You can use any of mine off here but I dont think I have taken many that say 'Winter in Barlick,

This one by Doc is one of my favourite winter ones on OGFB

I'm not connected with WCT so anyone who wants to submit photos should contact them direct, perhaps best by email:

jennene.stubbs@pendle.gov.uk

If they want to use the above picture they are free to do so,

I have also included some more but they are all taken on the top of Weets Hill looking towards Pendle

I have shrunk them to fit into the topic but if they want high res versions please let me know.

Click here to make a donation and help support this site and keep it advert free 

But like I said, I'm only passing on a message so if you want to submit anything, please contact West Craven Together direct. I'm sure they'll be very pleased to hear from you.

I've got quite a bit of work on at the moment so I don't want to get involved in the to-ing and fro-ing etc.

Hello all, thank you so much for the winter images....please watch out for the second edition of the West Craven Together newsletter for the launch of a photography competition!!!!!
Please can anyone point me in the right direction for information on’ Pickles Hippings' ? this is for a project that might see the extension of the 'Stream and Steam' trail, to lead to a circular walk...watch this space for updates on the production of the walking leaflets and signage/information points with thanks to the conservation team for their hard work with the 'Stream and Steam' and now set with the task of putting together a leaflet and signage boards in keeping with the 'Beating of the Bounds'
Please check out the West Craven On Line website and let me know if you/someone/anyone/ would be interested in having space to show case your hobby/ies/talents, photography, art, poetry, song writers etc etc
EVENTS CALENDAR - please please can you all send me your events (for the West Craven area only!) for inclusion in next year's events programme of which 10'000 copies are distributed locally and regionally. The programme is also available to download from West Craven on Line.

Thanks
Jennene Stubbs
Tourism and Events Support Development Officer
West Craven Together
www.westcravenonline.org.uk

I think you'll find a lot of useful stuff on here. Pickles Hippings (will you dare to put its local name on the board - "Sh****n Ginnel, I wonder?!) has been discussed in the past - the best way to find it is to use OGFB's Search facility.

I know we have some great photographers on the site (BK and Ringo to name just two) and it's good to hear you'll be holding a photo comp in the next issue of your newsletter.

I hope you'll use this site regularly to request/give out local info. The beauty of it is that, because it's not an official website, you'll get quite a diverse range of opinions - guaranteed!

Here's an old article of mine. 

WALKING BEHIND DAVID

(PART TWO)


We rejoin David this week on Calf Hall Road. I have a feeling we might be here for a while, there is much to talk about! The first thing to recognise is that what we now call Calf Hall Road started life as Calf Hall Lane. It turns in towards Weets on the right hand side of Calf Hall Shed and connects into a network of mediaeval lanes that stretches across the countryside to Gisburn. If you walk down the side of the shed and follow the lane you are passing what is reputedly the site of the monastery that was founded in 1147 by the monks from Fountain’s Abbey when Henry de Lacy gave the Manor of Barnoldswick to the monks. Nobody is quite sure about the exact position of the site but one thing is clear on the first OS map; where Pickles Hippings (Shitten Ginnel to older Barlickers) meets Calf Hall Lane was the site of St Mary’s Well. In both Pagan and Early Christian times, all wells were venerated as sacred places. This must have been quite an important well as it has been given a saint’s name. On this evidence alone we can be fairly certain that, monastery or not, this was regarded as an important place. As for the name Pickles Hippings, all I can tell you is that ‘hippings’ is a word associated with stepping stones and it may be that these preceded the footbridge which was marked on the first OS map and still carries you across Springs Beck. As for Shitten Ginnel, this must date to the time before it was paved.

Walk down Shitten Ginnel and over the footbridge, and then look out towards the back of Calf Hall Shed. You’ll see a landscaped car park that extends inside the extension to the weaving shed. If you’d looked down here in 1887 there would have been nothing but a green valley stretching down into the town. In 1888 the Calf Hall Shed Company was formed, more about that in a moment, and the space at the back of the shed was taken up by a mill lodge that extended under the weaving shed. If you go round the front of the mill you will see where it re-emerges and goes under the road. Calf Hall Shed was very important in the life of Barlick and we need to take a closer look at it.

In 1885 Billycock Bracewell died and the bank took control of his assets to make sure they got back the capital that they had lent him. Their attitude wasn’t to continue trading but to close everything down and simply sell the assets. This was a terrible blow for the town as Bracewell was the biggest employer. The Craven Herald reported at the time that ‘grass was growing on the streets’. What we have to remember is that most of the houses in the town were rented out and if a worker lost his job and found one in a nearby town it was very easy to find a house to rent and move. This was bad news for the traders in the town and professional people who’s businesses or occupations were established and hadn’t the same freedom of movement. In 1888 a group of these people got together and founded the Long Ing Shed Company that built a new mill at Long Ing, installed an engine and let out space for tenants to install their own looms. The Room and Power System had arrived in Barlick.

Long Ing never developed beyond a single shed company but in 1888 another group of capital owners met in the Old Baptist Chapel under the chairmanship of the Rev. E. R. Lewis to consider forming a company to build a shed for letting out as room and power. By 1889 the Calf Hall Shed Company had been formed and had its first annual general meeting in the Seven Stars on the 27th of April. On the first board of directors were a jeweller, a doctor, a baker, a farmer, the postmaster and a house furnisher, all people who had a stake in the town. By December 5th that year the shed was finished, the tenants in place and the engine started. By 1905 the CHSC owned four mills, they had bought Butts and Wellhouse, two of Bracewell’s old mills and another one in Colne.

This company breathed new life into the town, houses were rapidly re-occupied and many workers put their spare money in the CHSC as loans or bought shares. There was no bank in the town until the Craven Bank opened in 1905 and it made sense to invest and save with the people who were giving you employment. The system was wonderfully successful and the tenants of the mills, while continually complaining about high rent levels made so much money that they could finance another wave of shed building in the early years of the 20th century that gave us the later mills. My point is that when you step out into Calf Hall Road, look across to what is now the new home of Carrprint and reflect on the fact that it was this mill that saved Barlick in 1889.

One other thought for you before we leave Calf Hall. It was the Springs Beck that fed Calf Hall and Butts mill before it joined with Gillians Beck. Both of these were steam driven mills and steam engines need plenty of water, not for the boilers but to cool the condensers that made them efficient. There was a big problem here in hot weather, the water that Calf Hall discharged into the beck was warm and hadn’t cooled down before it reached Butts. This meant that Butts Mill was less efficient and this fact caused much friction between mill owners on the same watercourse. This was one of the main reasons why the later mills were built on the canal as this source of condenser water was much more reliable. The Calf Hall Company tried to improve things by taking over the lease of the existing Springs Dam in 1889 for £9 per annum and diverting all the water they could find into it.

Walking to the end of Calf Hall Road we follow David into what is now known as Clough Park. The first thing to say is that we are looking at a different watercourse here. The valley, which you see stretching away behind Manchester Road, is the course of Gillians Beck, which rises on the moor above Bancroft. This beck fed Bancroft and then provided water for Ouzledale Mill. The ‘waterfall’ at Forty Steps is actually the old milldam but the reservoir behind was silted up well before I lived at Hey Farm in the 50s. (By the way, I think I made a mistake in an earlier piece when I said that ‘ouzle’ was an old English name for blackbird. I should have said thrush!) From Ouzledale it flowed into a lodge at the top end of what is now the park and in the early days drove the waterwheel at Mitchell’s Mill. From the mill it flowed in a culvert down the side of the chapel and under Walmsgate where it reappears briefly as it flows down the back of the club. I think that the stream was culverted round about 1825/30. The existing histories are a bit vague on this point; what they all agree on is that selling the village green where The Commercial and Green Street are now raised the money for the improvement! If you look at the older buildings on the road you will see that the road level has been raised about five feet. There was a ford and a footbridge here originally and the slope down from the main road must have been very steep.

As regards Mitchell’s Mill, I have to admit that there is much to learn. I know that there was a William Mitchell, spinner in Barnoldswick in 1807 and it looks as though a John Mitchell was a wood turner at Ouzledale mill in 1822. This could point to the Mitchell family owning the water rights on Gillians Beck. The end of the 18th century saw many water spinning mills built when Arkwright’s patents for the water frame were overthrown so this is the likely date for the building of Mitchell’s Mill. By 1846 William Mitchell had done well enough to be able to afford to build a new steam-driven mill to hold 300 looms alongside the old watermill. Barlick masons built the new mill but the chimney was erected by David Carr of Gargrave. Mitchell may have had some looms in the new mill but the main tenants were William, Thomas and Christopher Bracewell. These were the Bracewell’s of Coates who owned and ran Old Coates Mill.

William Bracewell of Newfield Edge, ‘Billycock’, was building Butts Mill at the same time so the quarries in Barlick must have been busy. Billycock had connections with an iron foundry in Burnley, which manufactured engines, and it was most likely a Bracewell Beam Engine that powered Mitchell’s new mill. The boilers came from Keighley.

In 1860, The Bracewell Brothers ceased trading and vacated the mill. John Slater and his sons who also owned a silk mill at Galgate took their place. The early 60’s was a hard time for the cotton trade because of the American Civil War; cotton supplies from America stopped and the industry was hit by the ‘cotton famine’. Slaters moved away from cotton and concentrated on cloths containing wool and flax. They were also cushioned by the fact that John Slater had several loom shops in the town, employed outworkers and had a carter’s business. For whatever reason, by 1867 Mitchell sold the mill to John Slater and Sons for £3,000, a lot of money in those days. As soon as Slaters bought the mill they renamed it Clough Mill and extended it, and by 1879 were building even more space. There was a slight setback in 1880 when one of the brothers, Clayton Slater, emigrated to Canada and took his share of the looms with him. This space was soon taken up by other tenants amongst whom were Stephen Pickles, James Nutter and Edmondsons. All these later became mill owners in their own right.

In 1913 a new Burnley Ironworks engine was installed to replace the old Bracewell beam engine and this powered the mill until it closed. In later years, Tom Clarke used Clough in the early days of Silentnight and if I remember rightly there was a disastrous fire in the late fifties that destroyed most of the buildings. I don’t think it worked again after that but as I say, I have much to learn about this site yet.

I told you we wouldn’t get far along David’s walk this week; there is far too much interesting stuff to look at. We’ll carry on with our walk up the hill to Ouzledale next week.

SCG/28 August 2000
1847 words
I think Jennene should put a forum up dedicated to West Craven together and keep us informed of what she is doing and pose any questions she might have.