledale Dam and that another culvert was put in from Butts to Wellhouse? In point of fact, whether this culvert was ever started or completed, Bracewell got control of the Corn Mill in the early 1850s and piped water from the Butts beck directly to Wellhouse. Even this strand gets complicated because there is the small matter of the Bowker Drain and the fact that Bracewell used that water for Wellhouse and the Corn Mill supply was abandoned. I know that this pipe from the Corn Mill to Wellhouse existed because there is mention of the Calf Hall Company using it after 1900 but in the end they too relied on the Bowker Drain.

There is another little puzzle connected with water and possible tunnels/culverts. Harold Duxbury once told me quite definitely that Hall Spout near Salterforth was a water source for Gledstone Estate. Now even though I have the greatest respect for Harold I think he probably meant the Gledstone Estates in Barlick and not the Hall.
Enough, there are many other instances of activities that could have resulted in tunnels, Bracewell building Springs Dam, the Calf Hall Shed Company's diversion of the water from Dark Hill Well to Springs Dam. All these are backed up by written evidence and on balance, I think Old Johnny was probably right when he told Newton that if he ever found a 'secret tunnel' he should not go into it because it was a culvert and he'd get witchered!
Right Barry, over to you, sort the bones out of that. I haven't reached a definitive answer yet and any light you can shed would be gratefully received. One thing is certain, in practical terms, the control of water was far more important to Barlick than any mythical secret tunnel could have been.

SCG/21 February 2005