Bits of Pot and Some Updates

September 19, 2020October 25, 2020 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

Mrs Hamnett complains that going for a walk with me is difficult – apparently I’m like a dog, running about looking for things. We’ll be walking along, talking, and I’ll disappear into a hedgeback or ditch, pulling out a bit of pot or stone, and leaving her talking to herself. Master Hamnett has now adopted the custom, and he regularly finds bits of pottery that he hands to me, looking very pleased with himself. This leaves small piles of pottery around the place, which get cleaned and put into bags with the intention of sharing them with you, gentle reader. And as you know, intention and actually doing are two widely different things – I’m going to have “well, I was going to, but what happened was…” carved on my headstone.

Well, not today. Today I do! I am seizing the day, grasping the nettle, taking the bull by the horns, striking whilst the iron is hot, and a host of other tired cliches. Today is a pot and other bits day… but first a cup of tea.

Right, that’s better! Off we go.

A few months ago I posted this, a toy soldier fund by Master Hamnett at the Spencer Masonic Hall/Sunday School at the top of Whitfield Avenue. Well, we went back recently, and blow me… we found some more.

Pot 2 — Bizarre, and slightly creepy. I love these things.

Bizarre. I can only think that someone was using this as a place to play with their soldiers, and then lost them. As I said before, these were my childhood (I still have them). From right to left: a 1:32 scale Airfix British Commando (mid 1970’s to, well, now in date). Then we have a copy of a 1:32 scale Airfix British 8th Army Desert Rat; it says ‘Made in Hong Kong’ on the bottom, which dates it to pre-1997, when Hong Kong became Chinese. Then there is the lower half of Marvel’s Iron Man, which has the date 2005 on the base. I suppose these are technically ‘rubbish’, being deposited only in the last few years, but I reasoned that if I picked up a Victorian child’s marble, then why not these too. If you recognise them, and want them back, give me a message. Above the toys is a squashed thimble, again probably of relatively recent vintage.

Some other bits and pieces found in the grounds:

M17 — Other bits and pieces from the grounds of the Masonic Hall

From the top down, then. Randomly, fragments of a clay pigeon – which begs more questions than it answers. This is definitely rubbish, and will be going straight in the bin, but I thought I’d post it in the interests of completion. Below that, a copper roofing nail – Victorian or early 20th Century, and clearly from the roof of the building, dropped during a re-roofing, perhaps – I love these things, and have blogged about them previously. Below that, an ‘L-Headed’ machine cut wrought iron nail – probably used for flooring, and perhaps Victorian.

Continuing the revisit of that post, here is some more pottery from the area:

A small haul, and nothing too spectacular.

Some odds and ends. Top row, from left, then: the bottom of a jar of some sort – earthernware, and with the letters ‘A’ and ‘D’ impressed on the bottom. It’s possible this is ‘MARMALADE’, as it’s the right type of jar, but I don’t think it’s an ‘L’ before the letters. ‘M[AD]E IN ENGLAND’, perhaps? Next a saucer, then a black glazed open vessel, and then the chunky handle of a jug or similar, but certainly not a tea cup, the handles of which were delicate in the Victorian period, which is when all of this pottery dates from. Bottom row from left: a creamware jug, and from the curve of the sherd, this the rim of the spout; early Victorian, at a guess. Next, the base of an open bowl, then the interior shoulder of soup bowl, the base of a plate (complete with knife mark scratched into the glaze), and then the shoulder and neck of a small saltglazed stoneware bottle. Originally, it looked like this one, probably an ink bottle, and which has roughly the same dimensions:

A stoneware bottle which, incidentally, I found in a Victorian tip in Broadbottom.

Next up, we have some interesting new bits from below Lean Town, picked up whilst I was waiting for Master Hamnett to finish at the excellent Inside Out Forest School in Gnat Hole Woods, not too far from Nat Nutter, as it happens.

Top row: sherd of earthernware with painted orange flowers, which I thought looked nice. Then we have two different shell-edge ware vessels decorated a blue scalloped edge. The one on the right is the earlier, being made between 1780 and 1810, whilst the sherd on the left was made between 1800 and 1830. Then a sherd of annular or banded ware – the decoration looks very 1950’s to modern, but this stuff – usually in blue (there is an example below) – actually starts being made in the 1790’s. This one is Victorian. Second row on the left, a base sherd from a basalt stone ware bowl, roughly 1780-1830-ish, It’s a lovely example, very thin walled and with the bottom of an acanthus leaf or something coming up from the bottom. They were heavily influenced by Classical pottery, and it looks Roman orAncient Greek from a distance, but was in fact made by Josiah Wedgewood’s factory in Staffordshire. Then we have the handle to a monstrous stone ware jug or storage jar, and although it looks almost medieval, it probably came from a Victorian water jug or something. Following on from the mega post about Lean Town I’ll add this lot to the bag of bits, and I’m sure more will wash out over winter.

Moving on, we have a rim sherd of a pancheon and another sherd picked up from a path that leads from Bankswood Park in Hadfield to Mouselow.

Pann — Big chunky rim – I love these things.

The smaller sherd is a from a cup or bowl with blue horizontal stripes on a white background – more annular or banded ware from the Victorian period. The larger sherd is part of the rim from a large pancheon – essentially a large mixing bowl that most kitchens in the 18th and 19th centuries would have had (I talked about them here). What looks like a yellow glaze is actually a clear glaze over a white slip – you can just about see it on the edges. Below is what it would have looked like, although this example is later and much smaller, the rim sherd suggesting a vessel 70+ cm in diameter.

The path crosses another track which originally ran from Cemetery Road to Shaw, along what would become Shaw Lane, before it was bisected by the building of the railway.

ShM — 1898 1:2500 OS map, courtesy of old-maps.co.uk

The lane actually skirts the edge of the Iron Age hillfort, and parts of it are preserved in footpaths and tracks, but I don’t want to get into this here, as it is a topic of another post. However, here are some photos of Shaw Lane as it crosses Mouse Low – the above pot fragment was found at this junction with the footpath, marked in red on the map.

ShSW — Overgrown and unused, this was Shaw Lane looking South West. In case you can’t see it, it’s the sunken road bit to the left of the tree in the centre of the photo. Apologies for the darkness.

ShNE — Shaw Lane looking North East. I need to explore this track – it looks so appealing!

Next we have a small collection of bits from the bottom of Cross Cliffe, along the road edge and by the track there. Nothing earth shattering, but a good selection.

CroPo — A good selection of bits, and a clay pipe!

Top row, from the left: a fairly substantial transfer printed soup bowl roughly 20cm in diameter; the base to a ceramic marmalade or preserve jar of about 10cm in diameter; a stoneware sherd from a storage jar of about 16cm in diameter. The thing that looks like a mint is either a button or the end to a hat pin, and is made from alabaster. Next row: sherd from a large jug or similar, with large hand-painted flowers on the exterior; rim of a stone ware ginger ale or lemonade bottle, with the very characteristic brown salt glazed surface; a fragment of willow pattern transfer-printed plate, and a stem of a clay pipe with, alas, no maker’s name, but some nice paring marks.

Ok, so this is turning into a far larger post than I had anticipated, and I’m going to draw a line under it for now – nobody, not even you, you wonderful and attentive people, wants to read a wall of text. Expect Part II either next time, or sometime in the future

So, to end with, for now at least, two superb examples of Glossop bricks, a gift from our equally superb neighbours (hello Helen and Sarah).

Pot 3 — I love these things – simple and mundane, and literally stamped with their place of origin.

I don’t know a great deal about these bricks, but a future blog post might delve deeper. The company was based at Mouselow, with the clay extracted from nearby. It seems to have been founded in the 1920’s by a John Greenwood, and continued until the 1980’s. Somewhere in the garden I also have Glossop brick with both Greenwood’s name and Glossop printed on it – perhaps this was an earlier brick? There is some information on this website, but I can definitely feel a blog post coming on.

Bricks are so mundane, and yet so fascinating, and useful archaeological dating material too. And once they begin stamping the maker’s name into the frog (the dipped bit in the middle) – sometime around the mid-Victorian period – they become individual, too. I stumbled across this website the other day – a gigantic collection of photographs of bricks with the names showing, and all alphabetised; this is what the internet excels at, the dissemination of knowledge that would otherwise be inaccessible, and it is truly magnificent. I look upon these bricks with envy, but silent and certain in the knowledge of one single fact: were I to start a ‘brick collection’ Mrs Hamnett would forcibly and violently eject me from the marital home. I would be a single and homeless (and brickless) man again before you could say “now wait, dash it all”. No, she puts up with quite enough as it is, so this injustice and pain is a weight I must bear with quiet resignation. However, if someone does have a spare shed, you can contact me in the usual way…

Right, that’s your lot! And it is a lot… too much, in fact! The question of “what am I going to with it all” never really occurs to me, and beyond the obvious “put it on the blog” I have no idea. I’m going to have a clearout soon, and get rid of the more boring bits and pieces – the plain white china, etc. and bury them somewhere for future archaeologists to ponder over. In fact, I was going to do it last week, but what happened was…

More soon, but until then, take care of yourselves and each other.

And I remain, as always, your humble servant.

Archaeology · Whitfield

Pressing Matters – Of Cheese and Wills

August 31, 2020August 31, 2020 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

Good evening gentle readers. I say good evening, for this is when I am writing, but it could be anytime you are reading this. And indeed anyplace… which worries me slightly. Anyway, moving swiftly on.

Recently, I posted a hotch-potch, pickle-type post, that looked at the cheese press I found that was being used to fill up a hole in a trackway. Well, some interesting developments have, well… er… developed.

Firstly, it seems that the whole cheese press is present, which is excellent news. But alas it is broken into two pieces, which isn’t such excellent news. Still, the fact that it survives at all is pretty impressive. Secondly, and even more impressive, I think I might have identified to whom it belonged, which is amazing if true. Please note the use of the phrases “I think” and “if true“… I’ll leave it to you to decide.

Firstly, then, the press.

It’s complete, as in it’s all there, although as you can see it is sadly broken across the middle. It measures 94 x 43 cm, and about 10cm deep, so it’s not huge – and these things do come in huge sizes. I had a ~~poke around~~ mini excavation, just to reveal the edges, and to assess how much was there, but I didn’t want to dig too far – it is filling a large hole in a track after all.

Press1 — Nice to see the whole thing – you can just make out the corresponding beam hole on the right.

Master Hamnett helped reveal the press, of course… any excuse to get dirty.

Press2 — Master Hamnett ‘helping’ with the excavation and the photographs

It’s fantastic, and I honestly think that this needs to be removed from the road and put on display somewhere; it is a wonderful piece of evidence for life in 18th century rural Whitfield that deserves to be treated better than it currently is.

Right then, so who owned it? Well, I was reading through a collection of Glossop-based 17th and 18th Century wills the other evening.

Before we move on, perhaps we should examine that statement. I have just read it back, and the thought occurs to me… mine is perhaps not what you might call a ‘normal’ life. I mean, here I am, on a Friday night, reading 300 year old wills, and getting excited over some new bits of pottery I found yesterday. Sometimes it’s good to take stock of one’s life… and other times it’s good to simply leave one’s livestock alone.

Anyway, back to the wills. They have been digitised as part of the North West Derbyshire Sources project which is a truly remarkable source for local history and genealogy in this area, and filled with all kinds of information – if you don’t know the website, please do have look. The will that caught my eye was that of John Cowper (Cooper) of Whitfield, and dated 1750. The actual will is fairly bog standard, but is genuinely fascinating as it contains, in a nutshell, the contents of an average well-to-do household. Cooper was someone who we would now perceive as comfortably middle-class, but was then known as a yeoman farmer; someone who owns a small amount of land freehold (paying no rent), and who earns his living from it. I won’t reproduce the full preamble here as it is a wall of text – but it well worth a read (the full transcription is to be found here – it’s alphabetised, so look for John Cooper of 1749/50). However, the contents of the house is as follows:

Item	Value (£ s d)
Imp/ Purse & Apparell	7 0 0
A large Bible & Clock	3 0 0
Two cows	6 0 0
A cupboard & table	0 15 0
Two coach chairs 15s 12 chairs 10s	1 5 0
One Fire Iron tongs, 3 bread Irons Fire Shovel & Brigg	0 15 0
One little Fire Iron, smoothing Iron Clever two Hand hooks & Spittle one frying pan	0 3 0
One Warming Pan a skellet a brass pan a brass pott & saucepan one Lead, Lead weight & Mustard Ball	0 15 0
8 Pewter Dishes one Tankard 1 Cup 4 porringers, Spoons	0 14 0
Books & Linnen Meal Cheese & Bacon	4 17 0
One Bedsted & Bedding & a little Cupboard ith Parlour	1 8 0
One Bedsted & bedding in the long Chamber	2 10 0
One Press	1 10 0
A Long table & one little oval table ith parlor Chamber	0 17 0
One bed & bedding ith Chamber over House	1 5 0
One meal ark 8s one Chest 10s one little chest 6s one Desk 5s one Box 1s ith same Chamber	1 10 0
One Cheese Tubb 5s one kimlin 2s Cheese fatts & other wooden ware 5s & one cheese press 3s	0 15 0
One little Ark in the Porch 1s 2 Iron potts 2s a Glass case two fall tables 2s a kneading trough 1s	0 6 0
One Shovel Mattock & Bill & Dock fork & Ax	0 3 0
One Stock of Bees at Thomas Cowpers	0 10 0
Huslement	0 5 0
	46 3 0
In Bills	88 2 0
	134 5 0

The items listed, then, are those that are considered of value in the mid 18th century, and if you look, it’s largely the things that we would take for granted. Imagine someone doing this to your house – have a look around. Would they mention your pots and pans? Or your fire irons (assuming you have a fire – everyone in the 18th century certainly would have). Or your bed linen? Or your cheese and bacon? It’s bizarre, yet it also makes sense. There were not many frivolities then; would bacon count as a frivolity if you had raised the pig, killed it, salted it and stored it? No, it would be a resource that you had earned. Your iPad would be listed, but Cowper had a clock (along with a large Bible, valued at £3 [£350 in modern money]. Your car would be listed, but Cowper had two cows and a hive of bees valued at £6s10 (£758.35 in modern money). Your all-singing, all-dancing, ride-on, lawn mower might be listed, but Cowper had “One Shovel Mattock & Bill & Dock fork & Ax” valued at three shillings (£17.50).

Some of the items listed needed a little further exploration. For example, the ‘Mustard Ball‘ valued with the rest of the pots and pans from the kitchen threw me. But it turns out that they were literally balls of powdered mustard.

tewkesbury-mustard-balls — Traditional mustard balls. Image stolen from the Tewkesbury Mustard Company website – there is a link to the site below… fascinating stuff.

The seeds were powdered, and mixed with some form of binder – wine, vinegar, honey or raisins, for example – and when needed, slices were taken and soaked in a liquid to soften them (in vinegar, or verjuice, for example – the sour juice of crab apples), and added to food. They are still made, as they were 700 years ago, by a company in Tewkesbury (the Tewkesbury Mustard Company) who make the best, apparently (and I have no reason to doubt that). Thanks also to this fascinating blog about historical food for the information.

The above mentioned “Dock Fork” was also not something I had encountered before; a little research brought forth this:

As anyone who has ever weeded a garden will know that docks are difficult buggers to remove, and yet are brittle, breaking and leaving root fragments that will flourish into full bushes of weeds in weeks. A problem to which the answer is a dock fork, that allows you to lift the whole plant without breaking it. Obviously.

The important bit for our purposes here are those items listed that are used in cheese making, and specifically the cheese press. As you have seen, it’s not a small item, nor is it something that everyone would own – it’s a specialist implement used on much more than a domestic scale. It, and the other cheesemaking equipment mentioned in the inventory, indicate the relatively large-scale making of cheese to be sold, and perhaps supplying everyone in the local area. As perhaps only a single farm in each area would have one, I would suggest that the one mentioned in John Cowper’s will is the one I discovered a while back, and which is now filling a hole in the track. I realise that it is impossible to prove, after all the stone has no provenance, nor do we have an address for John Cowper other than Whitfield. But Whitfield as a settlement was concentrated along Cliffe Road and Hague Street – the old road from Hayfield to (Old) Glossop, and largely around The Beehive (it arguably still is) – then it is likely that Cooper lived in this area too, and thus his cheese press has not moved far. Anyway, I’m convinced. The big question is… are you?

Whitfield – the medieval and post-medieval heart of the settlement along the main road from Hayfield to (Old) Glossop. For orientation, The Beehive is marked by the large orange arrow. The oldest building in Whitfield, Hob Hill Farm – which has a datestone of 1638 and associated 18th century buildings – is marked by the green arrow.

However, although we might not be able to pinpoint his house, we do have a way of working out the type of house Cowper lived in. Essentially, the people who were assessing the worldly goods of the testator went from room to room, recording what was in each, and thus the inventory provides us with a sort of snapshot that allows layout to be reconstructed. So, on the ground floor we have the Kitchen/Living Room. This was where the main fire was, and all the cooking and eating equipment was, including “One Warming Pan, a skellet, a brass pan, a brass pott, & saucepan” and “8 Pewter Dishes, one Tankard, 1 Cup, 4 porringers, Spoons“.

Porr — A 17th century pewter porringer – a bowl with a handle used for stews. They were incredibly popular in pottery as well as pewter until the 19th century, when meals became less ‘wet’ and plates became more popular.

This was a large long room – it contained “A cupboard & table“, as well as “Two coach chairs, 12 chairs” (which may be a mistake, as that seems a lot) – and had the fire at one end, and the door somewhere, possible in the middle of the long wall. There also seems to have been a pantry – probably just a built in cupboard – which contained “Books & Linnen, Meal, Cheese, & Bacon“. Next to this is what is termed the ‘Parlour‘ in which there is a “One Bedsted & Bedding & a little Cupboard“. Moving up the stairs to the first floor, we have the Master Bedroom, termed here the ‘Long Parlour‘, and which was presumably over the Kitchen/Living Room, and containing “bedsted & bedding” and a “press“. Next door is the ‘Parlour Chamber‘, literally the bed chamber over the Parlour, which contained “a long table & one little oval table“. The next floor up, the attic room, was over the whole upper floor and is named the “Chamber Over House“. It containing “One bed & bedding” and “One meal ark, one Chest, one little chest, one Desk, one Box“. The ‘meal ark’ mentioned here, and the ‘meal’ in the Kitchen is oatmeal, used for bread or making oakcakes, and traditionally kept in a wooden box.

So then, five rooms in total, centred around the hearth and kitchen, and with three bedrooms. This layout is a classic of its kind – very simple, very basic, but very functional. And I have to say, quite cosy. There may have been outbuildings, perhaps containing the cheese making equipment, and certainly a ‘Porch‘ is mentioned, containing “One little Ark, 2 Iron potts, a Glass case, two fall tables” and “a kneading trough” for making bread.

Kne — A kneading trough, in which dough was kneaded and left to prove.

This type of house is described as a “Two Unit” type – essentially one large room divided into two rooms, one large and one small. The Handbook of Vernacular Architecture by R. W. Brunskill has a dozen different configurations of this type of building, and Cowper’s house could fit any one of them. Vernacular architecture refers to buildings on a domestic scale that use local building traditions, and local materials, rather than ‘fashionable’ architectural designs such as the grand halls and houses of the wealthy.

It’s just a pity that we can’t identify the actual house.

So there we are, cheese presses and wills… hope you enjoyed it. As always comments are very welcome, and I would be glad to hear from you. Please look after yourselves and each other, and until the next time, I remain

Your humble servant,

Archaeology · Pottery · Whitfield

A Possible Pair of Post-Medieval Paths, a Potential Pub, and Plenty of Pottery.

July 12, 2020July 26, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

As I have said many times before, I do love alliteration. What ho! and all that. I trust you are all keeping well in these odd times? Well, now this is a monumental post – it is precisely three years to the day that I made the first post on this blog (you can read it here if you want). When I first started it I had no idea what it was going to be, other than I had some interesting bits and pieces that I wanted to share, and which I thought other people living in Glossop moght be interested in. The blog is still pretty much that in aim – bits and pieces – and I was right… there are lots of you out there who seem to enjoy the ramblings of a man who gets excited by bits of old rubbish. So thank you, you wonderful people, for reading, and here’s to many more blog posts. Now, on with the show. RH

During the lockdown, Master Hamnett and I have been taking a daily constitutional up and around what has become known as the “secret passageways”. Overgrown and wild in places, even for a man of modest size such as myself it is a mysterious place, but to a 4 year old it is indeed another world. Naturally, I have been keeping an eye open for bits and pieces of history, and I think I have a story to tell. Possibly. Well, I certainly have some pottery to show, so there’s that!

The route we walk is essentially along Hague Street, down one track to Charlestown Road, along, and then up another back to Hague Street. We often continue on and round if it’s not raining, but always walk these paths, which I have helpfully marked Tracks 1 and 2 on the map below:

Tracks 1 & 2 at the top. Ignore the arrow and a circle for now… all will become clear!

The tracks and immediate area are more clearly shown on the 1968 1:2500 map

m10 — It’s a nice and short circular walk, if anyone fancies it.

The tracks are interesting in themselves in that they are once again an example of what I call the fossilisation of trackways – they are older tracks that no longer perform a function as such, but are preserved as footpaths. Certainly in this case as it makes no sense to have two tracks mere metres apart going between the same places. Instead, I think they are preserving the memory of a single older track, which I suggest below is Track 2, potentially the more interesting of the two. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Track 1 runs down the side of this house, which was originally a pub called the Seven Stars (hence the sign on the door frame, although the sign above the door is a mystery… if you are reading this and own the house, could you tell us?).

The one-time Seven Stars pub – I always feel a bit weird photographing people’s houses, but this is visible from the road, so it’s not as though I’m sneaking around gardens.

I know nothing about this establishment, but it was probably a beer house. As a reaction to the widespread and dangerous consumption of cheap gin – the so-called ‘Gin Craze’ of the late 18^th century – the government encouraged more beer drinking (beer being considered relatively healthy) by allowing householders to open up their houses to brew and sell ale. These private houses became known as beer houses, and the individual paid a small fee to the local magistrates in return for an annual license allowing them to sell beer, but not the wines or spirits that the normal pub or inn could. If anyone has any information about the Seven Stars, please do get in contact.

Just here is a series of upright stones presumably placed to stop horse riding or cycling. The gap between them is very thin; I might have put on a little weight during lockdown, but even I had to squeeze through.

Carved onto one of these uprights are the intials ‘M.D.’ – I must have walked through these 100 times and never noticed the letters before, but the light and the rain were just right this time.

M23 — And as you all know by now, I can’t resist carved graffiti.

Further down the footpath I noticed a reused quern or grind stone – possibly Victorian, but I suspect earlier – being used as a coping stone for the wall. And why not? It’s the perfect shape, and may well have been hanging around for centuries after being used to grind wheat into flour.

The worn central hole is visible, and it’s possible the other half is around here somewhere.

About halfway down, you come face to face with more of those upright stones, although in this case I can only assume they were put there to stop a headless horseman! Honestly, they are quite unnerving.

M19 — Not at all creepy and gravestone looking. Nope. Absolutely not.

The path continues:

M18 — Master Hamnett on the final stretch down to Charlestown Road. At the end of the path, in spring, there is a truly spectacular spread of wild garlic.

Until we arrive at Charlestown House, and the Charlestown Works that were – now demolished and awaiting houses.

M30 — The site awaiting re-generation. The hairpin bend where Charlestown Road meets Turnlee Road is visible. Whitley Nab in the background right, Casa d’Italia left (very nice pizza, highly recommended). Dead ahead is Lees Hall, which is important… stick around!

So, here’s the pottery:

A small assemblage of fairly typical Victorian bits, with a potentially earlier piece.

Top row, from the left: a base of a saucer or small plate; a huge chunky handle belonging to a large jug; a base of a glass jar or jug, or possibly from a tankard – it’s nice and decorative, but not expensive. Next is a fragment of a pedestal footed drinking cup, which is again fancy, but not especially expensive, it being just glazed earthernware. Then there is a rim to a large plate of some sort, being about 30cm in diameter.

The lower row from the left: a fragment of a stoneware bottle, a chunk of a pancheon, and a fragment of a manganese glazed jug or similar thick walled vessel. Then we have two pieces of blue and white earthernware, and a base of a tea cup. There is nothing massively interesting, and it all seems to be Victorian in date, as we might expect… except for the manganese glazed jug! This is, I think, earlier – perhaps early 18th century. It’s quite characteristic, and although there was a revival of manganese glazed pottery in the Victorian period, this glaze is of relatively poor quality, and the fabric (the actual clay of the pot) is quite rough, both of which suggest an earlier date. Then there is this lovely bit of pot; it’s a china dove, shaped to fit onto what would have been a tasteless Victorian jug or bowl – you can see the flat bit where it was joined to the vessel it flew away from.

Then there was this:

A screw bottle top, probably from a beer bottle or similar, and dating to the early 20th century. I love these things, and have blogged about them previously – here, for example. Unusually, this one doesn’t have the drink makers name or logo on the top, just the name of the bottler – R. Green of Leigh.

Moving on to Track 2, there is a noticeable difference between the two. This one is more of an actual track; it is certainly wide enough to drive a horse and cart down it, and it seems to have had a surface at some stage. It is also deeply worn in places, which can be suggestive of an older trackway.

M26 — Possibly worn by traffic, the track is quite deep in places.

M27 — It’s not much to look at, but this is the surface of the track.

I’d love to put a trench across this track to see how it was made up.

Further on, it has what seems to be a late 19th or probably early 20th century cast-iron streetlight, which is interesting and spookily out of place now, but suggests strongly that it was used as a ‘proper’ track until fairly recently.

m24 — It has seen better days, but there it is, slowly being overtaken by nature.

m25 — I can’t work out if it is gas or electric… further research is needed.

Right next to the streetlight is a gateway into a seemingly random field, and a benchmark on the gatepost – it’s been a while! This one – 616.77 above sea level – is a late addition as it is only marked on the 1968 1:2500 map. There was another benchmark marked on the opposite side of the track – 622.6ft above sea level – but it’s long gone (you can see it in the map above).

m13 — The bench mark. This is what 616.77ft above sea level looks like.

The track continues until daylight is reached.

m32 — I love this shot… artful (courtesy of the iphone filters, not talent on my part). Mrs and Master Hamnett providing the scale.

The top of the track, where it joins Hague Street again, is the site of the original Whitfield Methodist chapel – it is visible on the 1880 1:500 OS map:

Built in 1813, it had seating for 200 worshippers, and at one time was the home of the pulpit from which John Wesley had preached in New Mills (as discussed in this post). There are more details about the chapel on the Glossop Heritage webpage.

It was demolished in 1885, and the site is now occupied by a private house, but there are some interesting re-used stones on the trackway which almost certainly came from the chapel. The one indicated by the arrow in particular seems to have been a window frame – originally it would have laid upright, and you can see where the wooden frame was bedded in, and possibly a cross bar set into the stone.

A closer look reveals what might be a mason’s mark. Possibly… but then I really rather badly need glasses.

m31 — Squinting, after two glasses of wine, and with the eye of faith…

So then, the pottery:

m14 — Fairly standard stuff, but still nice.

Top row, left to right: a fragment of a large stoneware vessel with a cream glaze. I have photographed it showing the interior – it is roughly finished, and you can see wiping marks, and it probably came from a large cider flagon.

Next is an annular ware bowl or similar type, with the characteristic horizontal linear bands around the rim and below. Abrim from probably the same vessel is above it. Despite it looking 1950’s, this stuff ranges in date from the mid-18th century to the late Victorian; this is, I think, early 19th century. Next is a sherd of a cream ware jug, this being a part of the spout – you can tell by the twisted curve of the rim – again, early 19th century. Next is a stoneware flaring rim to a large jar, Victorian in date. Next we have a sherd of black glazed pottery which, I think, might be 18th century in date – the glaze seems to be lead based, which it isn’t in the Victorian period, and the fabric is very red, which is also common in Black Ware of the 18th century. I’ll post some more about this in the future – I’m actually trying to put together a crib sheet for pottery identification for this part of the country which some of you might be interested in (I know, I know, stop groaning… you don’t have to read this blog, you know. And I did say ‘some of you‘!). Beyond that is a fairly uninspiring selection of Victorian sherds at which even I pale!

Track 2 is odd – there’s summat rum about it. It has the air of a deserted roadway that was once of some importance, certainly important enough to have a substantial gateway and a streetlight on it. Looking at it, and thinking about the fossilisation I talked about above, I wonder if this was the line of an earlier track, perhaps even the medieval road that led from Whitfield to Lees Hall (which is circled in green in the first above – see, I told you it would all become apparent!). The hall, though 18th century in date now, stands on the site of a medieval manor house, possibly even the original manor house of Whitfield mentioned in the Domesday Book. It was certainly important in the medieval and early modern periods as the seat of the Manor of Glossop, where tax and tithe from Glossop and Whitfield was taken – first to the Earls of Shrewsbury, and then, from 1606 onwards, the Howards. The road from (Old) Glossop came through Cross Cliffe (discussed here), along what is now Cliffe Road through Whitfield, and from there down this track to Lees Hall. One less obvious part of it may be the footpath indicated by the orange arrow in the map above; I don’t think that it is the exact route the track would have taken, but it again ‘preserves’ the way in the landscape. I would suggest, then, that Track 2 is either this hugely important road fossilised into the landscape, or it broadly follows the line of that road which no longer exists. A point that may also support this is that on the 1968 OS map, also above, the track is marked by a series of ‘Boundary Mereing Symbols” (they look like lolipops – circles on sticks) which apparently indicates that it is the boundary of a parish or parish council (here, for an explanation). Boundaries, or meres, often use ancient and established objects or features to lay out the area that is bounded – an old track is a very common and perfect example of this type of feature.

This part of Glossop – I suppose technically Whitfield – is very interesting.

Right, that’s your lot for today. As always, please feel free to comment – even if it’s simply to tell me I’m talking out of my hat. I have more that I am picking away at, but until then stay safe and look after each other. Oh, and happy anniversary.

And as always I remain, your humble servant,

Cross Cliffe · Whitfield

Crossroad Blues: A Cross Cliffe Followup

May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green3 Comments

Right… a sequel!

So, hopefully you all read the last post. And even more hopefully, it made sense to some of you. Ignoring the fact that the main point of writing it has been proven to be wrong, I mentioned in the post that I think there was once a crossroads at the bottom of Cliffe Road. Well, let’s concentrate on that! It’s just a t-junction now, where Cliffe Road joins Cross Cliffe (the road to the right), and continues down to Volcrepe and Bank Street (left)

Cross Cliffe 5 — The site of the possible crossroads, and of Cross Cliffe Cross.

But originally, I suspect, it would have gone straight on, right up to the bridge that crosses Hurst Clough – like this:

Cross Cliffe - Map — The photo above shows the area circled in red, the proposed road is shown in green. The footbridge is noted on the map as FB.

However, the whole area has been monkeyed around with pretty seriously, with the main culprit being the building of a Cross Cliffe Mill on Hurst Clough there, as you can see very clearly in this map:

Cross Cliffe 8 — The 1880 1:500 map shows both the mill and the projected route of the track. Interestingly, there is a gas lamp post marked at the junction.

So then, Cliffe Road is at the bottom, and Cross Cliffe runs to the right. My contention is that Cliffe Road once also continued on to the footbridge at the top of the map, and from there on to (Old) Glossop. Let me walk you through it.

Cliffe Road is the original medieval (and probably earlier) track that led from Hayfield down to Old Glossop (discussed HERE), and on which, at the junction of Whitfield Cross, stood the Anglo Saxon stone cross of Whitfield. Beyond this, it continues to what was originally a crossroads.

Cross Cliffe 3 — The crossroads circled in green, with the arms shown roughly in red.

This crossroads was the junction of Bank Street (The Bank, coming ultimately from the Simmondley area), Cross Cliffe (the road leading to… well, I’m not certain, yet.), Cliffe Road (from Hayfield), and the track to Old Glossop heading north. But with the building of the mill in the early 1820’s, and specifically the mill pond, the old track was destroyed, pushing traffic further back toward Bank Street, and then along what became Volcrepe and Milltown, and giving us the kink in the road.

Cross Cliffe - Crossroad — Clockwise from bottom left: road down to Bank Street and now Milltown; Cliffe Road; Cross Cliffe; er… a hedge! The now blocked northern arm of the road.

Although the northern arm of the crossroads is no longer there, there is a path way preserving the route running to the right of the houses and leading down to the bridge.

Cross Cliffe - Path — The path beside the houses, preserving the memory of the trackway down to the bridge.

The original track lead down to a crossing over the brook there. It is now a modern concrete modern footbridge, but is clearly shown in older maps, and is thus presumably an older brook crossing – whether by bridge or as a ford.

Cross Cliffe 9 — The bridge over Hurst Clough, standing in Whitfield and looking into Glossop… bandit country!

After crossing the brook, the track continued along what is now a curiously wide and unusually placed unnamed footpath between Shirebrook Drive and Silk Street.

Cross Cliffe - Path2 — The track looking from Silk Street toward the footbridge.

I would suggest that this footpath is the memory of the original medieval and early modern trackway preserved (perhaps fossilised is a better word), as these things often are, in the Victorian architecture. Glossop is full of these odd footpaths that lead from A to B for seemingly no reason, and often for no gain; they just exist. I have suggested that Whitfield Avenue preserves the memory of a track, which in itself preserved the memory of the Roman road, and I wonder how many others also preserve a memory of a track or road (watch this space for more explorations). From Silk Street, the track would have gone up what is now Manor Park Road to [Old] Glossop, and the church and market there.

So there we have it – a lost crossroads, and the rediscovery of the medieval way into Glossop from Whitfield.

Comments, even to tell me I’m wrong, are always welcome.

In the meantime, stay safe, look after yourselves and each other, and there is more coming soon… honestly!

Until then, I remain, your humble servant,

Cross Cliffe · Crosses of Glossop · Placenames · Whitfield

When Is A Cross Not A Cross?

May 16, 2020May 25, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green8 Comments

Ok, so I think I’m onto something!

EDIT: No… no I’m not!

Alas, a mis-attribution in the Place-Names of Derbyshire has meant I have barked up the wrong tree! That’s not to say that there definitely isn’t a cross at Cross Cliffe, as suggested below, just that we can’t rely on the early place name evidence. Read the insightful comments by Neil Buckley below, which give what must surely be the correct reading of the text. My thanks to him for supplying the information, and working out the details. I’ll return to this in a later post as I think it is important, and in the meantime, feel free to re-read the blog post.

You know those moments when something that you have been staring at for years suddenly, and jarringly, comes into focus, and there is a slight tingle at the back of the neck. And then you dig a little deeper, and the tingle becomes a hunch, and then a possibility, and then a… you get the idea. Well, I’m there, and I’d like to share a discovery with you. This is still theoretical, even if the theory is based on good evidence, and I’m fairly certain that I can never prove it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Diving in and out of The Place-Names of Derbyshire to various previous blog posts (HERE and HERE) was a joy, and had me marvelling at both the sheer number of placenames recorded in the book, and the incredible depth of scholarship that accompanied their explanation. For those that have never read the book (and you should), it is a list of all the names of towns, villages, fields, roads, and streams in the area. However, on page 104, under the Glossop general heading, I came across a curious entry that got me thinking.

Cross Cliffe 4 — Here is the page in question

Specifically the entry for the road/area Cross Cliff, in Whitfield. For those of you who don’t now the area (and why not?), Cross Cliffe is this area, here:

Cross Cliffe 7 — Cross Cliffe is broadly that area circled in red.

Although now it gives its name to a road, it was once an area (circled in red above) which started at the bottom of Cliffe Road and lead down to Hurst Clough. The entry in the book reads:

Cross Cliff (6″), crucem de Cresclyf 1285 For.

It gives the earliest example of the name (crucem de Cresclyf), the date of this (1285), and the reference for this example (For = Forest Proceedings). So far, so perfectly ordinary.

So then, Cross Cliffe… and then a thought. “Hang on a minute… Crucem de Cresclyf?“

Now, I’ll admit it, my medieval Latin is about as good as my understanding of the language of the San people of Botswana – the one that uses clicks and other sounds. Or indeed, Klingon. I checked, and was – broadly – right (hurrah… personal victory, I’ll take that). I also checked with a real linguist (thank you AG), and was – broadly – backed up.

Crucem de Cresclyf: the cross of Cross Cliffe.

The cross? Which cross? Oooooh…

Bloody hell, thought I, and I went and bored Mrs Hamnett with this potential discovery. More research later, and I think I have just about convinced myself.

This, the first reference to Cross Cliffe, is taken from a 1285 document which gives a description of the boundary of land owned by a certain Thomas le Ragged. Thomas was a forester in the Peak Forest, and was given the lands by William Peverel, son of William the Conquerer and resident of the castle in Castleton. These lands included the hamlet of Whitfield. The descendants of Thomas le Ragged sold the Whitfield portion in 1330 to a John Foljambe, and from there it was portioned off and sold in lumps (Whitfield really does have an interesting history).

The description of the boundary of this land reads:
Required by the Foresters and others concerning the metes and bounds of the land of Thomas le Ragged of Fernley who claimed liberties, who say, that the metes and bounds of the said lands of the said Thomas begin at the Bridge of Welegh by the Royal Way to the (cross) to Crescliff, and from the said cross by certain caves (fovia) up to Routing-clought, and from Routing to Brownhegge, and up to the Waynstones, and from Waynstones descending to the Hocklow, and from Hocklow descending to the water of G’wit and by the water of G’wit ascending to the wood of Horworth.

Boundaries are based on and related to landscape features, and always incorporate immovable and visible objects, ones that can’t be disputed. Now, out of this, only a few points are identifiable. Whaley Bridge, Cross Cliffe, Hucklow, the River Goyt (G’wit), and possibly the Wain Stones on Bleaklow (although, I suspect that it may reference another ‘Wain Stones’, now lost to us). The other places I have not been able to identify (any help would be appreciated), and I’m not sure what to make of the caves – are these literal or figurative, and does a cave (fovia in the text) in the 14th century mean the same as it does now.

I digress, as the important bit here relates to Crosse Cliffe, or rather “crucem de Cresclyf” as it is in the orginal – the cross of Cross Cliffe. Not the bridge at Cross Cliffe, or the brook at Cross Cliffe, but the cross at Cross Cliffe. This is at a time when they didn’t use metaphors or flowery terms for place names – if it says the cross at Cross Cliffe, it meant the cross at Cross Cliffe. A physical, actual, stone cross. One that has been there long enough for everyone to know where it is, and use it as a point of reference. Which is very interesting. A previously unknown cross.

Its location also would support this. It would be situated on a crossroads – a favoured spot for crosses of this sort (Whitfield Cross for example). The present layout of the roads does not show this easily, but they have been changed, probably in the 18th century – I’ve got a post almost ready to go that explains all that, but here is a map to help:

The upcoming blog post will make a lot more sense of this area, but for now, roll with it!

Importantly, the cross would have stood at the border between the manors of Whitfield and Glossop – effectively Hurst Clough – and boundaries like this are exactly the sort of places that crosses are erected. Then there is the name Cross Cliffe. I had always, at the back of my mind, assumed that it meant the place where you crossed the cliff – perhaps a tall edge over Hurst Clough that no longer exists – or simply references the footbridge here. Well no. Delving further into the etymology of the name, it is derived from ‘Cliff‘ meaning a steep river bank, and ‘Cross‘ meaning, well, a cross. The name is literally ‘the steep river bank with a cross on it’, and crucem de Cresclyfe is then ‘the cross of the steep river bank with a cross on it‘. This a perfect description of that monster of a hill – it drops from 650ft at Bright’s Terrace to 500ft at the bridge over Hurst Clough – a 150ft drop over roughly 1000ft.

Placename evidence, coupled with a physical description, and a reading of the landscape and roads, seems fairly convincing. Well, to me anyway.

Now, there might a possibility that I am reading too much into this (‘surely not!’ groans everyone… I can hear you, you know! Don’t think I can’t). The ‘Cross of Cross Cliffe’ might refer to Whitfield Cross which would have been situated at the start of a small rise before the long steep slope down to Hurst Clough. If this is the case, then there is no need to look for another cross. However, I’m just not sure that this is the case. For one, the wording is too specific; “the cross of Cross Cliffe”, not just Cross Cliffe as an area – Whitfield Cross would surely have been too far away to be the cross described there, it is firmly in Whitfield, not Cross Cliffe.

Cross Cliffe 6 — The red circle marks the original location of Whitfield cross, the green circle marks the location of the hypothetical Cross Cliffe cross – a distance of over 1/3 of a mile.

Moreover, if Thomas’s land went to just the Whitfield Cross, then everything beyond that – including what is now Cross Cliff – would be outside of the described land. No, it makes sense his land went to the very edge of Whitfield, and the natural border of Hurst Clough, and it used a cross at the crossroads there as a marker.

What type of cross would it be, then? I would suggest that it was probably the same type as that which originally stood further up the same road at Whitfield – a 10th century Anglo-Saxon stone cross.

If this is correct, then where is the actual cross? 1000 years is a long time for a stone cross to survive. It may have been swept away in the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation of the Tudor period, or the iconoclasm that followed the Civil War, when crosses were routinely smashed – I read the other day of a Saxon cross that was broken up and used to fill a pothole in a road. However, the fact that Whitfield Cross survived these periods would suggest to me that Cross Cliffe would have likely survived, too. Perhaps we are looking at something more mundane; maybe it was accidentally broken, or worse, simply forgotten about as an important object, gradually falling into obscurity, to be lost in the hedgerows. Perhaps – and this really is a flight of fantasy – the stealing of the Whitfield Cross by the Cross Cliffe lads as a Mischief Night prank was not just a prank, and instead they were stealing a cross to replace theirs that was lost. It has never made sense that they would steal something so ridiculously large and heavy, so is this the answer? Well, probably not, but one can speculate wildly!

If anyone fancies joining me looking in hedgebacks and ditches for the original cross – after the current corona madness has subsided, obviously – then please drop me a line.

More soon – as I say, I have a whole post about the crossroads almost ready to go.

Until then, stay safe and stay inside, and take care of yourselves and each other.

And I remain, your humble servant,

Archaeology · Graffiti · Pottery · Whitfield

Odd Bits and Pieces… and Cheese.

May 6, 2020August 15, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

Well, this escalated quickly.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, but things are a bit odd at the moment. Six weeks ago we were concerned about Covid19, but were still joking about it, and how it will amount to a fuss over nothing. Now, here I am in front of my computer in ‘lockdown’ for the foreseeable future, and a very real and sobering death count is still rising. It really is a strange time, and the country is a strange place; the start of it all reminds me of what my grandfather said of the ‘Phony War‘ – you knew something big was happening, but it wasn’t actually happening there and then. Well it is now.

Sadly, it also means that we have had to cancel all the tours and talks that I was involved in that were about to occur: in particular, the ‘By Seven Firs and Goldenstone‘ exploration of the legend and landscape of Alderley Edge, and the Objects Tell Stories evening of folklore and archaeology. Oh, and if you want to find out who I really am, you can watch me talking archaeology and ritual in the promo for that event here – I’m the one on the right.

More to the point, this has put something of a crimp in the Cabinet of Curiosities. Rest assured, though, I do have a backlog of posts that I have been trying to write that doesn’t involve me moving anywhere. And of course, there is now time to write… well there would be if Master Hamnett wasn’t being home schooled for the duration.

In the meantime let’s keep buggering on, as Churchill was fond of saying.

So I went for my state-mandated exercise the other day and found a few bits and pieces – random is the theme of today’s post. But first, a quiz. What’s this?

I’ll give the answer at the end of the post… no peeking!

In the meantime, I spotted this sticking out of the ground:

What 2

Ooooh, thought I. The greenish colour of the glass gave it away as being older than mere litter, along with the thickness of the walls. Master Hamnett helped me hoik it out of the ground, and cleaned up it looks like this:

What 4 — The lovely pale green colour is the result of impurities in the silicone, and dates it to the Victorian period or thereabouts.

You can just about make out the word ‘Glossop’ impressed in the glass. This was likely to have contained either carbonated water or beer, but a brief search of bottles reveals nothing similar. More research is definitely needed.

The small white object next to it is a fragment of a clay pipe, but interestingly, it has a some molded decoration on it. Here it is in close-up.

What 3

This is a fragment of stem, just at the point where it joins to the bowl. It is unclear what the completed decoration would look like – foliage perhaps? Dating clay pipe stems is always tricky, but the decorated types are usually late, so late Victorian is about right.

We later came across this stone with the letter ‘H’ carved on it, and being a connoisseur of such graffiti, I had to collect it.

It’s nicely executed with a flourish of decoration in the form of drilled holes between the arms of the ‘H’ – I’d give it a 7/10.

Right. That mystery object… did you get it? I believe you, honestly!

Ok, well, it’s a cheese press. Yes, you read that correctly! A cheese press. A thing for squeezing the whey out of cheese curds. Well, technically, it’s half of a cheese press – it’s missing the right half.

The square hole on the left is to house an upright pole which, along with another on the right, now missing, held the pressing weight in place. The circle and lines carved into the surface allowed the whey to run off, leaving behind the solids which are then matured to make cheese. Cheese was home made, or at least farm made in small batches, until relatively recently, so the press must have belonged to a farm nearby, as you aren’t going to shift that stone any great distance, when others, closer, would do to fill a hole.

Here’s a complete one in Bashall Eves in Lancashire:

What Lancashire_Cheese_Press_-_geograph.org.uk_-_431556 — Cheese press in Lancashire, and used to make, well, Lancashire Cheese. Image shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia.

And here is another one carved in the same manner as ours:

cheese-press — The cheese press in Draycott in the Moors churchyard. Photograph is courtesy of their local blog, and I hope they don’t mind me stealing it – please visit the blog here, it’s very good.

This one caused a bit of confusion, apparently – read all about it at this wonderful blog.

In terms of date… who knows? Certainly not hugely old – possibly Victorian, but equally possibly earlier. The only other one I have seen (which is how I know what it is) is propped up where I work at The Blackden Trust, and was in fact carved on the reverse of an old gravestone dated to the early 18th century, which at least gives us a date to work with. I’m going to write a little more about this soon, as it involves two of my greatest loves – archaeology and cheese… if we could just work in wine somehow, then it would be perfect.

Incidentally, the press is currently being used to fill a pot hole in a trackway, which I think is a shame. Sigh… I’ll add it to the list of historical objects things that need to be hoiked out and displayed properly (along with Whitfield Cross and the Whitfield Guide Stoop) – I think it would look great displayed at the wells. Seriously, I think we need to do something about reclaiming our heritage, as it is being slowly eroded. The guide stoop is currently under 3ft of soil, and looks like it will be left like that, So then, who’s with me?

Right. I’m off do some more gardening.

Please stay inside and stay safe, and take care of yourselves and each other.

More soon, I promise, but until then I remain,

Your humble servant,

Towns of Glossop · Whitfield

Lean Town Part 1

January 11, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green2 Comments

Glossop is a town made up of towns, you may have noticed.

I have a blog post about 30% written that describes each of them, but briefly they are: Milltown, Jerry Town, Charlestown, Rough Town, Howard Town, Freetown, Top o’ th’ Town, and Lean Town, the subject of today’s blogpost.

Lean Town is Glossop’s lesser known ‘town’, but is the most easily defined – it is simply a row of terraced houses in Whitfield, at the end of an unnamed track that comes south off Hague Street.

Lean Town 2 — Hague Street runs NW-SE, and an unnamed road runs due south from Hague Street, to Lean Town (circled in red).

LT1 — Lean Town from the south east. the path down to Bray Clough is behind the camera.

The name origins are obscure, and even the usually reliable Robert Hamnett states “why it is called Lean Town, I have never been able to find out” (and he normally knows what he is talking about, does that chap). A number of possibilities present themselves. The ‘Town‘ element is easy and obvious “a township, or community“, in this case used loosely to describe the small group of houses. ‘Lean‘, however, is a bit more difficult. I have always thought it refers either to the land hereabouts – lean in the sense of not very good for growing crops – or the people living in the houses i.e. they were poor. Another possibility is that it refers to the houses ‘leaning’, that is perched on the edge of a steep hill, which they are.

LT2 — You can get a feel for just how perched or ‘leaning’ they are from this shot, taken from what is essentially the floodplain for Bray Clough, behind me.

Annoyingly, it doesn’t feature in the 3 volume set of The Place-Names of Derbyshire at all, but then that is not surprising, as the book is woeful in its shortcomings, leaving out dozens of local place and brook names that I know of – there must be thousands more. However, looking in the much more comprehensive The Place-Names of Cheshire for similar sounding possibilities gives the following:

Lyng (Old Norse), ling, heather.

Given its location on the edge of the common land that was, and still is, covered in gorse and heather, I am now starting to lean* towards that as an explanation. Over time, Lyng, the name descriptive of the area, becomes Lean, and is then attached to Town – Lyng Town/Lean Town. Perhaps. Maybe. *Pun fully intended.

LT3 — Is this the origin of Lean? Heather and gorse just by Lean Town.

Anyway, let’s move on!

According to Hamnett, the houses here were built in 1806 by Elizabeth Hampson, a member of a well known local family, who were responsible for building large numbers of the houses in the Whitfield area. Originally there were four terraced houses of a typical late Georgian/early Victorian design, stone built, with stone mullioned windows, and a stone roof. I’m not sure how many houses are there now, or whether any have been knocked through – there are still four chimneys, though.

The date of construction fits nicely with what we know of the area, which was radically changed at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries, when the area was enclosed. The process of enclosure saw what was previously ‘common’ land, available to all, was closed off and sold to private individuals. These landowners built walls around the fields, creating the landscape that we know so well; prior to this, the whole area was just open moorland and fields. Indeed, the gate to the moor here was situated at Lane End Farm – as the name suggests, here the lane, or Hague Street as we now know it, ended, and beyond it was just common moorland. With the sale came certain stipulations laid down in law, particularly the creation of roads, and many of the roads in this area were created at this time: Kidd Road (originally called Whitfield Green Road), Derbyshire Level (originally called Hurst Road), Hague Street, and even Gladstone Street. All were declared public carriageway, and were ordered to be 30ft wide (go get a tape measure and have a look!). The unnamed track, at the end of which sits Lean Town, was created in c.1813, it was declared a bridleway, and ordered to be 10ft wide. Presumably it replaced an earlier path down to the houses, unless the dates are slightly off. What is interesting is that the path marks the limit of the ‘ancient enclosure’ (that is, the medieval or early modern enclosures) – if you stand at the top looking down to Lean Town, all that is to the right of you is ancient, and to the left of you all was common land until the early 19th Century.

LT4 — The walled space at Lane Ends Farm dedicated to Norman and Irene Greenhalgh of Lane Ends Farm. To the left is Kidd Road, to the right the unnamed path down to Lean Town.

LT5 — Behold, the unnamed path down to Lean Town. A bridal path built in 1813 or thereabouts, and by law to a width of 10ft. It probably replaced an earlier path to the houses from Lane Ends.

Like I say, a huge upheaval – people lost their right to graze livestock, and even the right to cut peat for fuel for their stoves . The peat fields were moved much farther away, but I believe that residents of Whitfield still have the right to cut peat – don’t quote me, of course, and I’m not sure a multi-fuel burner could handle peat to be honest. There is an interesting account of the process of enclosure in Whitfield here.

If you look at the map above, you can clearly see marked ‘well’ at the end of a path from Lean Town. Now, having a thing for wells, I obviously set forth to see if anything remained. No, was the short answer. Here is the location, and the area is wet, but there was nothing that might be termed ‘well’. Ho hum.

LT6 — The location of the Lean Town well. I’m not sure what was here originally – perhaps just a trough, or spring head, but there is nothing there now, alas.

Right ho, that’s the end of Part 1. Part 2 contains all kinds of goodies in the form of finds, (lots of) pottery, and bench marks… what’s not to love? Oh, and a witch! You can hardly contain your excitement, I know, and I feel the same. It’ll be up soon, honestly – it’s almost done.

Until then, I remain,

Your humble servant.

Wells · Whitfield

A Furtive Furtle Around Freetown

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 Tim Campbell-Green2 Comments

I do love a good bit of alliteration.

What ho! What ho! What ho! Here is another post, as promised. This one is something of a hash, with multiple elements sharing the theme of Freetown (the road in Whitfield, not the capital of Sierra Leone, just in case you are here by mistake), and all presented in the style of a thriller novel. Enjoy.

The House(s) of Horror

I was perusing my namesake’s History of Glossop the other day, and came across this:

Freetown is really part of Hollincross Road (now Lane); it was called Freetown on account of the land being mostly freehold. The oldest house is no 28 built in 1809 and long owned and occupied by Robert Bennett. The chief rent was sold 29th June 1891 to Mrs. Wood for £52 who also bought the chief rents of the Unity Street property. No 28 was sold 16th January 1893 to Ald B. Furniss for £445, it has an outdoor licence attached to it.
The late Mrs. Sarah Hargreaves of Hadfield Street, remembered Freetown when this house was the only house in the road. On each side were hedges right down to Pikes Farm. The next houses to be built were Nos. 36 and 36a, in 1830 by Peter Handford, better known as “Peter before the Shower.” Many houses were built in 1835 and 1836 but the majority now existing were built during the last 60 years.

I live just by Freetown, and as I walk up and down it at least 8 times a week dropping off and picking up Master Hamnett from school, I have become very familiar with it.

Fr9 — Freetown, looking west toward St James’s church.

It really is quite an interesting place; 1860’s housing cheek by jowl with 1960’s housing, and where widespread ‘remodelling’ in the 1960’s destroyed the homogeneity of the Victorian stone built heart of Whitfield. A shame really. I have mentioned bits around Freetown before (here, for example), and I’d really like to do a longer piece, particularly on Whitfield recreation ground (the park), but for now, I’ll keep this brief(ish)!

Anyway, the article got me wondering… and wandering. Are these old houses still in existence, and what else is interesting here in the Freetown area.

Well, the first part of the question was easily answered.

No.

The council pulled them down in the 1960’s. With no thought to heritage or the past in any form. I am constantly amazed and appalled at the shortsightedness of councils in the 1960’s – no effort was made to preserve, only to destroy and rebuild in a ‘better’ way. This thinking has had so many effects in the present day, not least of which is the destruction of close-knit multi-generational communities in Manchester in the name of ‘slum clearances’. I can angrily rant and rave about this all day, so I’ll move on.

Number 28 is marked in red, 36 and 36a is marked in green. Ignore the blue arrow for now… we shall return to it.

Fr1 — This is the 1968 1:2500 map, just before they were demolished.

What is interesting is that the roads Wood Street and Kershaw Street seem to have been aimed at them, almost as though the town planners were using these early buildings as reference points – which they almost certainly were. Kershaw Street (begun in 1834) runs from Bank Street to Number 28, and Wood Street (in 1913 was still under construction, though there as a track prior to that) runs from the opening toward St Mary’s School (and the allotments) off Gladstone Street to Number 36 and 36a. Here are the buildings in 1880, in much better focus.

Fr2 — The 1880 1:500 scale… much clearer. And once again ignore the blue arrow… nothing to see here.

28 (red circle) seems to have been a large, oddly shaped, affair, and probably quite Georgian looking, with a central doorway and large windows. Actually, I’m amazed no photographs exist of 28 prior to its demolition – I should peruse the Glossop Heritage Trust archive for some – you never know what might be lurking. Here is what it looks like now:

Fr4 — The location of 28 Freetown, the oldest building in the area.

Number 28 would have occupied some of the same space as the building there now, and to the right, but would also have come up to the edge of the path, where the grass is. It’s nice to know that at least some of the footings and foundations will be preserved below ground, and it makes you wonder at the sort of pottery and bits that lurk in the garden there… Given how busy Freetown and area is, and how many houses are here, it’s hard to picture what it would have been like as Sarah Hargreaves remembered it, with this being the only house from here to Pikes Farm – amazing.

Numbers 36 and 36a (in green) were semi-detached (well, terraced) stone built affairs, probably very similar in design and style to many of the other houses built around the same time in the area. I love the nickname given to the builder, Peter Handford – ‘Peter Before The Shower’ – what on earth could it mean? Any thoughts, anyone?

Anyway, here is what is there now:

Fr5 — The modern view, Whitley Nab in the background.

Numbers 36 and 36a stood broadly where the right side of the current building is, the shed, and out into the road – in a sense, the centre of the photograph.

So there we have it… a loss of history, sadly. I wonder if the people who live there now know what they are living on (if you are reading this, can I have a poke around your garden?).

The next three parts of this post are all based around this small area, so we’ll skip to an aerial photograph of the place, with each area marked in coloured circles. All will become clear in a moment, don’t worry!

Fr7 — It’s all getting a bit ‘Olympic-y’ around here now.

The Blue Arrow

So, that blue arrow! whilst I was sorting that lot out, and doing some map work, I came across mention of a well (check out the blue arrows in the above maps, you can see it). A well would have been important to the people of Whitfield, as they always had issues with the water supply in the area (this is a whole other blog post, we’ll save it for another day). The word ‘well’ implies a reliable water source, and importantly, some form of structure associated with it – even if only a trough. Indeed the 1880 1:500 map (above) shows just such a structure, with the well placed against what seems to be a wall. I had high hopes of finding something.

Alas, ’twas not to be. There is quite literally nothing even remotely old about any of the area where the well once stood – it has all been remodelled. Here is the location of the well as marked on the map:

fr13 — This place is circled in green in the aerial photograph above.

I would think it would be difficult to destroy a well completely – it is flowing water after all, and if you stop it up, it will just bubble elsewhere. This, coupled with the fact that it is not marked on any map past 1880 suggests that it might have simply dried up. Oh well.

The Electrifying Edifice

So, right next to the well location (and circled in red) is this:

Fr6

A vaguely classical temple looking electricity substation, sitting seemingly on its own in the wilderness of this part of Kershaw Street – it’s all a bit spooky, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the ‘Danger of Death’ notices refer not to the electricity, but something that lives inside it. It’s probably 1920’s or 1930’s in date, and clearly supplied power to the area, and indeed still does, quite remarkably surviving the 1960’s demolition. Above the doorway is a lintel with the letters ‘SHMD’ carved into it – a sure sign of its age, as it would just be a plastic sign now.

fr11 — The Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Tramway and Electricity Board

A brief search on the internet reveals that it refers to the “Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley & Dukinfield Tramways & Electricity Board”. They have an interesting history in this area (which you can read about here and here), but briefly they were founded in 1901, supplied electricity to the named places (and Glossop), as well as running bus services and trams, and eventually became part of Norweb in 1948. So there you go.

The Mystery of The Disappearing Gatepost

As I was navigating the streets via Google maps, trying to work out where the well was, I spotted something interesting at the very bottom of the continuation of Kershaw Street, at the left hand (easterly) turn along a pedestrianised track (circled in blue in the above aerial photograph).

Fr3 — Carved, and covered in paint, it stands guard.

It looked to me like a very out of place gatepost, reused as a bollard to prevent ne’er-do-wells riding motorbikes and cars along the pedestrianised bit. You can even make out the carved shoulders, making it reminiscent of a milestone (and here). It is certainly jarring against the 1960’s concrete that is used in this area. Interesting, thought I.

So off I popped to have a look.

Nope. Nothing. Just a tarmacked hole in the ground where once it stood.

Fr10 — A patch of tarmac is all that remains.

I had a look around in hedgebacks and ditches, but found nothing. Something has happened to it since May 2009 when the Google streetview image was taken… but what? Now, nobody has stolen it, clearly – it would weigh a serious amount. And if the council took it away, then why? It’s all a bit of a mystery; if anyone knows anything, then please drop me a line.

The Nailbiting Conclusion

And to end with, some archaeology. As I’m sure you know, I like to pick up interesting things that I find (I can hear Mrs Hamnett sighing in agreement). Now, within the space of a single week, I picked up two copper nails from Freetown; one at the upper end, and another at the lower, nearest St James’ church. I love these things – such history in a tiny object – and I’ve blogged about them before, here. And have also come across them elsewhere in Glossop.

I always have my eyes on the ground (to the point I am worried about developing a stoop!), but to find two in a week seems oddly lucky… perhaps I should play the lottery. Or has my luck been ‘used up’ on worthless copper nails? Anyway, keep looking people, and get in contact with anything you find.

Right-ho, that’s about all I have at the moment. A bit of a hotch-potch, to be honest, but I hope entertaining, or at least diverting. If you have any comments about the blog post, or just in general about Glossop’s past, please feel free to email me. I have a lot more bits and pieces to blog about, and am trying to better manage my time, so hopefully I’ll have something more to you in the next week or so. Until then, I remain.

Your humble servant,