TAPE 83/LM/01
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON AUGUST 8TH 1983 AND IS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN NEWTON PICKLES AND STANLEY GRAHAM AS THEY WALK THE WATERCOURSES CONNECTED WITH LOTHERSDALE MILL IN LOTHERSDALE VILLAGE ABOVE EARBY IN THE WEST RIDING. WE HAD BEEN ASKED TO ASSESS THE SITE IN CONNECTION WITH A POSSIBLE HERITAGE BID BY THE OWNER JUNE BARROW.
[This transcript is another outlier in that it isn't strictly part of the original LTP but I have included it because there is much information to be gleaned from it about water-powered textile mills in general and Lothersdale Mill in particular.]
It's Monday, August the 8th 1983 and Stanley Graham that's me and Newton Pickles, that's him, we're up at Lothersdale in the West Riding and we're looking into what used to be the High Dam for Lothersdale mill.
Lothersdale Mill from above the High Dam.
Now then, Newton, there's not a lot of water coming down.
R - It's practically dry.
This dam was the first in - I don't think there was another one. This was the High Dam in a series of two dams which used to run the mill which belonged to Wilsons down in the bottom here which still has the water wheel in it which is reputed to be the biggest indoor water wheel in the world. It's certainly the biggest one I know of in Britain. It's like the Laxey wheel at the Isle of Man but it's indoors. This was the main source of supply for it. Now this was in use until 19.. just before the war, late thirties as far as I know. They gave up using it and I think I'm right in saying that the pipe where it went under the road, the council cut it when they put a sewer in. So there might be problems, there might be problems with this dam. What we've got to think about is if we want to get this water wheel running again we want to get some water down from the top here to the other dam further down which we'll go and look at. There isn't a good water supply to that one. It's a question of how to get the water down there and we'll walk down and have a look at the dam but what I was thinking about was this dam here for the high dam, it doesn't look very safe to me and I think that rather than start using that again they'd be a lot better off, because they wouldn't need a lot of water to turn it because they're not going to take a lot of power out of it, would be to put a little catchment up at the top here and put a plastic pipe right down the beck, a 6” plastic pipe and it’d rise to its own level down at the bottom. We'll have a look at that further down. That's what I was thinking about.
R - You'd happen want something bigger than a 6” plastic-pipe.
Well anyway let's walk down. Let's have a look at clow. You know they wouldn't be using a lot of water if they were using it for demonstration. It's not like running it to get ....
R - The length of pipe matters too. The speed o' water that’ll go through it. You see if you have a pipe and it's absolutely full you don't get a quick flow if you have got a lot of drop. That can be a problem. I should start thinking about that if you want to run a water wheel. An 18” concrete one with some vent pipes on it. Some little grates over the top. You come up against this trouble with pipes that are full. They tend to stop flowing.
We're just walking on to the top of the dam. (50)
The clow controlling the flow from the High Dam.
R - Up against this wall it's about 20feet deep nearly.
Aye, it's some depth is that! When this was clean, when it wasn't silted up like it is now it held some water didn't it.
R - It did that, it would have gone right up to that wall and practically up to the road on the other side. It held some water as you say, it did that! They managed to run an odd day off this when it was full, even in Summer they managed to run an odd day when it was full. 5 min
R- That must have been a good life. They talk about 'bad old days'.
We're looking at this today and it's not been a reight wet time and like there's not a lot of water running but if that was gathering all night...
R – It’d fill it. It would, it would fill it.
I should say it would fill it because you've more water running in there than you had running into the dam at Bancroft. That used to fill overnight. It's about same size.
R – It’d fill it. When you start thinking of twelve hours. Nothing going out.
This intrigues me, Newton, this wheel, it nearly looks like a - it's a funny design isn't it? We're looking at the wheel on top of the clow. It's nearly like a ...
R- It’s been made on purpose for it though, definitely. They did a good job. I wonder how long since that were made. It can't be the original. It's been a good job, everything's been thought about. Even a clip round it and a slot in to lock it so's kids couldn't play about with it. Thrust block in the top here. There’d be a collar on the bottom of this when it's properly sealed. There wouldn't be a ball race in of course. It is a good job. It has been anyway. It is yet, isn't it? Just rusty that's all.
Aye, you could soon get this working again.
R - It's been a later edition has this. This isn't an original clow. I should think Varleys at Skipton had made this in years gone by. Not a lot of years happen. About forty or fifty at most. (100) It's a typical Varley's set up is this. Of course we're talking about Varley's engineers at Skipton. In the old days they used to make y' know millwrighting and bevel wheels for the old mills and water wheels. No doubt about that. Still in business of course.
I think this wheel down here, it was somebody at Eastby.
R - Aye, Eastby.
Now were it Dixon?
R - I can't think of name of the firm and I've tried to.
This were the original outlet here Newton.
R - This were the outlet for the wheel at one time.
This was the outlet for the water going down to the next dam but the funny thing about this you see is when you look at it you'd expect this to be up at a fairly high level wouldn't you? You know, to get the level but it isn't, it's right down there.
R - It's inside, down in't ground is that now, so this one here actually ran the water wheel.
Well this is where the water went out. That's just to hold it back isn't it - there. From here it goes into the next dam.
R - Actually, it's a by-pass then is this.
Well this is the outlet out of this lodge here to the next dam lower down. It feeds the next dam lower down. That's your clow that you shut.
R - That's what you open and shut to empty and fill it.
Well for maintenance and everything. By-wash is at the other side. It's ten foot down, at least.
R - But look how much deeper it is than that! (150)
Well it's going to be 12feet down isn't it.
R - You'd have to dig to find out.
There's a bracket in the wall there. What's this for here?
R - This poker thing?
It's as if it's holding sommat back. Now this is evidently to open it.
R - So whatever's this for?
It's supporting sommat isn't it? Because you can't move it because it's just wrapped round here.
R - It hasn't been put on as a blacksmith's makeshift to stop this thing from tipping up 'cause the stones all been...
God knows, it might be.
R - It give it something to rest on. 10min
R - Otherwise it doesn’t seem to be serving any purpose does it?
It might just be going to that bracket there. It might just be a tie-bar to hold this.
R - To hold this down so when you're starting lowering this, you see, it would have a tendency to lift this up instead of shoving the door down and I think they've put this on and fixed it to the top of the main bracket down there to stop it from lifting up. They've been messing about with it. There's a lot of dog meat on these bolts.
Look here there's a...
R - We mean by 'dog - meat' that it's packing. I think that's what that's for. It's had a tendency for, instead of the clow door going down this top bracket's been coming up which is only too small of course.
Like this clow door would need pushing down because it's not as heavy as the other. It would be like that one at Bancroft, it had to be pushed down. Well let's walk down the road a bit and have a look at the other dam. Well we're stood on top of the dam now and looking down the beck towards the mill and we're just commenting on the amount of work that's been done here! All that's been done fairly late on, it's concrete.
R - All this concrete all up and down there where it's all been cobbled, like a street. Bottom of the beck's all cobbled for about what - ten yards. This dam wall’s no mean structure for an old mill, of course that's all been concreted later.
And the spill way has a gate in the middle of it as well.
R - There'd be wood planks would them. If the weather were bad they'd take the top one off. If weather got too bad they could take 'em off to keep it safe.
Aye, that's it, aye. That's it, if there was too much water coming down.
R - Wet season they would take one off so it could get away before it washed them houses away back up theer.
Or wash the dam away because you think..
R – All the weight against this wall.
You think, if this dam went..
R – Village would have gone.
It would have made a mess. We'll walk down now, down to the low dam. You see here, Newton if you stand here you can see that pipe from there that went down and it's either gone alongside by the road and dived under the road or whatever but it goes down and you see that corner where the wide gate is? That's where we're going now. This piece of land here is low dam, it's the next dam and we want to have a look at that next but what I'm interested in is if that's about 12feet down I reckon that that pipe was hydraulic, if you will. (200) The water was actually going uphill from here to get out of here to that dam.
R - I can tell better if we go and have a look. We'll want to test it probably. We want a hose pipe with two glasses.
That's it, aye, a water level. 15 min
Well, anything. Yes, but that's the best way to do it.
R - It's the best way yet. What would you intend doing with this pipe to run to fill that dam to fill that water?
I don't know but I wouldn't go under the road. I’ll show you when I get down there. I'll show you when we get down there because I don't think you've got to think in terms of using that dam. From what I can make out the culvert under the road here, we're just coming to the low dam now. The culvert under the road was cut before the war when they put a sewer in. The sewage system into the town. Now this is what we're looking into now with all the vegetation in it. This is low dam which is going to be cleaned out.
R - I wouldn't think that would take much cleaning out with all the modern machinery they have today.
Well that's what they're going to do. Just let's have a walk down here.
R - All still intact, wall and everything.
This one of course, this is a good structure to maintain because it has a good wall round it. It might need a bit of puddle in it when it's been dug out otherwise this looks all right to me.
R - Oh it's a simple thing to clear is this. It costs money too. If they can put a decent size pipe down there but it's still got to come across that road.
Well I’ll show you that in a minute but there is some water comes in off this hillside here. Not a lot but there is some. Now you see what we're coming to now, you see this is where the beck comes under the road itself. Now I reckon that's the answer to our problem. There's a bridge here and beck comes under the road. (250) Now here look. Here's by wash off this dam. That spills straight down into the beck and look how it's all been concreted.
R - The idea is to come down the beckside with your pipe and under the bridge..
Under the bridge and come up here. If we couldn’t get level here it wouldn't be a big job having a pump in here to lift it 2feet up to the wall.
R You get them levels with a surveyors level and you find out then what head you have.
I reckon you only need about 3' of head to get it to run into here.
R - We could do it us selves Stanley if we could borrow a dumpy. You only need three pieces stood up and one of us sight it while the other puts marks on. What you do, you wave your arms like a monkey.
Come on, Newton. Now then, this dam here, they've had this dam full you see.
R - All in working order.
Oh yes, yes, if you look down here...
R - Oh it's all in working order
There's nothing serious about that gate. Now then, there's this, there's another one here you see. Behind you.
R - Aye. that'll be to empty it I suppose.
No, no. This is to empty it - that one's for the mill.
B - That one's for the water wheel.
Now this one?
R - Now this wants a few repairs doing at it...
Newton, what are you doing? I've just lost Newton, he's fallen down a hole. Are you all right?
R - Course I am. You've lost your engineer.
You daft bugger! Anyway, yes what we're looking at here, it looks as if the gates going to be on and everything, it just wants all straightening up and a head putting back on it. In fact it’s inclined, that's how it's been isn't it?
R - Yes course it has. And your pinion.
Yes there's only the pinion and …
R - Worm gears
What do you mean, 'worm gear'? Oh, would there be a worm gear on to slow it down?
R - Maybe like that.
Understood, I’m with you, yes. Aye and there's the ratchet.
R - And it’d have a safety catch. There you are, look.
A ratchet on it.
R - No, you'd never wind it direct, not with a head of water on it.
Right, now watch out for that hole, Newton.
R - I'm not going down that hole again, Stanley. C’mon.
Now we'll just walk down here and then we'll walk back to the car and bring the car down to the bottom but we'll just walk down to here. We'll just walk along the goyt now. (300)
Now we're on the line of the goyt.
R - That's underground.
It's coming along here. You'll see where it comes out down here. It comes along here. look at the head you're getting now over the beck.
R - You can tell what levels are from that dam we've been stood at to here.
We've got 20feet here. At least aye.
R - Rough guessing off a 10foot ladder.
If you look from the road this has all been concreted along here.
R - That edge? Under here there's a tunnel.
This edge.
R - How big is that tunnel? Has anybody been up it?
I don't know. I don't think it'll be big enough to come up. 20 min
R - You don't think so?
No, I don't think so.
R - It'll have been dug out then from up here and then covered, bricked like cobbles..
Chambered over. That's it.
R - And then filled up again.
This wall under here is all stoned all the way along. Further down it's concreted.
R - I always picture them chaps doing this job, you know. Pickled onions and breeches-arse-steam.
Aye, an' bacon butties every morning. See where the wall's cracked at corner?
R - Aye.
Just climb over here. It's not as intrepid a feat as it looks. I'm stood behind you so if you fall I'll catch you. I think you can come over now and stand behind me.
R - Well I can always pull the plug out.
Now then, here's your goyt, see we're alongside it. It comes out of the ground there and along here. Follow this path down.
R - Hang on a minute. So the size of that is what was under there.
Yes.
R - Oh that would take a bit of digging.
Aye, cause what's that? Three foot across?
R - I've forgotten how deep it is.
Two foot, three foot deep? Aye there is a path on here Newton all the way on, it's just overgrown. it's a concrete wall on the other side of us and all. We've got a concrete wall to the right here and there's a concrete wall to the left. Down and into the beck, aye. Safety measure on't goyt. (350) Somebody's water supply.
R - Aye.
Somebody's had a water supply off that. I can just see somebody having a bend on that going into there and a semi-rotary at bottom and once you've pumped it over it'll siphon. This as I say is all concrete down this side. Been renovated all this goyt. It's been done up.
R - They've spent some blinking money.
This goyt has all been renovated this century - must have been. See how it's widening out now. A bit more size in't goyt now.
R - A full time job nearly for somebody keeping this lot clean and looking to it.
Which is something people always forget because people always think that water power's cheap.
R - It's not as cheap as all that. It has to be kept clean. In Summer all this lot’d start growing. You'd better get somebody to go and clean all that goyt out before we start. That were the bad old days.
We're walking along now still following the goyt down and we're now about fifty yard off the mill. We're getting nearer to it and of course this goyt's coming dead level, well with a very small fall all the way on. In a minute we'll be at the place where it really counts, the top of the water wheel. This has fairly grown up since I was here last! Now here the goyt's widening out into a little head pond.
R- Or an out pond, A pond for the wheel.
We're nearly there, Newton. Watch out for that barbed wire, Newton. Is that another spill way we've just walked over there? It looks in the right place. (400)
The launder where the water reached the wheel.
Now here we are at the top. Now this is the outlet here from this pond down this cast iron. Chute. I've forgotten proper name for it. I've forgotten what proper name of it is. Launder is it? aye. Anyway, this takes the water from here to the wheel itself. C’mon Newton and prepare yourself for a bit of an experience. 25 min
You've never seen this.
R - it's in good working order.
You can see how at sometime they've raised this.
R - They've lifted it.
They've put another bit on top. They'd get a bit more power wouldn't they. Just watch your footing. Now just watch your footing.
R - Well you wouldn't think they'd raise it to get more power. You can only get power out of a water wheel out of the weight of water there is behind it. It must have been running over and making a mess so they lifted it up.
Now then, just watch your footing in here. All right?
R - Aye.
Now then, Newton Pickles, come here and have a look down here.
R - That is what they call a fair big water wheel!
How about that?
R - Aye, it's some wheel! How wide is it? About five foot? Four foot six?
It'll be five foot won't it. About forty foot diameter.
R - When I were a lad my father used to get onto me and say, "Haven't you been to Lothersdale and had a look at that water wheel?” And I never got round to it. They tried to govern it.
That's what this is is it?
R - Aye, tried to govern it.
That's feed pipe going out to the boiler isn't it?
R - Oh it's only been manual. I wonder if they've had somebody stood up here all the time.
It's got cams on it.
R- Hang on, hang on. It has some cams on.
And those are like shutters.
R - Aye, they're like shutters on a Venetian blind.
If you pull this back they open you see. They open in an order.
R -I wondered if they had some mechanism somewhere in the shed that had driven this. Off a set of governors? You know like your governors on your steam engine?
Yes.
R - And they tried to work it. But look at that handle, there's been a man up here.
And it isn't long since this has been repaired.
R - No, it's all working.
It's good to see how it works. And the other one’s as far back as it'll go and once you've got it back to there you're beginning to lose water again. If you come down alongside me we'll go down and have a look at it. There's the pinion. Now they've pushed it out of gear. Now the wheel at the moment isn't turning and I think it's probably because it's something to do with that.
R - We'll go down and have a look.
Now there's another interesting thing. There's been a shield going down from the launder here to stop water splashing out of the buckets.
R - That was because they tried to keep it off the pinion as much as they could.
Is that right?
R - Yes. Stop it wearing out.
We'll just have a look at this pinion up here. Well at gear ring.(500)
R - It's not in bad condition. I think if I remember correctly it were re-segmented. Varleys at Skipton did it.
Aye.
R – A lot of years ago but not so long. Within this last forty years anyway. Varleys did it. I remember.
So this wheel, when you look down at it, it's an iron shaft, it's cast iron spoke housings, it's got wooden spokes.
R - And steel tie-bars.
And steel tie-bars. It's like a cross between a suspension wheel and an ordinary wheel isn't it?
R - But it's a forged shaft. It has hammer marks in it.
Aye, that's it, yes. And the wheel's got a wooden back. Cast iron rings on the outside that's carrying the segment gear but it's got a wooden back and the buckets have been bolted on to the wooden back. Tin buckets onto a wooden back.
R - Well they bolted into the wooden back but they also fit into't edge plates on the wheel.
That's it, aye.
R - It's all very well supported.
It doesn't look to me as if these buckets have been ventilated.
R - I don't think they were. Them at County Brook, they were never ventilated. They used to make new buckets for that. It weren't as big as this of course. Well it weren't as big as this, it were wider than this. About 6feet wide. They want all new buckets Stanley. That'll set 'em back a few bob.
Actually, there are a lot of buckets.
R- There’s a lot of spare ones?
There's a lot of buckets but there's just a problem that..
R- Eh they were good old millwrights, they were that! Foundry work. That's another interesting factor on a job like this, how much work was done in't foundry, casting. Even holes in't edge of the tank plate were all cast in. No drilling to do.
It nearly looks as if these were standard sections.
R - No drilling. Well they used to make cast iron tanks and they were advertised.
Well we're walking on a cast iron plate here. 30 min
R - I wouldn't jump about on it.
No, I was just thinking that. Now then, what we're going to do now, we're going to walk up to the top and bring the car down into the bottom and go and see Mrs Barrow. We'll go into the mill and have a look from the bottom. We'll have a look at the wheel from the bottom and see if we can stir it. Now I know that wheel will turn but look what's in front of us here. It's a vertical shaft. There's a big bearing box on the inside.(550)
R - It's been an angled one too. It's been up at an angle has that so I wonder where that went. There's been a vertical shaft there Stanley.
Down here? There's another plate here. Is that another mounting plate, another bearing?
R - Just an ordinary bearing.
So I'd be getting power from downstairs where the pinion goes in upstairs and there is a lineshaft and you can see the marks on the beams where there's been a line, a lineshaft going through from here and I was puzzling about that when I was looking because inside there's no signs that there's been a drive up through the floor. So that's what it is, it's been outside.
R - It' s been outside.
Well there isn't much room between this launder and the wall.
R - That's just been an ordinary bearing theer. Then your bevel wheels have been up here.
And then tie bars would hold the whole lot together.
R – All the lot into the wall, yes. Tied the wall together. Aye, built up wall boxes. You didn't often see them. They were built into't wall. They were put in as they were building the wall anyway.
It would be easier to fetch it up to Lothersdale in bits like that. Yes, well there was an engine in and all, down at the bottom of course.
R – I’m interested in where that were an all.
Well we'll have a look at that. What we'll do now, we'll go back up. If you look on't outside of the wall theer, on the outside of the wall here and see them pipes going down, that were the feed pipe for the boiler. (600)
R - A pump.
I'll tell you what, they had a good head for the water.
R - They had plenty of head on it to keep the valves tight.
Chimney's not in bad order.
R - It isn't in bad condition is that.
No, no. I was telling June she wants to get that chimney laddered.
R - It isn't in bad condition since I've seen what the hoops are like, they don't need painting.
Course you never know, do you? There's something here that's interesting. You see these stones here inside? Well now that is the original flue, it was an underground flue up to the chimney. It was a short, stubby chimney on the bank. Then what they've done, they've put in a new engine house in some time down theer. A new engine and of course they put its own chimney on it. And then of course the tin chimney is package boiler that replaced that lot. These are the slabs.
R - They had it on top of this hill and then when they put the new engine in and new boiler they moved it all into the bottom and built a higher chimney.
So we're coming down the back of the mill towards the chimney, past all the dog shit - there is some dog shit about! Now this was quite obviously the boiler house. Well there's a package boiler through theer, we'll be coming through theer to get into the wheel house. This were the boiler house and surprise surprise..
R - Surprise, surprise, the damper chains are still on! Look what a good job it is! Nothing spared. All this were done the modern way later on when girders started coming into being.
This little square brick building at the bottom here, has that been a little connie?
R - It could have been. We can tell best from downstairs.
Why else would that be put on there? (35 min)(650)
R - Well it's been an extension so they put a set of connies in. Built it into the flue. Originally it wouldn't have any connies.
Here, don't you walk across there because I don't want you breaking your bloody leg!
R - This is definitely the boiler house.
We shall go in there. Now then of course one of the things Newton that you know as well as I do. If you've got a water wheel, you've got to have a tail race. I mean we’d have to look under the bridge to see where the actual tail race came out. But I imagine it came out under the bridge.
R – Under, in the beck.
Under here, in the beck again, aye. Unless they've taken it further down to get some more depth but we'll find that out. And the beck itself of course runs right underneath the mill. (700) There's the beck runs into the mill and then there's the tail-race runs into the beck. That runs right under the mill. What a funny shed roof this is!
R - What a funny shape! You'd think they were going to put some girders across when they put them pads on like that!
We're nearly at the end of this tape now. I’ll leave you with June for two minutes while I pop up and get the car, I think that's the best thing to do. These are for the tie bars for the roof because it's mostly a wood construction.
R – Shafting would run that way wouldn't it?
Yes, cross shafting would run that way. I think when we get inside we'll find that those are tie-bars for the roof. Knowing you, you could very well be right. See this is interesting. You see those little windows here, they're mediaeval they've been taken out of another building.
R - It's not a castle, you know, it's a mill.
No, but they are mediaeval windows, they've been taken out of another building and put in there.
R - Well that was the hoist shaft, surely?
I don't know what was in it.
(750)
R – In the later years after the war we put the hoists back. We made all the gearing for it and it were only about four foot square.
They thought enough of it to tie it to the wall itself.
R - It's been raised hasn't it?
Well, I don't know. It's been built like that hasn't it?
R - They had to come and defend it when they were being raided by bow and arrow.
All these cast iron plates on the wall!
R - Wherever they could put a shaft, they put one. 40 min
Aye.
R - They did.
Well, for a long while they took it all over, June will tell you more about that.
They're going to put an arch in this wall here and go inside. We'll be going in in a bit. Down here you see, the beck. Let's go across the road here and I'll leave you with him while I go up and get car and we'll go up and have a look at wheel and chamber itself. What do you think about your wheel so far? (850)
R - It's a good wheel.
It's grand isn't it!
R - They don't come to life till they start going round. You don't get that bit of interest. Not for the general public to come and have a look at it.
{Change of tape}
Oh God! Nobody'd ever do anything like that now. Come here! Never mind the pin-fold! Bugger me! Now then, see across there where we were following the goyt on. They've concreted all along there. They've done it up all along theer. Burst out one night and started a crack. The old engineer says we've got to do something about that.
R - The old boss says “We'll have to do something about that goyt wall” so they got the local builder in and they did that.
Can't be stopped they've got some good orders.
(From here, interjections made by Mrs. June Barrow will be shown in brackets)
Now this wheel was built by?
R- Ellison and Forsyth.
According to Wilson's book, this wheel was built by Ellison’s at Eastford. Now you tell me what you know about Ellison’s.
R - Well Ellison’s were Ellison’s and Forsyth’s. As far as I can gather and I’m only going off what I've heard through me life, Varleys engineers that are still in Skipton, their grandfather, now I might go back a bit further, or great grandfather, worked for Ellison and Forsyth’s and they bought Ellison and Forsyth out and they built that shop in Skipton. And they carried on with Ellison and Forsyth’s customers.
And you think that they might have cast these segments?
R - I think that Varleys re-segmented this wheel sometime in the nineteen thirties. We could find out with asking Douglas.
Now according to this book, the first engine that was in here was a Roberts engine.
R - So that'll be a Nelson engine.
That'd be a beam engine, wouldn't it?
R - Aye, but the next one was built by Dixon Of Keighley. Now this J. Dixon, I've heard of them engines but I've never actually worked on one. But I don't think they made above one or two.
Can you remember me saying I’d got some catalogues the other day, for steam engines?
R - Yes.
They were from Dixon’s at Keighley. You were going to see them the other day, they must have finished not so long since. I keep thinking of Dixon and Stell. I wonder if they were...
R – Ah well, they were textile machine makers, were Stell. Because I had a chap worked for us, well I had a chap worked for us when I were a lad and he served his time there at Stells and it were a real nigger plantation I believe!
Is that right?
R - Aye. Everything were on piece work or else you get no wage. So we are getting round to it a bit better do now.
Aye, and that'd fit in nicely with that.. because Newton looked at your clow up at the high dam. He says that that looks like Varley’s casting.
R - It looks like Varleys casting, it looks like Varleys type of work. It's newer than any of the others.
Aye, yes, and it looks to me as if there's been, just before they finished with this wheel there's been quite a lot of work done.
R - There was a heck of a lot of work done!
In say 1910 ?
R - I should say later than that, 20-25.
Do you think so?
R - Then start again with concreting and these castings.
So they've been doing the work on this water course and on the wheel itself.
R - Well, I should think that when they were relying on that wheel to run the mill itself it would be a full time job.
They must have done a lot of work on it just before they stopped running it.
R - They must have done, according to what I’m thinking. Anyway I could find out with seeing Varleys. Douglas or Jack. I've thought many a time, I've never seen them since I retired. I could call in some time.
What we’ll do about that, we'll go and see them together and I’ll bring the tape recorder and we’ll get that down as well.
R – I’ll give 'em a ring and tell 'em we're coming then. (50)
That's it. Well, don't make it just yet.
R - I mean such as Varleys, I used to go to every day practically when they had a foundry, they made all our castings.
(It might be interesting to meet a chap called Norman Pickles who was the man who was in charge of all the waterways)
We haven't got time, we haven't got time.
R - Who's that?
(Norman Pickles)
R - Where does he live?
(Rook Street.)
R - And has he been here a long time?
(All his life.)
They're related.
R - My God, don't have us related, will you!
(Are you related to Norman Pickles?)
R - I am a Pickles. And I’ve just been telling your son here and your daughter that my grandparents originated from Lothersdale and me father had an Uncle had a farm somewhere on these tops and he’d been a sailor before the mast. Then again, me and me wife came hunting round the church yard oh a couple of years ago, we got run out with some sheep. We thought we’d found me father's uncle Dan's grave. His wife wasn't on the stone and we couldn't understand that so I said sometime we'll come along and see if we can find the vicar and see if we can get in and see if we can look at the books. They were real chapel goers. My grandfather played the organ at Kelbrook Chapel, that one that's just been demolished and the one before it for 45 years Voluntary. And me father played it after him for a while. My grandfather was one of the instigators on building it. They found a paper in a bottle you know when they [demolished it] you read about that didn't you Stanley? The first name on that paper was my great grandfather. George Pickles. (5 min)
So there you are. This is what happens.
R - I do know they originated from Lothersdale and my mother's side, they came from Carleton.
We've been looking at governing gear..
R - I said to Stanley right away, hello they've tried to govern this thing. They haven't just gone about it like they should have done really, they haven't made it...
Automatic?
R - No, they haven't just made it automatic.
Should have put a set of ordinary Watt type governors on and then it would have worked those vanes. Up to a point. It wouldn't have run away anyway it would have closed them if they'd started to.. Look, we've not got all that much time, this morning..
R - Let's face it, our brains work more than what theirs did and that's human element isn't it? We've more experience, that's what I'm trying to drive at.
What did you say, this is just like Bridge Mills at Nelson?
R - Aye.
Wait a minute, when you walked in here you just said 'Bridge Mills at Nelson'.
R - Aye, just like this.
Why did you say that?
R - Wood roof and cast iron pillars. No girders in. (100) Deadly.
Whit a minute, why did you say deadly?
R - Deadly because you used to have to go and level the shafting. The baulks had all sagged and one thing and another and you'd three inch of packing under one pedestal and next one you’d about a quarter. I’ll tell you what a job it were going to level shafting after they'd been up fifty or sixty years, well this is good. What age is this?
I wouldn’t be able to guess. Eighteen what? I would guess 1860.
R - In the 1870s they started putting cast iron girders in. Like Moss is 1905 and Moss is a beautiful shed, all cast iron.
(It's pulled down now)
R - It's pulled down, aye, Bridge Mills is. The old shafting was all wrought iron shafting, never been turned only where the bearings were. Al the drums were staked on with four keys about half inch square. If you went to shift a couple of drums to drive an extra loom or two it took you all day getting them true again.
When we were looking from the outside, them round pads we saw was for the roof?
R – From the roof bracket. Bevel wheel, they've been cut off, they made a good job of cutting them off whoever did it, you know they stand out here. No there hasn't been any wall brackets, Stanley. Somebody's cut them off.
Tail brackets?
R - No, there’d be the shafts on that wall. They'd run that way so there has been a bearing on that wall, just a small one. Wood pillars.
Aye, they are!
R - I wonder if it's Ellison and Forsyth's millwrighting - I bet it were.
You know, I have an idea that Ellison and Forsyth's were the people who did Bancroft.
R – No it's Robert's is Bancroft.
Millwrighting for Bancroft wasn't done by Roberts. I have an idea it was Ellis and Forsyth's.
R - If it weren't Roberts it were Burnley Iron Works.
When I get home I’ll tell you.
[Report in Craven Herald of March 19th 1920 states that H J and A Coulthurst of Darwen were the ironfounders and millwrights for Bancroft Shed.]
R - I should think it would be Roberts' Millwrighting.
No, now I come to think it was somebody from Accrington that got that contract. I'll tell you when I get home because I’ll look it up for you then I get home. (150) Anyway, let's not argue about that.
R - I've always thought it were Roberts Millwrighting with the shape of the brackets. You know they had to work together if they were pushing. Roberts might have made all the castings for somebody else to erect them. It were definitely Roberts' wheels. We got all them wheels made at Roberts when I re-geared it.
What, when you re-geared Bancroft?
R - It were done in a night shift.
You've never told me about that.
R - Oh it were after the war when things were at the top and they ran a night shift. They had an engine driver on that used to start up and open the stop valve just like that and he rolled about eight sets of wheels off in't time he was there. (10 min)
(This is an interesting thing, Stanley, but I can't make out what it is)
It's a doorway.
(This is part of the old building)
R - That's the old mill.
(It's part of the old mill, yes and I was wondering why it looks like a doorway)
R - It's a doorway but it's been filled in.
It's an old mill doorway, that.
R - It's an outside wall.
This has been the original mill.
R - This has been the extension. It's been a spinning mill originally which most of them all were, spinning. There was very little weaving going on round here when these places were built. They were nearly all spinning. Then things quietened down so they thought, right, we'll do us own spinning and we'll get some looms and we'll start weaving as well. That's when they started taking the old engines out and putting a bigger one in because the old one wouldn't drive any more. Same thing happened at Butts in Barlick. Victoria Mill at Earby was only a single story building at one time.
Well this is the same front wall.
R - Had to be put through for belts, you see.
Belt drives are either into the shed or out of it. They've been out for something else. Now then, Newton - just hang on a minute.
R - A rope drive here, Stanley.
Aye, it's a rope drive.
R - See that's modern.
Aye, that's cotton rope. I’ll tell you what it's for, driving stokers on the boiler.
R - Well, I wouldn't know about that.
Well, it's coming out of the shed theer, through the wall.
R- The lineshaft ran up theer, wires coming down here. It’d be the next one. It’d drive off that. These ropes went back and drove something theer.
And it was taking a shaft down that way which was towards boiler house. (200) Come this way Newton. That shaft still in there? We’ll have a look at that when we go through that way.
(Could like to ask another question why did they have those beautiful arched windows..)
R - That's the engine house.
(Yes, but why did they have them?)
R - It was so you could get your stuff in and out after you'd taken the window frames out.
(Oh it wasn't as simple as that? Is it really, because they were always beautiful weren’t they)
R - Simple as that. What we used to call church windows. I can tell you something now, Victoria Mill at Earby was a tremendous beam engine, it was 1500 hp. and like we were saying they were spinning mills originally and these arch windows looked over the fields, like these would be over the mill yard originally. Earby Mill in the 50s, the fly wheel shaft broke so I got this job to put this new shaft in. Fly wheel weighed about forty ton and while we were working on this I thought how am I going to get this shaft out of this engine house with the crank on? I couldn't get it out that way past the cylinders. I thought well them engineers once put it in for me to get this in and out of here, I’ll have to get it out through the window but they'd built a shed on like this so I'd to get builders in and they took me one bay of the shed roof off, I'd to get the tacklers to shift me fourteen looms from downstairs and I'd to take the line shafting down. Then I'd to put meself a girder out of the engine house to lower me flywheel shaft out through the engine house window into the shed. You see that's what I say they built these bits like this to get your fly wheel in and out. They went and did what they did here, they built a shed on and that's why you couldn't understand what they were for.
(What age would you say those were?)
R - When the mill was built. Originally like you said 18 what? 1860? These will be about 1830.
(Well no..)
R – These will be about 1830.
(Walter Parker came here in 1792, he came here when it was a corn mill so he would have developed it from that time.)
R - It didn't start up as a corn mill originally, it would be spinning, surely.
(Oh no, no, it was a corn mill)
It was a corn mill
(The earliest I can go back is Queen Elizabeth the first. During her time there was a corn mill on this site. It was owned by the Duke of Cumberland and then Sir Thomas Parker came along in 1792 and took over the site of the old corn mill. What part of the old corn mill was still existing, I don't know.) (250)(15min)
R - Well this wouldn't be part of the old corn mill. You get this sort of thing all over don't you. You come to Barlick and just walk along Wellhouse Road where Silent Night are now in Wellhouse and just look down there and there you'll see four . . windows like this. Two at the bottom and two at the top.
(What time do you think the first steam engine, what time were they putting steam engines in?)
R - About 1850.
It could have been a bit earlier. If it was a Roberts beam engine it could have been 1830. This is where the engine was and all.
R - Aye but there'd be the engine in here before all this clobber were put in.
Yes, before this floor was put in. I mean these holding down bolts are the floor and these round holes aren't there for nothing.
R - These holding down bolts held your second motion shaft pedestal and it's only been a single beam with one cylinder or if it's been McNaughted and your fly wheel shaft pedestal stood on there on't rigger bearing and rest of your engine were here. Yes.
R - If that gearing were driven off the water wheel, how did they do that then? 'Cause we're getting this job the wrong way round. It must have been that way round.
They wouldn't put it in to twist drive ninety degrees? Now don't forget they put the horizontal engine in here after. But if they put the horizontal in, surely they put the horizontal in that way. Wait a minute, which way's that wheel driving? That wheel's coming this way round so that wall gear's turning that way so what's that driving onto? What the hell's this gear driving onto? What's it driving onto to get it onto that pinion theer?
R- Well I don’t know, there must be something on the other side of that wall mustn’t there.
Wait a minute, this isn’t the flywheel for the engine is it?
R-There must be something on the other side of that wall.
Wait a minute, that shaft from the water wheel is higher up than that isn’t it?
R- We can’t tell until we go into it.
But that’s not been cut off. Look at these bolts here on this side.
R- This stone’s a lot too big really.
Don’t say anything just for a minute. Where the hell’s that gear. It’s going to be the right height for the pinion is that.
(I’m told by people that this wall was the original site of the water wheel)
R - There's been some gears in.
Aye, there's been some gears in.
R - Aye but that's after all this has been altered.
It could have been when the horizontal was in.
R - Could have been then.
This pillar wouldn't be here then.
R - No. There’d be none of this here. Although you can tell it's been an engine house the way it's all been painted. It's been beautiful at one time. Of course these boxes stand with their own weight, these pillars wouldn't have been put under. They'd carry whatever they were put in to carry on their own. (20 min)
R - That's always been there but these haven't and all this new bed it's been for the horizontal engine. You never know what there could have been here Stanley. How about going downstairs for the condenser and air pump if it had one on.
That's one of the problems when you look at something, but I can't weigh this gearing up here.
R - We'll take a look inside now and see what's driving it.
If your pinion off your water wheel's driving this round, what’s this driving onto? There would have to be another shaft for this to drive onto. How's it getting back to this gearing on the end here?
R - Well we don't know until we find some more gear wheels.
Is that one in gear? Let's have a look on the other side. Look, there's been a bevel there.(350) Look at this, look at this...
R - Tie bar.
Tie bar for holding metal. It's beautiful isn't it. I say a little one but it's holding, a fair drive at the end. That's cast iron above it, isn't it?
R - They're all cast iron.
No, but is that a wood floor or is..
R - Let's go along the other side and see what we can find.
It's near to the wheel. Can we go into the wheel?
R - Can we go round here and see what they're coupled to?
Oh God. Me torch is in the car. I want me own because if I'm going down in that pit I want one that I know what it’s going to do. If you go to my car and open the passenger side door and lock it up again after 'cause there's a lot of stuff in there, on the back seat there's a black rubber torch. Yes, it's on the back seat. Could you bring it for me please? We're over the other side of the wall from the engine house now and what we're looking at, it looks very much as though it's been the original bed for the beam engine doesn't it? It looks big enough to be for the entablature.
R - It looks big enough to be for the pillar.
It’d only be about a 15 horse engine. This is definitely nothing to do with any horizontal engine.
R - No, definitely not.
It must be for the old beam engine. I don't see anything else it could be for.
R - Now this is interesting, now there's another one up in this corner. Part of a stone stuck out of a brick wall. With a Roberts bracket still mounted on it. Then in this corner they've evidently bricked it up and made a gearing alley. Like a little gearing alley for the back end of the gears. (400) Horizontal has been put in.
Square bolts up through it and key.
R - Now that's another interesting thing when you start saying 'what will we do today?' for instance. You'd say to a bloke, “Put us a two inch hole through that stone” and he's four foot tall. Pop us a two inch hole through, never mind what they are for. Well there's two at this side and two at that side, three foot and two foot.
Let's go and have a look in that well.
R - Let's go and find somewhere else now.
Newton. We're in the wheelpit now and we're in the North wall and we're looking at the inside. There's a bearing that's nearest to the mill and you've just lifted the cap off it. What's that bearing like?
R - It's in good condition is that shaft. In fact today you wouldn't think it had ever run. It's been looked after. It's a forged shaft with a power hammer of some description, a steam hammer I should think. The ends are staked on with six keys. The arms are getting a bit knotty.
There's been some new ones put in.
R - Aye, some odd ones in't there! It's a marvellously built wheel. All tied together.
Ah there's the shaft, Newton. (22 min) I’m thinking about that one at Quarry Bank, there's no signs that this has been repaired. Those stakes look to me as if they were, as if they'd never been moved.
R – Millwright put them in.
Aye, that was what I was looking at then, now normally..
R - There'd have been a gap. You can't tell but I shouldn't think it's ever been - just shine your light over this other side, Stanley. (450)
There's a gap there.
R - There is a gap. After the keys have been finished it's been all caulked up these heads have been caulked probably with [cast iron]borings. Good idea that really.
Look how thin that stake is at this side.
R- There’s six in each side. Is there five in?
There might be.
R - There's four in. There's only four in. I thought it were funny if there were five, there's four. They've never moved have they?
Oh no, it's been a good job. Thinking about problems that we've seen with some of these wheels, I mean there's no sign of any damage at all in this spoke housing.
R - You know when they built this wheel it was laid down in the yard.
Aye.
R -They build it laid down in't yard afore it come here, engineers yard. Now young Douglas is the best man to contact if there is any more history about it. I think he'll have worked on it as a lad.
You see when I get hold of that, with one hand I can move that wheel. So it's fairly well balanced. We're going down the side of wheel now and Newton's complaining about spokes. Now Newton's just lifting the cap off this oh no!
R - Splendid, not bad at all!
Newton, Newton, Newton.
R - What's to do? Are you fast?
Why is there that hole in't wall, theer?
R - Where?
Theer.
R - Probably to get shaft out.
It's out of line isn't it.
R - Aye, of course it's out of line but it wouldn't matter if they were taking the shaft out.
It wouldn't would it. They could move it about..
R - Now then, I wonder whether he would have room when he come to assemble it or to tighten keys. He put that hole in't wall to swing his hammer.
I'll bet it is and it's just right for tightening keys.(500)
Now then, Newton's having a look. Watch where you’re going here Newton. Newton's having a look at - no that one won't work, Newton's grabbing hold of the microphone to shine a light.
R - I wonder if there's something underneath the bottom.
Be careful Newton.
R -It could be a bucket that's stuck on the penstock, you know all disintegrating. It could be one, have you tried pulling it backwards way?
Yes, but at the moment I can't...
R - Could be - of course the best way of course to see that would be from underneath.
Under the penstock housing.
What’s this bearing like here?
R - Oh it's done for. Pedestal's still here with half a brass in which is all you need.
Newton, what are them bolt holes in the wall? What are them bolt holes theer for?
R- Wheelguard?
Bit of a platform maybe?
R - Maybe, or a wheelguard. Have you seen this wheel with kidney rings on?
Yes, I was looking at that, what is it?
The split wheel with kidney rings shrunk onto the bosses on the joint to reinforce the joint made by the bolts. There are four of them, two at each side of the shaft.
R - They're kidney rings. These lumps are cast onto each half of this wheel and to take strain off the bolts after you put it all together you shrink these rings on. There's four on. (30 min)(550) One on that side, one on that side and same theer but it has been a blinking good job, there's no doubt about that. They'd have trouble with the original pinion. Original pinion would be old castings and then they decided to replace 'em, easy we'll make it split.
Has this pinion been put in at same time as new rings?
R - Could have been. Could have been put in at same time as segments. Wonder what ratio it is.
You could work it out. Well we could come back and do that. So many to the foot, could you work that out?
R - Will it be ten to one or more? Say four foot into forty, that's ten - ten to one. The lineshaft speed were knocking round about the hundred mark for reasonable running. It's been plated has half of this wheel an' all. It's been broken somewhere - aye theer. It's broken. This lot wants all taking out and straightening up.
The plated repair to the gear wheel.
When you come to think about it the only way you can take that out of here is if you take that wheel to bits.
R - You couldn't take that out any other way now. Cut the hooks off and get it out in two halves. You could get, draw the shaft back into theer. You get it out you could turn it round then. You could get it out then Stanley. There's been a lot of repairs done at it hasn't there? All this lot. You see all these segments they're all bedded onto wood. It used to be a bit of a job doing that. For adjusting the pitch and keeping them true. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye with a water wheel. They wouldn't know where to start today.
Well let's just go back to this end here. (600) What do you reckon about ten revs per minute?
Inside the 40ft diameter wheel.
R - I were still working speed out and it were ten to one and it would be ten revs a minute.
That's all you'd want this to do.
R - Well there's another thing comes into water wheels at speed, my father always said that County Brook water wheel ran too fast and they weren't getting the full benefit out of the water and water can only fall at so many feet a minute.
That's it.
R - And if your wheel is going faster than what your water will fall you're losing power.
Look at that pillar down here.
SCG/03 September 2003. 10,428 words.
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 83/LM/02
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON AUGUST 8TH 1983 AND IS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN NEWTON PICKLES AND STANLEY GRAHAM AS THEY WALK THE WATERCOURSES CONNECTED WITH LOTHERSDALE MILL IN LOTHERSDALE VILLAGE ABOVE EARBY IN THE WEST RIDING. WE HAD BEEN ASKED TO ASSESS THE SITE IN CONNECTION WITH A POSSIBLE HERITAGE BID BY THE OWNER JUNE BARROW.
This is the second tape on August 8th. This is Newton Pickles and Stanley Graham at Lothersdale water wheel and we've just been having a hell of a performance with the wheel.
Newton, on the end of the last tape we were talking, we were walking down the other side of the wheel and we were looking at those cast iron guide plates down the side. Now since then, I've been down into the bottom and we were right, there is a complete cast-iron guide... oh God knows what you call it - but it fits right up to the wheel.
R - Well it's an extension of the penstock and it fits right up to the wheel. It would make it more economical as far as water were concerned. It doesn't just run to waste.
That penstock, originally would have some... You could see some of the boarding left on it, it's been boarded down to the top of where the cast iron starts. The cast iron starts at 90 degrees on the wheel. If you're standing looking towards the mill, at 9 o'clock on the wheel, that cast iron starts and it's a beautiful job, it goes right the way down to the bottom to 180 degrees on the wheel almost. As near as I can see, it gets down to within ½ an inch clearance of that wheel. What's jamming the wheel at the moment is that piece of timber has dropped down and lodged in it, it's dropped down into the bottom and something's lifted it up. Whether it's water falling on it or what, but somebody's tried to turn the wheel and it's picked the end of the piece of timber up and it's tried to go back under the guide plate with the bucket going inside the guide plate and the piece of timber going on the outside and it's bent the bucket down.
R - And it's jammed it?
The only way it can be freed now is to turn that wheel until that bucket gets up to that platform next to the little door so that you can knock it back and it is a new bucket. The problem I can see from there is that the wheel's unbalanced and before you can get that bucket up to that platform I think the wheel’s going to set off going round the other way so I think if anybody was doing it, what they'd have to think of doing was having a piece of scaffolding pole or something like that about that they could put it through the wheel.
R - Not necessarily. If I were shifting that I'd have a good look round and see if I could put two blocks up, one at each side. Pull one up and lower the other. It's like stripping a fly-wheel on a mill engine. When you start taking segments out you can get yourself 20 ton out of balance and that's what you had to do. You had to have powerful blocks at each side to lower and lift.
If you put a wooden pole through, it would just knock the wooden spokes out.
R - That's the best way to do it, two pair of blocks. You've full control of it then. Pair of half ton blocks would be quite sufficient.
Reason it's out of balance is most likely because of the fact that a lot of buckets are missing.
R - A lot are missing, a lot are still on. It doesn't take you long to get an odd ton out of balance you know. If that sort of weight starts moving, it takes some stopping.
That wheel wants re-bucketing.
And backing and all
R - Aye, it wants re-bucketing. (50)
(What sort of buckets would you put on?)
R- Well tin ones.
(Would you coat them with anything?)
R - Just paint them. Paint them with bitumen paint.
Down at Quarry Bank they're using some special tin there. It isn't stainless but it looks like ...
R - It's part stainless.
They reckon they're going to use that because it won't corrode. At least it'll corrode very slowly.
R - Like a model boiler I got with some in at Earby and I tried it on a magnet and it still is stainless. Part quantities are stainless.
But anyway, the stuff - because they were talking about using fibreglass at one time but they decided not to use it.
R - But like I say, they were made like they are and look how long they've been in. They'll see our time out and somebody else's besides.
(Those new buckets that have been put on?)
R - They're galvanized. That's okay you see. They'll be all right galvanized.
(Oh I have got all those in the back room ready)
R - Let's have a look at them then.
We're just going to have a look at the buckets now.
Them buckets we've just been looking at in theer what are they like, are they all right?
R - They're excellent, they're all new buckets. Somebody's made them buckets that knew what they were doing. He’s made 'em before for it. They just all want putting on, new bolts and bitumen painting as they're put on. You could just do the edges where you can't get to 'em. Just a daub of paint.
But you're going to have to get to do the wood first.
R - Two inch brush up
Put the wood on first. Paint the wood with bitumen paint. I say, it's going to have new wood put in.
R - Ah well, they can all be painted at same time.
I say, you'll have to do 'em one at a time; you can't take 'em all out.
R - No, no, no!
So you just take one out and put a new one in - wood and bucket. Paint it at same time and keep working round like that.
R - No need to go mad at it. Could put half of 'em on. Put half of them on, stagger them. Could put them on every six or every ten. Keep your wheel running and do 'em when you could.
Good to tell where you are now - we're in't boiler house. There's the flue. (5 min)
R - Here you are, you're into the connies.
Aye, you’ve got connies in all right.
(We might be able to get this open)
It'll break off. It wants tapping with a hammer – here. Here, Newton, look here. Shafting along the wall theer. Hey, is this firebox, hold on, it can't have been. (100) That's been the drive for the connies. That's been the drive for the scrapers on the connies.
R - Scrapers on the connies, course it has.
(I'm going to ask you a very layman question or a child's question 'what makes a chimney smoke?' Okay, a fire)
R- A Fire
(Now this is the boiler house where the fire was. Now explain that because I don't understand how that fire got...)
What you've got here, you're standing in the wrong place. You're standing in the wrong place. You ought to be stood at this end. Look at that, look at that old steam trap. What you had in here - I don't think it was a Lancashire, Newton. I'll bet it was a Cornish.
R - It isn't big enough for a Lancashire. It's been a Cornish boiler.
You've had a Cornish boiler in here. What you've had in here is like a cylindrical boiler about 20feet long with one fire hole in the front. All this floor here is new because all this floor is dug out and underneath you had a fire in the front, no, that's just an inspection pit, it's just for a garage, you had a fire in the front here and it went back through a tube in the boiler. Mr. Pickles is now freeing the connie door. Newton's just opening the connie door. Anyway we know it's a connie because apart from it saying it in the book, it's got Green's of Wakefield on it and there was only two firms made connies and Greens were one of them.
(What was a connie?)
Economiser. An economiser was a nest of cast iron tubes that your flue gas went round and it heated your feed water for your boiler and the reason for having it was, every 11 degrees you raised the temperature of your feed water to your boiler you increased the efficiency of your boiler by 1% so that means every 100 ton of coal you burned, you saved 1 ton. You can raise your water from 60 degrees to 300 degrees probably, so you're saving a hell of a lot of coal. Under this floor here would be flues. Because when your smoke went through your boiler, it went through the boiler, down at the back under the boiler to the front and then split and went up the sides of the boiler and then it either went to the chimney or it went through the economiser. You could suit yourself which way you sent it. Those brackets on the back wall as we're facing the back wall are the drive to the scrapers on the economizer because there were scrapers that kept the tubes clear of soot and er - hang on, Newton's getting mad with this door. He's going to open it. Try shutting it first. Top one’s free.
R - Engine's been a long way from the boiler house, Stanley.
Yes, a long way. Come here where I can hear you. The engine's been right up the other end from the boiler house.
R - Aye, because it's been an addition has this boiler house. There's been another boiler in somewhere at sometime before this.
I think that that one, that other boiler's been somewhere near where that other, that new one is now. Anyway, these economisers, what I said about the connies being capped off is right. I've just had a look on to there and what they've done they've had a little hut over the top of the economizers where all the gear was, scrapers and safety valve and all the rest of it and it was a fair height, it was about six foot higher than it is now because you've got to have room to get in and work on top of the connies. And what they've done, they've taken that top off and just concreted it over the top. When the connies went out of business, because those connies have just wasted away. What they've done instead of putting new connies in, they've just roofed over the top of that to make it smoke tight and just left everything how it was and that's why its full of soot in the bottom because it's been wafting soot into the bottom because that damper's not been shut there. The damper into the chimney bottom is jammed and wants freeing at the top before you can open it. (150) It wouldn't be so bad in the step at bottom but it's in a bearing at top and it's completely rusted up. Bottom of the chimney looks all right. You can see past it and there's not a lot a stuff at bottom. All there is in the bottom is what you'd expect to see. There's no stones so it's in fairly good order inside and it's dry in there. It's dry in there, it's a dry flue and it's all in your favour. (10 min) The flue itself goes away from the bottom of that chimney, the main flue goes away down there. It goes down towards that other...
R - Boiler house.
It looks to me as if that's where the boiler's been, the Cornish boiler. This flue sets off from here and it goes across this back wall and in fact if one of you lads will just go into that old boiler house there and just take notice where you hear thumping on that wall. Just go into that old boiler house and take notice where you hear me knocking. (200)
This is recorded afterwards because we didn't put the tape-recorder back on again. What I did was go back down the flue and have a look down that flue again and when I got to the far end I knocked on the wall so that the lads would know where I'd got to. The flue goes back down, sloping downwards and when I went down into it I thought that the roof of it had fallen in but then I had a bit of a look round, it wasn't that, it was rubble that the builders had thrown in, whoever had demolished it. And the downtake from the back of the boiler is still in and from the look of it I should say it's a Cornish because the size of the downtake isn't really big enough for a Lancashire boiler. If it was it was a very small Lanky. There's definitely been a boiler there in the place where the package boiler is and the back end of it is where the oil storage tank is now. The back wall of the bund to hold the oil if it spills out is only about a foot in front of the original line of the back wall of the downtake. The downtake's still left in. There are some of the cast iron roof plates and the flags are an insulation over the back of the flues at the back of the boiler. Taking it all in all, what Newton and I saw on the Monday when Newton and I were there, you've got a very interesting set-up, you've quite obviously got a range of buildings, different building times. The part of the building where the engine beds are is the - I should say - the oldest end. I think that's where the original wheel's been.
Now that's always been a fair sized wheel there. When I say a fair size, a fair diameter wheel because what you've got there is not a very big flow but certainly a very big head. (15 min) Even when it was just built. The levels must have been just the same when the first goyt was put in to the corn mill. They couldn't be much lower than that because of the shape of the land, you know the depth of the bank on that side where the low dam is. It wouldn't be possible to have a mill race much lower than that. Now that suspension wheel, obviously the wheel that's in there now is a later wheel and I've no doubt is bigger than the original wheel. You've always had quite a big wheel in there. Now one of the things that I should mention that isn't on the tape is that we went looking for the tail race. Now just like Quarry Bank down at Styal, the tail race goes down a long way from the mill. When I say ‘goes back’ I mean it goes downstream away from the mill. I didn't pace it out because I didn't actually see it because I wandered down the beck so far and got fed up and went back up and went right underneath the mill. June and Newton went further down and actually found it and it's about 250 - 300 yards from the mill. So it's been a long tail race and quite evidently when they've put that wheel in, that 40' wheel, they've gone down and they've taken that tail race, that wheel pit bottom, down lower than the level of the beck to get more power out of that wheel. (250) Exactly the same as they've done at Quarry Bank - exactly the same. Again in common with Quarry Bank you've got the engine in, there's been a beam engine in there which as we were saying which looks from the Wilson's history as though it was a Roberts engine. I've no reason to doubt that, and certainly it would be quite feasible because Roberts were making engines down in Nelson about that time. Then you've got the transition from the beam engine helping the water wheel to a horizontal engine. I don't know whether the horizontal engine was helping the water wheel or whether the horizontal was just running the mill on its own. On the whole, I should think that it was running in tandem with the wheel at one time.
Now Newton and I were trying to puzzle something out while we were down there. If you think back while we were talking on this tape. We were trying to puzzle that gearing out because the gearing was all wrong. There was something very peculiar about that gearing. It obviously wants a lot more investigation but what I think you've got there is the very large gear that comes out of the wall inside the house, alongside the wheelpit where the horizontal engine was. (300)
I think that is the original wheel connecting the beam engine to the water wheel and the gearing was going straight through from the pinion shaft, straight down into the mill. That's why that engine was mounted further upstream in relation to the beck than the horizontal engine was. They wanted to keep the engine out of the way of the line of that shaft. I'm fairly certain that if we did a really thorough investigation there and measured up where those mounting bolts are and everything in the floor, we’d find out that that beam engine was mounted on the upstream side of the lineshaft onto that large gear wheel which is mounted on the pinion shaft coming from the wheel and ran in tandem with the wheel. Now Newton says, because Newton was telling me going down the road (Newton agrees with me about that - we were puzzling it out going home) and Newton says that very often they didn't bother taking the engine out of gear but left it in gear with the wheel because then it acted as a governor on the wheel. So that as the wheel slowed down, the engine put power into it and as the wheel speeded up the engine shut down and acted as a brake on the wheel, in other words it regulated the wheel. Now that's very important if you're driving a textile factory because the nearer you can keep your speed to the optimum speed, the better your production.
So what we've got, we've got the water wheel and we've got the gearing that went with the old engine, the beam engine, still on that shaft, and it will be interesting to have a very close look at that gear and put some dates on it. If it's the same age as the gear at the back, the pinion, well it will be the same age as that. (350) We'll probably be able to date the original wheel and ensure that that date in Wilson's book's right because of the construction of those pinions. Then you've got another set of gearing there that's set up which are straight cut gears on a more modern pinion and it looks to Newton and me as though that is the second motion gearing that came off the horizontal engine that was in there. (20 min)
And then when the horizontal engine's been done away with, that's just been left in there and the shaft's been cut off because they'd go onto electric drives. They'd do away with the shafting all together. The interesting thing is, you've got the whole progression in the engineering side of the place, in the prime mover side of the place. There must certainly have been a water wheel in there before the large suspension wheel that's in now. Then you've got - we're not certain about whether there was a beam engine in with the original water wheel. You've certainly had a completely new wheel put in and then you've had a horizontal engine put in and you've gone onto electric drive so apart from the turbine, it's a pity that there hasn't been a turbine in at some time, but that is the obvious thing to do there is to put a turbine in that pit. Apart from the turbine which you haven't got, you've got every step in the progression of power that was ever used in a mill in this part of the country present at Lothersdale. The building's just as exciting. The piece of wall that's been knocked down just out of the weaving shed into what was originally the outside wall of the old building shows this quite clearly, that the outside wall that was there and the door that goes into the boiler house, you’ve got the outside wall there of the original building that was put up or that was in place there before the new weaving shed was put on. Now it all wants researching and it wants dates putting on all of these things. (400)
I should think that there's enough evidence there for us to be able to confirm any dates that we can get from the documents and get a full picture of the building of that mill. As I say, I went up through the beck right underneath the mill and it's all in very good condition under there. There wouldn't appear to be any problems whatsoever under the mill. It's stone-arch construction all the way. There's an opening on the left hand side as you're going in - oh about 25 yard in, which I suspect is the outlet of the bywash or overflow at the headpond at the end of the launder. They'd have to put one in there, in fact I think you're walking over the top of it when you're - if you remember when Newton and I were walking down the side of the goyt and we got to the head pond and I said to him we are walking over a spill way here. Because it was all grown over but there was something there and they'd have to have one. If you got a surge down there and you could get a surge when you shut the water off for the wheel when the water's all flowing down. The momentum of the water flowing down the race piles it up at that end. It's not serious but it would run over and could do nothing but damage either to the banking or if you got any quantity going over, down into the buildings themselves. (25 min)
So I rather think that that hole that's down there will be the outlet for that spill way and the head pond. The whole exercise I think of going up there with Newton was quite successful. What we've come up with is the fact that there's certainly enough water coming out through the high dam and spilling away through the beck to run that wheel for any purposes that's needed to run it for. (450)
There wouldn't seem to be any insuperable problem apart from finance in getting that water from the high dam to the low dam. I'm sure that the best way to do it is to put a pipe from a small catchment at the top end of the high dam following the beck right the way down to the bridge, under the road through the bridge and then climbing up the wall and over into the low dam.
Before that's done, rather than just take hearsay from people, it might be a good idea to make sure that the water course from the high dam to the low dam was cut in the thirties when they put that sewer in. It would be a good idea to get onto the County and see if they have any plans of what actually went on there because if it were possible to put a pipe through from the high dam underneath the road and then down the side of the road into the low dam that would be a cheaper way of doing it than going down the side of the beck because you need a lot less pipe. Also because of the levels involved there’d be a lot less pressure on the pipe because you wouldn't have thirty foot head on it at the far end and where it came from under the bridge and climbed up the wall to go into the dam. It’d need over the years a lot less maintenance and would need to be a lot less heavy pipe when it was put in. (500)
If we're talking about doing that, we're not talking about using the high dam as a reservoir, what we're talking about is a shorter route for the pipe to get to the low dam because it could come out through the wall of the dam, possibly even through the pipe that’s there but it would be interesting to dig down to that outlet on the high dam. Either rod it or shine a light up it or whatever but find out if there is a blockage in that pipe. If you could get through there that’d be a marvellous way of getting water through to the low dam. Once you got it to the low dam, no problem. That's very easily cleaned out. It actually wouldn't even need cleaning out if you were just going to use the flow to turn the wheel as opposed to taking a lot of power out of it because you wouldn't need any big supply of water in there. It would be better if it was cleaned out but there's certainly no need to do. If you get a flow of water going through it that’d be all right, that’d be enough to spin your wheel. And then the goyt wants cleaning out and that head pond and all that gearing made right. The sluice gate out of the low dam in the goyt wants a worm and pinion putting on it, it all wants digging out and cleaning out and making sure that it works and the sluice on the launder. (30 min)
The sluice gate on the launder, all that wants going over to make sure it's in good order and then the launder itself, I don't think needs a lot doing to it.
Really you're into - there doesn't look to be a lot wrong with the end of the launder where the vanes are. Now once you get to the wheel, you want to make sure that spill way, the top of that spill way on the head pond looks as if it's fallen in. That wants putting right. These are all fairly simple things. The big job is the wheel. (550)
Now as Newton pointed out the other day, the first job to be done to the wheel is to get the wood chocks into the pedestal bearing to make sure that that it can't move. That's not a big job, it wants the casting cleaning out first and then some chocks making to fit and then wedging in. What we're talking about then is the renovation of the wheel. I don't like the way that a few new spokes have been put in the wheel and others haven't and my recommendation would be that that wheel isn't used until all the spokes in that wheel are renewed. That isn't really a big or a skilful job. Once the spokes have been made it’s a fairly simple job. Take all the old ones out one at a time and put new ones in. That really wants doing first. Now while that's being done the wheel's got to be turned to get at the spokes.
The way to turn the wheel is if necessary insert two girders in the wall, put them cross-ways in the wall across the pit at the right point to be able to hang off two - they want to be at least five ton blocks, and turn the wheel with those five ton blocks by slacking one out and pulling the other in. Nobody should attempt to turn the wheel backwards, the wheel should be turned in the direction which it would have turned if the water was running into it. The reason for this is that one of the buckets is fouling the cast iron guide way underneath the launder and if you put any pressure on it to turn that backwards it's possible that you could break that guide way. That would be a tragedy because that's in beautiful condition. So the wheel has got to be turned forwards. That is the way it would have rotated if water had been falling into the buckets. In other words when you're going through the small door into the wheel chamber from the mill, the buckets should be rising in front of you and not going down. That's very important. Once the spokes have been done it’s really a very simple job. Careful measurement will show what the size is. It wants enough pieces of timber cutting to go into the bottom of the wheel of the right size and they really do want to be of the right size because they are the members which hold that wheel, which maintain the shape of that wheel. (600)
I don't know but I have an idea that every now and again there's a cast iron plate in there, a cast iron plate or a steel plate across. These act as a spacer but the timber acts as, the timber is largely the main structural member in that wheel on the rim that's holding it the right distance apart and hence holding the gearing true. Those all want replacing but you don't try and replace them all at once, you don't try and take them all out at once and then put new ones in.
What you do is put one new one and one bucket in, one new one and one bucket and work round the wheel and do it slowly right the way round. It’s a long job because God knows how many buckets are on it. Did we say 153? I've forgotten. It's a long job but that's the only way to do it. Whilst it's being done all the cast iron work, the wood and the buckets themselves should be done with really good bitumen paint. And that wheel will get very badly out of balance while that's being done of course because you're adding weight at one side and you're not adding any at the other because the new wood and buckets will be heavier that the old rotten wood, the rusty bits left in. Once you've done that and you've gone right round, your wheel is in good nick. There's no need to worry about it. Those tin buckets are quite adequate. No problem at all. They're quite adequate, as Newton said - that was what they used in the first place so why worry? (650) He's quite right, there is no worry. That's what the old fellows used that made the wheel. As for putting these cast iron buckets on that the engineer said. Forget it! God knows who it was that said that but he should never be let anywhere near a water wheel. If you fitted cast iron buckets round the exterior of that water wheel and ran it it’d collapse inside three months - it couldn't stand it. It’d be adding fifteen to twenty tons to the weight of that wheel. We're talking about a very lightly built suspension wheel that's built like a bicycle wheel and it relied on design, not massive construction, to hold it together. The idea of putting cast iron buckets on just makes me cringe. Really that's as far as we want to go you know as far as the power train is concerned. There is of course the question of the tail race. It would be a good idea before we go any further to find out whether water does get away down that tail race. Now there is some talk about it being collapsed in one place. That might be a serious thing if you were trying to run it under power but its not necessarily so serious if you're just trying to run it for demonstration purposes because there won't be that weight of water going down the tail race. It’d be a good idea to get the goyt cleaned out, get some water in the low dam by shutting it off and open it up and letting that water run through there if possible. If necessary diverting it past the wheel because you don't want that wheel to turn actually because you don't want it to turn until you've got that bucket right. Find out if that water will run away. If it'll run away - all well and good. As long as that wheel isn't wallowing at the bottom all well and good, no problem. There are no major technical problems with that wheel. What there is is a lot of expense but there are no major technical problems.
There is one major recommendation which I'd like to make, and I'm sure that Newton would agree with me. He's not with me at the moment obviously because this is later. It is that when there is any question or any discussion about what methods should be used to do any part of the work on that wheel like replacing buckets or the wood and lining up the gearing and anything like that, in every case my recommendation and Newton's as well would be that the same methods that the old millwrights used be followed. (750)
Now, there are two reasons for that. The first reason is for authenticity, it's important that we should put things how they were in say 1930 with that wheel when it last worked. The other reason is of course is that those mill wrights that did those jobs on that wheel knew what they were doing and we must have confidence in them. They knew what were the best materials to use, the cheapest, the most durable material.
All right there are different materials nowadays to that there were then, the old engineers if they were alive today might have used different materials but we're dealing with an artefact that was made of cast iron and was built according to the engineering knowledge of the time so for authenticity lets go for those methods now. Also as a matter of getting it right. If you like we've got a text book there in that wheel that tells us if we do certain things we will be all right. Like using those buckets that you've got, those tin buckets instead of cast iron or fibre glass or any modern material. All right we know they're going to go rusty but they're going to last us out and there's nothing wrong with re-bucketing the wheel again at some time. The same with the spokes. Let's get as near to what they used as possible. Actually, I don't think we can get what they used. I don't know what the new ones are but originally they'd used Memel pine, Baltic pine. It'll still be possible to get it but it'll be expensive in lengths like that. It's worth going for. Use the same materials that the old millwrights used and the same methods. (40 mins)
We wouldn't go so far wrong and we'll have it authentic. We're very lucky in that we've got people like Newton. We've got firms like Varleys at Skipton that can still make anything that you need for that wheel and for the gearing on the sluice gates, things like that. They'd only be too pleased to do something like that because as Newton said they were probably the people who did the last contract on it anyway. In any research that's got to be done on the wheel, that's one of the first things that's got to be done, we've got to go to Varleys and talk to Douglas and find out if they've got any records of the work they did on it. (750) Knowing a firm like Varleys, they've probably still got it there in the books. So that's really the major recommendation. let's go with what we've got and use the same methods the old mill wrights would have used.
We're very lucky because it looks as though the gearing is in very good condition. We might find that there are problems when we start turning it over and running it with it in gear. You know, like bolts being eaten up and rusted. We might start getting segment rings coming loose or something like that. We've got to accept that but if they do, do something about it. Do what the old mill wrights would have done. Use the same methods, as Newton was saying, pack down on wood. Newton knows how to do it and Varleys will still know how to do it down at Skipton. (800)
So I'll finish this tape here. It's all been very worthwhile I think and I hope that whoever listens to this tape and has any decisions to make about that wheel gets something out of it. There's certainly a lot more investigation to be done down there but it's a very interesting plant that's had a lot of money and care spent on it and a lot of thought's gone into the design of it. It would certainly be a great shame if that was lost. It's not really too highly assessed to say that that wheel's a National asset.
I think that when a proper plan is drawn up we should go back to the Dof E and to the Science Museum with that attitude and point out to them that this is something we've got to pull some stops out and by that I mean, I think there's a very good case with that wheel, especially when all the history of it's worked out, when they can show their method of progression from one prime mover to the other, there's a very good case for putting that wheel back just how it was in say 1930 or even earlier. In fact I could see a very good case for putting an engine in. Not necessarily to run but to show how it was all coupled up together.
Thank you very much.
Lothersdale Mill.
This cotton mill was built on the site of an earlier corn mill in 1792. The firm which build and ran the mill, Chippendale, Parker & Co. had the following partners: Thomas Parker Thomas Chippendale, Skipton, Dr Wigglesworth, Cononley, Edmund Spencer, Cononley, Richard Croasdill, Marton Scar. They insured their property for amounts in 1793:
Cotton mill including water wheel £700
Machinery £500
Stock £300
In 1795 the total insured value was reduced to £1,000. The partnership was dissolved in June 1798 and Thomas Parker was able to buy some of his partner's shares. Parker married Dr Wigglesworth's niece and their daughter married a John Wilson from Scotland who took control of the mill and later, in 1835 changed over to worsted spinning. Part of the mill is still used for textile purposes and, although added to over the years, retains many of the features of an early mill complex.
[Extract from Yorkshire Cotton by George Ingle. Carnegie Publishing. 1997.]
SCG/03 September 2003
6,695 words.
