Brrrrr… Glossop’s Ice Age History

February 26, 2024February 26, 2024 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

What ho, wonderful denizens of the blog reading world! How are we all? Well this is something of a to-do… what? Two posts in February? Truly I am spoiling you. Well, it’s about time I picked up the pace a little! I actually had a choice of about 4 half finished articles that I was going to go with, and I actually started working on all of them at some point in the last few weeks before I plumped for this one. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

So, I recently discovered the glacial erratic on Pyegrove Park. Now, I should clarify… I didn’t actually ‘discover’ it – lots of people already knew it was there, and in fact I already knew it was there, it’s just that I’d never been able to find it. But the discovery got me thinking: this blog is about archaeology, that is the study of humans and their history through the physical remains they left behind. And yet where we are, and how we live, and indeed how we have lived, has been dictated to us through the landscape, and our place within this. In short, there would be no Glossop without Longdendale, and there would be no Longdendale without the glaciers. So wrap up well, people… we’re off the the ice age.

Ok, so some background, and not being a geologist I really had to put in the homework here, so you’d best appreciate it! Honestly, my brain only has so much space in it: I once learned to ice skate and forgot how to use a knife and fork. What follows then is the ‘back of a fag packet’ version of the last period of glaciation (and before we move on, I must give a massive shout out to a superb website which really helped iron out some of the trickier bits – AntarcticGlacier.org – fascinating, well written, and aimed at non-specialists… well worth checking out if any of this interests you even in the slightest).

So then, there are three distinct periods of glaciation (that is, the process of glaciers forming and moving) within Britain – the Anglian (roughly 478,000 to 424,000 years before present [BP]), the Wolstonian (300,000 to 130,000 BP), and the Devensian (roughly 27,000 to 11,000 BP). Leaving aside the first two, lets focus on the last – the Devensian (also known as the Last Glacial Maximum), as this one was the only one that would have had anatomically modern humans living through it.

At this point, roughly 2/3 of Britain and Ireland, including all of Scotland and Ireland, most of Wales, and the north of England was covered by what is known as the British Irish Ice Sheet. Starting in the Arctic, as the land cooled this glacier moved further south until it reached a limit at about 27,000 BP, at which point the cllimate began to warm, and it slowly began to retreat, and was gone by 11,000 BP. The effect that this moving back and forth had on the land was catastrophic – carving out valleys (think the glens of Scotland, the Lake District, and even our own Peaks), and forever altering the land.

An awesome image of the extent of the Devensian Glaciation at its maximum. I make no claim to this image – it is all the work of Andy Emery at AntarcticGlaciers.org – I merely pinched it… this time with a little shame!

Now, here’s where it gets more interesting… and complicated. There are no definitive models, but it seems that Longdendale was at the southern/south-western edge of the Devensian ice sheet – the literal edge of the glacier in the last ice age. This might explain why the Peak District is, well… ‘peaky’, but the land to the west and south-west isn’t; Longdendale is the last valley before the land smooths out towards Manchester and Cheshire. Indeed, if you look at the above map and think about the landscape to the south and east beyond the edge of the ice sheet, whilst it can certainly be hilly, there are no peaks and steep valleys.

Of course, that’s not to say that the glaciers didn’t affect the land beyond that edge – already frozen solid and all but inhabitable, once the glaciers began to melt, the water had to go somewhere. There is some evidence for what are termed ‘glacial lakes’, huge bodies of meltwater, beneath or adjacent to the glacial edges. There seems to have been one covering the whole of Glossop as it is now – the landscape here being suitably bowl shaped – and which was perhaps dammed at the Mottram end with ice and clay. Not going to lie to you, folks, that honestly makes me feel… weird and terrified. Indeed, originally the Etherow ran to the west of here, toward Manchester, but was forced to change it’s course due to sand, gravel, and ice blocking the original route. And to give an idea of the power that such a lake bursting, one such steam blasted out the gorge (actually, a natural geological fault line) at Broadbottom which the viaduct now has to cross.

But the glaciers also gave another gift. As they moved up and down (and indeed round – there is evidence that it wasn’t a straight-forward linear motion), they picked up bits of geology – random stones and chipped-off bits of mountain. These they occasionally dropped as they went along in the form of what we know as ‘glacial erratics’ – defined by AntarcticGlaciers as “a far-travelled stone of a different lithology (stone type) to the local bedrock“. Now, the Glossop area has four of these that are known about (but there are a lot of odd looking stones dotted about that to my eyes look like they are erratics, but as I say, not being a geologist, I don’t know). If anyone has a geological speciality, or has any thought about the types of stone these are, and thus perhaps their origin, then please get in contact. The first of these is the one I have already mentioned at Pyegrove, here:

Turns out the big red arrow is visible on the ground, too!

Lurking in the bushes, it hides its history well.

Using What3Words, it is located at easygoing.harmonica.ramming. Now, I’m not sure what to make of that!

Now, other than it being non-local, and shaped rather like a large pebble (due to the grinding and rolling movement via glacier), I know nothing about it, geologically speaking. It’s coarse, with a sandstone-like structure, but not quite like any local stone I know of.

Close-up of the ‘fabric’ of the stone. It seems to be a type of rough sandstone – almost, but not quite like Millstone Grit.

I assume that it comes from geology further north than here, but where? Lake District? Scotland? Norway? Was this where it was dropped? Or has it been found in a field and moved? Possibly the latter, as it is on the field edge, and marks the track between Pyegrove House (and Hurst, etc.) and Glossop, now simply an overgrown hollow path at the edge of the field, but once an important route from Jumble, Hurst and Pyegrove to Glossop.

The sunken trackway – or holloway – worn by years of use.

Of course, it may be that the field boundary used the erratic as a reference point, and thus the track, but I still think it’s likely that it has been moved.

The next erratic is to be found in Howard Park, here to be precise:

Here, right in front of what was Wood’s Hospital, now Reuben’s Retreat. What3Words is overpaid.courier.recover.

Lovely stuff. Also, looks like it has a moustache!

So, it’s a very similar stone to the Pyegrove example, possibly even from the same source. Here, in the close-up:

Not a million miles from the Pyegrove example.

The rock also shows very clearly the marks of being crushed and scraped along other rocks by the glacier.

Linear striations show how it was scraped along a surface… imagine the forces involved in this.

Also much banged around – again, massive forces involved in this.

This one has certainly been moved, but from where?

Our last two erratics are to be found in the grounds of the old Grammar School and library building, here, to be precise:

Against the wall of Fitzalan Street, and at earlobes.tutorial.daytime using What3Words… you couldn’t make these addresses up!

Smoother than the others, but again not local in origin.

Here it is is close-up:

Very different from all the others, this one has quartzite in it, producing a much more jagged rock.

Here it is in close-up:

Very odd geology – a rough rock with striations of quartzite… probably quite unremarkable to a geologist! Possibly related somehow to Shap Granite which has similarities. I think.

They even have a plaque helpfully explaining where they were found, and potentially where they originated.

Shelf Brook… well worth checking out, apparently!

As the climate began to warm up, the land began to come back to life – this was the start of the Holocene period, the modern human world. Trees, shrubs, and plants started to grow, and these are soon followed by the animals that eat them. And following them, hunting and gathering, people. By probably 8000BC, at certainly by 7000BC, people were passing through the Glossop area following game in small bands, and moving between seasonal hunting camps. Their movement through the area may have been part of a cycle of many years, and many hundreds of miles from place to place, stopping for a period of months – summer in the higher ground, winter in the warmer valleys – meeting other groups in specific locations, trading resources and marriage partners, and moving on again, through a landscape that was marked only by natural monuments. The Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age, c. 8000 – 4000 BC) is a fascinating period, but we know so little of their daily lives. Indeed our only clues to their existence hereabouts are the flint tools they made and used, and which are quite commonly found in the hills around Glossop.

Some lovely Mesolithic flint bits. Left, a small scraper; middle, a core from which tiny blades (microliths) were chipped or knapped; and right a notched blade which are common in the Mesolithic, but which no one seems to know what they were used for. My guess would be to scrape down arrow shafts. To be honest, flint tools are like Swiss Army Knives – multiple uses in multiple ways.

I’m also going to use this article to put to bed a story I’ve heard from several sources over the years – that Coombes Edge is a caldera – the blown out remains of a long dead Volcano. Essentially, a smallish volcano erupted, and blew out the north-western side, spewing it’s contents over towards Hyde. This is not the case, and the unusual land formation is the result of a huge landslip caused by under soil water movement, and which occurred sometime between 10,000 and 7,000 BP – so somewhere in the Mesolithich period. One wonders if the landslip was noticed by anyone, either as they were nearby, or after they came back into the area and found the huge landslide. And I wonder what they thought of it.

Also, I wonder if we have a look in Shelf Brook, but other streams around here, we might find some more glacial erratics, large and small. Who’s with me?

Right, I’m off to light the fire… and pour a glass of the stuff that warms.

In other news.

There will definitely be a guided archaeological & historical (hysterical?) walk in the next month or so, so watch this and other spaces for news. This will probably be just before the new edition of the Where/When zine – No.2 – comes out. I have decided to aim for 3 zines a year – December, April, and August, but I want to be flexible on this… my life is hectic enough as it is! I’ve also got some ideas for some special editions, but that’s far in the future. In the meantime, who wouldn’t want a Where/When t-shirt with the slogan “What ho, Wanderer!” on it? Just a thought!

As usual, keep in touch, even if it’s just to tell me I’m talking out of my hat. So until next time, look after yourselves and each other, and I remain.

Your humble servant,

TCG

Placenames · Simmondley · Waterways of Glossop

Bridgefield

May 23, 2021October 21, 2021 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

Good evening.

(well, it is here and now, but I suppose it depends on when you are reading this… in which case, feel free to substitute “evening” for whatever part of the day you happen to be reading this.)

Perhaps I should start again.

What ho!

A short one today – I realise that I haven’t been as active as I’d like, so rather than labour over a larger post, and as a sort of proof that I’m still alive, I present today’s smaller offering – the area of Glossop known as Bridgefield. This is a place you drive through without ever noticing it is there – blink and you miss it as you go from Charlestown to Dinting along Primrose Lane. It is also a great example of why maps are so useful as a record of places – without it being drawn on the map, it is likely that Bridgefield would have ceased to be remembered as a place at all.

I have commented elsewhere that older names for places are usually based on reality, and reflect a different set of priorities – largely truthfulness in description: Gnat Hole was not named ironically, and so it is with Bridgefield, it was – and is – the field with the bridge. Well, actually bridges, plural – there are two. The first is where Primrose Lane crosses Long Clough Brook, circled in blue on the map below. But it is the second one – a small footbridge over the Long Clough Brook – that I think is the more interesting of the pair, and is indeed the older. Moreover, it actually is in the ‘Bridge Field’, rather than two fields over. And so, this humble little bridge is the target of today’s fevered ramblings. The bridge, or to be precise an earlier incarnation, is circled in green in the map below.

A rather colourful rendering. The bridge of Bridgefield is marked in green.

It crosses Long Clough Brook at the bottom of Slatelands Road, and now forms the bottom end of a footpath from Pikes Lane, emerging into Primrose Lane. This track – marked in red in the map above – wends its way between houses and land, and is known locally as the Chicken Run; indeed it still has chickens at the bottom. It was also known as the ‘Giggle Gaggle’, apparently, which recalls strongly the ‘Gibble Gabble’ in Broadbottom – another track that wends its way between houses and land. Indeed, it is suggested that Gibble Gabble (and thus Giggle Gaggle) is a localised (Mottram, Broadbottom, Glossop) dialect name for what is known elsewhere as a ‘ginnel’ (a track that wends its way between houses and land), which makes sense (here is a little more on the subject). According to A Journey Through Glossop by Kate Best and Owen Russell this same trackway was also known as Burneen by the nuns of the convent on Shaw Street, who used it to get to Hobroyd. Burneen is a version of the Irish term, Boreen, which means… anyone? Anyone? That’s right – a track, usually one that wends its way between houses, etc. There is a theme here… if only I could spot it. David Frith in his Pathwise in Glossop and Longdendale (p.60, Path 40) notes that this path went through allotments, and was known as the ‘Flagged Fields’, again strongly suggestive of a maintained trackway or road.

Joking aside this track is very important; I am convinced it forms part of the medieval road (such as it was) between Charlesworth, via Simmondley, to (Old) Glossop. The track goes along Old Lane in Simmondley (the name is a clue), down a sunken trackway that might indicate both age and heavy use, and emerges along another ‘fossilised’ footpath, preserving the original trackway ‘in stone’ – here, at the bottom of Simmondley New Road and Moorside Close:

The tail end of the track that comes from Charlesworth via Simmondley (Old Lane).

It continues along the footpath until it meets Pike’s Lane. This track will be the subject of a future blog post as it is a vital part of the history of the area, and well worth an explore, but for now let’s return to the bridge. Here it is, then, the current bridge of Bridgefield.

This bridge is quite modern, being made from rolled steel ‘I Beams‘, and it is clearly the latest in a long line of bridges of various sorts.

It works as a bridge, but it’s certainly not romantic.

We may assume that the earlier bridges were made from stone in one form or another, but looking into the brook, I noticed some large flat stones – much bigger and more substantial than paving slabs – that look out of place.

They’re not easy to make out, but the slabs are dotted along this stretch of Long Clough Brook, directly below the bridge. Incidentally, the Brook marks the border between Whitfield and Simmondley – as we look at the photo above, Simmmondley is on the right, Whitfield left.

Am I wrong to imagine that these once might have made up the medieval and early modern bridge in the form of a Clapper Bridge? The stones having fallen, but not moved very far by man or water.

A Clapper Bridge. This example is at Postbridge in Dartmoor, but they are a common way of forming a river crossing, especially where the banks are high – as they are at Bridgefield.

If I’m honest, I probably am wrong; the whole area has been extensively messed around with by the building of mills and mill ponds, as well as work on the brook itself with the building of weirs and shaping the banks. It’s difficult to get an idea what the area would have looked like, and it’s unlikely that any vestiges of the original bridge remain. But still, let’s imagine.

EDIT

Actually, further evidence to support the Clapper Bridge idea might be suggested by the fact that Slatelands Road, which runs down to the bridge, was once known as ‘Stoney Causey‘, the Stoney Causeway. The word ’causeway’ normally indicates a raised roadway across wet ground, as opposed to a bridge per se. which would fit quite nicely.

However, the importance that was once given to Bridgefield is underlined by the fact that the Reverend John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preached here. Now, that Wesley preached in Glossop is not in itself big news – he preached all over, favouring the open air, and had a fondness for this part of England, returning time and again to spread the word of his particular brand of Christianity. But the fact that he chose Bridgefield as the location for the crowds of people that would have gathered – some jeering and making mock, others listening intently and converting – is significant. It indicates that this was an important place, and vital in communicating between towns – Glossop and Charlesworth/Simmondley, but also one that was well known enough that people all over Glossop would come and hear him. In his diary, Wesley records the following entry:

Friday, 27th March 1761
“I rode to Bridgefield, in the midst of the Derbyshire mountains, and cried to a large congregation, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” And they did indeed drink in the word, as the thirsty earth the showers.”

Well there you go. Who knew that this often overlooked corner of Glossop had an interesting history. As I say, I’m going to blog about the Charlesworth to Glossop track in a future post as it’s a hugely important thing, and part of a larger project that is trying to identify all such trackways in the immediate area. I also recently did some mudlarking in Long Clough Brook, so should probably post the results.

Right, until next time, please take care of yourselves and each other.

I remain, your humble servant.

RH.

Archaeology · Pottery · Waterways of Glossop

A Bridge Over Troubled Water…

February 25, 2021February 25, 2021 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

Blimey! January flew by, and so did February. Apologies for the lack of activity on the blog of late, I’ll be back to more regular posting from now on. What ho! Well here we are, once more in lockdown. I know its for the greater good, and you’d be a fool – and indeed a dangerous moron – not to follow the rules… but dash it all, it’s starting to be a bit of a bore! Right, once more with a glass of the stuff that cheers here we go.

Whilst perusing the local history section of the library – during the heady days when such a thing was possible – I came upon an architectural drawing of the bridge over Glossop Brook at the end of George Street – officially known as ‘Coronation Bridge’. Now, those of you that know the bridge will also know that it isn’t the most lovely bridge in the world – it’s hidden away in the dark damp recesses of Harehills Park, covered in graffiti, and surrounded by the waste ground.

But let’s look again, I say, as I think there is a hidden beauty here – a ‘rough diamond’ of sorts, only made of reinforced concrete. First, here is the architectural drawing:

It’s a very Art Deco style drawing, and quite fetching.

And here is the bridge as it is now:

Not the most attractive looking bridge, but I think it has a certain charm.

Comparing the plan with the actual bridge, they really did a good job. It is an understatement to say that I dislike concrete, but this has a certain Art Deco feel about it, and I honestly think it would look pretty good scrubbed up.

It is fairly forlorn, and could really do with a scrub up.

I like to imagine that the historical spirit of a place affects modern perceptions through things like graffiti: the foundry that once stood here would have been an extremely hot work environment – Hell Fire indeed.

I particularly like the pink Mickey Mouse graffiti. What? It must be Mickey Mouse… look at the size of those ears.

The architectural drawing is dated 1928, so we might assume that it was built soon after that to replace the original Coronation Bridge, a railway footbridge that was presented to the town by Lord Howard in 1902 to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII. That bridge, notes the original Robert Hamnett, replaced other bridges that had been washed away numerous times by flooding. Now, far be it for me to question the original Mr Hamnett’s facts, but I can see no trace of these bridges on any of the earlier maps. For example, here is the area in 1880:

1880 1:500 scale. George Street is top centre, and you can see Shepley Mill and the George Street foundry.

Is it possible that he made a mistake?

Harehills Park is interesting in itself – I won’t go into too much detail, as the Glossop Heritage Trust has an excellent article on its history which you can read here. It has been known variously as Harehills Wood, Harehills, the People’s Park, the Sandhole, and Pinch Belly Park. These last two names are derived from the fact that during the ‘Cotton Famine‘ of the early 1860’s – a situation caused by the lack of imported cotton from America due to the ongoing Civil War there – men were employed there digging sand in order to provide work for them. In 1921 the park was given to the people of Glossop by Lord Howard in appreciation of the men of Glossop who served in the First World War, but also as a memorial to his son Philip Fitzalan Howard, a lieutenant in the Welsh Guards who died of wounds in France on 24th May 1918. The park was extensively remodelled and landscaped at this time, including the construction of the bridge, and was used as a recreation grounds and promenading area. Prior to this, the area was described as “hideously ugly; hen pens fenced with old fish boxes; old salmon tins, rhubarb roots, and a good quantity of other rubbish with plenty of muck and sludge thrown in”, and was known as a place for bare-knuckle prize fighting. It was also noted that “one part of it seemed to be nothing more than a vast tipping place”, and it is this part, one assumes, that keeps producing pottery. It has a been a particularly fruitful site to find pottery, to be honest – none of it too old, but its always there.

One assumes that the pottery has not travelled very far from the place of use, and so we might suggest that much of this rubbish came from the houses on St Mary’s Road, allowing us a peak into the lives of those living there. A more systematic approach and proper archaeological investigation could tell us a great deal – this is essentially what we, as archaeologists, do with pottery. Anyway, the sherds:

*Fairly standard Late Victorian and Edwardian stuff, all from Harehills Park.*

I’m not going to lie – a lot of it is pretty dull stuff, but there are some interesting bits and pieces, and this is a slice of domestic life in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

Plate or soup bow1 with an undulating rim of c.20cm, and a poor quality light blue transfer printed pattern – the transfer doesn’t match up at the join. Mid/Late Victorian
5 plain white rim sherds of 14, 8, 18, 16 and 16cm. Saucers, plates and cups. Victorian – 1920’s
Fragment of a green glazed Majolica vessel, possibly vegetable-based. Utterly grotesque!
Tiny fragment of a Sponge Ware decorated vessel. A rare occasion where I don’t know the shape – it has a carination in the body, so possibly an early mug or teacup. Victorian.
Stone ware vessel, possibly a badly glazed marmalade pot – it has the grooves, but the surface is poor quality. C. 12cm diameter, so probably.
4 sherds of Annular Ware, Early to Late Victorian. This stuff starts much earlier than you expect (1780’s) and it looks almost modern.
2 sherds of a teacup rim, c.7cm rim diameter, and transfer printed on interior and exterior. Victorian.
Base to a transfer printed willow pattern plate. Base diameter is 10cm, so the plate would be at least 10cm. The print shows a pagoda in the standard willow pattern style. Victorian.
Rim sherds of 2 different Feather Edge bowls. Both date to between 1840 and 1890.
A tiny fragment of green and white art glass bowl or cup, with an undulating rim. I quite like this.
A saucer rim with a single green line below the edge. Refined, and quite nice. 12cm diameter.
Handle to a whiteware cup. Quite fancy, and possibly Early Victorian. Or possibly not… this stuff is difficult to date properly.
Red glazed rim to a jug or similar. Victorian.
Flat glass shard with vertical (horizontal) grooves in, slight greenish tinge. Possibly the lens to a torch or car headlamp.
Base and body of a porcelain teacup c.8cm in diameter, straight sided, 1920’s.
Base and rim to 2 marmalade jars – base is 10cm diameter, rim is 11cm, Victorian to Edwardian.
A beautifully coloured pale cobalt glass bottle. This is probably from a medicine bottle, and has what is called an ‘applied lip’, which means that the rim was made separately, and then melted onto the blown glass body. This is an inelegant solution to the problem of removing a blown glass bottle from the tube and leave a proper opening, and you can see the two parts twisted and melted together on the bit between the neck and shoulder in the next photo. You can read more about bottle finishings here:

What is also nice is that 3 sherds have maker’s marks on the bottom, allowing attribution and dates.

It’s not often I find maker’s marks. Nice.

Top sherd is marked either ‘Stone China’ or ‘Ironstone China’ which is a type of pottery that contains crushed feldspar in order to make it very strong and hardwearing. It was developed from about 1800 onwards, and this sherd is probably mid-Victorian. Bottom left is ‘Tuscan China’ made by RH and SL Plant at the Tuscan Works, Staffordshire. The logo dates it to the 1920’s and 1930’s, and was presumably broken and thrown away anytime after that, although presumably before the landscaping of the park. The bottom right is marked ‘Melba Bone China – Guaranteed Made In England’, and was made by Mayer and Sherratt, based in Longton, Staffordshire, and who operated between 1906 and 1941. So there you go.

Do have a look at the bridge the next time you go over or near it, as I think it deserves a closer look than it currently gets, and I hope that in the near future more is made of the area. Until then, look for pottery in the soil around the bridge, and think about mudlarking the bank of Glossop Brook there – I’m sure you’ll find something, but make sure you let me know what.

That’s all for this time. Apologies again for the lack of activity – real life has an annoying way of getting in the way of what you really want to do, but I will be posting more frequently… promise. Also, please do get in contact, for what ever reason, and follow me on Twitter too – I am quite active there. I am also working on a YouTube channel, where I can put videos of walks, mudlarking, digging, history bits, finds, and other shenanigans – it’s in the early stages, but I think it could be fun, but also a way of getting you all involved. Anyway, more soon, but in the meantime please take care of yourselves and each other – even just a cheery smile at your neighbour can make all the difference in these troublesome times. Until the next time I remain.

Your humble servant,

Waterways of Glossop

A Lost Whitfield Waterway

November 3, 2020November 11, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

What ho! Greetings one and all. Come on in and take a seat. Can I get anyone a drink?

Today, I finally finish a blog post that was started 2 years ago. Not for any particular reason, it’s just that some posts are more urgent, and others seem to, well, ferment… if that’s the word I’m searching for. If it isn’t, it’ll have to do.

So, I was reading a little bit about the history of St James’ church, the parish church of Whitfield. And a splendid one it is too. Living in Whitfield, I have a strong attachment to the church, not least of which I can see its spire from my bedroom window, but also Mrs Hamnett and I were married there. And by a spooky coincidence my namesake and pseudonym – the original Robert Hamnett – was a member of the congregation and is in fact buried in the graveyard there, something I didn’t know at the time of my nuptials.

The church was built in 1845 (and consecrated in 1846), on land that was bought from the estate of Thomas Dearnley, of Tintwistle, a schoolmaster who had died in 1842, at a price of £110. This land – Lower Meadow as it was originally called – was described in the deeds as being bounded by “Holly Cross Lane and Wall Sitch“. Holly Cross Lane – now known as Hollin Cross Lane – makes sense, but Wall Sitch? Well, it is an unusual name, and, given my love of placenames and their meanings, I went digging. According to the paper “Semantic Structure of Lexical Fields” by David Kronenfeld and Gabriella Rundblad (2003:29) (no, I don’t understand what it means either… something to do with words, apparently) Sitch is “commonly used for (very) small streams, especially those flowing through flatland, and can be used for both natural and artificial watercourses”. It is derived from the Old Norse ‘Sik’, via Old English ‘Sic’, both meaning a marsh and/or a watercourse. It is not uncommon in the North West, and in particular those areas that fell under Dane Law (that is the area controlled by the Vikings, and subject to their laws). Glossopdale and surrounds is right on the border between Anglo-Saxon Mercia and Viking controlled Danelaw, so it is not surprising that we have a few Norse place names. Indeed, a little further up the valley, off Monk’s Road, is a ‘Sitch Farm’, which sits just above a small brook.

So then, I went looking for the Wall Sitch – the small watercourse by the wall – and do you know what? I think I found it, despite it being very hidden.

Here’s a map of the area, so we can see what’s what.

WS1 — The 1880 1:2500 OS map. The church is central, with Hollin Cross Lane above it.

I first thought it might be roughly parallel to Hollin Cross Lane, so I looked at the south side of the churchyard. Nope… nothing on the ground, or on the maps. “But wait… hang on a moment!” thought I. The vicarage and St James’ school (the original one, not the newer one further up Pikes Lane) must have been built on church land too, and at the same time as the church, so I looked at the boundary below them. Well, it is immediately obvious there is no stream visible as such, but there is something very odd about the shape of the boundary – you can see it in the map above above the words ‘St James’s School’. Generally, when someone draws a boundary, it is straight, unless of course something stops it from being straight… and this one is a meandering shape. This type of ‘landscape archaeology’ can really help in identifying older or lost features, and I think it does here – the boundary has been determined by the course of the stream. So I went looking down Ashton Street (a road not yet built in 1880) to see what, if anything, I could see. Here it is on the 1921 map:

WS2 — Ashton Street below the school. The meandering boundary has been straightened here.

And here it is in real life:

ws4 — Ashton Street, looking west. You an see the slope of the road as it goes down to Long Clough Brook.

Well, disappointingly, there was not a lot to see. The school has been demolished – Master Hamnett now attends the successor school, built in the early 1920’s – and houses now occupy the site, although there are traces here and there. However, halfway down I heard a noise. Water! Below a drain cover in the road water was rushing, and then again farther down the hill toward the Long Clough Brook, below another drain cover.

ws5

This has to be it. I wondered if there was an outfall into the brook, surely the final destination for the sitch? And lo!

WS3 — Wall Sitch outfall into Long Clough Brook.

Excellent! I love detective work, and it’s exciting when a hunch pays off. This is exactly the sort of thing that I started the blog for. So there is the outfall, but it got me thinking… where is the start of Wall Sitch? Well, tracing the meandering line of the sitch back, and under Charlestown Road, it seems to stem from a well (marked with a ‘W‘ on the map below) at the end of Unity Street. Now, by coincidence this well was the subject of a previous blog post – check it out here – and although it is no longer there, clearly the water from what would have been a spring head, similar to Whitfield Well and many others in the area, is still running.

WS6 — The probable route of Wall Sitch – from the well on the right, under Charlestown Road and along what is now Ashton Street, to the outfall into Long Clough Brook circled on the left

Makes you wonder what else is lurking, hidden in the ground, or in maps.

That’s all for now, but more soon – I have some posts that are 3/4 finished, so I should be able to get these published fairly rapidly. So, until next time, and as we head into another lockdown, take care of yourselves and each other.

I remain, your humble servant,

RH.

Folk Tales · Oddities · Waterways of Glossop

Nat Nutter: Glossop’s Very Own Witch

June 10, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green3 Comments

Greetings all.

An interesting title, and a tantalising tale, today. I was originally going to post today’s topic at the end of the Lean Town posts (here and here), but after they became too large I thought I’d do it as a separate post.

Reading through Hamnett the other day, I came across this:

“The Gnat Hole Wood is very pleasant in the Summer time when there are no gnats about. The small stream of water that runs through the wood at one place forms a small pool; this was known as Old Nat Nutter’s Porridge Kettle. She had the reputation of being a witch and fortune teller and used this pool for unholy practices and incantations. She was a bogey to children.”

Interesting… I do love a good folk story, and one with tantalising clues, too.

So off I buggered (in those happy-go-lucky pre-covid times, when one could just bugger off into the woods) to look for the Porridge Kettle, and any signs of Nat Nutter.

The stream referred to is, presumably, the one pointed to by the large blue arrow in the map below, as it is the only one to run through Gnat Hole Wood (or Gnat Hole Plantation, as the earlier maps name it).

Nat Map — The map of the area. For reference, Lean Town is circled in blue.

As far as I can tell, it is unnamed. I’m sure it had a name at some stage in its history, as watercourses are one of those landscape features that no matter how small – and this one is less than a mile long – are given a name, even if only a local one. However, we must remember that the surveyors who actually drew the maps, whilst superhuman, were not invincible – they might have had an off day, or it might have been raining and they didn’t fancy getting wet, or there was no one around to ask the name of that particular stream, or… you get the idea. Moreover, the fact that Hamnett himself didn’t know the name, particularly given his uncanny ability to “know things”, seems to indicate that the name was lost by 1910 (when the article was written), and probably a good deal earlier. The brook itself begins on, and is formed largely from the water run off from, Shaw Moor (perhaps we should call it Shaw Moor Brook) and it joins Bray Clough Brook between Gnat Hole Mill and Lean Town.

I travelled through the woods here, looking for a “pool”, or something that might match the description:

Nat 3 — This is the upper part, with Bray Clough Brook below.

Nat 2 — Here it drops into a series of waterfalls, in a steep secluded glade. Atmospheric to be sure, and perhaps a perfect place for witchcraft.

Nat 1 — Lower down, and more open, but still steep sided

Alas, I found nothing that would definitely be called a pool as such, nor anything that could be connected to Nat Nutter. The area must have changed a huge amount since 1910, and even more so since the ‘witch’ was supposedly living there (early 19th century, perhaps earlier?), so it’s not surprising. Disappointing, but there you go.

So who was this Nat Nutter? Well, the description of her as “a witch and fortune teller” suggests that she was what is known as a ‘wise woman’ or ‘cunning woman‘ – a sort of combination of healer, folk magician, and someone who divines for fortune or lost objects. A particularly important function they performed was the production of spells and magically protective charms, as well as being a first port of call for medical matters, especially those involving pregnancy and abortion. They were common from the medieval period until the early part of the 20th century.

Whoever she was in reality, she was still remembered by 1910. Her name, though. Well, her name is suspicious, and is perhaps a construction – Nat Nutter, living in Gnat Hole Wood? Hmmmm. Also, the Nutter part recalls Alice Nutter, the Pendle Witch executed in 1612. It all seems a little too good to be true! But perhaps this was deliberate, the name adding to the mysterious otherness of the scary woman who lived in the woods by a stream that she used as a witch’s cauldron.

Nat 4 — The old ways are not too dead – this tree is overlooking the brook.

Marvellous stuff.

Please feel free to comment, even if just to tell me that you are related to Nat Nutter, and that I have libelled her.

Stay safe, and look after yourselves and each other. More to follow soon(ish).

Until then I remain, your humble servant,

Waterways of Glossop

Long Clough Brook meets Glossop Brook

December 11, 2017December 15, 2017 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

A short, place-holder, blog entry today. Real life is preventing me from posting as often as I would like, but I have a series of shorter posts to keep it ticking along whilst I work on a larger post. James is finally asleep, which means I get a cup of tea and some time to write this up… hastily. There’s washing up, laundry, and tidying to be done: being a 21st century househusband is not easy, and I raise my (Homburg) hat to my mother who made it all look so effortless.

So, in keeping with the post of the junction of two brooks here, I thought I’d do something similar.

Long Clough Brook starts in the valley to the west of the Grouse inn (now a house) in Chunal, and wends its way down along the valley, taking in streams and brooks as it goes. Of these, the most notable is Bray Clough Brook, which it joins at Charlestown. This is important, because at that point it becomes the boundary between Whitfield Parish (eastern bank) and Simmondley (western bank).

From Turnlee, it weaves in and out of Primrose Lane, and plays merry havoc with the boundaries – for example, the upper part of Slatelands Road is Whitfield, the lower part in Simmondley. And so it goes all the way down to the roundabout at the junction of Primrose Lane and Dinting Vale/High Street West, where the Junction Pub (now offices) stands.

Long Clough & Glossop Brooks — The confluence of Long Clough Brook (from the south) & Glossop Brook (running east-west at the top) is circled in red. High Street West is on the right, Primrose Lane and Simmondley Lane exit south out of the map. This is from the 1921 1:2500 OS map.

Here, on the other side of the road, it gushes out into Glossop Brook.

LCB — Glossop Brook, running east-west, is joined by Long Clough Brook from the south.

What is interesting about this is that the boundaries of three of the ‘villages’ that make up Glossop – Whitfield, Glossop, and Simmondley – are defined by this particular junction. In the photographs above, then, the land on the left is Simmondley, on the right is Whitfield, and the land beyond is Glossop. Oh, and the whole area is Dinting Vale, technically, just to add to the confusion.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a post by me without a Bench Mark! This one on the wall just to the east of the confluence.

A mystery Bench Mark. Alright, so it’s not that mysterious.

Except, bizarrely, I can’t find it on the map. The only Bench Mark noted is on the old Junction Inn at 433.42ft above sea level, which annoyingly I forgot to photograph. This, is not to be found anywhere. It is also subtly different from the usual mark – the arrow doesn’t join the level, and there is another, probably associated, mark carved to the right. Nope, a bit of a mystery!

It is my intention to do a proper post on each of the brooks in the area eventually, detailing all the tributaries and confluences – a summer project I think, but stick around.

As always, any and all comments are most welcome.

Waterways of Glossop

The Birth of Glossop Brook

November 5, 2017 Tim Campbell-Green2 Comments

Before we go any further into this blog entry, let me offer my apologies for the lack of activity here recently. Flu – the real, unpleasant, knocking at death’s door and asking for a priest to administer extreme unction type of flu – followed by the unwelcome intrusion of ‘real life‘ had curtailed my archaeological and historical musings of late. I have done a bit of research, identified a whole pile of fun things to blog about, done some poking about for more interesting sherds… but none of it is quite ready yet.

And so, I present to you, a bit of a cop out! A very short, and quite interesting cop out, but a cop out nonetheless.

As I may have mentioned before, I am obsessed with boundaries.

I love the idea of a start and an end to a physical place or space, and in particular I am fascinated by the ‘liminal‘ areas that make up the join between the two sides of any boundary. These are the ‘dangerous’ places, which are neither one thing nor the other, but somewhere in between, and it this space that has such significance in archaeology. This is where outcasts – the witch, the murderer, the suicide, the excommunicated – are buried, where dangerous activities take place, where the veil separating this world and the other is perceived to be the thinnest, and communication with the ‘beyond’ can be achieved.

One such liminal place is the junction of two rivers or streams, long held to be magical, and in some cultures believed to be a very powerful space.

Waterways themselves make great boundaries – they are by and large immobile, and they are very clear in their separation of the land (one does not overlook a stream, or one ends up with wet feet) – which is why, traditionally, they were used to define parishes and such. Indeed, it has been said that my own parish, Whitfield, is actually an island: it is completely surrounded – and thus defined – by streams.

Glossop Brook is the boundary between Whitfield and Glossop, and it is formed by the confluence of two brooks – Shelf Brook, which flows through Manor Park from Mossy Lea and beyond, and Hurst Brook which comes through the Shirebrook Estate from the Snake Pass and beyond. They join here, at the bottom of Bank Street just before the footbridge that takes you to Manor Park

Glossop Brook 1 — The birth of Glossop Brook. The confluence of Shelf Brook (from the north) and Hurst Brook (from the east) is marked in red. The footbridge (FB) leads to Manor Park (now along Shirebrook Drive). This is from the 1921 1:2500 OS map.

So, a liminal boundary that is formed by the joining of two brooks. Anthropologically, this is a powerful place, and one wonders what, in the deep and distant past, occurred here, or at least what marked this place.

Glossop Brook 2 — Where the streams meet – Shelf Brook at the top, Hurst Brook at the right… and Glossop Brook exiting left out of the photograph.

This is the first in a series of posts that I’d like to do about Glossop’s waterways. Through their use as power for mills, they are quite literally the foundation upon which the modern town was built, and yet they are sadly often overlooked.

I shall be more attentive to the blog in future, and keep up the posting. Thanks for reading, and if there is anything you’d like to share, any comments or corrections, please drop me a line.