TAPE 82/HD/01
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 20th of JULY 1982 AT BANKS HILL, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS HAROLD DUXBURY AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Harold Duxbury in 1982.
[Harold Duxbury was a building contractor, owner of Briggs and Duxbury in Barnoldswick. Apart from his general knowledge of the town and how it functioned Harold was closely associated with many of the mills and in particular the Calf Hall Shed Company.]
R- I'm 82 this week, on Saturday.
And where were you born, Harold?
R - I was born in Wellhouse Square, Barnoldswick.
Ah, just by the mill there.
R - No, off Twenty Row. [Built as accommodation for workers at Bracewell's Wellhouse Mill, hence the name.]
Oh yes, I'm thinking of ... I'm sorry I always think, when somebody mentions Wellhouse Square, I don't know why but I always think of that square of houses. Yes, that's it, off Bank Street.
R - Yes, well it's the end of Bank Street, it's the end of Wellhouse Street.
That's right, it's me, I'm getting mixed up. Now, how many years did you live in the house you were born in?
R - Well, I was carried in the arms down to Carr’s House, Full Syke, down here on the right so I would probably be about six months old then, but I couldn't walk.
Carr House
So you only lived at Wellhouse Square for six months.
R - For six months, yes.
And then, you and your family moved down to Carr’s House?
R - Yes.
And how long did you live at Carr’s House?
R – ‘Til I was nearly 9.
Well, the questions I'm going to ask you about the house you can remember most about will obviously be Carr’s House. Do you know why your family made that move?
R - Well, this house became vacant and my grandfather lived at and farmed Crook Carr Farm. That's just across there and so my father was interested in his own neighbourhood and in that house. Therefore, I think there was about seven acres I would say to the house which my Uncle Oliver farmed. He took on the farm buildings and we, our family, lived in the house.
And where was your father born?
R- At Earby.
Do you know exactly where?
R- No.
Why did he come to Barlick then?
R - Well, my grandfather Duxbury was an overlooker in the mill at Earby and he fancied farming so they went, took a farm at Paythorne, Higher House Farm. They were there, not a very long time and then they moved to "England's Head" farm. (5 min)
Aye, now where's that?
R - That's at Paythorne and there's a footpath that goes through the farmyard and you can go on this footpath from Paythorne pub right through the farmyard at England's Head and come out at the stepping stones at Nappa across the stepping stones in the Ribble. You've seen them I presume. The family went to school at Paythorne and the school in those days was the old Toll Bar which still stands at the top of the hill leading down to Paythorne Bridge and that used to be the day school.
The Toll bar at Paythorne road end near Demesne on the Long Preston road out of Gisburn.
When you say 'the family' that’d be your father’s.
R- My father's family, yes. All the sons and daughters. You see, to give you a short history of the family, from England’s Head Farm they came to Crook Carr Farm which is just here which is quite a good farm. I should give you a few more details about Paythorne I think. I know it's going back. You see there was very few shoes and that kind of thing in those days. They were all clogs. They used to have to walk from England's Head to Barnoldswick to get their clogs wrung [ironed]. They went to, as it were, Greenwood Hartley on Jepp Hill. They had a little shop there. I don't think you'll remember it but I do. I remember Greenwood Hartley being there and he was a clogger. They used to bring their clogs there to be re-wrung. I suppose one of the lads would bring the lot but they'd to walk it, it was the only way. In those days my grandfather was a Methodist local preacher and I believe he was quite a good preacher.
What was your grandfather's name?
R - John.
John Duxbury.
R- And my grandmother's name was Brown. You know Willie Brown of Henry Brown Sons and Pickles? His father and my grandmother were brother and sister. Willie Brown and my father were full cousins. (50)
Now, your grandfather went out to Paythorne from Earby then, so he'd met his wife in Earby.
R - Yes.
Aye, that's it, yes because the Browns, they were in Earby too.
R - That's it. Now then, going back again, I don't think I need to say much more about Paythorne. My mother's side, if you want to know anything about my mother's side. My mother was called Gill. She'd several brothers and sisters all in Barnoldswick.
What was her Christian name?
R- Sarah. My grandmother Duxbury’s name was Sarah too. (10 min)
But anyhow, they came from Greenhow Hill which is near Pately Bridge. There was a big family of them and my grandfather used to own the lead mines at Greenhow Hill. He was bondsman for somebody, was my grandfather and they let him down and he paid up, paid every penny and came to Barnoldswick with nothing.
Have you any idea of when that would be roughly?
R - As near as I can tell you, Jubilee Year, 1887.
So he came from Greenhow down to Barnoldswick in 1887. He’d be .... When you say “your grandfather”, you mean your grandfather Gill.
[I have come across several references to Moses Gill being coachman for William Bracewell at Newfield Edge. Now Harold made two statements that bear on this; he said that his mother Sarah was ten years old when she came to Barlick and started work in New Mill as a throstle doffer but he also said that the family came to Barlick in 1887. We know that the family was in Greenhow Hill in 1881 because of the census record. Sarah was ten in 1882 and William Bracewell (Billycock) died on the 13th March 1885. Harold also said that he had an idea that Moses got the job at Newfield Edge because of the Methodist connection, he was a local preacher and Billycock was a strong Methodist. So, on balance, I think that Harold was wrong with his date and it was actually 1882 or shortly thereafter.]
R - My grandfather Gill
So he came down here and brought his family here. Presumably looking for work?
R - There was work here to be got, you see. The sons were experienced miners. So there was only one of the family, my eldest uncle, John, he went to a little place called Brotton which is near Saltburn, Redcar. There were iron ore mines at Skinningrove and he worked in the mines there and got married there and married a lady from Staithes and they had a big family. Gills all over the place, thirteen sons and one daughter and the daughter died and the other sons, well there's an abundance of Gills in that district. He was a big man, six foot odd and as straight as a rush when he was an old man. He used to come over and we used to look forward to Uncle John coming over and of course, we still keep in touch with the family. Occasionally we've gone over there and they've been over here.
So your mother was born in Earby?
R - No. My mother was born at Greenhow Hill.
She was born at Greenhow Hill, that's it I was thinking of Brown. That was your..
R- My grandmother.
Well, she was born at Greenhow Hill and she came down here and presumably she'd meet your father in Barnoldswick.
R - That's right. My grandfather went working at Newfield Edge. Slaters. [Joe Slater rented the house after Bracewell died and in fact married one of his daughters.]
Now do you mean the house at the bottom of Folly or do you mean far Newfield Edge up at the top?
R - I mean the house at the bottom of Folly.
Newfield Edge in about 1910. The farm buildings were behind and to the right.
That Slater built? [Mitchell built it in 1772 actually]
R - That's right. And he went working there and he worked there for forty years and never had a day off.
So what was his job there, Harold?
R- Everything.
Everything?
R - Yes, general factotum, bit of farming, milk hawking. He used to have a kit and he carried the kit on his back strapped on and they hooked it off. (100)
I've always thought of Newfield Edge as simply a mill owner's house but I take it there was some farm land with it as well.
R - Oh yes! There was farm land. There's farm buildings with it today. (11 min)
Yes, there is a cottage at the back and some buildings. Yes, that's interesting. When Slater came to Barlick and took that, well he came to Barlick and Slater had a mill at Galgate at Lancaster and he bought Mitchell's mill.
R - Wait a minute, you're talking about Billycock.
No, no, Slater - was it William Slater the first one. I've forgotten whether it was William Slater or John Slater but anyway he had the mill at Galgate and he bought Clough Mill [Mitchell’s Mill] in 1867 for £3,000 and that, as far as I know is when he came to the town. That's the first record I have of him coming into the town. whether he was a Barlicker before that, I don't know. He was certainly running the mill at Galgate because I got that from the Craven Bank records.
R - Yes, but I'm not sure on the ground here, that Fred Harry Slater who lived at Carr Beck, he owned Clough Mill. Now then, Joe Slater who owned, who was partial owner shall we say, with Fred Harry Slater, owned Clough Mill together. So they could be brothers but I'm not just sure. He lived at Carr Beck here and Joe Slater lived at Newfield Edge.
I wonder if William was their father, William Slater?
R - I don't know.
That's something that'll come out as I'm looking at other things. Your grandfather was working at Newfield Edge.
R - Yes. You see, I'm just inclined to think, I don't know, that there might be something just a bit with this William. You see it was William Bracewell, Old Billycock and he built the Methodist Chapel and he was, he lived at...
He lived at Newfield Edge?
R - He lived at Newfield Edge and he was the father of the Bracewell who was the vicar at Barnoldswick. He finished up his career here and his daughter... Old Billycock's daughter, Bracewell, married Joe Slater. They lived at Newfield Edge and so did Billycock before so Slater stepped in to Newfield Edge. Slater wouldn’t build it, Billycock might have built it. Bracewell's daughter was Mrs Joe Slater. (20 min) Now, she lived to be a big age and lived up there on her own and she had one daughter, Hilda Mary. Joe Slater was the father, Hilda Mary Slater. Mrs Slater, the old lady, Billycock's daughter, she used to get on to the telephone to my mother. It'd be two or three times a week and it'd be at least an hour. That was the only way that she could contact people and that was her means of communication with the outside world. Of course with my grandfather working there so long, she'd known my mother literally speaking all her life. My mother, when they came to Barnoldswick worked as a throstle spinner at New Mill. (150) Wellhouse Mill these days. Well it was Wellhouse Mill then I suppose but anyway, I suppose she… They all grew up, the daughters and sons and got married and raised their families. Peter Gill here is the grandson of my Uncle David and he was the next to the oldest of the Gills. John was the eldest then David and Peter is the grandson of David. There was Norman Gill, Val Gill and Morris Gill, Fred Gill and all these. They're in various parts of the country. Peter's probably the only grandson that is here in Barlick. Peter has the family Bible because I gave it to him, well I got it for him. He'll be able to help you a bit probably. Anyhow, I think I've said enough about the Gills.
Can I get a date down, how old was your mother when she died?
R - 86.
What year did she die, can you remember? What I'm trying to nail down is what year she was born.
R - Oh, I can get to know that for you. It's all recorded in the family Bible.
Oh, very good! Can you tell me, just for our conversation now, can you tell me roughly when did she die?
R - She died in 59 or 60.[1958 actually. Harold remembers it later]
(25 min)
So if it was 60 that would mean that she was born in 1833 or 4, something like that.
R - Yes.
1873 or 4, rather.
R - Something like that yes. Resulting in she wouldn't be working when she came to Barlick. I should think she'd be just about ready for working when she came to Barlick.
That’d make her about ten or eleven years old when she came to Barlick and that’d be about working age then. Good that's nice to nail that down, Harold. How many brothers and sisters did you have?
R - I had three brothers, that's four boys and three sisters.
There were seven children in the family?
R - That's right, yes.
Were there any children born that didn't survive?
R - Cecil who was next youngest to me died just before he was five years old. Not that he wasn't a strong, healthy lad, he was but you know, living down here. I mean our playground was the fields and the beck and quite a common thing was for us to go beck-jumping and falling in. They said it was croup and ulcerated throat but the doctors told us these days it would be diphtheria. Anyway, he died and he was a tartar! Held have been 80 just gone, March, just gone this 24th March.
So you'd be jumping over the becks down here and that would be just shortly after 1900.
R - That's right, I was born in 1900.
Can you remember when you were young and you were living at Carr’s House, were there any relations ever lived in the house with you?
R - No. (200)
You lived there on your own. Did your family ever have any lodgers?
No.
Your father's job. What was your father's job when you were born?
R - He was a joiner.
Did he become a joiner when he came back to the town? You know, when he was farming down here or was he a joiner and a farmer at the same time?
R - No, he didn't do any farming, did my father. He served his time at Earby with Dodgson’s. [Alfred Dodgson, ironmonger of 4 Victoria Road and Blacksmith of Lane Ends {Barrett 1902}] He was a joiner cum wheelwright cum, everything. That's where he served his time and then he came working for Proctor Barrett. He left there and went to Waite and Lamberts in York Street. He walked from here up there. I don't think he would be a long time at Proctor Barrett’s. Both him and Jack Briggs worked at Waite and Lamberts. From there [Carr House] we went to Bracewell School which is now the institute opposite the church. The teacher was a Mrs Watson and she lived in the top house at Park Road. On the long row, the little small houses. They called her husband Walter Watson. (30 min) And she walked from there down to Bracewell. She could walk! She couldn't half leg it! She did it for years and there was one class from bottom to top.
What ages would that be?
R - From five to thirteen.
How many were there at that school, roughly, any idea?
R - Somewhere between thirty and forty.
She looked after the lot?
R- She looked after the lot.
Can you ever remember when you were at school were there any school meals?
R- Oh no!
Was anybody ever given a free meal?
R- No.
We'll come back to that later because that's one of the interesting things. I'm jumping the gun now but we'll come on to that later. Your father, did he have any other job before he died?
R - Well, he was always in the building trade. They were joiners and builders and undertakers.
That's something that we've got to make clear, we've come to that now is that Jack Briggs and your father founded the firm of Briggs and Duxbury’s. Can you tell me about that?
R - Yes. it was on the Croft. Do you remember it being on there?
No.
R - Do you remember Jack Martin being on there?
Yes.
R - On the right hand side?
Yes.
R - Well a bit further along on the left. This place that’s just been burned down a couple of years ago. That were our joiner's shop. The business was taken over, Briggs and Duxbury's took on the business of William Holdsworth or Will Holdsworth. He retired and they took on the business in 1909, March because I was only eight. And of course then we moved into the house right opposite the joiners shop that Will Holdsworth had. There was a little furniture shop as well with the house, you see and we kept that on and the undertaking, he did undertaking as well, you see. (250) And of course, he started with the undertaking right then, you see, right in the very beginning. And in those days, there was literally speaking, no mechanised machinery. The only thing that we had in those days was a circular saw that was geared and you had to wind the handle at the side like a wringing machine. We as kids, we had to wind this handle for them to cut the wood. As to how long they had that, I just don't know. Then we got a gas engine and we had it down below.
The empty site on the end where the wooden hut is was where Briggs and Duxbury originally operated from.
And this was on the Croft?
R - Yes.
Can you remember what year that would be about?
R - Well I should say about 1911 that we got a gas engine. Of course it was water cooled and all that kind of thing, you know. We used to have to heat it up and there was a kind of - not a Bunsen burner - but a long tool. You had to light it and that were the first job in a morning.
Can you remember what sort of engine it was?
R - I think it was a Crossley. (35 min)
A similar Crossley gas engine. This was at Empress Sawmills at Kelbrook.
Then we got a planing machine and a mortice machine and then we got a spindle moulder. Literally speaking, that's all we had for donkey's years.
When did the firm move from the Croft to down where they are now?
R- Down where they are now? 1936.
So they were on the Croft for a long time!
R - Oh yes, yes.
The name of that road, down by the side of Butts Mill there?
R - Well, it's just Butts.
Aye, Butts. I suppose that's why I can't remember the name of it. So your father would still be alive when you moved from there?
R - Oh yes.
Did he build that works purposely there? Did he build that works?
R- What, where we are now? No, it was a lodging house, model lodging house. There was two lodging houses, one that's a garage now, just at the bottom of Butts, you know and then there was this, and Bill Taylor built it.
The Model Lodging house in butts in about 1920.
This is the other lodging house which is now the Model Garage.
Built the lodging house?
R - Yes, where we are.
Now, can you tell me about the lodging house and about Bill Taylor? (300)
R – He’d been brought up in the building trade and he had a brother, Harry Taylor. They both built but Harry Taylor went to London but they built quite a few houses. They built Hollins Road. They built most of them up Taylor Street did Bill Taylor. He has a son living and two daughters living. Do you know Jack Starkie?
Yes.
R- Well, Jack Starkie's wife is Bill Taylor's daughter. She lives in Hollins Road.
So he built both those lodging houses?
R - No, no.
He built the big one that you're in?
R - Yes, the one that we're in. I'm just trying to remember who built the other but that doesn't concern us so much does it?
No, no, that's all right. When would that lodging house be built about, any idea?
R - I should look at deeds to give you ...
I was just wondering if you had a rough idea.
R - I'm not sure but I think it were built before the war. Oh yes, I should think it would be about 1911.
Why were the model lodging houses built?
R- Well!, there was so much cotton industry in those days and there was always work for weavers. These fellows that were on the road could weave and that kind of thing. They used to come and lodge there, you see. They could keep themselves. There were a common stove and that kind of thing and they'd cook for themselves and they used to go and stand at six o'clock in the morning at the various mills and if there was anybody didn't turn up at say by five past six one of these 'tramp weavers' would get put on. They called them 'tramp weavers'.
It nearly seems that if that model lodging house was up for sale in 1936 when your father bought it that there might have been less call for a model lodging house than there had been earlier. Do you think the numbers of 'tramp weavers' were dropping off?
R - Oh definitely. Yes. There wasn't room for two.
There wasn't enough trade to keep two lodging houses going?
R - No. I would say that the peak of the cotton industry were over.
Would you say that it wasn't so much that there weren't the people, the 'tramp weavers' still looking for work, it was that there wasn't the work there for them in the town?
R - That's right and of course, by this time, Social Security and that kind of thing were entering the pattern of life. They were state aided and they weren't depending on just what they could earn.
That's very interesting that Harold. When did your father die?
R - Now then, my mother died in 1958.
Ah well, you were only a year out.
R- My father died in 1954.
Ah, four years before. He were 82 when he died?
R - That's right and my mother were 86. Now then, she was ten years old when she came to Barlick. Now, I said Jubilee Year didn't I?
Yes.
R - I'm wrong . Jubilee Year was 1887.
Was it 87 or 90?
R - No, so it's going to be so she were fifty..
1958 she died and she was 86 so that's fifty eight from eighty six. So that's 1872, she was born. She must have been born in 1872 so..
R - No, no, you're wrong.
Fifty eight from eighty two - from eighty six rather is twenty eight. So twenty eight from a hundred is seventy two.
R - Yes.
And if she was ten years old when she came to Barlick they must have come in 1882. [This fits in with his being at Newfield Edge before William Bracewell died in 1885.]
R - She was ten years old when she came to Barlick.
Yes, so if she was born in 1872 which she must have been, that made it 1882 when they come to Barlick.
R -Our Wilfred were born in 1898.
And who was Wilfred?
R- My elder brother.
Your eldest brother, he was born in?
R - 1898.
Yes, well she'd be 26 years old then. Your mother would be 26 years old.
R - Yes, that sounds somewhere about right doesn't it?
So it's working out. Dates always are difficult and the thing about dates is, it's nice if you get some that are exact but .... (45 min)
R - Well it's going to be 1882 when they came to Barlick isn't it?
Yes, which is going back a long way. No, that's near enough. That's it. Now we were just talking about the model lodging houses. So Jack Briggs would still be a partner then?
R- Oh yes, yes.
So they moved into the works down on butts in 1936?
R Yes.
How long did Jack remain a partner?
R - Until he died.
When was that?
R- I can get that. I can give you the exact dates of that at a later date.
The last thing I want to do is worry you about dates because...
R - Well, it's only a matter of looking up in the funeral ledgers.
That's all right.
R - I would say it would be about 1950, I don't know.
Your mother worked originally as a throstle doffer at New Mill.
R - A throstle spinner.
A throstle spinner, yes. How long did she work, do you know?
R - Oh I don't know. You see, she'd be ten and she'd probably be married about 1895. I'd say she must have worked into the teens of years. I know they used to work in their bare feet.
As far as you know, did she work outside of the home once she'd got married?
(400)
R - Well, I wouldn't think so, you see, because she might have worked a few months after, I don't know.
Did any of your brothers and sisters leave Barlick? The thing I'm interested in is if any of your brothers and sisters left Barnoldswick at any time to go somewhere else to look for work or anything like that.
R - Oh no, not looking for work but before that period was the war, the First World War. Wilfred, as it was quite a common thing for these young lads, big strapping lads to give a wrong age and join the forces.
Of course, he’d only be 16 in 1914.
R - He were brought back out of France when he were 15, were our Wilfred. He joined in 1914 and we were weaving in those days at Bradley’s. They went off at breakfast time with two or three of them but I tell you he were brought back out of France. He was in the Scottish Rifles then and he was brought home because of his age. He were brought out of France before he was 16.
They found out....
R - My father wrote. He didn't mind him being in the forces but he didn't like the idea of him being shot at because he was a young devil!
When you say he was working at Bradley’s, where were Bradley’s weaving then?
R - Bankfield where Rolls Royce is.
Bankfield, that's it, yes. Yes, because they started that shed in 1905 the first shed.
R - Yes
Can you remember about the First World War starting? (50 min)
R - I can remember vividly the First World War starting.
Tell me about that Harold.
R - Well you see, there was panic everywhere and in those days you used to get 20lb bags of flour. Big white bags and 20lb in them. The first thing we had to do was to go down to the corn mill and get as much flour as we could with the trucks, you see. They didn't bake 3lb of bread then, I suppose it would be 20lb, I don't know. There used to be these big enamel dishes, yellow ones. Anyhow, the first really vivid… I was fourteen when the war started. Was I fourteen? Yes, I said fifteen didn't I. He [Wilfred] was going to be sixteen. Anyway, I was fourteen and Wilfred was two years older than me and the first real shock we had in Barlick was when the Rohilla went down. I was working then as a weaver at Bradley’s and there were a lot of Bradley's weavers that was on that ship that was lost. Of course I wove there until I was seventeen and then I came out into the joiners shop. (450)
How did you get to know that the war had actually started?
R - By telephone and Post Office. Notices put up outside the Post Office. Telephone and messages outside the Town Hall. There were daily, well two or three times a day messages when the Rohilla went down and put up outside the Post Office. And there was few people in those days had the telephone. I don't think we had a telephone in those days as a firm.
How about newspapers then Harold?
R - Well they weren't up to today’s standards were they really? They were a penny maybe, I think they were a penny.
The main papers in Barnoldswick then wouldn't be the daily paper, it would be the Craven Herald, would it?
R - Oh no, I wouldn't say so. There was daily papers. The Northern Daily Telegraph and that kind of thing which was published in the evening. There was the Pioneer in those days. There was news, literally speaking, telegrams coming in the First World War literally every day of somebody who was killed. You've only to look at this book, to see the number of people that were being killed. The paper, Barnoldswick papers, Skipton papers and that kind of thing and there was always a whole list of photographs of these lads who had been killed. (55 min)
What would you say was the general mood in the town at the beginning of the First World War? Was it quiet? Did people think it was a good thing or - can you remember anything about the general mood of the people?
R - About the war?
Yes, the beginning of the war.
R - Well, the general impression was that it wouldn't last until Christmas. It started on August 4th and it could be over by Christmas. That was the general attitude and the people - well I suppose that idea came from the top. Of course as you know, it lasted until 1918.
It caused a lot of trouble and a lot of deaths. So Wilfred went to the war but they brought him back.
R - Eventually, he went out to France again and he was gassed and wounded and transferred to the Seaforth Highlanders which is kilts. He was on the Somme, the Battle of the Somme which we have photographs of - well we had. Several Barlickers were killed during Ypres and the Somme. There were just a mad slaughter and there was a lot of Barlickers killed. They all knew one another so naturally they sought one another out. I joined the Air Force when I was seventeen. (500) You could volunteer, if you wanted to get into something special when you were 17. So I'd come out into the shop, into the workshop and worked as an apprentice joiner and tried to join up in, I think it was June. Yes, it would be June. After I’d been in the joiners shop about six months, and of course you had to have trade tests. Well, like, all my spare time being spent in the joiners shop, when I went into the joiners shop I wasn't just green. Anyway, it was so that I passed a trade test.
For the R.A.F.
R - For the RAF, yes.
Was it the R.A.F. or was it the R.F.C?
R - The 'Flying Corps' and I was in when it was changed to the RAF. And of course, I did the training and all that kind of thing at Blandford and Wendover and then went to Ireland. I was in Ireland when the war ended, when the peace was signed, you see and I can remember that night in November we were on guard, well we all went berserk that night and had a big bonfire and there was a big potato field just over the fence. We raided the potato field and we had roasted potatoes that night. I got out of the Forces in early 1919, in February I think. Yes, in February so I did less than a year in the Forces. And they'd have never made me into a soldier, I wasn't interested. I was interested in the work I was doing but not as a soldier. You'd to do your physical training and gun drill and all that sort of thing but I got so far and I was out as soon as ever I could. (1 hour) I was ready for out!
What I'd like to do now is just ask you a few questions about that house that you moved into. I assume it was on the Croft, next to the works.
R - Yes, yes.
The shop on Commercial Street which was also the Duxbury house.
Now, you moved up there in about 1909. How many bedrooms did that house have?
R - Three.
And what other rooms were there?
R - Living room, kitchen and a cellar - a big cellar. No bathroom.
Can you remember any of the furniture?
R - What, that were in? Well, there’d be an extension table and there’d be a couple of rocking chairs and maybe six wood chairs.
When you say a 'living room' that’d be like a parlour?
R - There's no parlour.
Well, that's a room separate from the kitchen.
R - Yes.
So actually, you lived in the 'living room'.
R - Yes.
That was what it was, you didn't have a parlour, a front room and...
R - No, no, no. Furniture shop was the front room. (550)
That's it, so there were three rooms downstairs and one of them was the furniture shop and that was where, presumably, where you sold the furniture that your father made.
R - Well not exactly, no. Furniture, three piece suites, linoleum, carpets and that kind of thing more than anything else but not generally speaking. Occasionally there was furniture in that was made across the road.
So which room did you have your meals in?
R - The living room.
Where did your mother do the cooking?
R- Well, we had a gas oven. In the first place we had the old fashioned Yorkshire range.
A typical cast iron kitchen range.
And what was in the living room?
R - That was in the living room. Then eventually we got a gas oven and she did the baking. She had a table in the kitchen and it was not a big kitchen but there was room to have a table about three foot long and two foot wide. Most of the baking was done there. The pantry was on top of the cellar steps. There was stone steps down into the cellar.
So where did your mother do the washing?
R - In the cellar.
Had you a copper?
R - Yes, a gas boiler.
So the only source of hot water would be either the gas boiler or…
R - The side boiler.
The side boiler with the Yorkshire range.
R - We had a gas boiler in the cellar and we had a galvanized bath, a tin bath and we used to have the baths in the cellar.
How often did you have a bath?
R - Generally speaking, Friday night - the children.
You know, I'm sure that when they listen to these tapes in the future they're going to laugh at me because every time I ask that question I laugh because they'll think that everybody in the country had a bath Friday night. The sewage system of this country must have been overloaded every Friday night! Well anyway, I'm sorry about that. You didn't have a bathroom and if you wanted a wash where would that be?
R - In the kitchen.
What sort of a sink was it? (1hr min)
R - Brown earthenware.
Where was the lavatory?
R - Outside, up the ginnel.
What sort was it?
R - Pail. Soil. Dan Derbyshire who lived next door and us joined at one toilet.
The small buildings in the gap in the houses on Roberts Street are the toilets Harold refers to. The Duxbury shop was at the bottom of the street on the left hand side.
And that was a pail toilet and who emptied that?
R - The Council.
Was it the Council that emptied it or was it somebody who contracted for them?
R - The Council.
And what was it emptied into?(600)
R - Into a soil cart, tank cart. You know, there was a horse and they emptied it in. They brought it down to the sewages in its present position on Greenberfield Lane and tipped it down there.
Old style night soil cart as described by Harold. You can see the door for emptying it on the back. Not the best job in the world!
How often was it emptied?
R - It must have been ten or fourteen days.
Did the house itself have piped water?
R - Yes, just cold.
How many taps and where?
R - There was one tap on the sink and one tap down the cellar.
What were the floors downstairs?
R - Down the cellar?
No, I’m sorry, Harold, I've phrased that question badly. The floors in the downstairs room in the living room and the kitchen.
H - The floors in the kitchen and living room were flagged.
Ah, flagged over the cellar:
R - No, the cellar was under the furniture shop. That floor was wood.
Did you have any carpets down in the living room?
R - No, not in those days. The only - a pegged rug, if you know what I mean?
Yes, I do Harold, but just for the people who listen to this tape and don't know what a pegged rug is, can you tell me what a pegged rug is?
R - A pegged rug was all hand made and we used to have to help to make them. Old clothes were cut up into strips. I would say probably 4” long and an 1” wide or ¾ wide we’ll say. There was what they called a 'pegging needle' and you pushed with an eye this piece of cloth in the needle. You pushed it through and up, you know, and up. (1hr 10 min) You got hold of the piece that you'd pushed through and got the needle out leaving it there, it hooked round, you see. Of course it was there for to stay, there was no question about that. We used to work patterns on them and all that kind of thing, designs and patterned diamonds, circles and so much in the middle one colour and then a border all the way round and that kind of thing and they were quite nice. (650) And then, after they had been pegged they were backed with Hessian which generally speaking was old bags, washed and sewn on the back and they were a nice job, a good job. Oh, I've helped to make hundreds of them.
Do you ever remember your mother putting sand on the floor?
R - No, I don't think so.
Have you got a stairs carpet?
R - Yes.
What kind of curtains did you have?
R - I would say that they would be printed cotton.
But would you say it was very unusual for people not to have curtains?
R - Yes. Generally speaking, people had curtains and with a roller blind. They didn't draw them to, they used to have these roller blinds - paper and with a pulley at the other end. A pin at one end and a pulley at the other and you wrapped the cord round a few times and then dropped the blind and it automatically wound round the pulley and then you pulled. it up, you see. They worked quite well.
How about the people in the houses nearby, how about donkey stone?
R - Wait a minute we're going back to the days when we lived on the Croft. We're not talking about when Mrs Bright came in 1940. Yes, you see the old donkey stone was quite a common thing.
No, there isn't much donkey stone about nowadays. How about the Yorkshire range? How was that cleaned?
R - Well there was only one way to clean it. It was what we used to call the 'ash hole' which was sunk and there was, in some cases a big ash pan, inside. Generally speaking ash hole, it was shovelled out of the ash-hole into a bucket and carried out into the ash-pit. Not a dustbin, an ash-pit. (1hr 15min) Of course you'd to clean out all underneath the oven and underneath the boiler. Clean all that out and this was done about once a week was cleaning the oven and all round the oven and all that kind of thing. Then, of course some of it was, not chrome plated but plated was the hinges and that kind of thing but the remainder was black-leaded. We used to have a brush purposely for black-leading, a little round one about an inch and a half diameter and you spit on the black lead and then shone it up with another brush, you see.
Who used to do that? Did your mother do it?
R - Yes.
How was the house lit?
R - Gas. We had a mantle, gas mantle downstairs but all the upstairs rooms were wall flames.
Fishtails?
R - That's right, yes.
So downstairs was the incandescent mantle.
R - Inverted.
It was inverted was it?
R - I think so, yes.
Was there any covering over it like a globe?
R- Oh yes, you see hanging from the ceiling. Well in those days it was a follow on from the oil lamps. Just an improvement from the oil.
Am I right, Harold, they used to call it a pendant fitting, didn't they?
R - Yes.
How about the gas mantle, say in Summer, if a moth got in or anything like that and started fluttering round it.
R - Oh well, they'd had it! They just dropped in bits, you see. You hadn't to touch them in any way or the mantle was ruined. If a bit comes off the mantle, the flame came right through and broke the glass that was somewhere near it and that kind of thing you see.
Can you remember when you first had electric light? The ashes went out into the ash pit. How did you get rid of the rest of the household rubbish?
R - it all went into the ash pit. (750) They'd come and empty this ash pit and there’d be half a dozen houses but there’d be special carts, low carts and they used to come and rake it all out and it used to be literally speaking half way across the street. Then a cart would come and shovel it onto the .. rake it all out - they had rakes. There was a door at the top to put it in and a door at the bottom to pull it out and they'd rakes to rake it out, you see. There'd be a cartload every time they came and that would be a weekly job.
Can I sort something out with you Harold that's bothered me for a long time. So if we're walking down a back street now in Barlick and you'll get some of the older back streets where you can see most of the cast iron doors have gone now but there used to be the cast iron doors on. You'll very often find three for one house and two of them, one is above the other. Now am I right in thinking that would be, if it's an old house, that would be where the midden was? Where the ash pit was? That you put the ashes in at the top and that it was raked out at the bottom?
Surviving ash pits in Barlick.
R - That's right, yes.
So in most cases, the ones that I've seen you'd have to go out into the back street to put the ashes in. (1hr 20min)
R- Yes, definitely.
And the other one, the other doorway, the one that's low down, that was the access for the pail toilet.
R - That's right, yes.
Of course, we're talking about the older houses.
R - Yes, well taking Commercial Street, a lot of the houses that was built say, after 1900, each had an ash pit for every separate house. You'd put the rubbish in, in the back yard and there’d be one outside to rake it out. In the one that I'm speaking of now on the Croft, it was a common one and there’d be six houses into that one and then Robert Street further on there, there was ash pits half way up and toilets. You see, in the middle of the street. The ash pits were outside and you went through a little ginnel into the toilets and there’d be four or five houses to the ash pits and four or five houses for two toilets.
So what we're now talking about is something that young people nowadays can't imagine. It's not something you'd like to go back to. There must have been smells and nuisances because of the fact that these toilets were pail toilets and there were these ash pits. Can you remember that? Is it something that's stuck in your mind? Was it something that you just accepted?
R - It was just accepted. You see when they emptied the pails into the cart, they used to scatter some kind of disinfectant in them, some dust of some description and that stunk as bad as the other! (100)
You just said something about dust.
R - A powder, I would say.
Yes, but, ordinary dust. Was there more dust about in those days than there is now?
R - Oh definitely!
How about flies?
R - Flies? Every house you went into had a fly catcher up! You understand what I mean by a fly catcher?
Sticky fly catcher.
R- Yes, some of them had two or three up. They'd be full of flies.
I can remember those when I was a lad before the war. These are things which I know about them because I’ve asked about them and you know about them but in fifty or a hundred years, people won’t believe it. You know, they'll have had no experience at all. So how did your mother actually do the washing?
R- Possing and wringer. Dolly tub and a wringing machine.
Did she have a scrubbing board?
R- Yes - a rubbing board.
Yes, a rubbing board, aye. Was the posser a copper one or a wooden one.
R - Copper one.
Dolly tub.
A copper posser. These were used in an up and down motion rather that a rotary movement like the old dolly posser and were thought to be more efficient.
How often did she do the washing?
R- Well, Monday was the washing day. (1 hr 25min)
Always? How long did it take her?
R - All morning - to wash. Then they had to be dried.
How did she dry it?
R - Well, out in the street across, the lines across the street and if it was bad weather, it was a clothes maiden in front of the fire.
Steaming away.
R - That's right, yes. Or a clothes rack, yes.
How did she iron it?
R - Well, in the early days, just a lump of iron heated in the fire.
Did it have a slipper?
R- No.
Did you just rub it?
R - Just rubbed it.
Some had slippers didn't they?
R - That's right, yes.
What would she go on to after that? Was it a gas iron?
R - it was a gas iron with a tube.
What can you remember most clearly about washing day? What sticks in your mind about washing day? Did the fact that your mother was doing the washing affect the meals you got that day?
R - No, it didn't. There’d usually be cold meat and you know, maybe carrots or turnips or cabbage or something of that sort, you see. Literally speaking the meat would be left over off the weekend joint. That was, generally speaking what mealtimes were. Ivy tells a story which is quite true. [Ivy was Harold’s wife] I’d better not say the places but as you know, I'm in Rotary and Ivy asked a certain Rotarian, “Well, did you have a good dinner today?" This fellow said, I can have a better dinner at washing day at home.." We always had enough to eat, we never went short of anything to eat. I wouldn't say it was the most expensive but you don't want me to go into diets and that kind of thing.
Actually, I will ask you particular questions about that a bit later because obviously that's another interesting area where things have changed a lot. People don't realise nowadays. Did you and your brothers and sisters have any jobs to do around the house?
R - Certainly, but Wilfred and I were both milk boys. In those days it was night and morning. I started taking milk from down here and I was only five years old.
Carr’s House?
R - Carr’s House. We continued taking milk. (1 hr 30 min)
I’m sorry Harold, did you say when you were five years old?
R - When I was five years old I went with the milk.
What time was that in the morning?
R - It would be seven o'clock. From leaving down here at seven o'clock. We went on taking milk right until I was full time at thirteen. I went half time at twelve and took (900) 1hr 30min. milk on the other half of the day. There did a law come in, and I took milk for my uncle and I got 2/- a week for night and morning and it was all measured out then, you know, from the kit. I was ten and there was a law came out that no milk boys had to be employed under eleven, so of course I was sacked. Anyway there was another milk chap come after me and I thought well, I couldn't go. He said, “Never mind, I'll take responsibility.” This were Frank Smith. He gave me 3/- a week and a shilling a week was a lot of money them days! So I went on for Frank for quite a while and then this wouldn't do and my Uncle Wilson wanted me back so I had to go back to Uncle Wilson so I got 3/- a week off him. This all went, I'm talking about Wilfred and me as well, it all went to me mother, we needed it. I can remember one Christmas, we used to get bits of presents off customers and we saved up all that we got. I think, between us, we got 23/- altogether at Christmas and we bought my mother a new coat. In those days, another thing that stands out in my mind when we got a penny a week to spend, we used to go into the house, into the kitchen and get the jug down and pour the milk in. This particular house, I can remember the house today, I got this jug down and somehow broke it and I paid for it. I paid for it at a halfpenny a week and it was sixpence halfpenny..
That would be an extremely long 13 weeks, Harold.
R -It was 13 weeks. I had no spending money. And they were so mean, that they took it all, every penny. I never forgot (950) who it was. I never forgot who it was.
SCG/27 November 2002
8506 words.
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 82/HD/02
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 22nd of JULY 1982 AT BANKS HILL, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS HAROLD DUXBURY AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
[I must have asked how much flour his mother used at one baking]
R- I would think it would be ten pound because we used to get 20lb at once.
So the flour was in 20lb bags?
R - There was big white bags that held 20lb.
How often did she bake?
R - Every Thursday.
Did she bake cakes as well?
R- Yes.
What kind?
R - Well, I would say the ordinary bun and she used to make them in the round, flat, tins off the same mix and then she would make straightforward currant loafs or fruit loafs and currant tea cakes which were marvellous.
Did she ever make seed cake?
R - Seed cake? Yes, she'd have a go at anything. She used to make pasties and pies, you know. Rhubarb pies apple pies, onion and potato pie and of course, potato pies and what we used to call 'broth' and you used to be able to buy then, a sheep head and the sheep head used to go in the pan and there's some lovely meat on a sheep head! I could eat it and enjoy it today although people turn their nose up at that sort of thing today. There was the tongue and I can remember there was two pieces of meat which would be ½” thick to nothing, the size of the palm of your hand. I couldn't tell you where they were from but we used to do a dive for this kind of thing, you see. [sounds like cheek to me. SG.] Of course, in the broth there’d be potatoes, carrots, onions and all the bag of tricks.
Did she make jam and marmalade?
R - Oh yes.
Pickles?
A - Yes.
How about home made wine or beer?
R - No, only herb beer. She used to make herb beer. If I remember rightly it was Mason's extract.
Ah, I seem to remember that name, Masons.
R - Of course it used to get kept in these stone bottles, earthenware bottles. They'd be gallon bottles.
Did she make any of her own medicines?
R - Not really in that sense of the word, although at Christmas we used to have a goose and all the fat would be kept and stored for rubbing your chest and called goose grease. That's the only one that my mother made but my Grandmother Duxbury used to make a salve that had a wonderful healing quality and I think the ingredients, the only thing was that it was made from lard and ground ivy. That's a herb is Ground Ivy. (5 min) It had a wonderful healing quality and she used to make it and keep it in little glass bottles, Vaseline jars and that kind of thing and you know it would keep for years and it was used for years. I regret, really that I never got the full recipe of that because I think it had some wonderful healing qualities.
Oh yes, there's a lot in herbs. What did you usually have for breakfast, Harold?
R - Well, we kept hens but our breakfast would be porridge and maybe some bread and butter and if we were lucky there were eggs but there would only be half an egg each, they would be cut in two. (50) Boiled egg, cut in the middle for us lot.
What would be your normal Sunday dinner?
R - Well, a normal Sunday dinner, we usually had some kind of a joint, a roast and there’d be Yorkshire pudding and sometimes what they called a season pudding which was made like a Yorkshire pudding with onions and a bit of sage mixed in. It was really good, so we used to call it a season pudding. There'd be the usual vegetables, you see, all from the garden, no frozen peas or anything like that. If there were any peas they would be steeped, or as they call them today, mushy peas but they're still a lot better to me than...
That's one thing I find that stands out very clearly from this series of tapes is the fact that at one time vegetables were seasonal. For instance, it's possible now, to have a salad any day of the year. In those days, the days you're talking about, each thing had its season. The first tomatoes of the year were a real event.
R - But there were cabbages and turnips, even then, literally speaking all the year round because there was a Savoy cabbage which was a crinkly cabbage and they used to form a good heart and you could have them well on until the winter. Then of course, there was the Spring cabbage, turnips and swedes. (10 min) You could have them all the year round because they'd keep, you see, under proper storage conditions. I don't mean fridges, there was no such thing. You used to find a cool place and maybe cover them up with soil and that kind of thing.
What recollection have you of keeping food? When I say that, you know, we're so used to having fridges nowadays where you con keep milk five days and things like that and for instance, we were talking the other day about you delivering milk twice a day. Am I right in thinking that this was because at certain times of the year, the milk was going sour?
R - That's right, yes. Of course, it was never thought it was possible to keep. It was twice a day including Saturdays and Sundays.
So things like butter and - well you tell me, there would be things that would be loosing their quality but would still be eaten probably things that nowadays would be considered to be off would just be considered to be ....
R - Well, for that kind of thing there was a tremendous lot of cellars and there was cold slabs, stone slabs and sometimes slate. Very often sandstone slabs and they'd be built up in the cellar and they used to cure their pigs and all that kind of thing on them. They'd rub the salt into the side of bacon and all that kind of thing you see but butter and all that kind of thing, it would keep. Even today you can make potted meat and have a bit of fat on it and the fat comes to the top and it'll keep for months in a cool place because it's sealed and it's airtight and I should say that a lot of the old country folk, even today will stew a lot of meat and keep it like that in a bowl, various sizes of bowls and when company comes over bring one of them pots up, and slice off it.
What would your dinners be like during the week?
R- Well, very often something, as we called it then, broth or stew, probably twice a week, you know, or something like that. Some form of cheap meat like sheep head or ...... Anyway, that kind of thing and particularly on baking day there’d be a big potato pie. (l00) It had onions in, onions and meat, you see. Meat wasn't very expensive in those days. I was always a terror for having a go at anything and Whitham who used to be the pork butcher on where Harwood had a shop.
Aye, on Church Street.
R - Aye, well it was Whitham that had it then. He went up in the quarry, he took on the quarry [Park Close at Salterforth] but he was a pork butcher and I remember buying a roll of bacon off him. I’d be early teens I suppose, at seven pence a lb. But it was bacon you know, real stuff and maybe a lot of fat but we enjoyed fat in those days. (15min)
Of course that bacon would keep for months.
R - Oh yes, yes.
What would you usually have at tea-time?
R- Well, I can remember there’d probably be syrup, golden syrup and you used to go to the store and I can remember going to the Co-op when it was at the bottom of Manchester Road. and they had syrup. You used to take your own tin and they had the tap and it run in, you see and this kind of thing, and sheep trotters, cowheel and what was better than anything else I can remember for tea, pig foot stewed and on a big soup plate, bones and the lot and no seasoning. Well there'd be salt in them and that kind of thing but my word it was lovely!
Would you usually have any supper before bedtime?
R- No. just occasionally we might get a drink of milk and one thing I remember particularly on a Sunday night, this would be in my teens, you see and we'd go for a long walk after the chapel and we’d come home and just the same as these Spanish onions are today there’d be an onion sandwich with some pepper and salt on. My mother always used to relish an onion sandwich and so do I. Well our kids, my brothers and sisters they all did, they'd relish onions. I remember our Nora, she'd been somewhere and she smelled of onions but she didn't care.
What would, I don't know how to phrase this question really. I haven't got a question in the questionnaire about it really. What was the attitude to what is now described as 'eating between meals'? What I'm really getting at is this, would you ever dream of, in between meals, just walking into the house and going into the pantry and making yourself a sandwich or something like that? What would your mother's attitude be to that?
R- No. There was a meal time but I don't say that if we were hungry that we’d be refused something. We would get something but it wasn't a practice of diving in when we got home from school. We had to wait until tea time.
That's what I’m getting at. The fact that nowadays there's a very free and easy attitude towards children and food. Perhaps it's the right attitude but I can remember when I was young I would never dream of making something for myself. As you say, if I was really hungry and I asked, I could get something but usually it was, “You wait until your tea.''
R - Well that was the general attitude and there was a meal time and I could think, we being milk lads in those days, we would have to have our tea before we went with the milk which we had to do and I would say that if it had been severe weather or something like that there might have been something for us when we came in from the milk round, you see. (20 min)
Where did you, and I realise that to you this will sound a very strange question, but it won't I promise you to a lot of people who listen to these tapes. Where did you have your meals? (150)
R - In the living room.
Yes, and how did you have them?
R - Sat up to the table with all our own places. It was an extension table and we had the wood chairs and we'd to sit there and I used to have a habit to rock back on the chair on the back legs but I suppose all lads do but I soon got stopped o' that.
How did your mother prepare the table for the meal? Did she, as we say, ‘lay the table’?
R - Yes. There'd be a big plate full of bread and butter and there might have been a bit of cake or there might have been what we called 'sad cake' but the proper name is Eccles cake and that kind of thing. Something that was satisfying and none of these fancy vanillas. We never saw anything of that description and there was never any bought cakes at our house.
Was there a tablecloth?
R - Yes, a leather tablecloth. Leather cloth. It would probably be white or a pastel colour and it could be wiped down, you see.
Is that what we used to call ‘American Cloth’?
R- You could call it American cloth, yes. When the table was washed down and cleaned there'd be a chenille cloth put on the top of it. When we got married we had a beautiful cloth to put on the table and oh it was a lot of money! I don't know what happened to it but it were a marvellous cloth. She gave quite a lot of money for it because since I've grown up, if I've bought anything I've always wanted the best.
Well it lasted longest didn't it.
R - Well, I remember the fellow who said it to me and it was Hartley Edmondson. That's Edmondson and Co at Fernbank. He said, “Harold, the best is always the cheapest in the long run.” He worked on that principle.
You've already told me that you used to sit at the table. Did you know any families where the children used to stand for their meals?
R- No.
Did the family have a garden or an allotment?
R- Yes.
That's when you were at the Croft?
R - Yes.
Where was the garden?
R - On Butts Fields. You know where our works are?
Yes.
R - Further on there, you fork, there's one goes right along the beck side and there's one bears left and comes out into Hollins Road. Well, that triangle there, we had that triangle which is a little park, now. There were several hen pens all where the Gospel Hall is now. (25 min) We had several of those areas split up into hen pens and we had a big portion in the triangle just on the top of the rise as a garden and you used to be able to turn to the right and go down what's Harper Street now and there was a beck on the bottom. You used to have to go across a little beck there but it's drained now but this was long before Parkhurst's shop was in existence, the joiners shop. It came out about there, you see, before the road was made up and that kind of thing and it came out into Gisburn Road from there. Well of course you can remember old Monkroyd. (200)
Who looked after the garden?
R - Well, it was supposed to be my father's garden but I did a lot, I had to do. Wilfred and me, we had to do. The family needed - and of course my father, the joiners shop on the croft, you see and he was probably working all hours that God sent. Well we had to do the garden but he told us what to do. There was a fellow that used to come and help us and I wouldn't say that he taught me a lot about gardening but he taught me a lot how to use a spade. One push, no bumping, put your foot on the shovel, on the spade and down it goes - full depth, no second pushes. That was Billy Roberts, Billy Pudding. That was his by-name. The same fellow, he had the horses, the lorries. He had two lorries like flat carts, you know, four wheeled and he used to cart for the mills and they stabled down in Butts yard.
Was that those brick built buildings?
The stables in Butts before demolition in 1982.
R - That's right, yes. He stabled down in the bottom and if he'd nothing much to do he’d come up into the joiners shop and help and he was very pally with my father but I'm going to tell you now his history. He lived up the top of Park Road and he had a family, they're all dead now. Yes, he's one or two grandchildren that’s left. He was a terrible drinker: The Station used to be, you know where he was. He used to come past the Railway Hotel, and this is quite true, and there'd be a pint there waiting for him on the counter. He caught his horse, he came out at the front door and caught his horse at the other door. Going up Coates Hill before the new bridge was built he used to take a skip off, a skip of weft and carry it on his back over the hill to lighten the horse.
Over the old canal bridge?
R - Over the old canal bridge. That's true. He was a strong fellow. Anyhow, the landlady of the Railway Hotel gave him a good talking to about this drinking - the landlady! (30 min) He stopped drinking like that. He couldn't bide anybody that took drink at all. He went from one extreme to the other. I won't say he turned religious, although I dare say he might have gone to chapel occasionally. All his family did go to St. Andrew’s, as it was then, Methodist Church but all his family went there. He was very bitter against drink.
Have you any idea, apart from the landlady talking to him, why he made that change?
R - No, I never got to know what the landlady said to him.
She must have made a great impression on him!
R - She made a great impression and I’m not sure of the name, I might be wrong with this but I would say it was a Mrs Sowerbutts. Have you ever heard the name? Used to be the landlords at the Railway Hotel. Oh he was a smart fellow and I (250) might be wrong but it definitely was the landlady of the Railway Hotel and the name I’m not sure of. (30 min) I remember the landlord in the 1914-18 war but I think it was before that. The landlord was called Sowerbutts then because one thing that makes me remember, I met Sowerbutts on - I met him in Dublin and it was on a bridge, Phoenix Bridge, I think it was. Anyway, that doesn't matter.
That would be when you were in Ireland with the RFC? Anyway, the garden. What sort of fruit and vegetables did you grow in the garden?
R - Er well, potatoes, cabbages, turnips, peas, beans. I don't think we had anything of raspberries or anything like that. I can remember that my father sent me a parcel of peas, you know.
Did you eat all the stuff out of the garden or did you sell any?
R- Oh we shouldn't sell any of the stuff, it would be given to neighbours. I remember we lived at No 1 Robert Street and there was Dan Derbyshire who had the fish and chip shop at the… just below the Cross Keys in the corner there just below where Catlow had his barbers shop. Do you remember that? Well, that was a fish and chip shop and his wife looked after the fish and chip shop while he went round with the cart selling his fish and chips. (35 min) He had a fire - a coal fire in this cart and went round selling his fish and chips. He lived next door did Dan Derbyshire. Rawlinsons lived at the top house. Old Jim Rawlinson, George Rawlinson and Harold and Jackie Pomp and all that lot. [Jack Platt said that Jackie Pomp got this by-name because he was born in Portsmouth]
This is in Robert street?
R - Yes.
So you were living there while your father had the joiners shop on the Croft?
R- That’s right, yes.
Is that the house you were talking about when you said you had furniture in the front room?
R - Yes. Well, you see, it was actually Commercial Street but Robert Street branches off Commercial Street. Well all the gable end and the back door and gate was in Commercial Street but the official address was 1 Robert Street.
Did the family have any animals, you know, hens, pigs, geese or ducks?
R - Hens and that kind of thing. Hens and dogs and cats and all that kind of thing but we, literally speaking we had to have something that was productive, bringing something in, you see. Of course, my grandfather's on the farm and that kind of thing. Although I don't think we ever had much advantage from that. I never remember ever having any advantage at all.
Have you any idea how much milk your family had each day?
R - I should think two quarts.
Like a quart either end of the day?
R - Yes.
Well, you've already said that your family used butter. Did your family ever use margarine?
R- I don't think there was such a thing in them days.
It came in just at the beginning of the First World War didn't it. A lot of people didn't really - they called it ‘Butterene’ at first, didn't they? (300)
R I dare say so.
What about dripping?
R - Oh yes, dripping, yes. And the scraps. You see dripping, that's from the roast and we used to have dripping and bread and a bit of pepper and salt on and it was lovely: If there were a pig killed, you used to be able to get this sort of thing from the pork butchers and they used to cut all the waste fat up and skin and that kind of thing and pieces of fat and render it down and get the lard. There was crispy pieces of skin and remainder of fat [left]. Then there was very little fat in but then, very often, we used to get a full meal from that kind of thing. There'd be, now we’d go into the pantry and our pantry was at the top of the cellar steps and there'd be a dish of this stuff and of course we'd put our hand in and get a scrap or two out and really enjoy them. When I said we didn't get much advantage from the farm, but if they did kill a pig down there, then there'd be the black pudding and all that kind of thing. (40 min) They weren’t put in skins, they were made in a big enamel dish. We used to have that kind of thing, you know and black puddings with vinegar and mustard on they were…!
Good stuff. What sort of fruit do you think you had most often?
R - Well just occasionally we’d get an orange and apples that sort of thing but you see apples, then, I can remember you could get apples at ld or 1/2d a lb - English apples. We used to go out collecting blackberries and yes, apples from these that were almost wild apple trees. Crab apples. We’d make blackberry and apple jam.
Was that a fairly common thing, Harold, going out and. gathering stuff from the hedgerows? You know, going out for a walk and coming back with blackberries. Was that a very common thing?
R - Oh yes, yes. Particularly amongst people like us who had been brought up in the country. We used to know the places to go. We knew the fields to gather mushrooms and that kind of thing. We knew where to get them. Water cress and that kind of thing, we knew where it was. We’d no need to waste a lot of time, we knew you see because the fathers and uncles, we'd gone with them and we’d followed on, you see.
I'll just read you one or two different foods and just tell me if you ever had them or how often you had them. Bananas?
R - Hardly ever.
Rabbit?
R - Yes, any amount of them. We used to catch them.
Was that with the dog?
R - Oh yes, we used to go out rabbiting and we had ferrets and fox terrier dogs and nets.
Was that legal, Harold?
R - Well, it was legal because it was on my grandfather's farm, you see.
How about fried food?
R - Not a lot of fried food. We used to get trout from the beck. We could catch trout alright with our hands, there was no nets.
Did you ever lime them?
A - Lime?
Lime, you know putting lime in.
R - Oh no, no, no.
Any other sort of fish?
R - No.
Did your mother buy any sort of fish? (45 min)
R - Oh yes, after we came up into Barlick, of course. I think that the fish that we would mainly have would be, is it garnet? Well that was about the cheapest fish but it was quite good.
Did your mother buy it from a shop?
R - Not generally, no. A fellow used to come around with a cart, Bob Hudson. Have you heard of him?
I’ve come across Bob before, yes. With the cats following him?
R- Aye all the cats in the neighbourhood.
Tell me, Harold, how did that fish come into the town?
R - It'd come on the rail.
When you think what a perishable commodity fish was, there was really a very efficient network for distributing fish wasn’t there?
R - Oh yes.
Fish coming in from Fleetwood. I often think that the fish we got then was a lot fresher than the fish we get now.
R - Could be.
Cheese, did you eat much cheese?
R - Well, not a lot but we did have cheese, yes.
You've already mentioned cow heel and trotters and black pudding but how about tripe? Did you eat much tripe?
R- Tripe, oh yes.
Eggs, yes, you've mentioned eggs. Tomatoes?
R- Well not so often.
Did your father grow any tomatoes?
R - No.
Grapefruit?
R- Oh no, I don't think there was such a thing.
Sheep’s head of course you've mentioned. How about your mother and tinned food? Did you ever buy tinned food?
R - Well, as we got to be in our teens, yes. Not a lot but I can remember in my teens we'd come home and there'd (400) be a peach, half a peach out of a tin, you see, which was a real luxury, but that just raises another point. I told you I’d lost a brother who was five years old.
What was his name again?
R - Cecil. We used to have to walk to the Gill and my mother used to go to Gill cemetery every week and it would be over forty years that she did that and when she went to Gill, some of the family would go with her but I always tried to have the tea ready when they came home. It was no small job making the tea for eight you see, six children and father and mother and I used to try to do that. I wouldn’t say I did it every time but very often I made the tea.
How about tinned salmon?
R - That was a real luxury. There was John West tinned salmon then. I think it was John West. That was a real luxury and if I could get hold of the bones, we used to call them cheeses in those days, we didn't know it was the backbone. They all went down.
Can you ever remember tinned food being bad?
R- No.
What did your family drink? We’ve already mentioned herb beer, how about tea?
R- Oh yes.
Cocoa?
R - Not very much.
Coffee?
R - Never
Never?
R - No, I don't ever remember drinking coffee.
You've already mentioned sheep's head but can I ask you if you had a favourite food? (50 min)
R - You'll laugh when I tell you - pig feet.
That's what you said before. I like pig's feet myself. I'll tell you what I do like and you were saying about pig killing and the thing that I always remember about pig killing. I used to know a man up to a year or two back who still killed his own pigs for bacon and of course it's slightly different in these days of deep freezes but it was a job to keep all the pig meat. You used to get pig meat from really well grown bacon pigs and I used to love that. It's different altogether than pork isn't it?
R - Oh yes.
You know what I mean. It's different meat all together than the sort of pale pork we buy nowadays from young pigs that have never grown. I can understand the pigs feet bit.
R - It's a thing I never eat is pork. It makes my wife ill. I never craved for it.
Where there times when the family was perhaps not as well off as usual? If so, was there any change in the diet then? Did the meals change?
R - I never remember that it did. (450)
Aye, that's interesting. Did your father come home for his meals?
R - Yes. Not when we were down here.
When you were living at Carr’s House.
R - When we were living at Carr’s House, no. When we were living opposite the joiners shop, yes.
When you were living at Carr’s House did you used to take food to work for him?
R- Oh yes.
Did you ever take him any food?
R - No. You see he was working up at York Street then which was a fair step from here and we were at Bracewell school and then when Gisburn Road school opened we were there. My father used to take his dinner with him.
What did he take Harold?
R - Well, I don't know really. It would be sandwiches of some description, you know.
When you were at home did your father have the same food as the rest of the family or did he have something special?
R- No, my father always and mother and the children all had alike.
Do you think your mother ever went short of food to feed you?
R- No, I don't think so. I don't think she ever went short. Mother would sacrifice to make sure that we had what was necessary but I don't think she went short of food. This is one thing that I've always been very conscious of ever since I can remember. All my life I've always been very conscious of this, that anybody I had to do with, if there was any sharing out they always got a full share. I remember one time when I joined up there was a loaf of bread and the big long tables and the loaf of bread went in at one end and it was passed around the table and by the time it got to me, I didn't get any. This was going to happen again. (55 min) So the fellow opposite me, I says, “Eh, give me half of that.” “Oh no!” I said, “You're for it if you don't!” We were only kids, only seventeen when we joined up but you know you fancy yourself at that age. I know one fellow that they used to go short and there'd be two chops and they had some children but the children didn't come home for dinner but the father had two chops and the woman got none. That has always influenced me more than ever. (400) This lady had 6d and she'd three children and her husband and she'd 6d and she didn't know what to get for dinner.
Your mother?
R- I know what my mother would have got. This woman she didn't know what to get for dinner and she got two meat pies. The father had one and the other were divided, a quarter a piece for t’others.
This is of course the reason why I asked you the question. What you're describing to me, I don't think was uncommon. In your family, would I be right in saying that the attitude was that what there was was shared and everybody got their share.
R- Absolutely, yes.
This is a difficult question and it's probably a matter of opinion. Would your impression be that that was the usual thing? Was it usual for such equality in families?
R -In the majority of families, yes. There was the odd ones.
That really leads on to another question that I always ask people. it's a good time to ask it you. Looking back, what would you think that, well for a start off describe to me what your mother’s position was. What sort of a life do you think that your mother had? I’m thinking in terms of equality and opportunity, you know. What sort of position do you think your mother had?
R- Well, my mother was a wonderful person. She'd a wonderful personality and a wonderful character. I think that to some extent, my mother was ambitious.
(1 hour) My father wasn't. He was content to go on. He was a good craftsman but my mother's responsibility, I think that she felt that her responsibility was to bring up a family to be good citizens and she always wanted to live in a bungalow but she never got to. She were satisfied that her children were making some kind of headway. She once said to me, she says, “I’m proud of my family”. Well, I think she certainly left her mark in the neighbourhood at any rate. She mothered everybody round and about the area. All these old girls used to come and talk to her you know and she took them under her wing and that kind of thing.
The impression you're giving me is that she was really a very strong character and perhaps - would you say perhaps she was slightly unusual for her day?
R - I would say that my mother was outstanding character and she had within her at any rate, I think somewhere in the past she was a re-mould and I couldn't say exactly from gentry but from a bit better than the ordinary working class. Now my grandmother Gill, she did give you the impression that she was a lady! I can't say that she was or anything but as I remember her, sat in her fancy black blouse and that kind of thing you know and ruling the roost. Maybe I think that probably if I went far enough back there could be some trait - well some er throwback. I don't know.
It sounds to me as if your father made a very good choice, anyway.
R - There's no doubt about it.
Who usually did the shopping for the family, Harold?
R - We used to get a list and go and get it, these kids.
So the children would go and get it?
R - Yes.
How often did you do the shopping?
R - Generally, once a week and very often we’d have to pop on for a bit of something, you know, some of us. You see there were six of us.
Where did your mother usually buy her vegetables? (1hr 5min)
R - Very often from Sam Yates or Sam Wallace. Sam Yates had a shop in Church Street next to Harry Tinner's that's now called Colne Building Society.
Who’s there? Is it a little cafe now? Halfway House, they call it now.
R - That's right and Sam Wallace was in Newtown where Taylforth is now.
Where did your mother buy her meat?
R - Well, I had an uncle who was a butcher, my father's eldest brother was a butcher and he had the shop up Park Road.
Oh Yes. (500)
R - At the bottom of Beech Street.
Yes, that one that used to be.. [Ned Anderson in the 1950s.]
A - Simpson.
Yes, yes, that's it, aye. Simpson at the bottom of Beech Street, that's right, yes. Where did your mother buy the groceries usually?
R - I would say very often at the Co-op or from Roy Townson’s.
Where was Roy Townson's?
R - Well, it was where the 'British and Argentine Meat Company' was. That's just at the end of where Savages is. [On Church Street]
Yes, I can remember, it became Dewhurst’s eventually didn't it? Between Savages and the end shop. That’s right, I know where you mean. What would you say people's attitude was towards Argentinean meat, you know, frozen meat?
R - Oh, no, we’d never look at it. We wouldn't consider it at all.
Why was that?
R - Well, we didn't think it could be good.
It was considered low quality?
R - That's right, yes.
Was there a market in Barnoldswick?
R- No, there used to be bits of stalls set up on the street round and about Jepp Hill. Yes, probably Seven Stars and going down Butts a bit.
[Harold doesn’t mention it but I’ve seen pictures of Westgate or Church Street as it was and there were stalls around where the church was. ]
Yes, I’ve heard that before and those stalls used to stay open and the shops used to stay open very late.
R - Yes, and there used to be bits of stalls beside the Conservative Club between there and the Railway.
Yes.
R- You know. There could have been a bit of an effort where the Post Office is now and where Steele's office is. There could have been a bit of an effort there and the fairground used to come there where the Post Office is particularly, you know, hobby horses and that kind of thing. (550)(1 hour 10 min)
Yes, I think Ernie Roberts once told me that he remembered… Was it Ernie Roberts or Mrs. Clark? Once told me, she can remember a portable theatre being put up there at one time. Can you remember it?
R - Where the Post Office is?
Yes.
R - Oh yes, there was that sort of thing. It would be in the form of a tent sort of effort.
Yes, I remember Emma telling me about that. Well obviously if your mother shopped at the Co-op, she was a Co-oper, she was a member of the Co-op?
R - Yes, our number was 201. They used to pay 3/- in the pound divi then.
Aye, I can remember the Co-op paying divi. Would you say there was any difference in prices and service and quality? You know, a local street corner shop and the ones in the middle of the town?
R - No, I would say that the Co-op in those days, literally speaking were priced on the same level as the ordinary shop and there was the divi on top. There was the divi like as I say, was 3/- in the pound! Which was a lot of money then and of course would be today. Of course it got a bit out of hand everybody milking it, you know same as a lot of these things are.
Did some shops used to give credit then?
R - Yes but they didn't stop in business long. You see there was just a certain type of people that went to these shops.
Did your mother ever use credit?
R - No.
Can you remember whether pawnshops did a good business when you were young?
R - Whether what?
Pawnshops
R ~ Yes, I would say that they did. Quite a good business. There used to be a pawnshop about next door but one to Greenwood's, you know, Greenwood's clothiers, next door but one. Then of course, there was Isaac Levi did a bit of money lending down at Lamb Hill there. You know where I mean don't you?
Where - er or is it Walmsgate? (600) It was next door to where the butchers is now, is it?
R - It was at the end where they go through into the Parrock, next door to the furniture shop, you know.
That's it, right.
R - There's a graveyard and there's a way through there. It was next to the way through. Billy Blackburn er....
That’s it, Billy Blackburn lives there now.
Isaac Levi was in the left hand cottage.
R - And that were Isaac Levi and he’d do better than the pawnshop I think with his money lending. (1 hr 15 min)
What do you think was the general attitude to pawnshops?
R - Well - er I don't think that in Barnoldswick I don't think there was a great deal of it done. I wouldn't think that people had a lot of stuff to pawn:
Did your mother ever use the pawnshop?
R- No.
Er well, I was going to say did your neighbours use them but.....
R- I don't know.
Was there anything that you used to eat when you were young that you can't get now? (650)
R - I don't think so.
I always thought that a particularly difficult question. The only thing I can remember is you know liquorice root - the dried liquorice root?
R - Yes, yes.
I used to get that fresh.
R - Yes, that's true. I can remember that. This Sam Yates used to sell that and I used to go in for a happorth of 'tree root'. Liquorice, liquorice it was and we used to cut it off in about ½” and chew it and it was good, you see. Old Sam Yates always used to call me 'tree root'. (1 hr 20 min)
You're not a bad advertisement for it, Harold, it never did you any harm. Have you any idea how much housekeeping money your mother would have for a week, you know, the family?
R – 35/- [£1.75]
This would be about 1910 something like that? Was that before the First World War or after?
R - Oh yes.
Before the First World War
R - Yes, about 1910 or 1912
And so out of that your mother would provide the food, the clothing and presumably the coal as well?
R - Oh yes, and the rent!
And the rent as well? Do you know what the rent was?
R - Six bob.
Six shilling - that's a later question actually. Can you remember before you went away to the war, in the First World War. Can you remember there being any shortage of food?
R - What, in the family or nationally? (700)
Well, either.
R - Well there was shortage of food in the First World War, there was no question about that but there was always sufficient of one thing or another.
Can you remember queuing for food?
R - Yes
Any in particular?
R - Well, literally speaking you'd to queue for meat or bacon and I don't think there was rationing in the First World War - was there? There was, yes there was, I'm sorry. Yes but you had to queue for butter and that kind of thing, yes. Flour even, you queued for it.
Would you say that the First World War had any effect on the sort of level of nutrition. You know, were you better fed or worse fed? Did it have any effect at all?
R - I wouldn’t think so, only on the mind.
Yes, that's interesting. Yes, I think you're right there but there again I think it's a difficult question. Anyway I'm not going to go on to the next section because I think we've done very well this evening. (1 hr 25 min) It's very interesting to me. You'll have realised by now, these questions, a lot of them, I'm asking you what seem to be very naive questions but I want to know what your experience is. The food thing 'what sort of food did you eat' there's so many things that are different now. Do you think we get a lot more variety of food these days?
R - Oh yes!
What do you think the reason for that is? Do you think there's a reason for it?
R - Well of course there's all these prepared and patented food and so forth. (750)
Would you say that food's any better now than it was in your young days?
R - I don't think it's any better for nutrition. It's more dolled up.
I often wonder about food. We have a lot more variety but you know...
R - Yes, but basically it's all from things that was in being then. There's new things, pineapple and all this kind of thing and other things that's imported that we hadn’t then. Generally speaking we had some things that took - er that filled us then, whereas there's fancy things these days and all from the same, well from ‘Mother Earth’ shall we say?
The same basic foods, yes, yes. Yes, I know what you mean.
R - I'm putting it badly. You'll sort it out
No, you're not. Don't think that for one minute Harold because you're putting it in your own way and that's how the truth comes. It doesn't come with being sorted out. Well thank you very much, Harold, I think you've done very well.
SCG/28 November 2002
7584 words.
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 82/HD/03
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 27th of JULY 1982 AT BANKS HILL, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS HAROLD DUXBURY AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Harold Duxbury Interviews. Reel Two. Side One. Recorded on the 27th July, 1982. The interviewer is Stanley Graham.
This is the third interview and today is the 27th of July and what I'm going to do today, Harold, we're going to have a rest from all the domestic stuff and I want to ask you one or two questions about the more interesting things like buildings. But the first thing I'd like to clear up, was Henry Brown that started 'Henry Brown & Sons', was he your mother's brother?
R - No, he was my father's cousin.
He was your father's cousin.
R - It was 'Henry Brown & Sons' in the first place, then they went into liquidation. [They liquidated in 1929 immediately after completing the foundry on Havre Park. Willie Brown kept on the small shop in Earby. Henry Brown and Sons paid out 19/6 in the pound so needn’t have gone out. Johnny Pickles started on his own, it was only later that Willie Brown went in as a partner.] Johnny Pickles came in with him with Willie Brown who was my father's cousin. Johnny Pickles was his foreman. They went in partnership and they became 'Henry Brown, Sons & Pickles'. Well, Henry Brown was my grandmother's, my grandmother Duxbury's brother, therefore my father and Willie Brown, who was the firm in later years were full cousins.
Henry Brown was your grandfather Duxbury's wife's brother. That's it, that's where I'd got it wrong. I knew there was something I hadn't got quite right about that and I just wanted to clear it up. Now then, one of the things that's always intrigued me in Barnoldswick was - or one of the many things that's intrigued me was the 'Majestic'. The whole complex of the 'Majestic' buildings and the Bank Chambers. Do they call it Bank Chambers? Where Steel and sons are now.
R - Station Chambers.
Station Chambers, that's it. Now what can you tell me about Hartley and the Majestic?
R - Well, Matthew Hartley, I would say was a good business man with a good foresight. I don't think held any trade, he was just a business man. He had three sons. Freddy who was a painter; Rennie, who was a plumber and Harry was a bricklayer. (5 min) He brought them all up in the building trade but I wouldn't say these sons built the Majestic and the Station Chambers, but they all worked on them.
The Majestic cinema and shops.
The shops and chambers on Albert Road built by Matthew Hartley.
Who built them?
R- Well, I don't know but Mat Hartley or Matthew Hartley was the owner. He was responsible for building them. [The date stone on the Majestic reads ‘MH. 1914] Where Station Chambers is and the Post Office is, periodically it was let off as a fair ground. Where the Post Office is, there was big hoardings, all round and where the 'Majestic' is there used to be a blacksmith's shop and oh! I'm forgetting the name, the first name but it was a fellow called Wright who was the blacksmith. He had the blacksmith's shop on there.
It wasn't Roger was it?
R - Oh no! No relation. Roger was only a young fellow. He's younger than me.
R - Roger was the son of a butcher. (50)
The only reason I've asked you that, Harold is because I've seen a Roger Wright mentioned in the 1890s as doing some work for the Calf Hall Shed Company to do with sheet metal and things like that.
R - It could be the same man but not Roger. Are you sure that it mentioned Roger?
I think I've put a red herring out there, it might be another Wright all together.
R - I think his name was Stiv - Stephen. Stiv Wright. I'm almost sure that it was. He had three sons and two daughters and one of 'em is still living now, in Barlick up Mitchell terrace. His father had a blacksmith's shop where the Majestic is. You'll get further details, if you want it, from him but he's the youngest, you see so I'll doubt if he'll remember his father having that workshop there. Jess Wright, Billy Wright, (who was the same age as me to the day) and Charlie Wright. And then there was a daughter who married one of Weirs, the grocers, I think I'm right and then there was a younger one again that married one of Efgraves, Alf Efgrave but they're not Barlick people.
I was once in a house in the street that runs alongside the 'Majestic' behind the Co-op.
R - Ellis Street.
It was Teresa Hartley who lived in that house.
R - Teresa Hartley was the widow of Rennie Hartley.
She lived there and I went to the bathroom of that house and it was panelled. The bathroom was panelled. The strange thing was that none of the panelling fitted and I asked her about it and she said that her husband's father had bought a lot of stuff out of the old liner 'Majestic'. Is that right?
R - That’s true, yes. There was a tremendous lot of it used in the 'Majestic'. Old panelling and things like that. I don't think there was any used in Station Chambers. (10 min)
I remember how strange that bathroom looked because in a ship, when you come to think, hardly anything is straight. The panelling was beautiful but none of it was square and it must have been some that they had left over and they used up doing this bathroom.
R - It was a break-up, you see. The ship was being broken up and he bought wagon loads of it,
The thing that's always struck me about the 'Majestic' building itself, it must have been one of the earliest ‘leisure centres’ as they call them now that was ever built because there were a lot of different functions going on in that building weren't there. Can you tell me what some of them were?
R - Well there was part of it was let off as a billiard hall. And then the main job was a market hall and then it became a dance hall and then it went back to a market hall one day a week. That were the main ballroom and the other was, as far as I remember, a picture palace. So there was a billiard hall, a market hall and a picture palace.
I was once told that there was a 'gentleman's club' there.
R That 'gentleman's club' was there and that entered from Fernlea Avenue. It's there yet.
That doorway that's up near the library?
R - Lower than the library, no no. There's one lower down and then there's the other and there was a section up there where the back entrance is just near the library that was used as a gentleman's club. There was the other common-or-garden. (100)
And then the shops at the front as well which I think were let off. I take it they've always been there.
R - That's right, yes.
Yes, there's four shops isn't there?
R - Oh I don't know.
Yes, there’s the grocers at the end, then Thackeray’s, the outfitters and then there’s the entrance to the cinema, isn't there.
R - Yes.
Then at the other side there’s what’s now called 'The Magic Eye', the cheap shop and then there's a boutique on the end isn't there.
R - I thought there was another between.
There could be. [There was and it was very small. In the 80s Malcolm Spencely from Stainton house Farm had a car accessory shop there]
R - Ah but Pilkington’s used to be there and they weren't at the entrance were they? There was another shop and then Pilkington’s and then the dress shop, boutique or whatever you call it.
That was carpets was it, that one?
R - Well, the one near the entrance, yes but I don't ever remember the other being carpets.
Anyway the point I was trying to get at is that it was a well planned development.
R - Definitely, yes. I would say that they did very, very well out of it.
Sad to see it now isn't it? You know, the cinema isn't used, the ballroom isn't used it's just got the pool club and pool hall and I think that's about all that's being used is it?
R - That's right, yes.
Can you remember anything of the Co-op building being built?
R - No.
That was before your time?
R - No, I can't remember.
I've forgotten the date that's on it, I think it's 1905 [1907 actually and extended in 1920], I'm not sure. Obviously Briggs and Duxbury’s themselves were, well you tell me. The building jobs that Briggs and Duxbury’s did?
R - Well, you see, Briggs and Duxbury’s started business in March 1909. They bought the existing building and business of William Holdsworth who was a joiner and undertaker and we took over his premises and also we as a family, Duxbury’s, went to live in the house that Will Holdsworth lived in - or William Holdsworth. Now, he was a one of the old Victorian type and was one of the original directors of Calf Hall Shed Company and of course we took over. (It was only a small building at that time) Over the years we - next on the Croft there was Singleton had his landaus, wagonette and hearse all horse drawn. His stables were down below our works. As his landau business, horses, disappeared, we gradually extended. What he gave up with, we took and crept right on to literally speaking very nearly the end of those buildings with the slaughterhouses underneath.
The shambles (slaughter places] below the workshops on Commercial Street.
Is that what they were underneath those red buildings? (15 min)
R - Oh no, they're not red brick buildings isn't the slaughter houses. There was a red brick building on the left as you walk down, an extension to the stables at .. Bob Hudson used to keep his horse in there, the fish man.
Yes, now I must be getting confused here. Now the building I was thinking about when I said stables was directly opposite the house you were living in. Now at the left-hand side of it some steps going down into that yard at the bottom. Then on the right, them brick buildings going down that looked to me as if they'd been stables.
This iron pillar used to stand on the corner of the old shop opposite the Greenstreet Club in Commercial Street according to Harold Duxbury. 82/HD/01. Where the wall is stood the original premises of William Holdsworth. It was burned out in the late 70s.
R - Now just a - The steps that you're speaking of were just a temporary effort that somebody did on the left hand side on their own. There was a pillar put up at the top to stop traffic going down. An iron pillar - in fact I think it's there yet! It used to stand at the end of Commercial Street, at the corner, you know where Green Street Club is? And the next to Green Street Club coming towards Commercial Street was a shop, a confectioners shop and at the corner there, there was this iron pillar and that iron pillar was moved from there to the little hill beside our workshop. The brick wall now that you're speaking of, we decided that the building we were in wasn't big enough. The road down to the slaughterhouses at the bottom and underneath and through between the stables and our workshop. (150) There was stables underneath our shop at one time, underneath our joiners shop. Now we threw girders across there and re-built that gable end - we did it. We built over the top of the road and left a way through down and joined up with the stables on the left, you see. So that's what brickwork you're thinking of.
R - Then that brickwork continued down to the bottom and all that lot down there was stables right down to the ginnel leading to the bridge. 20 min
So where exactly then was the slaughterhouse?
R - The slaughterhouse was underneath the buildings that faced onto Commercial Street. They never did come under our works; there was stables underneath our works and then from our works to the original works to the far end used to be slaughterhouses and various people had slaughterhouses.
And they're not there now, are they?
R - Yes.
Is that where those garages are on top?
R - Yes.
Ah, well I'll have to have a look at them.
R - I think them slaughterhouses underneath will be in the original state. If they aren't well you know where I am.
I will definitely have a look at that, Harold, that's very interesting.
R - Something else that might interest you. At the far end from where our shop was, there was a rag and bone merchant.
This was the marine store.
Now when you say the 'far end' do you mean the far end of the stable block or the far end of the slaughterhouse block?
R - Far end of Commercial Street, on Commercial Street, over the top of the slaughterhouses, far end. There was a rag and bone merchant there, Paul Brydon, old Paul. Well he had a wooden leg, had old Paul and he were there for donkeys years and Billy Friar, is his grandson. Billy Friar's mother was old Paul's daughter. Paul Brydon’s daughter. I could tell you a lot but you'll get it more....
No, you tell me what you know
R - Paul, well I don't know what he lost his leg with but it was off by the knee. It was a wood leg and he strapped it on and he come pegging along and it never seemed to be any hindrance to him and he had two or three daughters and one or two sons had Paul. he had a lorry, you know and I would say that he, as we understood as a living then, he seemed to maintain a family in fairly reasonable circumstances.
So Briggs and Duxbury’s are established in Commercial Street. What was the main part of the business when they first started? (200)
R - Joinering and undertaking.
Your father hadn't anything to do with undertaking before he went there?
R - Oh yes! Oh yes! He used to do a lot of that type of work at Waite and Lamberts. Before him and Briggs started together.
Well, I'd like you to tell me about the undertaking part of the business because it was slightly different in those days than it is now in that I assume that most people kept the body at home. What exactly was the function of the joiner and undertaker?
R - Well, literally speaking in the villages, small towns and villages, most joiners did undertaking as well. In those days the hearse and landaus were all horse-drawn and everybody in those days who died was buried and the main burial ground was either Ghyll Cemetery or Ghyll Church. (25 min) Of course there was Bracewell and occasionally we got one that had to go away for miles sometimes. I remember my father setting off early morning and getting back late at night. I remember one going to Cark near Cartmel. We was riding on the dicky in the middle of the winter and the driver with his top hat on and my father with his top hat on and all the landaus or whatever they were. The driver on the dicky with all top hats, you know and they wouldn't stand examining because they'd been rough-handled and very old, you see. My father used to take a pride in his top hat.
This one you're talking about that went to Cark near Cartmel, did they go by rail or
R - Oh by road!
I bet that was a journey wasn't it?
R - Oh it was a fair journey. Yes, it would be over a hundred miles, there and back.
I've always assumed, I don't know whether I'm right or not probably the reason why joiners became the undertakers is because they'd be the people that made the coffins.
R – Quite.
And you say that was the reason why it eventually fell to them.
R- Yes, that's right and of course in those days, you see nearly everybody booked their funerals for a Saturday, so that Saturday afternoon, so that they hadn't to get off their work, so that family would normally be off their work. So if the friends and distant relatives and so forth wanted to come to the funeral but didn’t want to get off their work; therefore for their convenience it was put to Saturday afternoon and there was always two or three funerals on a Saturday. Anybody that died, it was a custom to keep them at home, you see and it needed quite a long number of years to get people educated into letting them go into a chapel of rest. We had a chapel of rest in 1936 and believe me we had it about four year and I don't think we had above two or three in it so we stopped it and went back to the old way. (30 min )(250) Then it started coming again so we made another chapel of rest and made it like a little chapel and of course it was used but from 1909 until motors came into being we used to carry the coffins, my father and me or my brother and me or somebody else, you know and they were nearly all pitch pine and then they come to elm and oak. Then, of course, now they're mass produced but on the undertaking side, you see our business developed and in - I qualified as an embalmer in 1936 so and I'm still a member of the British Institute of Embalmers.
Would that be fairly modern stuff, then, Harold?
R - Embalming was just coming into being. I would say that I'm not the original member but one of the oldest members of the Institute of Embalmers and you see undertaking is a personal job. Everybody wants to see the "Boss". When the War came in '39 well we had about forty men and then we got all this war work thrust on us and well, Bankfield, Calf Hall, Butts, Grove Mill at Earby Sough Mill at Kelbrook, Waterloo Mill at Clitheroe and so forth and so on. We had all this work and it developed into five hundred men, we’d over five hundred men during the war. I personally could not do undertaking so Arthur took on the undertaking and I left it entirely.
Arthur's your brother?
Arthur (Tash) Duxbury on the right in the butts workshop in 1976.
R - That's right, Arthur's my brother. You see and he still does that. These mills, there was an awful lot of work and they converted them all into aircraft factories for the Rover company.(35 min) We literally speaking, nearly had a free hand in those days on what we did. There was an architect on the job, Jacques from Nelson, and him and me worked in close co-operation. The only plans we had a short pencil about two inches long that he used to carry in his waistcoat pocket and held just draw a bit o’ something on the whitewashed walls and that was the plans. (300) And then when the job were finished, when they had time, they'd get plans out, you see, after’t job were finished, you see. You see by that time, I knew Jacques fairly well and he knew me and we understood one another and people came up from Coventry and various places and they thought we were a couple of ninnies, Jacques and me. It took us a while to find out that it were them that were ninnies and they were picking our brains and that's all they could do. They were intelligent enough to pick our brains, you see. Anyway we got through and I remember the Government auditors coming in and they were in after the finish of the war and there were about four of them came and they were in our office about six weeks going into our accounts and everything. I said to the boss when they'd finished, I said, Well, what have you to tell me? What have you found?" He says, “Well, as near as I can say, there's twopence adrift over the years!” I said, “Oh and which way is it?” He said he didn't know and that were the last of it. We were straight up and down and I hadn't a fear for anybody.
About when was it that Briggs and Duxbury’s started to develop? Just from a joinering firm into building and general contracting?
R - Oh I would say within two or three years. We would be building before the 1914 war.
Now when you say 'building' do you mean building new property or building repairs?
R - Building new property and repairs.
Have you any idea what was the first building your father put up? (350)
R- I would say we completed the right-hand side of Gisburn Street,
Now then, remind me which is Gisburn Street.
R - Up by the side of the Catholic Church.
Now when you say the ‘right-hand’ side, you mean the side facing away from Gisburn Road. [I was confusing the issue here. Harold actually meant up Gisburn Street]
R - Yes, walking up [Gisburn Street] where the shop is, there's a shop and there's about half a dozen houses there, about six or eight houses there. And then we completed the even numbered side of Federation Street. We built one or two at the bottom of Brogden Lane on the right there, a few of them. I think we built all of them, I don't know. We built Glenwind where John Clark lives up at the top, that big house, stands back in the field.
Whereabouts is that, Harold?
R - There's Raygill, isn't there where Pickles used to live, where Peter Gooby lives now, climbing up the hill on your right, up Brogden Lane - well that's Raygill. Further on than that there's one stands back in the field, still looks new which was built in about 1920. That's moulded and carved stone and that kind of thing was built for Hartley Edmondson, he's coming back into it, the fellow that I…
What's the name of that house?
R - Glenwind.
And your father and Jack built that?
R - That's right, we did everything on that. In the meantime we did buildings here and there, lots of bungalows and that kind of thing, you know. One-offs, we didn't normally specialise in municipal housing or anything or that sort, just one-off sort of effort. (40 min)
So you couldn't be described as speculative builders, building for sale, they were built to order.
R - Generally, yes. Well, we built Federation Street and Gisburn Street and they were built for sale but generally speaking, same as these in Brogden Lane were built for individuals.
I know that you did build one Chapel.
R - The Inghamite Chapel? Yes, well of course I told you about that didn't I. It were the first big job that I took control of.
The Inghamite Chapel at Salterforth.
That you were Clerk of Works on.
R - That's right. There was me father and Briggs there you see, but I looked after the job. Jack Briggs was coming on the job and keeping me right I suppose. Generally speaking it were left to me and during .. er the firm was gradually growing all the time and by 1936 we moved from Croft down to where we are now and it was a lodging house and we converted it to suit ourselves. It was a three story building and I don't know, it was about eighty foot by sixty foot, yard space at both sides and later we bought the adjoining property nearer the town. (400) We bought it from Sam Yates who had buildings and greenhouses and all that kind of thing there. There was a big brick wall between and we knocked that down and it joined right up, you see. (45 min)
In the far corner, I say the far corner, the nearest corner to the beck, that piece of land that you're talking about that you said you bought off Sam Yates. Now there's a building, it's a red, Accrington brick building. Was that there in those days?
R - Yes, three garages. Yes, that was there and we bought that from Sam Yates and there was a greenhouse and a big lumbering house and we took it all as a builders yard and we go right up to the waterfall, you see.
And just to nail a date down, I'm right am I in saying the Inghamite Chapel, you completed it in 1932?
R - Er yes.
Yes, because that Messiah we sang in the other day was their 50th Anniversary of course. So during the War Briggs & Duxbury were doing the work for the Rover Company ?
R -Yes, but before you come onto that should you come onto the flood?
Ah! Now which flood are we talking about?
R - 1932, July 12th.
You nail that down for me.
R - I don't remember which day it was but it was July 12th and it was 1932. (45-min) I'm wrong - no I'm not. July 12th 1932 was the date of the flood and it was in the afternoon and we was in the old joiners shop and of course, this storm came and we’d no idea how severe it was although we were watching it [At Butts side] and watching it into Commercial Street and there were pieces of ice coming as big as two inch, some of them bigger. Generally speaking there were lumps of ice two inch, you know. There was Evered Holdsworth, the son of William Holdsworth.
How do you spell that Christian name, Harold? Did you say Everett?
R - Evered. Evered Holdsworth, he was watching the storm. He belonged the property below us. He belonged the property that we were in. Well, we were watching it through the window at the back and then we saw this torrent as it were come down. It was at the bottom of Butts coming down Butts, it was a raging torrent! There was no doubt about that and it washed the back walls into the beck of these buildings down below. We saw them go, the walls and there was a set of buildings along the bottom, red brick buildings and it washed a good portion of them. And we're watching this and by this time we didn't care whether we got wet or not, we were watching this torrent you see. It was up to the level of where they go under the slaughter houses and there's a fair fall from there. And I would say it was about, as near as I can say, it was within a foot of the top of the doors into these low places. [The brick stables] (450) Suddenly, we saw two hands right at the top of tie door and well, we couldn't face that, it were a torrent! Into one of them buildings that runs parallel with the road down to our shop before you get to the bridge. Well we got a rope and Sid Barnett, that's the father of Sydney Barnett that lives in Hollins Road now. We tied this rope round him and we set off with me hold of him. Anyway, eventually we got there and we couldn't open the door because of the rubble you see. So we'd to keep ducking under and pulling away stones , both of us, and we pulled and eventually we got him out. We took the rope off Sid Barnett and he were a Widdup, he were a carter and he lived down on Bankfield Street. We tied the rope round him and we got one of us at each side. Well you know, they didn't let us come back quietly, you know. Of course we were like drowned rats but anyway we got him out and I went up home. We lived up Robert Street then and I got a change of clothes, me father's, oh no me own - no me father’s! I was married then and we did what we could and anyway, eventually we went home. (50 min) All where we are now, you know was all a-flood.
Down in the bottom.
R - Down in the bottoms. There was huts and dogs and cats (that were never seen again), garages, motor cars going down Walmsgate and all that were chock-a-block with rubble you know, and the bottom of Tubber Hill, you couldn't get up there it was full. We went up Occupation Road and I'm not exaggerating, it’s solid rock up there wasn't it? And the road was washed out. You could get a horse and cart up in the ravine that it had made in the rock. Anyway, like they did damage, washed the gable end in at Calf Hall Mill, a lot of damage at Wellhouse Mill, all these Mills had been damaged but the full force of it came down Butts Beck. You see it came down from Weets you know and down Occupation Road and there. And this fellow, Widdup, he seemed to be all right but he didn't live long after that. I think he died as a result of that experience. (500) There was a big report of it, like in the papers you know, and Sid Barnett and me father's name pulled this fellow out. Me father's name, it weren't me! That doesn't matter but I lost a gold watch. Well, I'm saying I lost it, I didn't. I couldn't get it to go again, I got it for me 21st birthday and it were a pocket watch which you used to have in them days. Now that's about the flood.
Yes, now it washed the walls out on the lodge at Bancroft.
R - That's right, oh yes.
Yes, I have some photographs at home of the weavers stood outside the gate at Bancroft watching the water rise. Ernie Roberts told me, he was weaving at that time at Calf Hall and he said that it…
R - Took the far gable part of Monkswell Manufacturing Company was it? (55 min)
Yes, there was a Monkswell, yes. They were in Calf Hall, weren't they?
R - Yes, they were the top place.
That's it, yes. Yes and Ernie was saying that it burst up through the floor as well and took some of the floor out and swilling through the shed. He said it was a good thing at the time because he said they'd some lousy warps in, he said they were better warps afterwards. He said they were out of work for a bit but he said they were better warps and it wasn't a bad thing.
The undertaking. You said that all the bodies then were buried. When did cremation come in?
R - Oh I would say it started developing after the second World War. Yes, there’d be very little of it before. We used to have to go to Leeds for cremations.
Is that right!
R - Yes, there'd be very little of it before. I'm not saying it didn't start before then but it started to develop. It become more popular.
One of the things that obviously, in a town like Barnoldswick there was always something needed moving around. It was either coals from the Railway Station or stone into the town, there was a tremendous lot of building going on, things like that.. There must have been a lot of horses and carts.
R - There were.
Now, who operated the transport, the horses and carts? Can you tell me something about that?
R - Well mainly they were individuals who had one or two lorries and horses but there was such as coal merchants and that kind of thing same as P.D. Bilborough [Peter. Station Road. Lived at 18 Mosley Street, formerly William Bracewell's chief engineer.] and was followed on by his son-in-law Henry Wilson but it still went under the name of P.D. Bilborough. Well they had lorries and they used to, these coal merchants same as Roger Wiseman and his father before him, they had a horse or two and these big box carts you know. They used to cart to the mill at so much a ton. Then Evered Holdsworth, he owned quite a few horses and maybe half a dozen men. He could have had half a dozen lorries you see. (1 hour) Then eventually, Holdsworth, he got a motor wagon. Harry Hunt drove it and loaded it. It was some job, you know with these big shovels and these big railway wagons loaded to carts and that kind of thing and never a murmur, they were glad to do it. And you could always see two or three carts as you walked between the various Mills either going or coming. (550)
A typical coal cart.
One thing that's always surprised me that I've never been able to find much out really. What I know of the room and power system in the town, the way that the manufacturers moved from one shed to the other it seems to me that there must have been a lot of looms moving about town.
R - There was.
Now then, who moved the looms?
R - Herbert Hoggarth did quite a lot of that sort of work. You'll know of Herbert, whether you knew him or not you would. George Hoggarth's brother who was up at Bancroft wasn't he?
Ah! Was it George Hoggarth's brother?
R - Yes, older brother.
So their father would be - oh I've forgotten his Christian name, the Hoggarth who ran the engine at Butts Mill.
R - That was their Uncle.
He was their Uncle was he? He were Albert, no it wasn't Albert, I've got a photograph of him at home.
R - Albert were at Dotcliffe.
That's right, Newton's told me about that, yes. He hung himself didn't he? He told me that him and Jim Fort had an argument over who should take the rope down. He said it was ridiculous because all they had to do, they had some jobs to do there and they found this rope still hanging there and neither of them would touch it. I can understand it. It would be usual for a manufacturer to take his looms with him when he went was it?
R - The room and power, generally speaking, didn't include the looms. They were their own looms since when Pickles fell out with Calf Hall Shed Company and Butts over rent and this kind of thing. There was some big heads on Calf Hall Shed Company then, and Stephen, he were the type who wouldn't be dictated to and he bought Barnsey. And all them looms were moved from Butts and Calf Hall to Bouncer [The by-name for Barnsey] and then when Fernbank was built, all the looms from Calf Hall, Edmondson’s were at Calf Hall, and they moved all their looms to Fernbank. Alderton’s who used to be at Fernbank was at Wellhouse. They moved to Fernbank and gradually these places were filled up with other manufacturers who were starting up or moving from somewhere else. (600)
We'll go through that the next time, we'll see what we can get out of that. There was a lot of employment for horses and carters in the town.
R - Oh yes.
How about transport from the town to the outside? Was most of it by rail or was some of it by horse and cart as well?
R - Most of it was by rail. It was a busy place was Barlick! In the goods yard there used to be some good big sheds you know you could load and unload. (1 hr 5 min) I should think there'd be twenty or thirty men working at the station. They had one or two horse-drawn wagons or drays. They used to take part of this weft and that and beams and that kind of thing. They used to deliver them right to the mills and very often these mills, I can remember Nutters and Bradley’s and Bankfield would have horses and wagons of their own.
Yes, and of course Nutters had two motor lorries, as well.
R - Oh yes, but that was getting on, until after the war.
How about transport on the canal Harold?
R - There was a lot of the coal came by canal and there used to be a coal yard called Coates Wharf just at the Long Ing side of Coates Bridge, just going up the hill there. Well its there yet. (650)
Where Rolls Royce used to have their coal stack and the council yard?
R- That's right, yes. All onto the canal side there there's sliding gates, you see and it was wheeled off the boats into there. (1hour 10min) And then Bankfield used to have an overhead crane into the… er, runners you know on a girder right into the works. Fill the barrows and just tip 'em off in the into the boiler house, you see and onto the coal stack as well. You see they had a coal stack.
There was a little wharf down at Long Ing as well wasn't there.
R - There was a wharf there, yes, you see, and there was Moss Shed and Barnsey and all these were made so that they could have their coal delivered by canal.
How about transport of stone on the canal?
R- Well they used to have quite a bit of transport in stone. They used to have lines right from the quarries down to the canal at - you know where the bridge is on the New Road where the canal goes under the road? Do you know where that is? Well at the far side ...
On the Salterforth side?
R - On the Salterforth side. They used to come down to the canal there, lines. [Tramways with jubilee trucks.]
Now I’ve noticed the stones in the side of the canal there and I've often wandered. There's almost like a small jetty there, isn't there?
R - That's right, yes. Well, that's where they used to come.
And that was down...?
R - Prom the quarry, Tubber Hill quarries, yes from Salterforth, up Salterforth Brow from that quarry. I don't think they came from the top side of the road but they came from the quarries on Salterforth Brow.
Now, there were two quarries there on either side of the road. Did they both belong to the same person, those quarries?
R - No. The one nearest Barlick belonged to Sagars and the one on the top side of the road belonged to Sagars [Loose Games, at the end of Lister Well Lane.]. The one on the Foulridge side [Of Salterforth Lane] belonged to several various people at one time and another. I couldn't tell you the original owners.
Remember that sale catalogue that you gave me for Wellhouse? It was sold in 1887 as part of the Bracewell Estate. So it must have belonged to William Bracewell, that and the brick works. Up to 1887 anyway.
R - Well, you see, the top quarry and the low quarry belonged to Gledstone Estate.
So those were the two that Sagars had?
R - That's right. Sagars paid royalties for all the stone they took out.
That'd be Roundells.
R - That's right, yes.
And they paid royalties to Roundells? And you did mention a fellow called Whitham.
R - Well Whitham went in partnership with a fellow, with eh, what do they call him? What do they call that Councillor fellow that's a bit of a builder? He's a Councillor, he's still a Councillor. Anyway, I don't suppose it matters, Whitham started in the quarry, he went in partnership with this fellow - well it went the wrong way so Whitham sold his pork butchers shop and went up into the quarry although he’d no experience of quarrying. He spent the whole of his time in that quarry and he worked like a nigger. He worked with the men and that kind of thing and he made a go of it until he died. He owned it for quite a long number of years, did Whitham. (700)
What was the main output of those quarries, Harold? Or did the different quarries vary? I'm thinking of quarries that were turning out good bed stone, sawn stone or Yorkshire points or whatever?
R - Yorkshire Points came from certain districts in Yorkshire. (1 hr 15 min) Tubber Hill stone, generally speaking, has no bed and it's called gritstone. Very little stone was being got from there only random, that's any sort of shape and sawn stone. Now if they wanted stone 6” deep they used to put it on the big blocks of stone on the saw, a stone saw, you know. The blade's about 12” wide and an eighth of an inch thick of hardened steel. The sawing action was by the friction of backwards and forwards motion and water running onto the part that was being cut all the time, you see. And they used to make window jambs, door jambs, (all sawn stone) 12” x 6”, 9”x 6”, 6”x4” you know, in various lengths up to 8ft or 10ft but generally more door stuff and window stuff and the offal from that and the edges and that kind of thing was then broken up into points. [See Jack Platt transcripts.] (750) 6” or 4” or 3” or whatever, they were and made into points which was used for walling. Now Tubber Hill stone is far better than the Yorkshire stone because literally speaking it's no bed. You'll see Yorkshire stone, you can get a point out of a wall, you can see the bed of the stone. Put your chisel in there, you can thump it and it'll split down that bed. With Tubber Hill you'd certainly got to make it into what you wanted. You'd got to know how to tap and how to hit it. With Yorkshire Points, well a chap spends an hour or two at it with somebody that had a bit of experience and he could do it, but it was a trade and there used to be dozens working in the quarry making points and working the saws and making setts for the roads. Now you never see setts made out of Yorkshire stone but piles on piles and thousands of yards out of Tubber Hill stone. Your Yorkshire stuff or the Yorkshire stone as it's called, has no wearing quality. It's [Tubber Hill stone] harder and no bed, therefore it made good stone for making roads, paved roads.
Setts from Whitham's quarry at Park Close loaded ready for transport to Burnley.
Yes, Jack Platt used to work up there in the quarry and he's told me about the stone going out to Burnley and the setts going out.
R - That's right, yes.
If that stone had no bed how did they get the blocks out of the quarry. I know they lifted them out with the crane but how did they cut them out in the quarry to get them out?
R - They blasted them out. They bored holes in where all this stone was and they'd start at the top, you see, They'd bore the holes down and they used to have to bore them with the doings and of course they got the compressed air and put the shots in and all to fire at once, you see. The big block would come sometimes as big as this room, you see, maybe four foot wide! Generally speaking they would try to bring blocks off about 8ft x 5ft x 3ft.
I've seen in some quarries but not up here, because I've never seen these quarries working. I've seen them using plugs and feathers, did they used to use them here?
R - Oh yes, yes, they used plugs and feathers.
It's a job that's always fascinated me, quarrying. (1 hr 20 min)
R - But you see, like, with plugs and feathers without the powder, you've still got to bore. Do you understand what I mean? Then you see in those days, they used to before they had boring tackle they used to look for cracks or dries as they called them, in the stone. (800)
So if they found a natural crack, would they try to follow it with a wedge?
R - Yes. They call them ‘dries’ and strictly speaking, I would say that they are cracks. Then you used to have quite a bit of bother. They'd get a stone with, well they used to call it 'old horse' like 'dry rot' if you will. It would be a different colour to the stone, you see, but literally speaking, a stone with that in was no good. You'd cut that out you see but you used to try to work it through and let it go but anybody who knew anything about it wouldn't accept anything of that sort.
So as clerk of works down at the Chapel at Salterforth, you'd be looking out for that?
R - Oh aye, there was nothing of that sort went in. No there's no 'old horse' in it.
How much was walling stone then?
The walling stone that went into the Inghamite Church was 6/6d a square yard I think. Either 6/- or 6/6d.
That's a superficial yard?
R - Yes. And as I told you, Inghamite Church is all 6” stones, so there's 18ft to a square yard. There's six courses to a yard, you see, three so six threes is eighteen, see. (850) If you were buying it by the yard, obviously you couldn't measure every stone as it came off the cart and it'd be random lengths. How did you manage to make an estimate of you know?
R - Well you see, if they're six inch stones, well there's eighteen foot to the yard. You have a tape measure; you measure each stone as it comes off and the next stone until you've come to the eighteen foot.
So you used to measure the stones when they came off the cart?
R - I did that! (1 hr 25 min)
I was trying to understand that. I was thinking the only way that Harold could have done it was to measure the stone as it came off the cart!
R- I measured every stone but I didn't write it down.
No because you just had 18ft of….
R Kept on dragging the tape on until I had 18ft.
Yes, a piece of string 18ft long would have done you. Was that stone delivered on two wheel carts or four wheel lorries?
R - Four wheel lorries. It was all wagons, generally four wheeled wagons in those days. I'm saying four wheeled wagons, steam wagons. You know, that kind of thing.
How much would they carry, how much weight in tons?
R - Well, I don't know, I should say about three or four tons. You see we used to reckon that there's three and a half yards of stone to a ton.
That's three and a half superficial yards? Tell me Harold can you remember there being a steam engine at the top of the drag at Salterforth to give the horses a lift up with the carts?
R - No.
I've heard that there was one there on that little island - don't you think so?
R - I don't know. I've heard 'em say so.
I can't see any signs of it but I've heard 'em say so. But it must have been a very steep hill for them horses out of Salterforth there if they were going up onto that top road.
R - Yes. It must have been mustn't it?
Anyway, I think we've done very well for tonight Harold and I'd like to leave it there and start off on some more interesting stuff on the mills and such next week. I'm particularly fascinated tonight with the bit - now what was the bit that you told me? You told me something tonight that's explained something that's puzzled me for a long while. It was that interesting that I’ve forgot but I'll know when I go back through the tape. (900) Just one more thing about sawing stone. When they were running the saws and they were putting water through, did they ever put anything else through? It sticks in my mind that they used to put steel shot through as well.
R - They used to do, yes. Yes, they used to do that kind of thing and they used to shovel the slurry back onto the stone, onto the grooves.
So really the saws were wearing away as fast as the stone was. (1 hr 30 min)
R- Well, I wouldn't say that, you see, but you know you'd see a saw blade would be maybe 12” at the end and it’d be worn, literally speaking, till they broke. Then of course they put a new set in, you see or change and balance them up, that kind of thing.
Cutting the stone with steel saws and water - did that ever mark the stone? For instance did it ever leave any iron in the face of the stone and that’d go rusty afterwards and stay in the stone?
R - Oh no, that’d be because the water was continually running and at the finish you see, they'd let the water run right down the cuts, you see. They had the water sprinkling right over each cut and when they'd sawn the final do they run them off and took the thing outside on the trolley and the crane lifted the block off, generally speaking as it was.
Did they ever plane the stone?
R - They did not. No you see when they cut these blocks which resulted in big, flat slabs and then they had to put them back to cut them the other way.
Right, well, thank you very much, Harold.
SCG/30 November 2002
8427 words
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 82/HD/04
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 28th OF JULY 1982 AT BANKS HILL, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS HAROLD DUXBURY AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
This is the 28th July and this is the fourth session of interviews with Harold Duxbury at his home at Banks Hill and the interviewer is Stanley Graham.
Tape: 82/HD/4
Last night, Harold, well we were talking about quarrying when we finished and something which I wanted to ask you about but obviously we didn't get round to was what can you tell me about the brick works at Salterforth?
R - Very little, very little. I know where they were and that's about the limit .
Can you tell me where they were?
R - Yes. What do they call the cottages there where Whitham. used to live? On...
Where you turn to go onto Bradley's farm?
R - No, you turn onto Bradley's farm lower down than the cottages.
Yes, you're right.
R - You turn on at the top side of the cottages and they were between the road to Bradley's farm and the cottages. Between them two roads there was the brick works.
So in that case, those are the buildings that I marked on that sale catalogue that goes with the Bracewell property, I thought that was what they were but that confirms it.
R - Well they were beyond the cottages.
That's it and sort of on the left hand side of that little lane there going past the cottages.
R - There's relics of them there yet - or were.
Have you any idea whether the brickworks were run as part of the quarry?
R - I would imagine so because they'd use the offal from the quarries for these bricks. I think the waste material because they were a very poor quality brick were Salterforth brick.
Can you ever remember them being used?
R - Oh lots of places where they were used in Barnoldswick and they were just disintegrating in a very short time so you can quite well understand why they went out of business. The quality of the bricks was just hopeless. (5 min)
Now we'll stay on building material for a bit. Did you ever buy, I don't mean produced in Barlick, but if you can tell me where they're from, did you ever buy grey slate.
R - No, no. There was no new grey slates produced in this area. I would say that I'm only assuming this, the grey slates or stone slates as they're very often called, we used to call them grey slates were, I would say, a product of I would think in the Bradford district, Southowram and near that place and the Cotswolds. You see there was a grey slate that came from the Cotswolds that was extensively used in the old days but the ordinary grey slates that was used in this district, I would say was from the Southowram area but I must say that I'm guessing on that.
That matches with what I know.
R - Does it?
As far as I know, the only places where I've been able to find out that new grey slate definitely came from was Southowram or Halifax. between Halifax and Bradford.
R - They could not turn out slate in this area because as I told you last night there was no bed, it was gritstone. There was no bed in the stone that was quarried in this area and you see there must be a bedded stone to split into slates.
How about - er the same question, but flags?
R - The same thing applies. The only flags that was turned out here in some cases were flags that were sawn out of a block - and they were made, but not often because they couldn't produce it at a competitive price because it was a special job.
Do you know anywhere where those were used, Harold? (50)
R- I don't.
Of course the big flags, the Rossendale’s, well you tell me where they came from?
R - Well they came from the Rossendale area didn't they.
As I understand, mainly Bacup.
R - Yes, mainly that way, that's right, yes.
Of course there's other things you can put on roofs besides grey slate. What did you use for roofing material when you were house building?
R - Mainly slates. Very often Velinelli or Penrhyn and Cumberland slates, you know, Cumberland green from Buttermere, Coniston, and Honister but they were mainly, most common was Welsh. Of course if you wanted a right good quality you'd get Cumberland, Westmorland and all up that area.
How would they come into the town?
R - They'd come by rail in those days.
Roof slate as well?
R - Yes. (10 min) The railways used to run right into the quarries - in some cases at any rate, I would say most cases.
One of the things I've always wandered about slate, lets talk about blue slate, Welsh slate, is the size. There are a lot of different sizes, can you tell me about the sizes of slates, how they were classified?
R - Well, they all had different names. Various sizes had different names. Until they came right down to small slates and then they were called Peggy slates and I can remember too that Bracewell Hall, we bought, for demolition and we sold the slates for more than we gave for the Hall and they were Peggy slates, little small slates and they all went to Macclesfield.
What date was that, Harold?
Bracewell Hall under demolition in 1950.
R - Oh that would be 1950 or something like that.
I seem to remember hearing some of those slates, I think in a larger sizes, called things like 'Ladies' and ‘Duchesses’ and 'Countesses'. Have you ever heard that?
R - Yes, and Tun slates and so forth. They had all various names and the various names related to the sizes. I could tell you the sizes of the standard slate. The most popular, even today is 24” x 12”. You see there used to be 22” x 12” and there'd be a 10” and down to 8”. 8”, 10", 12” and 14” and sometimes 16”. 20” x 16” and so forth and then it comes onto Tun slates, bigger slates all random sizes.
How do you spell that?
R - T. U. N.
One thing about slate that I've always wandered about, I've noticed on some, I suspect high quality buildings that I've seen falling into disrepair that the heads of the slates are round instead of square.
R - The corners cut off, not round. I've seen the corners cut and just nailed with one nail but normally the slates are nailed onto the lath by two nails, one on each side about half way. And the normal… and you see if a slate, say take a 24” x 12” slate. There's a 3” lap one over the other so there's only 21” to be reckoned with and half of that 20 is swallowed up with the cover you see, so therefore out of a 24” x 12” slate you get a covering area of 12” x 101/2” You lose more than half the area of the slate by lap and covering. Coverings double. [What Harold means is that at any place on the roof there is at least two slates thickness. This applies to grey slate as well. Slating was a very complicated and highly skilled job when using blues and greys.]
No.
R- Anyway that's what the position is and you see on the grey slate these days I know that they used a special nail, supposed to be blacksmith made and galvanised but in the old days they were just blacksmith made and just a nail. Previous to that they were pegged with oak pegs and they didn't go into the laths, the pegs just went at the top side of the laths and their own weight kept them down, the pegs just stopped them from slipping down. (100)
Something that we never see nowadays but which there was a lot of, mortar. Now, then how did you make mortar? (15 min)
R Well, we used to make mortar in the early days with a mortar pan. That was a big pan maybe cast iron pan and I would say that it was maybe 8ft across and maybe 18” deep. In that pan there were two rollers which were driven by any kind of an engine, preferably. We used to have a mortar pan outside the mill. One of the shafts would come through the wall with a pulley on outside and somewhere near the boiler house (150) and we used to use clinkers out of the boilers to grind, and grind the clinkers and old ash up into the mortar mixed with lime and that was called 'blue mortar'. If you get that properly done it needed some whacking! I think I could take you to property that was built about 1920 that were built with the old fashioned clinker mortar, pan ground mortar with nothing only lime. Just occasionally we used to add a bit of cement but after 60 - 70 years I think I could show you mortar today that was used then. It's never been disturbed and the property's never been pointed.
I can believe that. What sort of lime did you use?
R - Putty lime.
That's quick lime that you've slaked yourself.
R - Yes. There were no such thing as hydrated lime in them days.
I've come across accounts where people were building in late nineteenth century where one of the first things they did was dig a pit and put quick lime in that and slack it down and it went like putty in the pit.
R - That's right, yes.
Is that what you're talking about.
R - Yes, yes. Putty lime
Did Briggs and Duxbury’s ever have a mortar pan driven at a mill like that?
R - Oh yes.
Can you tell me which mill?
R - Well the last one that we had was at Salterforth Mill when we built the Inghamite Church. (20 min)
Ah that's it so..
R - And it was just at the bottom corner. There was a road from the main road down the side round to the boiler house and the last shaft came through the walls and we..
Yes, because that's the obvious place to do it. I've noticed that at Bancroft, there's a hole in the wall at the back of the shed.
R - That's right, yes.
It was still open when we were running the weaving shed. Well open - it was filled up with a wooden door. It was quite obvious.
R - I think, if I remember rightly there was a mortar pan at the back of the boiler house where the canteen is now.
At Bancroft?
R - Aye.
There could very easily have been because ...
R - it might have been further back than that.
There's certainly a hole in the wall at the end of the lineshaft at that corner. It's good to see that it would have been very easy to have run a mortar pan there and of course there is a reference in the Calf Hall minute book to Edward Smith having a mortar pan.
R - Ted Smith.
Aye. Drains, interesting subject. Can you remember - what can you tell me about the disposal of waste water? The thing that has always intrigued me about some of the old property in Barnoldswick is that if you look, we were talking about it the other day, they obviously had ash middens and pail toilets, so we're talking about the days before the water carriage system for the lavatories for the soil from the houses. Surely there would be a waste water system of some sort because there would be a waste water from things like sinks and washing and baths before there was sewers big enough to accommodate the water carriage system.
R - Yes, there was that kind of thing which of course went to the sewage and then they had the bright idea of making these 'tippler closets'. Is that what you want to get at?
Yes, things like that.
R - Well, you know how that worked, don't you?
Well I do but I daresay people in a hundred years might wonder what we're talking about. You describe a 'tippler closet' to me.
R - Well, the tippler closet, the waste water from the sinks and the baths ran into a pivoted pan, which had the inlet from that drain came over the top and ran into this. The inlet from the drain ran into the pan and the pan at the outlet side was extended and bevelled so that it automatically tipped when it got full because the weight of the water was more than the inlet side. (25 min) Therefore it tipped and ran through the toilet and took the solids away.
That's it. We used to have a 'tippler' at Sough when I lived down there. It used to fascinate me. You used to sit there and all of a sudden it would go! There was a warm draught and of course one of the big faults with those toilets was, I don't think there was a trap onto the sewer, was there?
R - Yes, there was a trap at the bottom of the shaft of the vertical shaft. A 12`` pipe, vertical pipe and at the bottom there was a trap but you see that trap was holding solids all the time and the solids stuck on the side of the shaft. (200) Some of these shafts were 6ft or 7ft deep and you can imagine that there was solids stuck for donkey's years on the sides and well, who cleaned them? You know, scraped down the side and if they could they couldn't get down them properly. The smell came from the solids that were always there in the bottom because it didn't always flush everything away and very often they used to get made up. I'd been to tippers where it's been running out at the top, they couldn't go to the toilet. We used to have a chap and he were a specialist on the job and he'd go to these tipplers and he had a special mop and the only way to get them loose you know was to pump 'em wi’t long mop and it'd be splashing up and splashing up and he'd a long moustache. I could tell you the name of him he has a family today and that was the way to move a tipper.
Just while we're on that subject can you tell me anything about ... I'm deliberately making this question vague because if it's what I think it is I want you to tell me I don't want to trigger you. Can you tell me anything about blockages in mill toilets? Is there anything special about blockages in mill toilets? (30 min)
R - In the old days, there was a series of toilets all ran into a common pipe and usually that pipe ran to a manhole or an inspection chamber outside the factory. If they couldn't get it outside the factory it'd be inside the factory and from there you'd to clean both ways and very often do just the best you could. Very often you might have 20 or 30 drain rods between or sometimes up to 50 drain rods between one manhole and another and you'd to get down and we had special wire ends you know that screwed into these blockages which was very often caused with old rags and all sorts of filth and things that shouldn't have been put down toilets but which were. [What I was after, and I think that Harold got there, was the blockage of drains by the practice of flushing waste cotton down the toilets to avoid being taken to task when you took it in to the waste bags in the warehouse.] Generally speaking the drainage was a first class job because it had to be because if it wasn't you were continually at them. Not often did we have to go to mill toilets. (250) I don't particularly know Bancroft well of course, the manholes there were in the yard but they were on the same principle as they all ran into the one pipe and out of that into the manhole.
The situation was at Bancroft was, the reason those toilets used to block up easily was with that being made up land at the top side of the dam and it sunk over the years.
R - Yes, and as you well know the land there well.... There was a growth below part of that mill. You see I dealt with all that at the time; excavated and sent samples away and got all the reports, foolscap after foolscap of it and I lent them to Nutters and I never got 'em back. They'd be destroyed and you know it was nearly like asbestos was that stuff. I sent it away for analysis and all that kind of thing. I nearly forget now what the general report was but it was definitely a growth.
Did you ever go when they were demolishing the mill, Harold?
R - No.
Well I'll tell you something interesting about that, I think it might interest you because I told Norman and Reuben, the demolition contractors when they were doing it, I said, when you get down to this end of the warehouse and you get to this lump in the floor, "I'd be very interested what you find underneath” and I told them about this stuff underneath that lifted the floor up and lifted the tape room up. Norman said, “We’ll have a look” and he got rather intrigued with it. When they got in with the big machines you know, all that floor out there, he said to me afterwards. I wasn't there when they were doing it, I was in America, but he said to me afterwards, he said,” The biggest wonder is with this place is that it ever stood up!” He said "Do you know what's under that floor when you get down below?” For interest sake they put a bucket in and dug down about 10ft or 15ft and it's on a big peat bed and he said, he got a girder, a thirty foot girder, and got it on the end of the crane, because they had all the machinery there. “We got a big cast iron girder and lifted it up and dropped it down onto it and kept lifting it up and dropping it," and he said,” We got it in thirty foot and we thought, well it must be at least thirty foot deep so we pulled it out" He said, “It’s the same behind the canteen as well” And he said, “What that chimney's stood on, I don't know!” I asked him that because I'm sure you must have noticed over the years. In the bunker, the coal bunker at Bancroft, I was always intrigued by the fact that there was almost a dome of stone under the wall. It went over in a curve and the brick wall was built on top of it and it almost looks to me as though they'd been trying to cap something that they'd found in the floor there, as if they'd been capping it and building over the top of it. And that boiler house, to my mind, is completely the wrong way round. The way they've got it, the steam pipe is as far away from the engine as it can be and that boiler should have been the other way round. (35 min) I've always suspected that when they laid that mill out and when they hit peat, it was the position of the chimney and the bearing ground for the settings of the boiler that governed how that had to be built. I don't know that, obviously, but I suspect that. Reuben said that at the back of the chimney where that little canteen was and going under the shed itself, it's a big bed of peat to the (what was) the end of the warehouse where that mushroom was. He said it's a wonder it didn't move more than it did. It was perhaps some sort of mineral coming up in the water from that peat.
R - When we did that investigation up there, I had a lot of timber up there. They were all second hand ones but they were big beams maybe fourteen inches by eight inches, long ones. I suppose they'd go in't demolition, I never got 'em back. There’d be half a dozen - oh more in that warehouse.
I'll tell you what happened to them. George Bleasdale used them for building the front of the coal bunker before ever I went there. There was these big beams and they were spiked together and they were used for holding up the coal bunker so that the wagon could back further into the coal bunker.
R - Oh I never got paid for 'em. (300)
Anyway, if it's any consolation to you, I lost a telegraph pole as well. I had one up on the roof of the tape department, they had no money and we had a piece of shafting go and I took a telegraph pole up there and lifted it up on the hoist and then put it out through the roof to put on top of the Warren trusses to put a sky hook on to take the weight of all this shafting, cutting it out and putting a new shafting and bearing into it. It dawned on me when they demolished the mill that my telegraph pole was still up there.
R - Well, them girders were due for collapsing at any time. The Warren girders on that tape room. (40 min)
They were well covered with lead underneath at each end.
R - Underneath the lead they'd never been attended to and they were just corroded to nothing nearly. I know, I inspected them a time or two. You see I've known, I was once brought over to Blackburn for some Warren girders that had collapsed and I can tell you when it was too. It was in 1934 because that car was new.
The one that was turned into the wagon?
R - Aye. It was a 1934, it was a new one and when I was coming back at the far side of Whalley, the signals, and the War Memorial is half a mile to the centre and when I got to the signals at the centre I had Willie Brown with me, Henry Brown Sons and Pickles. We got to the signals and I pulled up and there's a car pulls up at side of me. Will you stop when you get to the other side of the signals? It was the police - I'd exceeded the speed limit. I got fined £2. And I got fined £2.
It was a serious amount in 1934.
R - Aye, well I got fined £2.00. Well, I don't know about endorsing my licence, they didn't endorse my licence or anything but that was in 1934. I'd been to take particulars of these Warren girders and Henry Brown, Sons & Pickles made 'em for us and they were at India Mills in Blackburn.
Darwen?
R - No, Blackburn.
The one with the big chimney, the one with the ornate chimney?
R - It could have, I've forgotten. It's just as you're going into Blackburn beyond the cemetery.
Drains and water supplies. Now then the water supplies in Barnoldswick. What can you tell me about the water supply, the source of water for Barnoldswick?
R - Well, you see the only source of water in those days was the bore hole at Tubber Hill. Well that was the only source of supply.
Have you any idea when that bore hole was put in?
R - No. It would be the latter end of the 19th Century wouldn't it. I should think 1890 or something like that but I don't know.
And what would the source of water be before that? (45 min) (350)
R - Well, I would thing the various springs that there is about the district.
Do you know of any places in the centre of town that used to have their own well that's covered in now?
R- Well, the only one that 1 know of is Monks' Well.
Where was that?
R - Well, you know where Shitten Ginnel is?
In between Esp Lane and Calf hall Lane.
R - Yes, well just where it runs into Calf hall Lane there, you'll find a big stone flag and that is Monks well.
Is that in the ginnel itself or…?
R - If I remember rightly it's just before you get into the lane, Calf Hall Lane. It's at Calf Hall Lane side of the stream.
Yes, that's interesting.
R - I would think that there would be various forms, windmills and that kind of thing. Storage places, storage tanks and so forth and so on. Supplying so many houses and so forth. That Monks Well, I've never looked for it for a long time but I'll tell you who showed me where it was. Old Stephen Pickles, that's the original S. Pickles and Sons, cotton manufacturers. I was, as a youngster, Stephen Pickles was a good friend to me. He was a big business man you know, but I was young and had a lot to learn and I was prepared to learn and was prepared to work. And Stephen made use of me to some pattern. He gave us some work and he got to that stage, you know, had one or two managers and he says,” We’ll have Harold down here and see what Harold has to say” It got to that stage with Stephen, and same as this kind of thing, showing me where Monks Well was. Well that was outside business and he were interested in me and I were interested in him because I liked him and he was prepared to tell me and teach me a lot which he did. His pattern, same as I've told you about Hartley Edmondson, he says to me, and I've never forgotten, "Harold, never forget, best is always the cheapest in the long run.” Little things like that but you're prepared to learn. Anyway, go on. (400)
No, that's good stuff, Harold. I mean he was quite right. Can you remember any of the mill chimneys being built in Barnoldswick.
R - Well of course I can remember Fernbank and Bancroft and them being built but we never had anything to do with building chimneys. The only chimney that I ever had anything to do with building was the laundry down Gisburn Street and that's a square chimney and we built it.
I’ve often wondered if the building of the mill chimney was a specialised job or if it was undertaken by the people that built the mills.
R - Generally a specialised job. (50 min)
Do you know anybody that used to specialise in building mill chimneys?
R - No. No. No. You see there haven't been many built in my time.
Yes, it's always seemed to me that it's a fairly specialised job.
R- That's right, yes.
When you think of what you were dealing with. The one that I know, the one that I know a bit about, because I investigated it, is that big one at Middleton that they call Swabs chimney at Middleton. It was a big chimney 320ft high. It was a big one and they put that up in 16 weeks! You can just imagine it not having time for the mortar to go off properly and the weight start squeezing the mortar out of the joints. When you think 16 weeks for a 320ft chimney like that! Anyway we're still really onto water and drains and things like that. One of the things which I have come to the conclusion about is that if there wasn't a 500ft fall from Weets down into the bottom of Barlick and quite a lot of water running off it, Barnoldswick would never have been in the place where it is. That water gave, first of all, it gave power for water mills and it provided the water for condensing the engines. It seems to me that from time to time there must have been some fair battles over water rights and who had the rights to which water.
R - Er there was. There were a big battle over the Bowker Drain, you know.
Can you tell me about the Bowker Drain?
R - Well, you see, again it's vague, but it was Bowker and oh I might be wrong with Mitchell, but they both banked themselves with fighting with the rights about the Bowker Drain. Both fought each other and it could be Gaskell oh dear! [Harold might be giving us a good clue here. He’s generally right with his names and when he said this a bell rang in my head. Mitchell sold his mill to Slater in 1867 and this was about the same time as the fight over the Bowker Drain. I can’t see how the Bowker water would be of interest to Mitchell because it’s at a lower level than his mill but suppose there was a connection, it might explain why an established manufacturer had to sell his mill if he had lost a major court case. Worth bearing in mind….] I told you where the Bowker Drain started and where it finished didn't I?
Tell me again so that it's on this tape.
R - well the Bowker Drain started up against a wall on the West Side of the old iron bridge across the canal halfway to Salterforth.
That's on the Salterforth side, is it?
R - No the West side is on the .. You see the canal's running on there and the West is here - Salterforth's there.
Yes, because you're nearly facing South there when you're looking down.
From there it runs on the canal side of Moss Shed. It runs underneath Long Ing Shed underneath the Ouzeldale Foundry and there is an inspection place between Long Ing and Ouzledale foundry. Probably about ten foot wide between and there's an inspection place there. It runs right along that bottom underneath the road and underneath Crow Nest Cottages and out into the beck at the low side of the bridge. {Harpld was accurate, I went and found the access point between Long Ing and the foundry.]
That footbridge at the bottom of Crow Nest Road there?
R - Yes. (55 min) (450)
Is that the culvert that goes under the road there that I was talking to you the other day?
R - No.
That's a different one?
R - That's a different one. That culvert that runs under the road by Windle's garage and out into the Crow Nest dam. That's the one that you're referring to isn't it?
Yes.
R - Well, that's fed from the dyke [Crow Nest Syke] and it's gathering ground for that. On the West side of Moss side all up Clifford Street area and that area. That's the gathering ground and it runs right down on Crow Nest Syke, into Crow Nest Syke I should say, and right under the bend which is being disturbed now and blocked up as you say and underneath at side of and parallel with the road till it gets to Windle's garage and then it goes under the road and underneath Crow Nest Shed and out into the dam. (500)
So that Bowker Drain is bound to be a low drain, it must have been there for a long time.
R - There's also another one that I've never fathomed and that’s Wellhouse Dam’s overflows. There used to be a dam literally speaking where Gissing and Lonsdale have their shop now which was Henry Browns Sons and Pickles.
You mean where what we used to call - It was intended as a foundry at first.
R ~ That's right, it was the foundry. Between there and Wellhouse Dam as we remember it, there was another dam and there was a path between them and that one dam was filled in. The other's been filled in now but the overflows from them dams were piped and came out at the top side of the bridge in Crow Nest Road there going onto the playing fields at the top side. (1 hour) Literally speaking the dams were fed from other places. There was a well, a big well, a deep well there in the corner, very deep, and what's happened to it now I don't know. They wanted me to act as consultant and I said well I didn't want to take an official position like that at my time of life. I didn't want more work, I wanted less. I said if I could be of service to them at any time, I would tell them whatever I knew. Anyway, I told them a few things but not so much but they've never asked me about that well which was a very sticky business. (1 hr 5 min) (550) I once found this pipe outside the dams and I put some colour down and it never come and there were a fair good flow on this pipe so I put some more colour down and by gum! I coloured Stock Beck to some pattern, let alone Cloggers Beck and Butts Beck. I coloured the whole beck. It wouldn’t do any damage, it was only colour. I found out where it come out at anyway. It eventually came out at the topside and I never expected - you see I expected it coming out further down. It was further up.
Wellhouse Mill in 1963. The remaining dam is in the foreground. There used to be two dams but the one to the left has been filled in and is being used for parking.
It makes you wonder why anybody would ever bother to pipe those overflows down there.
R - That's right but they were done.
The only thing I can think about that and it's probably cynical of me but by doing that they made sure that it didn't go into Crow Nest dam.
R - Yes, but this was going back to before Crow Nest was built. [Again, Harold is right and is giving us a good clue. All the evidence points to the fact that Billycock Bracewell was making sure that he didn’t let any water down that could be used in the dam for Old Coates Mill. By dropping it in the beck below the Old Coates dam he made sure they couldn’t use it.]
It must have been, you're quite right. It's fascinating stuff, I mean these sort of things fascinate me. I'd have been a good man fiddling about with that colour with you. You would have been lowering me down the well. I'm a beggar for anything like that. If there's a hole to go into or a chimney to go up... Newton tells a good story... [in later years I did a lot of research on the Bowker Drain. I never got the full story but all the evidence points to the fact that William Bracewell was pumping water out of the drain in Eastwood Bottoms and instead of returning it to the drain after using it he went to the trouble of piping it directly to the beck below Crow Nest thus depriving his cousins at Old Coates Mill of the water.]
R - Well, Newton will know about that well.
Newton tells a good story about the bore hole up at White Moor, you know, Tubber Hill.
R - They did a lot of work on that bore hole at one time and another.
He was down one of them one day. There were two bore holes and what they were doing they were taking the foot valve off to lift it out. It had to be done up and the engine was running away pumping out of the other bore instead. He said that was keeping the level of the water down in the hole that he was in and he shouted to them up the bore. He wanted something, he wanted something raising up or lowering down to him and somebody at the top shouted, “Stop that engine we can't hear what Newton's saying”. So they stopped the other pump and he said as soon as they stopped the other pump, Newton said as soon as they stopped the pump, water started to spout up under his feet. He said there was a four inch pipe and he said it was all scabbed over with big knobs and he said he was climbing that like a monkey. He said the water was chasing him. I said to him, why didn't you just let the water carry you up? He said well, it was bubbling and there was that much air in it he said he didn't think he’d float in it. Anyway they started the other pump up and dropped the level back down again. He said he was frightened then. Just to go back to this Bowker Drain, you say that - I realise that you can't remember the names of it but you think that there was some sort of court action?
R - Oh definitely: Both sides bankrupted themselves fighting it.
What was so important about the water that was coming down that drain?
A - It supplied Wellhouse Mill first of all and then when Bankfield was built they got a water right but not until Wellhouse had had theirs. You see, it came right past Crow Nest, no not Crow Nest, Moss Shed, they'd no right to it, no water right, and Long Ing had no right. Wellhouse had. They had the first call and there's a big well in the field behind that row of houses. There was a pump at the corner of Wellhouse mill and it was piped from there up into the tank, a pump from the well up into the tank at the top of Wellhouse mill.
Yes, on top of the old engine house. (1 hr 10min) I mean the mean the old beam engine house, the one at the end, the original engine house with the iron tank on the roof. (600)
R - The iron tank on the roof but that wasn't over the steam engine, that tank, not right over, I don't think.
I've always assumed that that was an engine house at that end. I always assumed that there were two engines, two beam engines, one at each end.
R - Yes, well you might be right there but anyway it was pumped from there and that was the water right and we used to clean that out. I have a plan of that well and. I know where it is and there's inspection chambers there now.
At the corner of the mill there?
R - No, in the field. There's Vicarage Road isn't there, and there's a row of houses on each side. Newton lives at one side, well at the other side there's a field between there ands Eastwood Bottoms. The pump etc is in Eastwood Bottoms.
Ah! Eastwood Bottoms! Now that rings a bell. Which is Eastwood Bottoms?
R - Well, it's between the row of houses on Vicarage Road and Roundell Road. Vicarage Road is where the Vicarage is or the Masonic Hall now and Windle's garage. The next one that turns to the right is Roundell Road.
Just past the Jet Station?
R - That runs on to Eastwood Bottoms and between Roundell Road and Vicarage Road, there's a field and it extends into another field that Roundell Road runs into and all that lot on there is Eastwood Bottoms. That then is the water right that belonged to the Gledstone Estate, to Roundells' and Wellhouse, Bracewell. And when Bracewell built New Mill, it's in the Calf Hall Shed Company minute books, the early minute books. When Bracewell built New Mill, he came to an arrangement with them whereby, he paid them so much a year. I've forgotten how much it was. It was a very small amount a year for the water rights for the water that was coming down through Eastwood Bottoms and it was after the Calf Hall Shed company had bought it that Roundells had to up the rent for that water. (1 hr 15 min)
It was a serious thing if they couldn't have that water. That is when they started boring for water?
R - Yes, you might be right there but you see Eastwood Bottoms extends beyond the land that we're talking about. The land from the end of Roundell Road to Edward Street, that land did not belong to Gledstone Estate and this land going back before Roundell's time. Before - oh I can't remember the name. If I heard it..
Don't worry about it, it'll come back to you.
R - I'm not going to worry about it but I can't just remember it at the moment. I will do eventually. I shall have records of it somewhere. Anyway we’d better leave that because I can't remember it.
I think what we're talking about really is how complicated these rights to different pieces of land were.
R - Oh quite.
That's the whole purpose of me asking you these questions because it'll bring that out and a lot of people don't realise how jealously guarded the rights to these, what looks in this day and age an insignificant drain running into a beck can be really important.
R - When we get into this Calf Hall Shed Company minutes, the name of this firm will arise a few times. It belonged that land. [Harold later gave me access to the Calf Hall Shed Company Minute Books. See the section devoted to Room and Power in the LTP.]
There's a piece of land there that I never really - was it Meanwood Flat? They kept talking about selling land on Meanwood Flat. I've never been able to find out where that was.
R Well I don't know.
Well, anyway, I think I've talked to you enough for tonight.
R - It's all right.
Are you all right?
R - Yes, I promised to pick my wife up at quarter past eight.
What time is it now, Harold?
R – It’s eight o'clock. (650)
Water,...
R - Oh there's another thing on water that I should have told you. It was quite a common thing for people to have water tanks in their kitchens or under the floor and they had a pump.
What fed that water tank?
R - Well, maybe top water from the troughings. Sometimes they had a service from a big tank somewhere or rams or anything but very often it was collected from the troughings, gutters.
That's very interesting, Harold. That's the first time anybody's ever mentioned that to me.
R - Oh well, it was quite common.
Do you know of anywhere in Barlick where that applied?
R - Yes, and not very old property. Moseley Street on the lower side of Moseley Street. All that right hand side opposite the Sunday School there. All them houses up there had water tanks in their kitchens.
That's the first time anybody's ever mentioned that to me.
R - Well they had, and pumps.
Come to think of it I've been in old houses that have had their own pumps next to the sink and I've never, it's never. I've always assumed that it's been a pipe down to a well, you know.
R - Very often they were. I remember across at Crook Carr here. They had a pump and it was pumped from a tank out in the field.
When we're talking about farm property, we got situations like, as you know I went up to look at Dark Hill well the other day and I was talking to Roddy Hemmingway down at Springs Farm and he said to me, I went back up actually to have a look. There's a big Holly Bush growing over it, you can't see it. He said if you look he said below Dark Hill well there s a stone trough in the dyke and there's an inch hole bored in the side of it and there's a pipe from there to Springs Farm and that used to be the water supply to Springs Farm. This is the farm itself.
There's your telephone Harold.
SCG/01 December 2002
7403 words
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 82/HD/05
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 2ND OF AUGUST 1982 AT BANKS HILL, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS HAROLD DUXBURY AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
This tape was made on the 2nd August, 1982, in the home of Harold Duxbury, at Banks Hill, Barnoldswick. The informant is Harold Duxbury and the interviewer is Stanley Graham.
Keeping to the buildings and the interesting things like drains and that, I know that this name's going to crop up a lot - what can you tell me about Ted Smith?
R – Not a lot. Not a lot. He was a builder. He built some of these mills. I don't know which. He had two sons and two daughters, I think. I'll tell you who could probably give you more information about Ted Smith. You've heard speak of Jim Wright? He's a Methodist Minister and he's retired and he lives up Moseley Street. Tell him I've given you his name and he’ll tell you no doubt, everything you want to know about Ted Smith. It was his grandfather. His mother was Ted Smith's daughter and there's another - there's a daughter which is Jim’s sister - you know Vic Cadle that had compressors?
No
R - Well, you've heard speak of Moira Wright? Well that's another sister, she married Vic Cadle and she could tell you quite a lot but I think Jim would be able to tell you more.
Of course, he was a builder before your time, he’d be finished before your time?
R - I know of him and he built Briercliffe and lived there up at Rainhall.
Briercliffe, that's the house at Rainhall?
R - Well, that's a good house near where the Briercliffe Mission is or whatever you like to call it.
Very strange. Not quite sure about that lot, Harold. Now, Springs Dam. I went up there to have a look around. What can you tell me about Springs Dam?
R - Again, not so very much. (5 min) You see, literally speaking, as far as I know, Springs Dam were formed as a storage and they made use of it with supplying Calf Hall Shed. I would say that was the time when Springs Dam were built, or formed whatever you like to call it. When Calf Hall Mill was built. (50)
It must have been before that Harold, because when they formed the Calf Hall Shed Co. one of the first things they did, I've forgotten the name of the person they'd to go to now to ask for rights for water from that dam. It seemed to me that the only thing it could have been built for if it wasn't for Calf Hall - was to supply water to Butts originally. You know when Bracewell built Butts.
R - Yes, yes I quite agree with that but you can't stop water, you can't stop the water rights. If that water runs through your premises, you can't collect unless you put back.
How would it be though, because obviously I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and what puzzles me was somebody with undoubted business capabilities such as old Billycock would have had the rights to that water, you know, gained control of that water that was running down to his mill because then there was only the Butts and Clough Mill. Clough had its own water supply. You know, coming down from Bancroft. That beck that comes running down from Gillian's beck. So they didn't enter into it, well Mitchell's Mill as it was then didn't enter into it. When Bracewell's estate was broken up, I just wondered whether you know, like this big sale in 1887, whether whoever lived up there had bought the dam or whether any agreement they'd had with Bracewell, had been cancelled.
R - Well as you well know, at Butts Mill there was a clow and it flooded, the water was collected and it would be I should think four foot deep and it would be right under the mill. They used to collect it from there and it backed up under the mill, there's tunnels under the mill both from the beck and overflow from Clough Mill. There was also a clow at Calf Hall. You know where it was at Butts do you?
Yes, yes.
R - The clow. You know where it were at Calf Hall then?
By the side of the road, at the end of Calf Hall Lane, there.
R - That's it, yes and it backed up again, right to the other side. I think there was another clow at the far end.
Yes, there was a lodge and a drop down and a bit under the mill at the back. Only a little lodge. (10 min)
R - That's right, yes. All that storage underneath the mill and that. You see someday there's going to be a fair collapse at Butts. I've been under them and followed them.
You were saying you'd been in those tunnels under Butts.
R - And they're not good. This is twenty years since!
That's cast iron girders and flags over the top?
R - Oh no.
Is it stone vaulted?
R - Aye. With the stones out at the top!
So it's stone vaulted and underneath it's tunnelled?
R - Yes, it's stone vaulted and it's tunnelled, arched.
You find odd little things in the minute books, like the fact that William Holdsworth was asked to make a cover for the valve gear, for the clow at Springs Dam, to stop the people letting water down when they shouldn't. You know, after Calf Hall had taken over the water rights or had rented the water right and there was many complaints afterwards of course but it was inside the company. There were complaints from Butts Mill Company who were running that mill - (I’m not sure if it was a fellow called Eastwood that was running it then) about the fact that the water that was coming down from Calf Hall was too hot and Calf Hall did something which I’ve never come across before. Between 1890-95 they fit up some piping to pump the water over the top of the shed roof in Summer to cool it. I’ve never come across that before. You don't seem surprised when I say they pumped it across the roof?
R - Oh no! You see and various types of sprinklers and that kind of thing, you know. They had a right sprinkling plant at Crownest. You knew about that, didn't you?
No, I didn't know about that.
R - Oh yes, it were quite an elaborate affair. It were a wood structure and it were in the line of Butts Beck where the dam is now for Crownest. They used to pump it up this and let it run round this all down, louvered, you see.
At Bancroft we were never really troubled with that because we had a big lodge for the size of the engine. The only thing there’d ever been at Bancroft, was troughings along the side of the dam to carry the condensate right back up to the top of the dam. 100)
R - We used to have to do that at Wellhouse. That was all wood troughs all the way around.
William Bracewell and Burnley iron works. Now Burnley Iron works, obviously, was Burnley iron works all during your time. What sort of work did they do. Obviously there was the engine trade but did they do other cast iron stuff?
R - I would think so. I don't know enough to give you any details but they did do these new engines and that kind of thing, you know.
And Roberts would be the same? Roberts at Nelson would be the same?
R - Quite, yes. (15 min)
The foundry that Henry Brown built down in the bottoms there [at Havre Park], who built that foundry? When I say, it was Henry Brown's foundry but who actually did the construction? [Later research showed that Brown’s built the foundry and Johnny Pickles, their foreman, supervised the construction. See AG series of tapes.]
R - I don't know. I think the first people to use it would be Henry Brown and Sons. not Henry Brown, Sons and Pickles. Henry Brown and Sons. Father Ashby was the foreman down there. [Henry Brown and Sons actually]
Havre Park foundry when new in 1922.
That later founded Ouzeldale Foundry.
R - Yes, well he later went up to Ouzeldale. I think they found they couldn't make a do with it and gave it up. He went up there and started on his own did Father Ashby. You don't want me to follow that on, do you?
We'll do the foundry in a minute, it's Henry Browns that I’m interested in at the moment really. Newton doesn't know a lot about it really because of course he was only a young lad at the time. Obviously, Newton was 15 years younger than you..
R - Well, I'll tell you as I remember it .... I think I'll be right. In the first place it would be built for Henry Browns, Sons and Pickles. Whether they paid for it or not I just don't know.
Can I ask you, it would be built for Henry Browns? (20 min)
R - That's right, Henry Brown and Sons and then Henry Brown got into financial difficulty and Ashby went up to Ouzeldale and started up there. That would be the time when Henry Brown and Sons became 'Henry Brown's Sons & Pickles'. [The firm started as John Pickles and Son and became Henry Brown, Sons and Pickles when Johnny took Willie Brown in as a partner.]
Yes, that's it and Newton told me, he said that actually, his father had told him, he said that really Henry brown should never have finished because he said the trouble they were in wasn't that bad. [They paid out 98new pence in the pound when they liquidated.]
R - No, I can quite understand that and I would think that that's quite true but that was the time when Newton's father went in.
What year are we talking about?
R - Well, I should think about 1925. [Browns liquidated in 1929 and Johnny Pickles took over then as J A Pickles and Son. In 1932 he took Willie Brown in as partner and firm changed its name to Henry Brown Sons and Pickles.] (150)
I'm sure I have that date off Newton but that's all right. And Johnny....
R - All these things will be proved in Calf Hall's minute book.
Oh yes, yes but I haven't come to 1925 yet, you see. Just a word of explanation there Harold, what we're doing isn't a quiz but the nice thing is that backing up what you tell me is the information I get from things like the minute book and from other places like from Newton as well. I mean its gathering the whole lot together so that we can get a whole picture. One thing can only give you a flat view of things. Johnny, I'd forgotten whether Johnny, at that time was working for Burnley Iron Works. [No, he was foreman at Henry Browns and had been since 1908. He served his apprenticeship with Henry Brown in Earby. ] When Henry Brown’s finished, he decided that he was going to set up on his own. Newton's told me the story about Johnny starting and I wondered if you knew anything about it because it seems to me that what happened was that the Calf Hall Shed Company decided that it would be a good thing to support this mechanic because they were going to need him.
R - That's very likely true. I don't know just how long I was interested in Calf Hall Shed Company before I became managing director, well it was right away, as soon as I went on the board. I was made managing director, the same time as I went on't board.
When was that, Harold?
R - Again, I'd have to look. Teddy Wood [The secretary who was a partner in Proctor and Proctor], he was the chairman of Calf Hall Shed Company when I went on. I learned a lot from Edward Wood and he was hand in glove with Johnny Pickles was Teddy Wood, and literally speaking if anything went wrong in any of the mills, it was Johnny Pickles that did it. Teddy Wood had nowt to do but ring Johnny Pickles up and he'd no need to bother any more about it, you see and Teddy had a free hand, just the same as when I became managing director, I had a free hand, you understand? Before me, Edmondson Banks was the managing director. [July 1908 to September 16th 1946 when he died]
Was he a jeweller, originally? (25 min)
R - Oh no!
What was he originally? What was his profession?
R- Well, he was a bookworm, that's all, not a practical man.
And of course, he’d be a fair age.
R - Oh yes, held be climbing up to 80 when he died. He certainly tried to look after Calf Hall Shed Company. And so did Teddy Wood. They took everything out and put nowt in. Immediately, I stopped that, right bang off and they took nowt out but they put everything in. There were thirty odd thousand pounds overdrawn and in them days it were a lot of money.
So Johnny was doing the millwrighting for the Calf Hall Shed Company.
R - For Calf Hall Shed Company but not only for Calf Hall Shed Company. Proctor & Proctor, the accountants at Burnley, they were big room and power people. They had any amount of mills besides Calf Hall Shed Company that they controlled, you see and well of course he were all over Lancashire were Johnny Pickles.
And of course Teddy Wood was Proctor and Proctor.
R - He was the King Pin!
And of course, his daughter is Mr. Victor Hedge’s wife. One of the things you must have seen a big change in over the years is the roads and we did just touch on this subject earlier on but I'd like you to just if you can say any more about it. You know, the days before the roads were tarmacadamed and you know the dust and the nuisance that meant. (200)
R - Yes, well of course when I was a kid, I lived down here, I saw the first motor car.
When would that be, Harold?
R- I would think about 1906. I’ll tell you who were driving it, Joe Standing.
Joe Standing, was he a printer?
R - Yes. He used to come down and he'd have a cap on but he'd have it on neb at back and there he were brrr ...... I remember running out to see it going just ower’t bridge down there. (30 min)
And of course the road then wouldn't be tarmacadamed?
R - No, no, no. There was no houses, the first houses from here - well there was Lane Ends and Foster's Arms but none of the houses on each side of Gisburn Road. The next that we came to was the Henhouse Farm and we used to call it ‘Th’Henous’, and then on the opposite side before Grimestopes and all them, that used to be the Cricket Field. There were all hoardings up the side of the road and we could walk between the hoarding and the road. There was a hedge and kids used to walk at the back of the hedge you know, and it were all broken down and that kind of thing and we could just reach and have a look over into the cricket field.
What was the idea of the hoardings? Was that because they used to charge people to go in?
R - Yes, I suppose, as a barrier, to some extent for cricketing, I should think.
One of the things I've come across in Public Health figures is the fact that as roads were tarmacadamed, the dust decreased, the amount of diarrhoea, especially in infants went down tremendously.
R - Well, of course, I don't know anything about that.
The thing about that is, it's something that really quite surprised me. Then I realised what common sense it was. If there was less dirt flying around, there's going to be cleaner food and you know, there's going to be less infection..
R - That's right, yes.
It's something that we don't think about nowadays with tarmacadamed roads and good food.
R - You see in those days if you got to the bottom of a milk kit, it were black with dust. There were always so much to throw away!
When you were kitting milk?
R - In the kits you see. They came and all milk had to be sieved [‘siled’ in dialect], that were a law that came in and you had to run it through a fine sieve as you put it in out of your milking bucket. You milked by hand, you see and you'd to pour it through this sieve into the kit. But even then you see, as you say, they were serving milk, measuring it out and there were dust blowing about and part on it were going into the kit particularly in windy weather and there were any amount of dust as you say, from the roads. Well, the main roads I would say were not too bad, but all these side roads were hardly made up at all.
You say that there were regulations to ensure - well regulations that said milk had to be siled, had to be sieved before it went into the kit. Who enforced those regulations?
R - Oh it would be a Government order.
I'm just wondering if it was like a local board of health or....
R - Oh I don't think so but they used to have inspectors coming round taking milk samples. You know, any milk man, they'd turn up anywhere.
And was that when you were a lad as well?
R - Yes, yes and in them days you know, there were lots of folk watering their milk. Well, there were a real panic when Randerson, I remember the name, they called him Randerson and he were the inspector and he used to, every now and again turn up and then “Oh so and so's got nabbed” and then they'd be up at court and I don't know.
That's interesting because I didn't know that. I thought it would be a function of local government in those days.
R - I don't think so.
Now then, the Gas Works. Nowadays the Gas works is a place where there's a couple of gas holders which just act as a reservoir of gas but tell me about the Gas Works in the old days because it was a very important place in lots of ways wasn't it.
R - Oh yes, yes. (35 min) (250)
I mean it was a source of coke and …, tell me about it.
R - Again, in a way it’s vague what I know, but I can remember the boilers all being down there and nearly like a Lancashire boiler as far as I was concerned, a very similar effort and stoking up. Eventually they got the automatic stokers and so forth and so on down there. There used to be they took the gas from coal and the offal was coke and you could go down and get 2cwt bags, you know. I think it was 6d. We used to go down with the trucks, you know and I think it were only 6d were a 2cwt bag.
And then you'd be able to buy gas tar there.
R - Gas tar, not creosote, and it was very cheap. I don't know how much it was but I don't think it would be more than 9d a gallon, something like that - if it were so much! Barrels and barrels of it we used, to paint roofs and that kind of thing with it. We used barrels and barrels of it. Eventually they stopped it.
How did the Gas Works get the coal? How did it come into the town?
R - I would say that probably the majority of it came by rail.(300)
Can you remember coal coming into the town in boats?
R - Oh I should think up until about 1930.
Now if you've got a boat load of coal coming into the wharf, say at Coates, how did they actually, physically, get that coal out of the boat and down the shoots into the coal yard?
R - There was hand worked cranes there and I would think, I'm not sure on this, it would be lifted into a kind of a barrel and swung round to the inside and emptied on the inside. There used to be special barrow lifts. I don't remember any drop leaves, boxes with drop leaves or anything of that. All that I remember is the barrow lifts. (40 min)
The reason I ask you that Harold is, having shovelled some coal myself, I've often wondered about these coal wharves, how they actually work. It seems to me that if they were just shovelling the coal out of the bottom of the boat, they would have arranged it so that the boat could get right up to where the shoot was so that they were shovelling it straight out into the shoot, so it seems to me that they must have got it out in some sort of a barrow or container and I just wandered whether you'd seen anybody wheeling a barrow up a plank or something like that? (350)
R - There was certainly shovelling it out of the bottom of the boat into barrows on a plank. There's no question about that, they did that. I can remember that more vividly than any other type of unloading. It was a common thing. They were biggish barrows. They were probably iron wheels. They'd planks from the boat, that went right onto the bank and dropped down into the doings. I can also remember Bankfield, they had a cat-head.
This is Bankfield Shed?
R - They had the cat-head effort.
So they could like pick a barrow of coal up and just take it straight in and drop it onto the coal heap.
R - That's right, yes.
That's one thing where rail had a great advantage, really in some ways. It's not one that would be apparent to people but when coal came in on the railway it was 4' high above the ground.
R - Yes, that's right, yes.
You were shovelling it, if not downhill, you were shovelling it on the level when you were unloading.
R - Yes, that's right, yes.
And you've got to shovel it yourself before you realise.
R - You see with these horses and carts, coal carts, they had raised sides and front and back, you see. Well they called them shelvings, they had raised sides, you see. They used to shovel over the top into the cart. I would say the majority of the coal was thrown over the top of the wagon, into the cart.
That was a two wheel cart that’d tip?
R - That’s right, yes.
How much would they hold, those carts?
R - Oh I should think - er .....
I'm talking about coal, obviously.
R - I should think they held a couple of tons.
So they were perhaps a little bit bigger than, say the muck carts that we used to see.
R - Oh yes! I would say, literally speaking, they were a standard cart, a standard big one with extended sides.
Now then, how about the Ingleton coalfield? You were telling me one day that you'd been down a mine. What can you tell me about that?
R - Not so much.
When did you go down the mine there?
R - I should think I'd be about 27.
Why did you go there?
R - Well, it's a story in itself is that.
Good! Good! well, if you can tell it me.
R - We consider these youngsters today, they're half daft, they don't know what they're doing. Anyway, we decided, we’d no money and we were married…
Who was we?
R - There was four of us went and the other couple had a little lad. I told you about old Paul [Brydon] the other day. Well a fellow, Norman Wellock followed on with the marine business of old Paul’s.
That was the rag and bone business at the bottom of Commercial Street. Paul Brydon.
R - Paul Brydon, aye. Well, Norman Wellock followed him. He used to work for Paul did Norman and when Paul give up or died Norman continued. This other couple and us we decided we’d have a caravan holiday and it was a horse and four wheel lorry. You see we were brought up out in the country, I knew a bit about horses; I can handle a horse you see, and anyway, I won't go into all details but we went to Ingleton.
Can I just ask you one thing, Harold, who did you go to - was it a purpose built caravan on four wheels that could be pulled by a horse?
R - It was an ordinary four wheeled lorry.
Oh I see and you had a sheet over the top? (45 min) (350)
R - We had a sheet over it.
Like a tent?
R - Aye, yes. That's what we did.
And whose lorry was it?
R - Norman Wellock's.
Oh, I see!
R ~ And his horse. Anyway, we got to Ingleton and we decided we’d stop there. We got there at Sunday, I'll not tell you why because as I say, it's a story in itself but anyway this feller got swilled out on Saturday night, no Sunday night! We were swilled out - yes. We knocked the farmer up and he come down and he'd one leg. Anyway he were the timekeeper at the colliery and of course he’d take us down the colliery - the pit I should say. He took us down, either him or somebody else I don't know and went up to the coal face and that kind of thing but I can't remember a lot of details but it were working then and it's only twelve months since we called at this house and there was a girl, it weren't same people as were there then. The girl working there then, it were a cafe then - it's a cafe now and this girl was one of the granddaughters of this feller.
It isn't that Harlin House, is it?
R - Oh no posh place at all.
That's not a posh place. (50 min)
R - Going down into Ingleton on the right hand side before you get to the bend in the road.
What used to be the railway bridge and that bend where the garage is?
R - Yes.
There used to be a skew bridge at the top of the village, they've done away with it now.
R - They've done away with it now, yes. Just down that hill on the right hand side and there's a wood hut, farm buildings I would say, or a farm house and that wood hut is there yet. And we lived in that wood hut all that week and I tell you it's a story in itself is that..
But you had a weeks holiday, anyway.
R - We had a weeks holiday, aye. Of a sort.
Well there's one thing about it, the horse would have a holiday as well.
R - The horse had a holiday and it’d feed out of my hand, it had nowt tae do but I'd shout of it. It were badly fed.
Of course, William Bracewell used to have a big interest in those collieries there.
R - Yes.
I've got a funny question for you now, all these little odds and sods of questions. When you started in the joinering trade with your father, what was paint made of ? Did you make your own or did you buy it or what?
R - Oh, we made our own!
Tell me about making paint. What did you make it out of ? (400)
R - White lead, linseed oil and a bit of driers (turps).
That would be proper turpentine.
R - Oh yes, proper turpentine. There were no turps substitute then.
So like, cart paint would be red lead, powder.
R - Red lead, powder.
Where did you get the powder from and the linseed.
R - I don't just remember that, where we got it from. You see there wasn't so much white lead in a cwt. and I try to think - I can't tell you where we got it from.
Was it good paint?
R - Yes. Oh yes! It didn't stop on top, you know, it went in. We used to put a bit of drier, that were a chemical (we used to call it drier) to make it dry but it soaked in. You couldn't burn it off when it were done. It would still be white when you'd done your burning off and if it were red lead it'd still be red you see, and it's still the best primer there is. There's none of this peeling off same as there is now you know.
And would you say for preserving wood and metalwork, is modern paint any better?
R - Definitely not! Not in my opinion, see. (55 Min)
Do you think anything of that, particularly metal, has anything to do with the fact that the metal was better in those days?
R - No, I wouldn't think - I wouldn’t think the metal was better in those days.
If you were making anything like a cart and you wanted some iron work, where would you get it from?
R - From what? Where would we buy the metal work from or what?
I was thinking of a big heavy set of hinges or something like that.
R - A big heavy set of?
Hinges.
R Oh well, a lot of these blacksmiths can do that sort of thing but you see as we remember blacksmiths, I know that such as Gissing has a blacksmith; Henry Browns had a blacksmith and ... but the old-fashioned blacksmith was a farrier and that kind of thing. In them days there was Dick Jagger and there was Steve Parker and then following them there were Tom Walker and now there's - there isn't what you could call a blacksmith's shop in Barlick. There's a blacksmith's shop at Earby, Taylor and he's not a bad lad! He's a fair good lad.
There's a good lad at Marton. (450)
R - Jimmy [Thompson] was, like he's not interested now. You've a job to get him to do owt.
He's just about retired. Good man but he's not bothered. He seems to be doing all right without working.
R - Aye!
One of the big jobs that Hoggarth did, he did all the ironwork for Gledstone.
R - Aye, that's right, yes. Turned out some good work did Hoggarth. He used to do quite a bit of work for us did Hoggarth but you see we used to go to anything that local people could do. I've a chisel in there with Dick Jagger's name on; if he made any chisels, cold chisels, he stamped 'em. I've one here with ‘Jagger’ on.
Do you know, I'm sure you know this, but I've always said you can't buy a good cold chisel. The best chisels, I used to use a lot of was repairing wagons when you've rivets to cut off. The best chisels I had, Jimmy [Thompson] came up to my house one day and I was using a bar, I had a bar, it was a good bar and I'd found it at the bottom of a muck midden and I just happen to drop it on the floor while Jimmy was there and it rang like a bell, you know, this bar and he said, "Eh, do you know what that is?'' and I said,” No." He said it's an old rock drill out of the quarry. It was eight sided I think. He says, you want to let me take that and I'll make you some chisels out of that, it's good stuff that. He took it and cut it into four and drew it out in't fire and made me four chisels and I still have two of them and those chisels will cut through nearly anything and I don't know what I'll do when I blunt 'em. As you well know, you can’t sharpen a cold chisel on a grindstone. People think you can but you can't. They've got to be sharpened in the fire. Jimmy used to have a steel anvil. (1 hour) While we're on that, what do you know about the building of new Gledstone?
R - I didn't have anything to do with it at all. In a lot of ways it's not as good as it looks. It wasn't supervised as it should have been.
Who actually did the building, do you know?
R - It was done by direct labour with employing foremen; foremen joiners, foremen bricklayers and so on coupled with representatives of Lutyens. Jacques at Nelson had a good lot to do with it. Jacques would work through Lutyens.
He finished up, by marriage, he finished up by owning half the shares in West Marton Dairies before it was sold to Asda now that I come to think.
R - Who?
Jacques, at Nelson, he was a solicitor wasn't he? (500)
R - No, he wasn't.
What was he then?
R - He was an architect.
He was an architect! I'm sure it was Jacques at Nelson. Did he marry Gilbert Nelson's wife, when Gilbert died? [I was wrong here. The Jacques I had in mind was a solicitor from Crosshills.]
R - He did not. Ah but you're on about Amos’s grandson, it wasn't his son. He was as daft as a brush! Joe Nelson belonged West Marton Dairies.
That’d be Amos Nelson's son.
R - That was Amos’s oldest son. David Peacock was his right-hand-man and eventually became the managing director did David until they sold out to Asda and David cashed in very nicely and he's still a director. You see, Jacques, I don't think Jacques had anything to do with West Marton Dairies. He was a Director of Calf Hall Shed Company. He was a director of Victory V Gums and several other things and it was Jacques (1 hour 5 min) that took me into Calf Hall Shed Company. I worked with Jacques and he knew me inside out and we did all the Calf Hall Shed Co work. When Edmondson Banks died he said, “Harold, I want you to come onto the board of the Calf Hall Shed Company.” I said, “I can't.'” He said, “Why?” I said, ''Well, I've no shares.” He says, "I'll see you get some." I said, "How many have you to have?” He said "You've to have at least 500.” I said, "Oh, That's up to you, how much are they?" “We'll have to get you some first," But anyway, I were on, Managing Director, well I'd everything to do! I'll tell you they were 30,000 odd thousand pounds in the red and that were a lot of money then. Anyway, we altered that eventually. (1 hour 10 min)
Calf Hall Shed Compamy directors outside 'Crowtrees' Barrowford, the home of W H Atkinson the architect, in about 1895.
Left to right. Standing, Proctor Barrett, Harry Wilson, William Holdsworth, W H Atkinson (architect), Edward Smith, W P Brooks and John Horsfield. Seated. Leonard Holdsworth, Tom Dent, Johnson Edmondson and Greenwood Wilkinson.
Calf Hall Shed Company Directors outside Butts Mill September 23rd 1948.
Left to right. Edward Wood, chairman and Managing Director. Moses Horsfield, cotton manufacturer. Richard Jacques, architect. Harold Duxbury. John Vernon Patrick, grocer. Norman M Barrett architect. Victor Hedges, secretary
Now, Gledstone. I remember hearing you say you'd got hold of a coping stone one day and you could rock it.
R - A parapet.
You could rock it. Well, how did you come to be in a position where you could rock a parapet?
R - Doing maintenance, repairs in Gledstone Hall.
For the Estate?
R - For the estate after Sir Amos died and I got friendly with Sir Amos about two or three years before he died but up until then I didn't know him. Sir Amos were 12 month and never saw me but he knew what we’d been talking about last time we’d met which was twelve months since and he were an old man then.
What kind of fellow was he, Sir Amos?
R - He was a grand fellow, very humble fellow. No side on him, you could talk to him like us two's talking now. That was Sir Amos, no side on him. I would say that he was a very shrewd business man.
Why do you think he built that new hall?
R - Well, all these people had money to burn in them days.
When was it that Gledstone was built? Was it 1926 or something like that?
R - It could have been.
I was only looking at a book the other day 'Lutyen’s Country Houses’, those were fairly good times for the manufacturing of houses.
R - That's what it was, you see and I mean it was er in a very very big way in those days [Sir Amos]. Then before he finished it, you know he was in financial difficulties.
Because of the Hall?
R - All the bottom flopped out of everything and it was donkey's years before Sir Amos was out of the red. He was in terrible trouble with the tax people! Eventually he got out of paying everything.
I know that there were several old people about in Marton and what you say about direct labour I should have known that because there's several people on the estate who had worked on it.
R - That's right, yes.
Percy Graham used to drive the wagon and went round and picked the workers up in a morning and things like that. Old George Parker with his free cottage . You know about that do you? I know nothing about the truth of this, but all I know was it was Percy Graham once told me that George Parker, he was a woodman and he was pursuing his duties one day and he came across Amos with Harriett, his secretary, in the woods. Anyway, he turned a blind eye and never said anything and went away and Amos never said anything to him, nobody said anything at all to him but when Amos Nelson died there was a clause in the will that said that George Parker had to have his cottage rent free for as long as he wanted it. When Harriett died the same clause was in her will and George and his housekeeper lived in that cottage rent free right up to the time when I lost track of them. I presume George will be dead now, he must be.
R - He is, yes.
I didn't know that he’d died but Percy told me you know (and Percy lived in the cottage next door) and he said “I knew what was going on, and I kept me mouth shut but I never got a free cottage!” George got his cottage free. (1 hour 15 min) He must have been a decent old stick to have done something like that!
R - That could be quite true because all the Nelsons were fairly good at that job. Of what I know. (600)
Very good, I think we're skating on thin ice there. How about the corn mill, you were saying to me about going down to the corn mill for flour. I don't know how to phrase this question, Harold. When did the corn-mill stop grinding corn?
R - I don't remember.
But you used to definitely go down there and get flour?
R - Yes.
And was it flour that had been ground at the mill ?
R - I wouldn't say so.
Because it became a provender mill, didn't it?
R - Yes, yes
Who owned it then?
R - Cramp Hoyle. [By name for Anthony]
Ah that's it, yes. So he’d get flour in as he used to do right up until them finishing.
R - Yes, yes.
Can you ever remember the corn mill working, grinding anything?
It had stopped before your time. Then foundries of course. Old Ashby went up to Ouzeldale and started a foundry there.
Ouzledale Foundry in 1937 when Ashby was running it on his own account.
R - Yes, yes.
When did they move down to Long Ing?
R - Well, that was after I became interested in Ouzeldale Foundry.
I didn't know that - When you say 'interested'
R - I was a Director there for thirty years anyway.
I'm sorry, Harold, I didn't know.
R -What happened there, old Ashby died. George was running the foundry. You know he got married again and the old chap left everything to his new wife and George was running it. Anyway, cutting a story short, George came to me and wanted some brass to pay her out. Steele Burniston and me went in with George and found the money to pay her out. Carried on up there [at Ouzeldale], then we decided we’d build down there [at Long Ing] and it developed and it became a good, thriving business until George, it went to his head and he couldn't control .... Then of course we had to clear George out. He’d already sacked Brian who was the King Pin like when he wasn't there. Anyway we'd to clear George out and got Brian back and then we became a necessary evil again and he paid us all out again. I should think about ten years ago. We had one or two other places besides that we bought and we sold 'em; suchlike closed 'em. When we cleared George out we were in a sorry way and it’d been a very very thriving business. It was being milked left, right and centre and we'd to have a stand up fight really and I'm afraid I was the fly in the ointment. If we hadn't have done that there'd have been no Ouzeldale Foundry today. Of course, Brian had forgotten that.
Can you remember Ouzeldale [mill] being anything else before?
R - Oh yes.
Now then, tell me about that.
R - It was mainly a wheelwrights....
Can I just make one thing clear just for purposes of the tape, that we're now talking about the original Ouzeldale Mill that stands at the end of Crowfoot Row behind the Greyhound on Gillian's Beck.
R - Yes. There's no doubt about it, it was a wheelwrights place, that type of business and it belonged to Robinson's.
Which Robinsons do you mean?
R - Well one of 'em married my Aunt my mother's sister. (650) (1hr 20 min) Bob Robinson and Dan Robinson, their parents used to own Ouzeldale and they ran it as a business, as a wheelwrights business. That'll be going back before the turn of the century I would think. It was all that type of work that they did. I should think probably they did part bobbin work as well. Farmers and barrows, every farmer had two or three carts, milk floats and traps and all that kind of thing.
Then you say 'bobbin work' do you mean turning?
R - Yes.
Ah, now that is fascinating. Now I've always suspected that that was a bobbin mill at one time or another! Can you remember there being a water wheel there?
R -I can't remember there being a water wheel there but there was a water wheel there.
What makes you say that, Harold?
R - Well it's all there, the water-fall.
Yes, yes, I agree with you and of course that dam of course is all silted up. It came back into that land of mine when I owned Hey farm and that was why I took an interest in that. The tail end of that lodge that used to feed Ouzeldale mill came back through my boundary fence into the field.
R- I've never been up there for a long time, never since we sold it. I sold that for £800.
It set on fire a few years back and roof went in and I don't know, I think there's somebody doing car repairs down there now.
R - I don't know, I think it's the Lund lads now, isn't it?
On an old ordinance survey map that I saw it was, you know the first edition, it was marked as a sawmill [surveyed c.1850] it was marked as a sawmill. It was another of the water mills of the town. As far as I can make out there was five, there was Gillian's, the spinning mill and then there was Ouzeldale which I think was a saw mill and then below that on the same beck was of course what was then Mitchell's Mill because that was a water mill before it became Clough Mill in 1845 and then there was the corn mill and old Coates Mill which was a water spinning Mill as well. That-mill has vanished completely now and no-one is ever really sure where it was. Newton once told me, and I must get Newton to walk down that beck with me. Newton once told me that his father took him for a walk down the beck and showed him where the tail-race was for that mill and he said “Look, if you look you can still see where the tail race was for that mill” He told him about it and Johnny must have been able to remember something about it. Billy Brooks told me, remember Billy?
R - I do.
He told me that his father used to work there and he said that if there was a bit of water in summer and there was a bit of light left, his father and his mates used to go back down there at night and weave a few picks. They used to put the wheel on and weave some. It gave them more beer money for week-end. (1 hr 25 min) (700)
Old Coates just before demolition in 1890.
Do you know of anywhere else round here where they used to do turning, wood turning?
R - Only at Booth Bridge.
Now then, what do you know about that at Booth Bridge?
R - Again, not a lot - go on.
That's another one that I've got no documentary evidence but I've been down there and looked at it and I think that that building that stands next to the place where the water wheel used to be used to be a bobbin mill.
R - Yes, it was.
Did you ever see it when there was shafting in?
R - No. Again, going back into family history, it were people they called them Wilkinson. They went to Heysham from here and they were three brothers; now what did they call the eldest? The second one was called Cecil and the youngest was called Bevice.
was one of them called Vince?
R - No, no. They had a sister lived in Barlick and she was a schoolteacher and I'll have to do a bit of thinking to tell you the relations of ours and how it comes about I can't tell you. As far as I know, Bevice is living yet but Cecil died last year. The parents were at Booth Bridge and they followed on with this bobbin works and then they transferred it from there to Heysham and this is going back oh this would be in the 1920s.
Either those brothers or their father bought a pump off Calf Hall when they bought Wellhouse. He bought a steam engine and pump off them.
R - Is that so?
Yes, it's in the Calf Hall Shed Company's minute books. About 1890 and the funny thing is that the people who now live at Booth Bridge are called Whittaker [I made a mistake here. I knew it was Wilkinson.]. I thought they were perhaps related.
R - No, it’s Wilkinson. (1 hour 30 min)
The people who are living there now are still called Wilkinson.
R - they're called Wilkinson?
At Booth Bridge farm. It's the same name but it must be a different family.
R - It's not the same family.
When I came across this reference to Wilkinson at Booth Bridge, I thought, they're still living there! I went down there one day and I said, “Whatever that Christian name is, is the same Christian name as the man that bought the pump off Calf Hall Shed Company in 1890.” and it had thrown me completely and I said to him, “Did your father ever buy a pump out of Barlick?" He said “Oh no.” and then he was called away and we were broken off.
R - Could it be Horace Wilkinson?
The name that I remember, it'll probably be the father that bought the pump. If it wasn't Vincent, it was something like that, the father's name. I'll look it up and I'll let you know next time I see you because that's interesting. I'm pleased about that. You know, you might think there was bobbin work done up at Ouzeldale and of course from that Sales List there, they were also turning bobbins down at Wellhouse. In this Sale List, here, you know this is a really marvellous document, here Harold. Machinery, mechanics and smith's tools. The bobbin works containing eight bobbin turning lathes, planing and moulding machines; three sawing machines; fret sawing machines and all of the turners plant. Loose articles consisting of bobbins, cans etcetera etcetera... So they had a bobbin mill down at Wellhouse as well. One of the fascinating things about the early textile industry is the fact that all these bobbins were needed and they were mostly coppice wood and they mostly came out of the Lake District until about 1860 when they started to use hard wood and they started moving down toward Liverpool and the factory inspectors started inspecting them there and they couldn't use child labour and whatnot but it's fascinating - that's a gem! (750), You've broadened my scope, Harold - again!
SCG/05 December 2002
8399 words
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 82/HD/06
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 4th OF AUGUST 1982 AT BANKS HILL, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS HAROLD DUXBURY AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
This is tape 82/HD/6 and it is made on the 4th August 1982 at the home of Harold Duxbury who is the informant and the interviewer is Stanley Graham.
I just wanted to tell you that I walked up that old light railway up to the quarry, yesterday.
R - Oh did you?
The wharf at New Road Bridge in 1982. This served the tramway leading up to Sagar's Quarries on Salterforth Lane and Tubber hill.
Yes, I followed the bed of it right the way up and found a couple of sleepers and one with spikes still in it and a piece of rail – there’s still a piece of rail up there! I'll tell you what I did find at the top, where it goes into the quarry, where it goes into the North side of Park Close quarry, the one on the Barnoldswick side of what do they call it, Moor Park Lane? There's been another tramway in there goes off directly towards as if it goes off to Dye House and you can see the embankment there and you did say that you didn't think they'd ever brought stone out of the top quarry, you know down that railway. It looks as if at some time, you know, Lord knows when, there's been a connection going across that way certainly.
R - I don't remember anything coming from the Tubber Hill side down to Park Close.
Can you remember the other one working?
R - Which one?
The one that runs from Park Close down to the canal.
R - Oh! Certainly.
Good, well it looked to me as though it was a single track.
R - It was.
And how did they work it, Harold? When I say 'How did they work it' what was the motive power?
R - Manpower.
Aye, so they came down by gravity...
R - They came down by gravity and went back by breeches behind steam.
Is that right? They pushed them back by hand?
R - I don't think so and I'm not saying that this was so but I think probably, at one time they did have a kind of an engine at top of the quarry and pulled them back. A Heath Robinson sort of affair. I would say that generally speaking it was a single track and they came down as you say, by gravity and they were pushed back by manpower - I won't say the word.
You've seen stone coming down there?
R - Yes.
How many trucks have you seen come down at once?
I don't remember anything only single trucks. They had a kind of an effort the man rode with them and a sort of Heath Robinson brake. There were only a small wheel I think, I should think about a 10” wheel maybe 12” with the flange.
How much do you think the trucks would hold?
R - I should think about 25cwt. It were mainly setts for’t road, road setts. (5 min) that’s what that was used for. A lot of it went both ways. Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Yes, very interesting. I found that very interesting following that round. It was such a simple system. I had a look at that ram, that ram's still there.
{This is the ram at Hall Spout spring. Hall Spout lies to the west of Bashfield Farm, Salterforth at OS ref. SD 88374521. There is a pile of stones with a brick shaft on top of it covered by a stone flag. The overflow runs out into the dyke running ENE down the hill. 25 yards below Hall Spout is a small stone building which houses an hydraulic ram supplied by a 3” CI pipe from a tank situated about 60 yards NE of the ram. The ram is made by Blake or Blakey, place of manufacture obscure. It has two foot valves and a large CI dome about 12” diameter and evidently pumps a proportion of the water that provides the motive force. The outlet from the delivery valve was originally ¾” galvanised but has been replaced by an alkathene pipe. This exits through the East wall of the pump house. The tank which supplies the water to the ram is fenced, has a concrete cap and a small access door about 12” X 14” in CI. Harold Duxbury told me that this ram pumps water to West Marton but this is hard to believe as it is such a small bore pipe and so far away. It is possible that this was Roundell land at one time as the quarries at Salterforth were part of the Gledstone Estate.] (50)
The building housing the ram at Hall Spout in 1982.
The ram was still in place but not working. 1982.
R - Is it still working?
It wasn't working when I was there but there's certainly water to it. It's obviously been well maintained and they say it's still in working order. The foot valves they were sort of mucked up they looked as if they had water running through them...
R - Recently?
Fairly recently. Somebody had er - there was a fresh piece of wood driven into the drain hole in the delivery side - you know the drain hole?
R - Aye.
There was a piece of wood driven into that. It's piped up with alkathene pipe. The outlet is piped up. There's a ¾” galvanized pipe sticking out of the side but it's piped up with alkathene pipe now. Somebody must be using it to pump water up somewhere.
R - Yes, well you see if I'm not mistaken Coates Hall and Greenberfield both used to draw off that pipe that went over to Marton. Yes, well it did. As to whether it pumped direct into the storage at West Marton or whether it was controlled into the pipe from Winterburn, I don't know just how it were connected up. I'll get to know something more about that.
I'll tell you something that I noticed that intrigued me and I'm not suggesting it has anything to do with that at all but you know Cockshot Bridge over the canal? [Near Lower Park Marina]
R - Yes.
The bed of the road has got worn away and there's an iron pipe going over there, going over the bed of the bridge itself, an old one. It looks like a fairly big pipe, you know it could be a cast iron pipe, I don't know it could be a 2” bore. There's a fairly big pipe going across there and part of it's exposed.
I couldn't tell you anything about that. (10 min)
I just wondered whether it rang a bell because it just seemed to me to be interesting. -When I followed the Bowker Drain, down at the back of Long Ing Shed in between Long Ing Shed and the foundry - oh it's in a terrible mess. It's full of rubble and rubbish and all sorts!
R – What, between?
Yes.
R - Well, there were a stone wall in the middle of that space. The foundry's at one side and the shed's at the other. I should think from memory, the wall of the mill could be well I could say four or five foot each side of the wall.
That looked about right to me, Harold. You can see traces of the start of that wall and you can see the start of that boundary line because there's been a urinal at the back of Long Ing Shed and it's very very narrow. There was only just room to put it in between the mill wall and the boundary line. Very, very narrow. Of course that's all walled off now. Those bottoms right the way down to Crow Nest they really were in a dreadful state!
R - There's been hundreds and hundreds of pounds spent on this Bowker drain this last twenty year. It could be thousands! A big length of it has been replaced with 12” pipes it was either a stone drain or in some places a sod drain
Aye, yes. Who replaced that? Was it the Calf Hall Shed Company?
R - Partially. [Harold was being a bit cagey here. Briggs and Duxbury did the job for Rolls Royce and one of the pipes is still in B&D’s yard at Butts in 2002. I later came into possession of copies of the Rolls Royce plans for the drain. They were using the water for foul water services at Bankfield and still do I think.]
And then when it gets down to the well and the tank and the by-pass and Eastwood Bottoms, I found one of the by-pass places, I didn't find the other but I found one of them and it was exactly the same as that one at Bancroft, a slotted stone each side, in fact you can slide boards in them. You can divert the water. Bancroft was exactly the same as that. The one I found was the one on the 'up-stream' side of the well. The well itself has got concrete slab covers. They're absolutely full of silt. I know there's no use for it now but it seems a shame when you see something like that. It's just been let go to rack and ruin and I had another look at where Crow Nest Syke’s going under that culvert under the road there and really something wants doing about that. It's full of everything from old motor car wheels and it only wants one of those to get into the culvert and I mean you know what it's like now. (100)
R- It could be a thousand pound job! Bunged up under Crow Nest somewhere and you get water bubbling through your floor....
What I'd like to do now Harold, if we can, and I realise it's a tall order but if we go through some of the. mills, you know, and see what we can just know about them. Right, we'll start off with the oldest one ~ Clough. Yes, Clough Mill. Who owned Clough Mill?
R - J. Slater and Sons.
So that'd be Joe Slater and sons?
R - No, I think it was John Slater and Sons and I don't know whether I'm right or wrong but Joe Slater at Newfield Edge would be a son and Fred Harry Slater at Carr Beck would be another son - you know where Carr Beck is? Where Dr. Bower lives now. Up here, top of the hill.
That's it, yes, Dr. Bower does live there. (15 min)
Yes, and they wove, they had their own manufacturing business.
R - Yes.
Can you remember the names of any of the people that you knew that were tenants?
R - At Clough it was owner occupied.
There were tenants there in the earlier days. I've got records of there being tenants there back in the 19th Century, they did have tenants in fact I think James Nutter had some tenants in at one time. I'm not going to confuse the issue but I have a record, it came out of the rate books because evidently at that time the tenants used to be marked down in the rate books and they were paying rates like in the 1890s and I got their names out of the rates books.
R - Well, I can't remember that.
Well, obviously. Did that mill stay in the ownership of J Slater and Sons, well how long did it stay in their ownership?
R - Well, as far back as I can remember, until it was it bought by Silent Night. [John Metcalfe said they wove until 1956 at Clough] (150)
And if I remember rightly it was a subsisidiary of Silent Night, Craven Pad that was in there, wasn't it?
R Well it could be, yes.
That's it, yes. I think he still owns the site now.
R - Yes.
And of course Clough was demolished. Oh when was Clough demolished, can you remember?
R - Ooh! It’d be about ten years ago wouldn't it ?
Yes, it seems to me about that, about 1970-72. Of course I can get that off Tom.
R - Course, there was a severe fire there you know. Have I mentioned this before? I should think it’d be about the 1930s, it was literally speaking - gutted!
Ah, now then, yes, Newton’s told me about that. Newton's mentioned that fire that they had there. It hardly bothered the engine at all.
R - No, the engine wasn't affected.
Aye, that's it aye, Newton's mentioned that. And so when they had the fire did they rebuild and start weaving again?
R - Yes, but only a part of it. It was repaired up and the high section was allowed to disappear. One section of it was allowed to disappear.
Which part of it was the old water mill? (20 min)
R - Well, as far as I can say to you, I would say that it was on the Cavendish Road side. I wouldn't like to say just where it was. I can't picture it, the structure of that section but I do remember there was some very big basement buildings. Very big basement rooms, I should say. It was really great. Should I throw you onto somebody else who could tell you better than me? [I suspect Harold was right about the site of the water wheel but have never been able to pin that down properly.]
Yes, yes, course you can, course you can.
R - John Metcalfe. [I went to see John and you'll find his transcript in the Barnoldswick Weaving section of the LTP]
Aye, who's John Metcalfe?
R - Well, he's older than me but he was the last manager up there and he worked for Slaters a long time. He was the manager and he knew quite a lot about it and still does and he's got all his faculties but he doesn't get about quite as well as I do but he'll be two year older than me and he lives in Rook Street; he's on the telephone and he can give you more correct information than what I can give you. (25 min)
I promise I'll get onto him and very quickly.
R - And he'll be as pleased as a dog with two tails .... I shouldn't say that should I?
Why not?
R - To do what he can and to think that it's been suggested that he will be the best informant for Clough Mill.
I'll go round and knock on his door tomorrow,,
R - You ring him up first.
I will, Harold.
R - If you go on Fountain Street, past Ouzeldale Club, you'll come into Rook Street. Well, it's the second house down. Yes, it's the second house down on the short row. Not the one facing you. I think if I remember rightly it's 81 but I'm not sure.
Have you ever heard Clough called anything else other than Clough Mill?
R - No.
Do you know what it was called before? (200)
R - I've heard you say: I've heard somebody say Mitchell's. I think so, yes.
I've always wondered who Mitchells were and whether they were any relation to Mitchells at County Brook.
R - I don't think so.
I've been told that before, that people didn't think they were any relation.
R - John Metcalfe'll tell you.
If he can he'll solve a mystery because what happened there was that Mitchell [of Mitchell’s Mill.] the original Mitchell must have been - well I found a record of him as a tenant of Gillian's Mill as a spinner at the same time as another fellow up there, I've forgotten his name. There were three tenants in Gillian’s Mill and he must have taken over Mitchell's Mill or else built it, I don't know which but in 1845 he must have had some capital as well because he rebuilt Mitchells Mill and he renamed it Clough Mill. In 1861, during the cotton famine and of course at the same time, Bracewell who was building Butts; Clough Mill re-opened as a steam mill 1845 [Much later I found that there was an engine in Mitchell’s Mill in 1827 ] and Butts in 1846 and at the time of the cotton famine in 1861, Bracewell obviously with his engineering connections, you know he must have been a good man, he was a good man for Clough as well. He re-boilered both mills with Lancashire boilers and in 1867 Mitchell sold the mill and I've often wondered if he was over strained by the cotton Famine. I don't know, he sold the mill for £3,000 and that's absolutely definite. I don't know if you've ever heard the name before but a fellow called Robinson who used to be the Manager at the Craven Bank at Skipton for a tremendous number of years, in fact I don't think he retired until about 1909. He was a long-serving man and a tremendous fellow. All those Bank records are in the - the “Craven Bank” became oh now was it the Liverpool Bank? Then the Liverpool Bank was incorporated with the District Bank but anyway it eventually became part of Barclays. I went to the head office - not the head office but what used to be the head office of the Liverpool Bank and is now a branch of Barclays in Liverpool and they let me see all the stuff there. They've got all the old books of the bank there going back into the 1860s - 1850s and one of the things that was there was the diary of Robinsons and it was fascinating and I really enjoyed looking at it. It was a diary that he must have kept on his desk and he wrote down his impressions of people in it when they came in to borrow money and this man, Slater and I can't remember, I've got it at home I'll have to look it up, I can't remember what his Christian name was. He was running a silk mill at Galgate near Lancaster and he came over here and he went to the Craven Bank to borrow some money to help him towards buying Clough Mill. He paid £3,000 for it in 1867 and Robinson wrote in his diary that he seemed to be 'a very able man'. He had every confidence in lending him the money and he lent him the money to buy it. That was presumably how the Slaters first came to the town, you know, those Slaters first came to the town. Unless they'd been in the town before and that Slater had gone across to Galgate but he was certainly on a good thing, I think being in Silk spinning when the cotton famine was on. Of course he wouldn't have any trouble with raw material.
R - Talking about the bank, at one time it was Martins Bank wasn't it?
That's it, yes! (30 min)
Not the District, it became "Martins". Then it was Barclays that took over Martins Bank.
R - That's right, yes.
So that office at Liverpool was the head office of the Liverpool and District Bank. They took the Craven Bank, over and then they were taken over by "Martins" and then they were taken over by "Barclays". I wrote to Barclays in London and some of the books were in London and they sent them up to Liverpool for me so that I could see them at Liverpool. They were very very helpful! They said if ever I wanted to go back and look at them again, they said they'd be delighted. They were only too pleased that somebody was taking an interest and oh! they've got some marvellous stuff there, you know. It really was interesting but anyway there's one here that you'll know a bit more about - a bit more nearer your territory, Butts. Butts Mill. Now Butts Mill as I say, tell me, I'm open to correction, that Butts Mill was built and opened in 1846 by William Bracewell.
Butts Mill in 1890.
R - I think that's right.
There are various references to it in things like the Craven Herald right up to the 80s and of course 1887, (and there again it's something I've got to find a lot more about) the court case that went on between the executors and Christopher Bracewell. Whatever was the cause of that led to that sale which in 1887 was the subject of that catalogue you gave me and of course Butts Mill was sold then. (250)
I think it was sold to a man called Eastwood, does that ring a bell?
R - I think so - yes, there was an Eastwood, yes. There was certainly some connection but I couldn't say what but Eastwood has a connection with manufacturing at Butts Mill. I wouldn't say he was an owner but I would think he was a tenant.
I don't know but from the reading, from the way I looked at it, Eastwood, it seems to me that the Craven Bank took over Wellhouse and Butts as either major creditors or trustees one of the two on the estate. It seems to me that they ran those mills, well they certainly were running and certainly Wellhouse - they ran those mills with tenants in them, on behalf of the estate.
R - Quite possible, quite possible. You see I think that you're coming to the point, to the beginning of Calf Hall Shed Company.
It's getting near it.
R - The beginning again, I'm vague, but I think Calf Hall Shed Company would probably take over these two buildings from the bank.(35 min)
They certainly did with Wellhouse and I can't remember who they took Butts over from but that's only a question of looking it up.
Wellhouse Mill at the time when the Calf Hall company bought it off the bank,
[At this point there is a gap in the tape caused by a technical fault. When it resumes, Harold is talking about the Aldersley family.]
R - He [Aldersley] had a son called Edward, a son called Gerry and he’d a son called Charlie. Held have two daughters and Ethel was one of them and I can't remember what the other one was, she never married. I doubt whether Edward ever married.
You mean old Edward or young Edward?
R - Young Edward. Charlie married late on in life; Gerry married and kept on farming and went to farm at Micklethorne - you know where that it? Well you know where going from Elslack into the Skipton Road? There's a farm there, just across the road and that's Micklethorne.
That's where the AA Box used to be going round that corner.
R believe it did.
They had a fire in the barn there, when they'd just done the road.
R - That's right, yes and Gerry, his daughter went on farming and Gerry went on farming further on. Just on the right there used to be and I think it would be a sawmill with a little farm attached to it and I think the chimney will be there yet but I haven't seen it for a long time.
Just on the right-hand side of the road before you get to Broughton Hall there.
R - Is that chimney there yet? 050)
I don't know, I've never been down - well I've been down there once when I was wagon driving and I thought at the time what marvellous buildings they were!
R - Out of the top of that chimney there was a tree growing for a long number of years and whether it's there now or not I don't know. I've never thought about it for years but anyway he finished up there and there were all sorts of characters amongst the Aldersley family. Edward were known as Coates Bull, you see. He had a few family knocking about yet.
I can remember once about 20 years ago drinking some very strong whisky out of a Lanry bottle!
R - Yes, yes, well that were John Edward.
John Edward would that be the third son or would that be another Aldersley?
R - No, John Edward would be the eldest son and then there was Gerry and then there was Charlie.
Ah, I see.
R - Charlie would be the man that ran that business - Monkswell. (40 min)
Monkswell manufacturing Company. They were at the far end of Butts.
Yes, that’s it, right at the back where by what’s it called? Paddock Laithe?
R - You could go into it from that side.
Yes, that's it because at one time I thought that was a separate mill but it wasn't, it was an extension. I think it was an extension that Calf Hall Shed company put up.
R - Yes, it would be.
And if I remember rightly, there was some trouble with the land when they bought it because I think they half bought it and found out that the people who were selling it to them had no right to sell it to them.
R - Yes, I think probably you're right there.
I'm not sure if they didn't buy it off the trustees of the Baptist Church.
R - I don't know.
It might have been but anyway that's just a little bit of a digression. Yes, so Aldersley's were Monkswell Manufacturing Company. Did Aldersley's have any other manufacturing Companies besides?
R - I don't think so.
How , how about engines down there? Can you remember any of the engines down there? (400)
R - In what way like?
Well, there's a bit of a mystery that I've never been able to clear up, I’ll resolve it one of these days. I must bring a photograph down and show it you and it's Albert Hoggarth, George Hoggarth’s Uncle, sat in the engine house at Butts in front of the engine. It's a big engine, Newton did tell me what sort it was but it was a big wastrel, it was a 7ft stroke. It was a tremendous size, horizontal engine and I think Newton told me that that engine was changed. That engine was taken out and another was put in. Do you know anything about that? Can you remember seeing an engine down at Butts at any time, when you were young?
Albert Hogarth and the Butts engine.
R - Oh yes! I can't remember any engine being changed.
The one that you saw, was it a very big low pressure cylinder?
R - I would think so.
Almost one that, if the cover was off it, you would walk into it?
R - I should think so. If I remember rightly weren't there three Lancashire boilers there?
There can have been. On that sale document there were more but you never know about boilers; they used to reboiler 'em just like pulling teeth out and I'm not sure on the sale document if there isn't five or six boilers down there. (45 min)
The boilers then were very inefficient and they had to have a lot more of them. [Later research showed that originally, as built by Bracewell, the mill had at least two large beam engines and the Musgrave engine in the picture was installed in place of these after Eastwood took over Butts from the Craven Bank. See the Calf Hall minutes for better information on this.
R - I can't see where the six boilers could have been housed but as I remember - three.
I think, myself if they were re-boilered between 1887 when it was sold and the early part of the Century when you were old enough to take any notice of it because, as I say, they talk about boilers, you know and they might have been six Cornish boilers. They might have been six small boilers. I was very interested in what you had to say about the water courses they had underneath the mills there and when you went into those water courses to inspect them, I think you said it was about twenty years ago, how did you get into them? just walk into them?
R - Yes.
I'll have to have a word with Carlson’s and get them to let me go into them. I was talking to that friend of mine, Robert, the other night and I was saying to him. One of the things that struck me about Barlick is the fact that we’ve got two mills where the large part of the condensing water was stored under the mill, Calf hall and Butts. I was asking him if he knew any other mills that had the lodge underneath them and I can't remember the name of it but he knows of one other and he's an expert on mill construction and he knows of one other and he was saying how unusual it was in his experience, you know for to have the water run underneath the mill like that. You say it was stone arched inside?
R - Yes.
Was it one passage or was there more than one passage?
H - There was one passage, you see they joined, no there's two passages. One picks up the water that come down from Bancroft and the other picks up the water that comes from the Springs.
Yes, that's it because Gillian's comes down the side of that mill at Butts doesn't it. [I later found that water was diverted from higher up Gillians Beck into a balance pond in the Parrock Laithe next to Butts Mill.]
R - Yes, it comes under the ground there and comes out at Lamb Hill, follows down in the open beck to Butts Bridge and then goes underneath and then comes out as we call Butts Beck at side o' that bridge there and the other one goes up and comes out on Butts Ginnel but Butts Ginnel now has it disappeared?
Yes, do you mean where you can get up the side of Butts Shed? It's gone hasn't it because Carlson’s have moved out that way. You've got to walk right round now, I think.
R - I think you have. The tunnel is bound to be there yet. The open beck'll be there yet.(450)
That bit of open beck up the side there.
H - That's right, yes.
I've seen that because..
R - Well, where Carlson’s main entrance is but Calf Hall side, that arch finishes or begins and I went right through and out there. I didn't like the idea but I did it. I don't know if I had anybody with me or not, I think I did, I think there would have been two of us. It could have been Harry Briggs that I had with me. You see we’d nothing only flashlights and it wasn't a smooth bottom, you know, they were all over the place. Step on a stone and slip on one and slip off the side. But of course on a job like that you want to be going in at low water, of course. I don't think I can say much more about that but as I’ve told you before even then, there was a lot of stones that had dropped out and I wouldn't be surprised if that tunnel could be stopped up at any time.
Wellhouse, that was one of the original Calf Hall Shed Company, wasn't it?
R - Yes.
Now, what I know about Wellhouse, built 1854 by William Bracewell; sold in 1891 to Calf Hall Shed company. From then on the Calf Hall Shed Company had it right the way through to - you tell me? (50 min)
R - Four or five years ago until about 1978, I should think.
R - When Silent Night bought it. This is going to be a tall order for you, can you remember the names of any of the tenants that were in at Wellhouse?
R - Oh yes. J Widdup and Sons; Nutter Brothers; Horsfields; Ellis, yes Ellis; Bill Ellis. It would be William Ellis wouldn't it. J. Slater and Sons, now at Salterforth Mill.
Are those Slaters any relation at all to the other Slaters?
R - No
Yes, well they're certainly different firms; The J. Slater and sons that were at Clough was a different concern than the J. Slaters....
R - That was James Slater and sons that were at Wellhouse and then at Salterforth Mill and I don't think they were any relation.
And the firms were certainly separate?
R - Yes.
The manufacturing concerns were separate.
R - The Slaters, the original Slaters used to live at Coates, where that aquarium is now. (500)
Moorfield Aquatics, that's Moorcroft House now.
R - That's right, yes.
When we say 'Slaters' we mean the original James Slater.
R - The original?
James Slaters. The ones at Wellhouse.
R - And Salterforth.
Did they built the mill at Salterforth? Did they move out of Wellhouse and build Salterforth?
R - No. No, they wouldn't be the original owners of Salterforth Mill.
Yes, because Salterforth Mill was built in 1865.[Not sure where I got this date. I have an idea the Robert’s engine was put in in 1885 and this could be the building date for the mill.]
R ~ Yes, now there was a firm there - oh I can't think! (55 min)
You're all right, Harold, you're clearing some mysteries up for me.
R - Do you know, I know the firm very well too. They come from over Manchester area and they were a good firm and James Slater took over - No, I'm sorry, this firm swallowed James Slater! Yes, and I always found them right good people and I did a lot of business with them when I was quite young, like I dealt with them. I’ll think of it, it'll come back.
So what you're saying is, this firm at Salterforth Shed took over James Slater?
R - Yes.
Wasn't it a bit strange, would there be a reason for that?
R - Yes, there was a reason for it, the older end of Slaters died out leaving, literally speaking a nephew I would say and I think they'd take the opportunity in the peak of the cotton industry to sell, so they kept this nephew on as manager. These people used to come over just occasionally and they spent quite a lot of money on it in the days when they were taking wood staircases out and putting steel ones in, with asphalt fillings and all that kind of thing, you know. I don't think we did any from Bancroft, they were all the old....
There's only the fire escape and the two wooden stairs. That's all there was.
R - Aye.
Just roughly, can yoa think when that take over would be? The James Slater take-over.
R - Mid thirties.
Mid thirties.
R - I could be wrong with that, you know.
That's a date that'll turn up in exchange directories or something like that but it'll turn up. Well obviously Salterforth will turn up in the Shed Company minute books. When James Slaters left Wellhouse it'll turn up in the shed Company minute books.
R - Ah but wait a minute, James Slater were at Salterforth before they left Wellhouse. You see they'd only a section of Wellhouse and they were ready for……. When Silent Night started in Barnoldswick at Butts Mill, they hadn't been there long before they had a severe fire and burned them out. Calf Hall Shed Company's property! Tom Clarke had nowhere to go, closed his business.
This’d be the fifties something like that?
R - Aye, that would be, yes. You see Slaters were at Salterforth long before that. Anyway Slaters were under notice at Wellhouse and I went to see them when Tom Clarke were burned out. Would they let Tom Clarke go into, would they get a move on? I arranged with them that they'd clear one end and Tom could go in at one end and they'd gradually get out at t’other. Tom Clarke went to Wellhouse. He was there until he bought Moss and John Widdup were in't Widdup's office, the boss, they were all directors of the Moss Shed Company, Aldersley's are directors and they said to me, very outspoken people, were Widdups, "Get this place sold for us!” I said, "You're not serious?'' They said, “We are!” I said, "Well, how much do you want? How much have I to get?'' They said, "Get what tha can.” Within a day or two, Tom Clarke said to me, he says, "Can you find me a bigger place?” I said, "I might be able to do.” and I told him what I had in mind. I said “I think I can buy it.” and he says, "what can you get it for?” I says, "I'll have to go back but I know what I would say, £25,000. I went back to Widdup's and it were as easy as that. [Twenty years later I was talking to one of the Widdups and he volunteered the information that Moss was sold for £25,000 to Tom Clarke so this checks out. SG] (1 hour) (600)
This'd be late 50s something like that?
R - I don't know. Could be, yes. I didn't get a penny. I've bought and sold hundreds of houses and one thing and another but I never charged a penny commission.
Yes, that fits in with what I know about you. That fits in exactly with what I know about you! I remember Ernie telling me about when they wove out at Moss. He told me a lovely story about the fellow who was the manager there. He used to be a cloth looker in the warehouse ....
R - Cabbage!
Yes, now what was his proper name?
R - I'll tell you in a bit.
Ernie told me a story about him anyway, he says, it's right is this. He said that Cabbage had put in for a rise and he said the brothers had him in the office and I've forgotten what the rise was. (It was something and nothing) They said, "We’ve decided to give you the rise [One shilling a week] but don't ever come in here and ask for more money again, ever.” He was telling Ernie about this later...
R - Rhodes!
That's the name, I’m sure you're right. [I checked Ernie’s tape 78/AC/6 and Harold was right. Ernie also told how he got the by-name Cabbage. His mother sent him to the local shop for a cabbage and when the grocer asked him how big he said "Me mother says as big as my head!"]
R - Cecil Rhodes - go on....
And Ernie did tell me why they called him Cabbage an' all, it had something to do with his head. He did tell me the story about that because he was brought up with him. He said he come out and Ernie said it was terrible, no way had you to speak to anybody like that because as you say, they were outspoken and he told me that when we come to weave out I never said anything to him but Ernie was the last tackler there and when the last loom were weaving out and it were on its last pick, he stopped it and he went for Cecil and he said come on in you'd better put the last shuttle into this piece, it's last bit of cloth Widdups will ever weave. Ernie was upset because Widdups had a good name for their cloth, it was all straight cloth and he said it was all straight cloth and they were proud of their reputation. Cabbage wove this shuttle off and he said there were tears running out of his eyes onto the cloth as he was weaving it and Ernie said, “I thought to meself, he feels like that about it after what they said to him when he went into the office about his rise! I thought that was a very good story because it illustrates a lot of - you know - it was a way of life wasn't it?
R - Yes, that's right, yes. (1 hr 5 min)
R - Now there's another story that's quite true. One of the Widdups lived at eh what to call 'em? They had two big houses up at Coates, long drive up to them? Anyway it doesn't matter. There were one drive for both houses and one of them wanted a new drive and they wanted a price for this new drive and a plan and that kind of thing. We got this price out and well he bellyached and bellyached about this price. We got this price out and showed him what it cost. I said, look here, when this job's done you want a good drive and I want to do a good drive and all. And I want to be able to put me name at the bottom He said, “Dosta think I'm going to pay thee a £100 for thee name cause I'm not!”
I like a lot of the stuff I've heard about Widdups.
R - Well, you'd better be careful, you know because Jack, the eldest son of the eldest one married our Cissie!
I didn't know that.
R - That’s all right, it's all right.
Is that the same Widdup that went in with...
R - With West Marton Dairies?
That went in with Jack Harrison. What was the name of the other fellow, he was living down at Stainton House? They bought Whitewell Dairies at Accrington. [His name was Gordon Stuart and he had a brother called Malcolm]
R - Yes, I know.
He was a traveller for Udec {the United Dairy Equipment Company] . I used to work for Jack, you know.
R - Did you?
Yes, I worked for Jack and Billy.
R - What, at the Dairy?
At the dairy and on general haulage because I used to look after Billy. You know when Billy fell down the steps at Thornton Manor? And fractured his skull? Well that man should never have lived but you know what Billy was like, he was such a tough little fellow. I know that it was bad because, I can't remember the name of the surgeon now. Billy got done for drunk driving and he wasn't drunk actually because he’d been with me that night. After he’d had that head injury he used to have funny does, he used to go into fits you know and Arthur Morrison told me what to do about this because Jack had gone to Whitewell then and Jack offered me money to stay with Billy. He knew that Billy wasn't fit to be left on his own and I told Jack, I said, “You've no need to offer money, I'm going to stay with Billy,” and I said, "If ever I leave I'll let you know first so don't worry about that, there's no need for anything like that.” Billy was funny you know. I used to come back at nights, his wife had left him. I came back one night and he came at me with a knife! You know, he used to have funny does and I found him one night, held gone into a fit and his heels had drummed on the floor that much they'd cut through the carpet, through the underfelt and they'd made holes in the floorboards. His heels were just going like that on the floor. What you had to do with him when he was like that was give him an injection to knock him out and he came to about five hours later and he didn't know anything about where he’d been. It was his brain repairing itself. It was a function of his damaged brain moving over to the other side and every time that happened, he had a fit. In the end Arthur had me yoked up with the plastic syringes and the phials and if I found him like that just get, you know fill it up blow the air out and stick it in his behind and out Billy went like a light. When that happened, I used to bring young John back home to Barlick and he used to stay at Hey Farm with me and Vera and I used to go back and stay with Billy. I did that three or four times. I found him like that three or four times. Then it was years later, three or four years later I happened to be going into West Marton yard when I was working for Dick Drinkall and there was a little knot of people in the yard and it was Billy of course he was having a fit. People were calling for ambulances and I said, No you're all right, I'll show you what to do with a fit, you know and I said first thing you do is make sure you've got a piece of wood, get his mouth open and look for his tongue and see where his tongue is and if he hasn't swallowed his tongue don't put your fingers between his teeth because he'll bite you! He weren't as bad then. I'm trying to remember the name of that chap that lived at Stainton House; he was a traveller for United Dairies Equipment Company and he was the technical knowledge behind John. Jack Harrison and Jack Widdup were the money as far as I could make out and they bought it off a fellow called Moore. (1hr l0 min) (650)] Then they transferred it to Associated and I know Jack said that when they got to so much, he'd sell 'em and I don't know whether, I think he did sell most of them but my God he should have kept them because they just went up and up and up! Anyway, that's another digression. I don't know we're terrible tonight for digressions, they're good ones though. So, Widdups, yes, well we'll get onto Widdups when we er... Let's have a look at Bankfield? What do you know about Bankfield? (700)
R - Not a lot, go on, ask me questions.
Am I right in thinking that the official title of the company was the Barnoldswick Room and Power Co?
R - Yes.
Now then, the first shed that they built in 1905, the no. 1 shed was the big shed - Now was it 1800 looms, 1900 looms? in one shed?
R - It could be. Bradleys had about 900 looms, I think. Nutters would have the same….
Yes, 1800 loom shed. Now then, the thing that's always struck me about that was it was strange that, now let me get it right - was it James Nutter or Nutter Bros who were in there?
R - James Nutter and Sons.
Now, I often wondered if it was a genuine shed company in that it had built sheds to rent or was that was just a name between Bradley Brothers and James Nutter.
R - No, it was a genuine Company. There was shareholders but Nutter and Bradleys were the main shareholders. (1 hr 15 min)
And then in 1910 they built the no 2 shed. One of the first tenants in that was - oh the name's slipped me, I've got his letter books at home. You see, I can do it an' all, Harold. Can you think of a tenant?
R - Well there were Horsfield and Sagar and that was the same - the quarrymen, John Sagar and Sons.
The same firm that owned the quarry?
R - Same firm. (750)
Would Sagars, did they have the quarry then in 1910?
R - Yes.
So they ran the quarry and the manufacturing Company?
R - Yes.
Had they taken over Whitham’s interests?
R- No.
They'd taken over the other quarry?
R – They had the top quarry and the park. [Loose Games and the quarry on the east side of Salterforth Lane.]
Of course, yes! Whitham had the Salterforth side.
R - Whitham had the quarry on the Foulridge side.
I’m sorry, yes. The one that originally was Bracewell’s. Where the brickyard was. So Sagars, would they own the quarry?
R - No, it belonged to the Gledstone Estate.
I see, it belonged to West Marton. I didn't know it was the same Sagar.
R - One of the sons ran the manufacturing, Sidney. John Sagar was the father of Sidney.
John was in at it when they were starting it up because I have the letter books and then Sydney took over from John. John was on his holidays when they started the engine. He went away on holiday and I'll have to bring that letter book and let you see it. He gives the exact time and day when the engine started. I think it was May, 1910 because of course at Bankfield there were two separate engines weren't there?
R - Yes, one for the old place and one for the new.
He was a bit of a beggar was John, some of the business letters he wrote!
R - And a father and the son ran the engines - Rhodes and his son, Archie Rhodes was the son and I forget what they called his father and the son had the small engine. And Archie Rhodes in 1914 went round the shafting and I had two looms. 1913, 1914 I said but it would be 1913 - could have been 1912 - it was either 1912 or 1913 that Archie Rhodes were putting on a fan belt that they used to have in them days, off the ladder, you know they had a big pulley and they drove a fan in the roof. You know, for ventilation. The belt had come off and he were putting it on and his jacket got in and took him round and there were marks for years on't ceiling where his feet touched ceiling. He were badly smashed up; they carried him out but he lived and he lived to be a fair good old age. He’d everything broken. (800)
He was lucky there was room for him to go round.
R - That's right. I know another went round at Moss and he were killed.
Who were that?
R - They called him Holroyd. There's a lad in Barlick now he's his brother and I'll never forget that. He weren't so old then but he were in bits!
When was that about?
R - Oh that would probably be about 1915-16 that happened. (1 hr 20min) He were only a young fellow and he went revolving round, same circumstances and he were chewed in bits! One of the Police, I remember it now, our workshop then were on't Croft, that place that were burned down and he brought a parcel and threw it to me on't bench and said, “Put that in with him!” They'd found some more parts.
I don't know whether you've ever noticed but I always favour t-shirts. I like t-shirts. You know that's why I always wore t-shirts never wore t-shirts when I was on the wagon. When I went into the mill and I started running the engine and being round the shafting and looking at that stuff there and I thought to myself, Stanley, use your head. I got home one day and I said to my dad, “I've come to the conclusion if you're going to work round shafting, you shouldn't wear a collar and tie!” My dad looked at me and he said, “You're learning, lad! You know them there vests you see people wearing these days. Just the thing, no loose bits hanging out, wear them!”
R - They used to have overalls and a jacket and they were both taken round with their jackets.
I started wearing t-shirts and that was the reason why, but just one more story about that and I saw this happen, remember Joe Nutter up at Bancroft?
R - Yes.
He was there one day was Joe with his collar and tie on and he's leaning in front of the tape machine and his tie went in't roller! All right, that roller's not going round very fast and thank God he had heavy sort in which meant it was running slower still. They were doing condensers and they were doing about eight twist. He just reached out and you know where the scissors were at the side for when they were doffing a warp? He just reached out for the scissors and cut it! Then straightened up and he looked at me and he said, “I'll never wear a tie again” And he didn't either. Think what might have happened, I mean a tie's a strong thing. (850)
SCG/05/12/2002
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