BARLICK FLOOD. 1932
Posted: 21 Apr 2012, 07:52
FLOOD. 1932
Sue, here's an extract from one of my articles in Stanley's View, for the original, look in the LTP for Harold Duxbury's story.
'We’ll look more closely at that job later but there was another major event on July 11th 1932 which Harold was involved in, the Barlick Flood.
It was Monday lunch time and Harold and Evered Holdsworth were in the joiners shop on Commercial Street looking out of the window towards Butts and commenting on the threatening storm over Weets and the heavy rain that was falling. Harold said that the first unusual thing they saw was lumps of ice floating down the beck which was running a banker. Then they saw a wall of water come down Butts, there was so much water that the culverts couldn’t take it and so it ran down the road. The beck was running so fiercely that it carried away the back walls of the red brick stables below on the side of the beck and completely destroyed some more old buildings in Butts.
The level rose until it was within a foot of the doors in the slaughter houses below, Butts was completely submerged. The red brick stables below were covered almost to the top of the ground floor. As they watched they saw two hands sticking out of the top of the end stable door and realised that someone was trapped in there. By this time they had been joined by a few more onlookers and Harold and Sid Barnett decided they would have to go and rescue whoever it was. They tied themselves to a rope and set off into the torrent.
When they got to the stable door they found that the problem was that rubble had been washed against it and it was jammed shut so they had to take turns diving below the water to clear the obstruction. They opened the door and found that the man was a carter called Widdup who had been sheltering in the stable when the storm struck. They lashed him onto the rope and signalled to be pulled back to safety.
Harold said they were like drowned rats. He popped over the road and changed into some of his father’s old clothes. The carter seemed to be alright but died shortly afterwards and there was little doubt it was because of his experience. There were two things that stuck in Harold’s mind about this matter: The first was that the report in the paper credited his father with the rescue. The second was that in his pocket was a gold watch he had been given for his twenty first birthday and it never worked again after the flood.
The aftermath of the flood was a seven day wonder, people were walking round the town marvelling at the damage that had been done. Occupation Road was washed out down to the bedrock. The wall of Bancroft Dam was washed away, The bottom of Wapping was choked with rubble and cars that had been washed down to Lamb Hill. The back walls of Clough Mill and Calf Hall Shed were broken in and many businesses and houses flooded. Harold said that at the height of the water there were hen huts, dead animals and all sorts of flotsam rushing through Butts, never to be seen again.'
INDEX ENTRIES for Barlick flood.
The storm lasted five hours from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm. on Monday 11 July 1932.
Ernest Widdup, the carter, lived in Bankfield Street. Harold said he died shortly afterwards and he thought it was because of his experience.
Craven Herald of 22/07/1932 reported on progress in cleaning up after the flood of 11 July. John Slater's at Clough reported 60 warps back in and forecast 100 by 25 July. Mill had to be disinfected and workers gave up their holidays to help. Morris Horsfield of Mat Horsfield and Son at Calf Hall said they were re-taping soiled warps to clean them but much damaged cloth had been sold locally at 1d per yard.
CH 15/07/1932 reported that Ouzledale Foundry was struck by lightning and destroyed in the flood. Four men were working in the foundry when it was struck. J Ashby, owner of the foundry said that his wife was rescued by neighbours from the house next to the foundry, she had just come out of hospital. Tom Ashby [15 years] was trapped in the foundry and had to be rescued. R Leeper, manager at Clough Mill and a tackler, Benjamin Whittaker of Cobden Street had a narrow escape. Workpeople were ferried away from Calf Hall on one of Wild's lorries driven by Herbert Newbould. Butts Mill was flooded and warps destroyed. Westfield and Crow Nest suffered flooding. Moss Shed boiler house was flooded. Bancroft and Barnsey escaped without damage apart from the dam wall being washed out at Bancroft. Proctor's furniture shop and Isaac Levi's store in Westgate were flooded, also Townson Demain's greengrocer's shop and C R Waterworth's general store in Walmsgate. It was reported that Mr Proctor had refused an offer of flood insurance a month earlier. Hailstones over an inch in diameter smashed most of the windows in the shed roof at Long Ing shed.
One of the problems for the mills was that most of them were covered for fire and lightning but not flood.
The Corn Mill and the Gas Works were seriously flooded damaging much stock at the Corn Mill and at one point giving serious concerns for the safety of the gasometers.
Mr Sam Yates, well known greengrocer and fur fancier was trapped on the top storey of a building in Butts which housed his rabbits.{SCG note: He had what is now the timber yard at Briggs and Duxbury's for a garden and the building alluded to was the separate one at the top of the yard I think] Mr and Mrs Golding of 66 Esp Lane were flooded to a depth of 3 feet. A man who was sleeping on one of the stalls in the Butts open air market was marooned and rescued by Mr Charles Edmondson, and PCs Hudson and Spencer.
A big problem was that the wooden garage of Wild Brothers on Gillian's Lane, above Bancroft Shed took the full force of the flood and was smashed to pieces. It was this debris and the skips and weft boxes stored there that washed down and blocked the culverts at Ouzledale and Walmsgate thus making the floods worse. Wild's never worked from there again but moved to the Cobden Street garage.
In AWOL, page 92. Address of Ernest Widdup was given as Skipton Road Cottages [Bankfield]. Belle Broughton was working at Barnsey Shed and said the hail broke a lot of windows in the shed roof. Ben Lancaster recalled that hay in the fields at Horton Lane Ends was covered with oil carried down from the mills.
Walt Fisher told me in 2004 that his father, Stanley Fisher, who was engineer at Moss Shed re-arranged the pipework so that he could pump water out of the Bowker Drain and discharge it into the canal. This alleviated the flooding in the shed and boiler house which was caused by water flowing in from the surrounding fields.
There was a similar event on 8th August 1967 which affected the west side of Whitemoor and Admergill. Roughlee, Higherford and Barrowford took the brunt of this.
SCG/07 July 2005
Sue, here's an extract from one of my articles in Stanley's View, for the original, look in the LTP for Harold Duxbury's story.
'We’ll look more closely at that job later but there was another major event on July 11th 1932 which Harold was involved in, the Barlick Flood.
It was Monday lunch time and Harold and Evered Holdsworth were in the joiners shop on Commercial Street looking out of the window towards Butts and commenting on the threatening storm over Weets and the heavy rain that was falling. Harold said that the first unusual thing they saw was lumps of ice floating down the beck which was running a banker. Then they saw a wall of water come down Butts, there was so much water that the culverts couldn’t take it and so it ran down the road. The beck was running so fiercely that it carried away the back walls of the red brick stables below on the side of the beck and completely destroyed some more old buildings in Butts.
The level rose until it was within a foot of the doors in the slaughter houses below, Butts was completely submerged. The red brick stables below were covered almost to the top of the ground floor. As they watched they saw two hands sticking out of the top of the end stable door and realised that someone was trapped in there. By this time they had been joined by a few more onlookers and Harold and Sid Barnett decided they would have to go and rescue whoever it was. They tied themselves to a rope and set off into the torrent.
When they got to the stable door they found that the problem was that rubble had been washed against it and it was jammed shut so they had to take turns diving below the water to clear the obstruction. They opened the door and found that the man was a carter called Widdup who had been sheltering in the stable when the storm struck. They lashed him onto the rope and signalled to be pulled back to safety.
Harold said they were like drowned rats. He popped over the road and changed into some of his father’s old clothes. The carter seemed to be alright but died shortly afterwards and there was little doubt it was because of his experience. There were two things that stuck in Harold’s mind about this matter: The first was that the report in the paper credited his father with the rescue. The second was that in his pocket was a gold watch he had been given for his twenty first birthday and it never worked again after the flood.
The aftermath of the flood was a seven day wonder, people were walking round the town marvelling at the damage that had been done. Occupation Road was washed out down to the bedrock. The wall of Bancroft Dam was washed away, The bottom of Wapping was choked with rubble and cars that had been washed down to Lamb Hill. The back walls of Clough Mill and Calf Hall Shed were broken in and many businesses and houses flooded. Harold said that at the height of the water there were hen huts, dead animals and all sorts of flotsam rushing through Butts, never to be seen again.'
INDEX ENTRIES for Barlick flood.
The storm lasted five hours from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm. on Monday 11 July 1932.
Ernest Widdup, the carter, lived in Bankfield Street. Harold said he died shortly afterwards and he thought it was because of his experience.
Craven Herald of 22/07/1932 reported on progress in cleaning up after the flood of 11 July. John Slater's at Clough reported 60 warps back in and forecast 100 by 25 July. Mill had to be disinfected and workers gave up their holidays to help. Morris Horsfield of Mat Horsfield and Son at Calf Hall said they were re-taping soiled warps to clean them but much damaged cloth had been sold locally at 1d per yard.
CH 15/07/1932 reported that Ouzledale Foundry was struck by lightning and destroyed in the flood. Four men were working in the foundry when it was struck. J Ashby, owner of the foundry said that his wife was rescued by neighbours from the house next to the foundry, she had just come out of hospital. Tom Ashby [15 years] was trapped in the foundry and had to be rescued. R Leeper, manager at Clough Mill and a tackler, Benjamin Whittaker of Cobden Street had a narrow escape. Workpeople were ferried away from Calf Hall on one of Wild's lorries driven by Herbert Newbould. Butts Mill was flooded and warps destroyed. Westfield and Crow Nest suffered flooding. Moss Shed boiler house was flooded. Bancroft and Barnsey escaped without damage apart from the dam wall being washed out at Bancroft. Proctor's furniture shop and Isaac Levi's store in Westgate were flooded, also Townson Demain's greengrocer's shop and C R Waterworth's general store in Walmsgate. It was reported that Mr Proctor had refused an offer of flood insurance a month earlier. Hailstones over an inch in diameter smashed most of the windows in the shed roof at Long Ing shed.
One of the problems for the mills was that most of them were covered for fire and lightning but not flood.
The Corn Mill and the Gas Works were seriously flooded damaging much stock at the Corn Mill and at one point giving serious concerns for the safety of the gasometers.
Mr Sam Yates, well known greengrocer and fur fancier was trapped on the top storey of a building in Butts which housed his rabbits.{SCG note: He had what is now the timber yard at Briggs and Duxbury's for a garden and the building alluded to was the separate one at the top of the yard I think] Mr and Mrs Golding of 66 Esp Lane were flooded to a depth of 3 feet. A man who was sleeping on one of the stalls in the Butts open air market was marooned and rescued by Mr Charles Edmondson, and PCs Hudson and Spencer.
A big problem was that the wooden garage of Wild Brothers on Gillian's Lane, above Bancroft Shed took the full force of the flood and was smashed to pieces. It was this debris and the skips and weft boxes stored there that washed down and blocked the culverts at Ouzledale and Walmsgate thus making the floods worse. Wild's never worked from there again but moved to the Cobden Street garage.
In AWOL, page 92. Address of Ernest Widdup was given as Skipton Road Cottages [Bankfield]. Belle Broughton was working at Barnsey Shed and said the hail broke a lot of windows in the shed roof. Ben Lancaster recalled that hay in the fields at Horton Lane Ends was covered with oil carried down from the mills.
Walt Fisher told me in 2004 that his father, Stanley Fisher, who was engineer at Moss Shed re-arranged the pipework so that he could pump water out of the Bowker Drain and discharge it into the canal. This alleviated the flooding in the shed and boiler house which was caused by water flowing in from the surrounding fields.
There was a similar event on 8th August 1967 which affected the west side of Whitemoor and Admergill. Roughlee, Higherford and Barrowford took the brunt of this.
SCG/07 July 2005