Well, so far I have managed to fail utterly in my New Year’s resolution in posting at least once a week. So my apologies. A lot of my spare time has recently been taken up with writing and preparing for a talk I am going to give on the subject of Whitfield Cross. Interestingly, the Whitfield Cross post (here) is by far and away the most popular on this blog. I know this because behind the scenes here, there are a whole pile of statistics that can be accessed that tells me how many people visit each day, what they look at, and even from where they come – yesterday, for example, I even had a visitor from South Africa! Now, I have no idea why the Whitfield Cross post is so popular, but when I was asked to give a talk on any subject, I though I’d go with that!
The talk is titled: Whitfield Cross – Glossop’s Saxon Heritage
To be given to the excellent folk of the Glossop and Longdendale Archaeological Society (website here) on Tuesday 3rd April at the Bluebell Wood pub, Glossop Road, Gamesley. Talk starts at 7.30, so get there a little earlier, and it’ll cost £2 on the door (although for £5, you can join GLAS and reap the benefits for the year).
The talk will draw on the blog post, but will include new research into Glossop’s only Anglo Saxon feature, and include a discussion of other examples of Mercian Round Shafts.
Plus, this is your chance to find out who Robert Hamnett actually is… and buy him (well, me) a drink!
In all seriousness though, come along – if you are interested in the blog, or Whitfield Cross, you’ll be interested in this.
Right, despite having another cold (courtesy of the ever ill James), I shall try and bash out another blog entry
With an obvious predictability, I cannot resist having a poke around the brook whenever I’m in the neighbourhood – there is always something to find. Ok, so it’s not quite mudlarking on the Thames foreshore, but it is Glossop’s equivalent, and that makes it all the more important to us (if not quite as bountiful!). By the way, if anyone is interested in mudlarking, or the slightly haphazard and magpie approach to the past that this blog is following, then check out the book London in Fragments by Ted Sandling. I cannot recommend it enough – beautifully illustrated with fragments of pot, glass, pipe, stone, metal, etc. and each with a very interesting essay accompanying the item (be warned, the ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon misses out allof the photographs!). Just beautiful.
So then, the haul!
At first glance, not that inspiring… but bear with me!
As is becoming my habit, unless they were decorated, or a rim, a base, or a handle, I left the white glazed earthernware and china in the brook. As a rule of thumb, these are the four criteria archaeologists use to sort out the ‘feature sherds’, which are diagnostic (giving us information about date, type, function, etc.) from the ‘body sherds’, which normally make up the majority of a assemblage. It is a rule of thumb, though, and some body sherds can be equally important if they are of an unusual fabric, or are able tell us more information.
So what can we see?
Pottery first. Top sherd is a from a small-ish and closed salt-glazed stoneware vessel. We can tell it is from a closed vessel (i.e. like a bottle, not open like a bowl), by the fact that the interior surface is rougher and unfinished – why waste your time glazing it properly if no one is going to see it? Also, the salt glazing process involves literally throwing salt into the high temperature kiln where it vapourises forming the characteristic glaze; this vapour will not readily reach the interior of the vessel. This vessel was probably something like an ink pot or similar, but by the late 19th century, the date of this sherd, salt-glazed stoneware was mass produced on a literal industrial scale, so it is difficult to be certain.
Middle right. Another closed salt-glazed stoneware vessel, same date, but larger – possibly a milk or lemonade bottle bottle or similar. This sherd is thickening slightly at the left, and so is perhaps forming the shoulder of the bottle.
Middle left, is another salt-glazed stoneware vessel. This one appears to be open, and is decorated by using the rouletting method – a small wheel with teeth was run over the surface to produce the characteristic incised decoration. This one has a very common motif of undulating lines around the body of the pot. The sherd is mid to late 19th century, and probably from a storage jar or crock, and despite being relatively thin, is probably from a large vessel.
Bottom left is the base to a milk or lemonade bottle (it is flat, but lifting slightly toward the middle of the base, and you can see the concentric lines that characterise the base of these bottles). Stoneware again, but a more conventional glaze which gives it the characteristic cream colour. Interestingly, when I flipped it over, you can see a manufacturing flaw – the glaze has pooled against the interior wall, and instead of vitrifying uniformly, it has bubbled and produced a very messy surface.
Flawed glaze at the bottom.
However, it won’t be seen because it is a what? “A closed vessel, Mr Hamnett”, chorused everyone – good to see you are paying attention. It also illustrates why it was probably unwise to reuse these bottles – if it contained milk (raw and unpasteurised, of course), there is no way you could hope to get that clean enough, even with a steriliser.
Bottom right. An interesting sherd… honest. It is a slip-glazed earthernware vessel, and to judge from the colour of the fabric (the clay itself) and the colour of the glaze, as well as the way it flakes away, it is probably 18th Century. Of course, I could be wrong… but there is something about that sherd that gives it an early-ish date.
Glass! Top is from a corked beer bottle… probably. Certainly corked, not capped or screw threaded, and almost certainly beer. And likely Victorian, or early Edwardian.
Middle is probably a Victorian mineral water bottle. The glass is thick and has an embossed ‘&’ sign and some other marks visible, which would have been the name of the maker and their logo. Without doing a lot of serious research, it would be very difficult to say who made it, as a lot of companies were called ‘Something & Something‘. That stated, there were so many mineral water companies that the bottles tended not to travel far, so theoretically there can’t be that many in the area, so it might be worth a look.
Bottom is just a bottle fragment, again probably from a mineral water bottle. i include it here because a) it is a blueish colour, and so potentially earlier than the rest, and b) it has two air bubbles trapped in the glass. At first I thought that it might have been hand blown, but no, I think it is just a feature of the manufacture. What is fun, though, is the fact that within those bubbles lies a tiny amount of Victorian air, preserved for eternity. I wonder what the Victorian period smelled like? Actually, on second thoughts…
So, nothing truly award winning, but a little slice of Glossop history nonetheless.
Just as I was about to walk away, I turned over a stone, and found the other side was flat and dressed.
A lump of dressed sandstone!3
It is a sandstone, and not local to the area as far as I can tell, but then I am no geologist. The dressing can be more clearly seen in this photograph, with the low winter sun picking out the chisel marks.
The dressing clearly shown, with a possible mis-hit on the right.
Obviously it was once part of a building, but what part? Maybe a door or window lintel perhaps? I don’t think it is particularly old, and it is quite a coarse dressing, so perhaps it is from a worker’s cottage or similar. The bank in this area seems to have been shored up against erosion, and it probably building demolition rubble dumped here from nearby.
As always, comments are welcome.
I shall post more in a day or so… this time on the subject of Victoria Bridge. Probably!
In his book ‘Crosses of the Peak District’, Sharpe (2002) lists Hollincross Lane, by St James’ church, Whitfield, as being the site of one of Glossop’s long lost crosses (p.110, paraphrasing Hamnett). When I had previously thought about Hollincross Lane, I had assumed that the name refers to the Whitfield Cross, and thus the road that runs down into Hollincross Lane via Freetown. But actually, a cross here would make sense as it would mark the junction of three trackways: north to Woodhead and beyond, east to Whitfield and thence to (Old) Glossop or Chunal via Gnat Hole, and west to Dinting and Simmondley. The way south, Charlestown Road, only came into existence with the construction of the turnpike road in the early 19th century – before that, the only way to Chunal was via Gnat Hole.
1969 1:2500 map showing routes north, east, and west. The hypothetical situation of the cross would probably have been at the church end of James Street
A cross marking this junction would have had its uses, then. Indeed, we can also play a speculation game (putting on my prehistorian’s hat for a moment) and suggest that the siting of St James’s Church (1840 or thereabouts – the foundation stone was laid on 27th September 1844, and it was consecrated almost 2 years later on 8 September 1846) was influenced by the existence (or memory) of a cross there indicating holy ground. Wild speculation, I know… but let’s pretend! Etymologically speaking ‘Hollincross’ may be understood as either ‘Holy Cross’, or ‘Holly Cross’ – a cross covered in or situated by some holly
Now obviously there is no cross there now, and Hamnett, writing in the late 19th century, could find no trace of a cross either – seemingly it’s location was lost to even the oldest residents of Whitfield. At some stage, then, our hypothetical cross has been removed. This could have happened for any number of reasons, ranging from pious iconoclasm (a stone cross is an object of adoration and thus ‘Popery’, or Roman Catholic veneration of things and people) to it simply being in the way of traffic. I know of one example, not local, of a 9th century Mercian Roundshaft that was rescued from a farmer who was in the process of rolling it down a hill and into a stream in order to plough his field. And this was in the 1960’s…
Crosses and bases were, then, broken up and re-used in walls, and as people don’t move stone further than they have to, especially in a stone rich area such as this, it sometimes pays to have a look around to see what you can see. With this in mind, and taking advantage of a lull in the rain, James and I went for a wander down to St James’ churchyard (via the park, obviously). He had a whale of time, helped no doubt by the drink of juice that the rector gave him! So, what did I find? Nothing definite, certainly, but just possibly, something.
A stone amongst the stones. What is this lump?
Just opposite the main entrance to the church, by the path and amidst the gravestone sits a large lump of stone. It is roughly 2′ square and 1′ high, has been knocked about a fair bit, and is now fairy shapeless. However, one side has clearly been shaped and worked, and with the eye of faith one can see chisel marks.
The side closest to the camera is flat and has been worked by tools. Is this the base of Hollin Cross?
Now, I am not sure what this is! It is not a glacial erratic as they are often rounded and smooth like a pebble, and I don’t think it is part of the church building, as it is the wrong type of stone. It might be the cross base, but there is no visible socket – the hole in which the cross shaft sits to make it secure. However, the socket may have been on the part that has been knocked off, or is perhaps underneath if the base had been up-ended. It is very uncertain, but we can be sure that the stone was not planned as such to be there – it makes no sense, and doesn’t even have an aesthetic value – rather it is a left-over from the land prior to the construction of the church.
I had a look around the walls for cross pieces, but could find nothing likely, and I think a winter trip around the churchyard is in order!
Of course, whilst I was there, I took the opportunity to photograph the bench mark on the church itself – how could I resist!
548.9 ft above sea level, to be precise. That’s a roughly 120 ft difference between here and the top end of Whitfield Cross.
So, James and I went back to Manor Park last week and had a paddle round to see what we could see. He threw rocks, I had a poke around some sherds and and found a number of interesting bits and pieces. Behold, the haul:
The haul of pottery!
Most of it is the usual type of white glazed stuff, the majority of which I left in situ… Mrs Hamnett can only cope with so many of these “valuable historical artefacts”/”bits of old pot” (delete as appropriate) stored in the house! The following are interesting (again, interesting is an objective term!) sherds:
Middle row, centre, is a clay pipe stem. These are quite literally the cigarette butt of the Victorian period, smoked and disposed of with gay abandon. I’m surprised there aren’t more of them in the brook, but then they are quite light and so are easily carried by the water. Date… from the stem alone, impossible to say – 16th to 20th Century! On balance though, almost certainly 19th Century, when tobacco had become an affordable luxury, and clay pipe smoking was normal for even the common man.
On either side of the pipe are pieces of glass. Rounded by being bashed against rocks, they resemble sea glass, and both come from bottles. The piece on the right is thin walled, and probably from a sauce bottle or similar.
Bottom row, from left to right is the rim of a thin and delicate shallow bowl of about 12cm in diameter. Thinking about it, it is probably a saucer, but from that fragment it is difficult to say, as is the date – 19th to 20th Century. Middle is a transfer printed handle from a tall upright vessel – possibly a tureen or similar. Date, as above! And on the right, the badly damaged base to a plate or bowl or similar large open vessel. The brown stripe across the middle is what remains of the ring base, which has come away. Date is almost certainly the same as above.
The best sherd I have saved for last, though. I thought it was an interesting rock when I pulled it out, and was quite excited when I recognised it for what it is.
Manganese Glazed Ware – 17th-18th Century in date.
It would appear to be a sherd from a manganese glazed vessel. “Wow!” I hear you cry collectively…
Well, wow indeed! I suspect that this sherd is 18th Century in date, and could be quite easily be 17th Century, considerably earlier than the majority of the material I’ve found so far.
The blue-ish purple colour of the glaze is very characteristic, and the fabric of the pot is early – a low firing temperature has produced a relatively soft body quite unlike the hard fired later vessels, and it is a coarse earthenware, not a china. It is a thick walled vessel, again quite common in earlier pots, particularly utilitarian vessels such as storage and serving pots, and is markedly different from the mass produced Victorian vessels. I can’t tell the type of vessel from which it comes – it is an open vessel (i.e. not a bottle or similar closed vessel), and has an internal diameter of c.14cm. – so perhaps a jug, or deep bowl?
The move toward finer pottery in the late 18th/early 19th centuries as ‘tableware’ is a response to fashion – the finer the vessel, the more expensive it is – with fine bone china was reserved for the wealthy only. Of course, as a result, everyone wanted some in order to keep up with their ‘betters’, and so the demand for fine pottery trickled down the social ranks, and new ways were found to mass produce finer pottery, though obviously of poorer quality.
That this early pottery is here is not surprising – it dates from a period before Glossop as we know it existed – before the mass explosion of the mills in the early 19th Century, and the subsequent expansion of housing to cope with the need for mill workers. At this time, the main settlement area was Old Glossop, clustered around the church, and with a few mills on the water there. And of course, Shelf Brook flows through Old Glossop. I may take a walk up there sometime this weekend!
At the bottom of St Mary’s Road, on the left hand side, and just behind the back yard of The Retreat beauty salon, there is a gatepost next to the footpath. It is a fairly standard, if precisely carved, gatepost, and much like many of the others you would find in the area. However, this one has a large upper case letter ‘R’ carved expertly into its face.
The letter ‘R’ beautifully carved.
I have no clue why it was carved, nor who did it, nor when. The buildings in this part of Glossop centre are among the oldest (1840’s or thereabouts), and the letter style certainly suggests Victorian origin, and probably early Victorian – the large serifs recalls Georgian lettering. It has clearly been used as a gatepost multiple times, with different gate sizes and shapes, and even paint colours – you can see the evidence in the form of holes and paint. Importantly, most of these were placed over the carving, so post-date it.
Use and re-use – the evidence of the holes, fixings, and paint.
I checked the early maps for any idea, but nothing was shown that may explain its origin. I haven’t had time to check the census records, and these may shed some light on it, but as it stands… no idea! Whilst looking at the post, I found a child’s toy marble in the gutter – not a particularly old one, but it has seen some use, and is covered in scratches and chips. So obviously, I picked it up!
I can’t resist a find, even if it is not quite archaeology.
Any thoughts or suggestions regarding the letter on a postcard please (or you could just, you know, post a comment below).
Whitfield Cross. An odd name for a road that doesn’t have a cross on it.
Leading from Gladstone Street up to Hague Street/Cliffe Road, the road takes you past Whitfield Wells, and into the heart of the Whitfield Conservation Area. I lived on King Street for a number of years, and regularly walked up and down the street, without really noticing the name beyond “hmmm, I bet there was cross here at some stage”.
However, whilst delving into the history of the area, I came across an article by the marvellous Robert Hamnett (my namesake) entitled “Botanical Ramble to Moorfield”, dated to about 1890. There is not much botany, but it is a goldmine of local history. You can read the article in PDF form here via the scanned scrapbooks of the New Mills History Society – they have a whole bunch of them to ready to read, all from the late 19th and early 20th century, and all history local to New Mills and surrounding areas, including Glossop. But I digress…
As I read the article my jaw dropped. I repeat the relevant chapter here in full as it is full of great language, some of which might need explaining.
“In the latter part of the last century the Cross Cliffe lads planned and partially carried out what was to them a most daring and audacious deed. One ” Mischief Night,” the eve of the first of May, it was resolved to steal the Whitfield cross. In the depth of night, when all was quiet, and the Whitfield lads were slumbering or dreaming of their “May birch”, the Cross Cliffe invaders came and detached a portion of the cross. With secrecy, care, and much labour, it was conveyed away nearly to its projected destination, but the exertions required for the nefarious deed had been under estimated, their previous work in removing all articles left carelessly in the yards or at the back doors of the good people of Cross Cliffe and neighbourhood, such as clothes lines, props, buckets, etc., etc., to their “May birch” had already taken much of their energy out of them, and, coupled with the steepness of the ascent to the “Top o’ th’ Cross,” distance and roughness of the road to Cross Cliffe, and the weight of the stone, they were reluctantly obliged to abandon their “loot” in the last field near to the pre-arranged destination. What the feelings were of the Whitfield lads on discovering the desecration and loss of a portion of their cross can be better imagined than described. The stolen portion remained in the field for some years. Mr Joseph Hague, of Park Hall, was solicited to restore the cross to its original form and position, but being imbued with a little Puritanism, he refused, and the other portions gradually disappeared until there is nothing left of the Whitfield Cross, except the stolen portion, which is now part and parcel of a stile in a field at Cross Cliffe, where the then tenant of the field placed it, over a century ago.”
“Blimey!”, thought I!
Date wise, the removal of the cross would have been 1790 or so. I find it interesting that the boys of Crosse Cliffe carried half a metric ton of stone for a prank… no wonder they left it a short distance from where it originally stood. An interesting bit of trivia here, though; in the northern counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Cheshire, Mischief Night was on May Eve rather than November 4th as it is now. How and why it switched, no one knows, but I can remember my father telling me about it (born in 1942 in Macclesfield), as well as my grandfather (born in 1909 in Blackley). A little research on the internet repays a lot of information about this, though curiously not the origin of the phrase “May birch”, meaning a prank, which I can find no reference to anywhere else.
So there the cross sits still, passed each day by dozens of dog walkers and hikers.
Upon reading this passage I quite literally ran out and had a look around, but, not knowing exactly where it was (and it is not marked on any OS Map that I have seen), I drew a blank. Weeks later, walking for pleasure rather than exploring, I walked along the right path, and the cross hoved into view.
The location of the cross on a footpath. To get your bearings, Cliffe Road is on the left, and just above the houses there are the allotments.
And it really is unmistakable.
The Whitfield Cross, now permanently marked by a Bench Mark.
Technically, it is a 9th Century Mercian Round Shaft. That is, it is Anglo-Saxon in origin, carved and placed sometime between 800 and 900AD, and is of a type that is only found in this relatively small geographical area, the kingdon of Mercia. I say ‘this’ area, but technically we are living in the land of the Pecsaetan – the peak dewllers – an independent tribe until they merged with the Mercians prior to the invasion of 1066. Crosses normally have square or rectangular shafts, but the Round Shaft are characterised by an almost pot-bellied round shape, and the very characteristic band around the neck below the cross itself. Sometimes the shafts are decorated, but more often they are plain, as is our cross. Originally, it would have had a simple cross form on the top, just above the collar, and this as well as the neck, could sometimes decorated in panels. There are a few other examples of the round shaft in the area, but the closest are Robin Hood’s Picking Rods (which will be the subject of a future post).
Hamnett suggests that the original location for our cross was at the Whitfield Wells, and the early maps show an area set back from the road that would work. However, it would make more sense for the cross to have stood at the top of Whitfield Cross (the road) as crosses of this sort usually mark road junctions. Here, there is the meeting of three (then) important roads.
The location of the cross would have been where, coincidentally, the cross is at the centre of the map. That cross represents a ‘spot height’ above sea level, but the fact that figure is 666ft is deliciously ironic.
The old pack horse route comes from the south (Peak Forest, Buxton, and Chesterfield) through Gnat Hole, along Hague Street, through to the appropriately named Cross Cliffe, down to Old Glossop (for local traffic – the market and the parish church on Sundays), and on to Woodhead (and Yorkshire beyond, for commercial traffic). The stone would have marked the junction of the track that went along Whitfield Cross, Freetown, Hollincross Lane (Holy Cross? A cross standing by, or covered in, Holly?), Slatelands, and onto Simmondley and beyond. There was another spur coming out along what is now Gladstone Street, leading to that area of the town, and again onto Woodhead.
The location of the cross would have been dead centre. The roads all widen out at this point, presumably to have accommodated the cross. Left is to Peak Forest/Buxton, right down Whitfield Cross to Simmondly, behind the camera leads to Old Glossop/Woodhead
As we can see in the top photograph, the height of the land on either side of Whitfield Cross (the road) is surely testament to the age of the trackway, it being worn down to its present depth by millennia of use.
Neville Sharpe in his masterful study Stone Crosses of the Peak District notes that there are several large pieces of large built into the wall at the junction that could have formed the cross base. Closer inspection reveals numerous stones that have been re-used in the wall, several of which could be related to the cross, but without dismantling it in search of sockets, we can’t be certain.
A section of walling – note the reused stone, any one of which could be part of the cross base.Likely candidates?Another candidate? Ignore the arrow, that was carved to indicate an electricity supply is buried there.Another candidate?Whilst looking at the wall, I spotted this dressed stone. It seems to have been a capstone to an arch – the curved line at the bottom gives it that impression, as does the diagonal sides. A doorway? A bridge? The rectangular panel has been deliberately pecked, perhaps to remove a date or name, or even a carving. I would suggest that it is early in date judging by its dressing – medieval perhaps? It’s amazing what you see in walls!
According to Sharpe, John Nelson, an assistant to John Wesley, preached at the cross in the mid 1700’s. This is very typical of the Wesleyan way – preaching outside and using a local landmark – and I’m surprised that Wesley himself didn’t preach here, given his activities in and love for the area. Alas, there is no mention of this is his diaries. There is a very interesting piece about the history of Methodism in the area, including a biography of Nelson, here.
I wonder how many of those dog walkers and hikers are aware of what it is they are passing by when they use that stile? Seriously though, I urge you to go and see it – it is truly a remarkable piece of history, and one that deserves a better fate than is currently befalling it.
I have a big idea about the cross! I would love to see it restored to its original site, or better yet, outside the Whitfield Wells, with a little placard explaining the history of both. The setting is perfect, and it would surely be a fantastic companion to the wells, particularly when dressed. Although in the infant stages, I am exploring possibilities… watch this space.
The cross would look perfect here, especially if the wells were decorated.
As you walk down Freetown toward St James’s church, just before you get to Charlestown Road there is, on the right-hand side, a small thin passageway that ends in a gate, probably leading to someone’s back garden or something. Now, I’m not sure if this private land as such, but I don’t think so. It is, rather, one of the anomalous bits of land left over after the extensive demolition and remodelling that this part of Whitfield underwent in the late 1960’s. A sort of architectural no-man’s land, the result of imposing a rigid housing plan onto an already existing street system, and one that had grown somewhat organically, and in a ramshackle and piecemeal way throughout the 19th Century. It doesn’t quite fit, so there are these angles and nooks left over which I like to explore. I never can resist a good nook!
Innocuous enough, and overlooked.
This one contains a bit of a surprise. A fireplace. A large inglenook fireplace made up of three stone – two uprights and a lintel – carved, dressed, and sitting proudly in the wall, exactly as it should be.
Except it’s not… it’s outside.
What you see is the front of the fireplace – as you face it, you would have had your back into the room. But there is no room.
Given the size of the fireplace, and the cramped location, it is difficult to get a good photograph, so my apologies.The dressed surface and delicate lines are clearly visible. The walls around it would originally have been plastered and flat, once you get that, you can begin to reconstruct the house around the fireplace structure.
Now, putting my anthropologist head on for a moment (as we archaeologists do fairly often), we may note that humans almost universally, and throughout all periods of history, have placed great importance between the ‘outside’ and ‘inside’. This binary concept is prevalent throughout our lives, and is just about hard-wired into our brains. The inside of a house represents the safety of the domestic and the social, the known familar world, one with distinct limits (the walls), and one that is warm and safe and light. The exterior is the opposite of that – it is dark, wild, cold, dangerous, full of unknowns and without limits. Out there, we are helpless, alone, and out there, man is no longer the hunter, but is the hunted, pursued by predators. Consider too the garden; technically outside, it can be seen as symbolically taming the wild. It is outside, but is not – it is bounded by walls and fences, and the grass is cut, unwanted plants are weeded out, the trees are nurtured and the flowers are fed and watered – it is controlled by us, and is carefully and jealously guarded against incursion from the wild.
Arguably, the whole of humanity’s struggles and the evolution of society is based around this concept – making the distinction between outside and inside, developing the domestic, and keeping the ‘other’ at bay. Certainly the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ is as much about this as it is about farming, and the two go hand in hand.
The bricked up central part seals its fate as merely part of a wall.
Now what, I hear you cry, has this got to do with a fireplace? Well, the fireplace or hearth is the embodiment of the domestic, the heart and soul of a house. Warmth, light, food, and safety all come from this one point, and it physically and metaphorically represents the concept described above; beyond the light of the fire is darkness, and we don’t know what lies in the darkness. To see it outside, the exact opposite of where it should be, is, anthropologically speaking, wrong – it is an inversion of the norm, it is unsettling and disturbing, and it is somehow dangerous.
Taking off my anthropological head, it is also a very nice piece of carved stone, and so it’s a shame to see it wasted like this. Indeed, I have a fireplace exactly like this one in my own house.
So, how did it end up here? Taking a look at various historical maps, there are a number of buildings marked here over time. The earliest, 1880, seems to have been a small outhouse, possibly a privy. The others are a bit more substantial, particularly that shown on the 1898 map, which may well be our source.
1880 1:500 map. A small outhouse or privy?1898 1:2500. A more substantial building.1921 1:2500. The building is now on an east-west axis.
The remodelling, probably largely uneccesary, of Whitfield has thrown up some interesting anomalies (not to mention the re-use of some of the original housing stone – see photos), but I think this is the oddest.
Re-use of the original building stone of the 1860’s houses of Whitfield and Freetown. These form the front garden wall of some of the 1960’s built ‘new’ houses.Doorway lintels, foundation stones, and window sills make up part of this planter on Freetown.
As always, comments and corrections are very welcome.
During the sunny weather we had a few weeks ago, James (my son), myself, and some mummy friends decamped to Manor Park for the swings, slides and climbing frames. Now, James is 18 months old and desperate to explore the world around him, so when we decided to plonk our children into Shelf Brook for a spot of paddling and water-based hi-jinx, he took to it like a duck to… well, you get the idea. The brook at that point is shallow and slow moving, perfect for picking up stones and throwing them, something he loved doing.
But it is, I have noticed, also a great place to find bits of pottery and other interesting bits lying in the brook. This was our hoard for the day:
They don’t look like much, but I like them!
I found the piece on the left, immediately recognising it as part of a marmalade jar – it is a gray glazed stoneware, with characteristic vertical ridges on the exterior. I say marmalade, but actually they contained all sorts of preserved fruit, with a paper label pasted onto the exterior to say what is within. Date wise, they are long-lived… so anywhere between 1870 and 1920, or thereabouts. You can still buy them, sometimes with the labels intact, quite easily – on ebay for example. Here’s what they look like when whole:
I actually have a whole one that I managed to piece together from a dozen sherds I found on a Victorian tip, and it now holds pens and pencils. Sherds of this type are quite a common find, and as they are so recognisable you start to see them everywhere, as future blog posts will show.
The sherd on the right was actually found by James – a proud father/son moment… his first piece of pottery! Of course, being 18 months old, he simply threw it back into the brook where it made an audible ‘plop!’. It’s a sherd of roughly painted, almost sponge ware, pottery, and quite a lovely one too, with a sort of floral leafy design in a beautiful blue colour. It is difficult to see what the original form of the sherd was – probably a bowl or plate. The date is difficult, too. I would guess Victorian, and potentially early Victorian.
Both of these sherds have been rolling around the Shelf Brook for 100+ years, and the wear pattern on each tells that story. Both are discoloured by the peat brown water coming down from the moors – the marmalade jar particularly so – and both show signs of worn edges. The longer a piece of pottery has spent being tossed about by the water and banging into stones, the more worn it gets, and eventually the edges will become so rounded that it resembles a pebble. The marmalade jar has comparatively sharp edges, but this is probably due to the fact that, as a stone-ware, it has been fired at a higher temperature and is very hard wearing. The decorated sherd is less fortunate, and has already become rounded at the edges. Interestingly, the glaze on this sherd is crazed – that is, it is covered in tiny cracks. Heat is the usual cause of this, and as it is not a cooking pot, we may assume that the vessel was at some stage placed in an oven either to heat up, or to keep food warm, and probably many times before the vessel was broken.
As we were pulling the sherds out of the brook and looking at them (there were plenty of them, but these were the two that caught my eye), my friend asked “how did they get here?”. Actually, a very good question.
There are potentially two ways. The first is that there is a Victorian tip upstream somewhere, and the material is washing out of the bank. Possible, but I don’t know of any tip upstream (not that that is a guarantee of anything). The second, more probably route, is that at some stage along the course of Shelf Brook, someone threw the pottery into the water. Humans are essentially lazy, and it is almost an archaeological law that people will only move rubbish as far as they have to in order to no longer be able to see or smell it. And no further. The brook offers a perfect place to dump waste and rubbish, and as pottery is virtually indestructible, it washed up here in the calm and shallow area before the sluice. For all the good they did us, the Victorians were some serious litter louts.
Anyway, as usual, keep your eyes open, and any comments, please let me know.
I found an interesting thing the other day. I was walking down Bank Street, down to Milltown on the way to the park. For those of you who don’t know it, it is a cobbled path (setts, actually!) that winds its way through demolished mill-scapes, and which allows access to High Street East. I nearly wrote ‘easy access’, but with a push-chair it is a nightmare! That said, I really like it. It has the air of a long forgotten path, Tolkein-esque, leading to who knows what adventure.
The path through Mirkwood, to the Lonely Mountain!
I want to do a longer post on Bank Street at some stage in the near future – it is interesting and full of history. It was originally believed to follow the path of a Roman road, although more recent research suggests, however, that this is in fact an early-modern (16th Century or so) track.
However, for now, I want to share my find.
The screw-thread can be seen winding around the base.
It is a bottle stop made from vulcanised rubber. It had eroded out of the side of the path from behind a partly ruined wall, and was just lying on top of a trickle of soil on the left hand side going up. The screw-thread winds into the neck of a thick-walled glass bottle containing a carbonated liquid – often a soft drink such as water, but also beer. Originally it would have had a soft rubber ring around the cap that would form a seal to keep the drink fresh until it was unscrewed. The design was patented in the early 1880’s by Henry Barrett, and immediately became very popular, with various design improvements ensuring the basic concept was in use for nearly 100 years. Generally speaking, though, the date of such a screw top is roughly 1890-1920, after which time the crimped rim top became popular. There is a really interesting website that details quite a bit about these bottle stops here.
More interestingly, and as was quite common, the top of the screw cap carried the logo of the company manufacturing the drink inside the bottle – in this instance, the company is Jewsbury and Brown Ltd, Manchester.
Jewsbury & Brown Ltd. Manchester. The preservation on the bottle top is wonderful.
Jewsbury and Brown were a large company founded in 1826 and based in Manchester, their premises being at 113 Market Street, and later Ardwick Green. They produced carbonated drinks that were sold in Lancashire and the north, and beyond, until they were bought out by Schweppes in 1964. A bit of internet research reveals that they specialised in non-alcoholic carbonated drinks, fizzy water, and toothpaste – but, disappointingly, never beer! Here is a bit of their history, but much more is available online with a little search.
I love this – not just a bit of archaeology that quite literally threw itself at me, but a real tangible insight into the lives of those of the past. There was nothing else associated with the screw-top, and one gets the impression that it was simply unscrewed from the bottle and thrown over the wall, the thrower determined to drink whatever was within the bottle in a single sitting. Let’s imagine them walking along that uneven path when they did it, clogs striking the setts, perhaps on a hot summer’s day, and at the end of a long shift in the mill, appreciating the fizzy drink playing on their tongue… 100+ years ago.
It’s a neat little thing, and one that will be added to the collection. It also makes me wonder what else is behind that wall, waiting to tumble out, so keep your eyes peeled!
Some years ago, whilst walking to the station for my daily commute, I passed down King Street in Whitfield. As I approached the middle of the street, I had to skirt around some scaffolding that was placed onto the front of a house, and projecting into the path. As I passed, I looked down and saw, scattered quite literally all over the the path, dozens of pieces of thin green metal. On closer inspection, I could see they were copper nails, and promptly pocketed all that I could see.
Fistfulls of copper nails!
The roof of one of the stone-built terraces on that street was being replaced and the copper nails were the fall out, having been removed during renovations. They had been used to pin the heavy stone roof tiles in place, each one carefully nailed into the timber through a hole drilled through the stone tiles, and now, no longer needed, they were simply tossed aside onto the street to be swept up. Now that is, I think you’ll agree, a shame; these little pieces of history deserve better! And besides, I can’t resist picking up interesting, and sometimes shiny, things!
The nail second from right has clearly hit a knot or some similar obstruction and folded. One wonders what expletive was uttered by the workman when he saw it bend… and then carried on hitting it in order to get the job completed as speedily as possible.
They are formed from copper, rather than iron, because copper doesn’t decay the same way iron does – it maintains its strength for far longer, resisting the elements and doesn’t turn to rust. Ship’s nails are made from copper for the same reason. Instead, it develops a thin green patina called verdigris, which makes them particularly beautiful to look at, especially when the verdigris is partly sanded off.
A very bad photograph to illustrate the sun shining off the copper, contrasting with the matt green of the verdigris. These things are difficult to photograph, but very pretty!
They are also hand made – each one cut via a press from a long flattened strip of copper, which accounts for the square body of the nail. It is then placed into a small mold or former, point down, and the exposed top is hammered by hand until it flattens out, forming the nail head, like this:
Illustration taken from ‘Nail Chronology’ by Lee H Nelson (American Association for State and Local History, 1968 )
This method accounts for the thin flattened strips on opposite sides of the nail, just below the head – the former is made of two adjustable halves to enable different size nails to be made, and when pressure is applied via the hammer, the copper is forced into the gap between the two halves of the former.
These nails date from the early to mid-19th century – I seem to remember reading somewhere that the houses in King Street were built in the 1860’s, and, one assumes, the nails are contemporary.
That said, my own house, which dates from the late 1840’s, originally had wooden oak pegs holding on the roof stones. When we replaced the loft insulation, we found dozens of them lying on the floor of the loft where they had been thrown down.
What I love about these is that you can see each the stroke of the knife that was used to form the pegs – in the photograph above the peg at the top was made using eight strokes, the middle using seven strokes, and the bottom peg using eight.
Whilst being fun and interesting artefacts in themselves, there is a sense of connection with the human in these objects; both have been formed by hand, and the mark of that hand is visible in both – the hammer and the knife. That for me is what makes archaeology so fascinating, connecting to past people through the objects they made and used, and the story they tell us.
Update.
Whilst taking advantage of the sunshine to do a little gardening, I came across this little piece amidst the great piles of stone that originally littered our garden – a stone roof tile. It is very small, and is presumably a broken fragment, which explains why it is no longer on our roof. What is fantastic about this is the fact that you can see the hole that would have originally taken one of the pegs illustrated above. I love things like that!
The peg hole is top right of this broken tile – you can clearly see the traces of the boring that created it – and it is a perfect size for the oak pegs shown above. The break in the middle is new, though – I think I may have trodden on it!
The Glossop Cabinet of Curiosities 