What ho! Hope you are enjoying the summer so far. A quick post today, but more very soon.
So, I know I promised you pottery this time, and I can tell you are wildly disappointed, but this is an interesting bit of history. Honestly. It really is. Don’t just look at the first picture and yawn… Philistines.
There are a number of places around Glossop that never fail to produce some bits and pieces – Lean Town, Harehills, etc. One such place is at the top of Whitfield Avenue. Never lots, but always a sherd or two, and this time a piece of lead. Window lead to be precise.
Lead is one of those substances that is instantly recognisable once you know what it looks like, and can be spotted from quite a distance. It doesn’t rust, or even really react beyond producing a white powder on the surface. It is soft, which means it can get damaged – in particular bent – easily, but it also means that it doesn’t break in the way that pottery or glass does, so it often survives. It is also worth remembering that it is highly toxic, so be careful when you handle it.
Don’t worry, I washed my hands afterwards.
So there it was, lying on the surface of the soil, a dull grey flash exposed after all the rain we have recently suffered. I would have picked it up anyway – I try and do that with lead, as it’s not great in the environment – but I knew at a glance what it was, and was excited as they can be interesting. I was not disappointed.
Window lead, or came as it is more properly known, has been with us for as long as there have been glass windows, and is essentially an elegant solution to a big problem – the fact that it is very difficult and expensive to produce glass in any large size. It is far easier to join together smaller pieces, and this was still the case until the 19th century, and why even early 20th century windows are made up smaller pieces separated by wooden mullions. But the multi-part aspect also allowed works of art to be created in the form of stained glass windows that adorned medieval churches and cathedrals, and is a fashion that continues down to today.
The came works by allowing separate pieces of glass to slot into its grooves, joining them together, with the whole being held in place by the window frame. In profile (that is, cut in half), came is broadly ‘H’ shaped:
A pretty awful drawing, but you get the idea… I hope.
So then, what can we say about this little piece of twisted metal? Well, a surprising amount, to be honest. Firstly, rather than being poured and shaped in a mould, the came has been milled – the lead was drawn through a former by a cog. This means that it is not medieval, but instead puts it into the archaeological ‘misc.’ tray that is ‘Post-Medieval‘ (roughly, after 1500). We can, however, narrow it down a bit; the cog used in the manufacturing process leaves characteristic tooth marks on the interior. As the process was refined and improved over time, these marks grew further apart, and broadly speaking, the closer the teeth, the earlier the date. On our piece of came, they are very close together, and thus an earlier date is suggested.
Teeth marks, where the cog has pulled the came through the former.
This is backed up by the slightly rounded profile, which is also associated with earlier examples. We might suggest a date of perhaps 1700 – 1800, possibly earlier, but unlikely to be later.
Left: the slightly rounded ‘H’ profile, also slightly squashed. Right: the clean cut edge, probably by a knife.
It seems to have been cut cleanly at either end, which means it is the original length, which is significant. It measures just under 6cm, or 2 1/4 inches, so not very long, but a perfect size for the diamond style windows that were common in the 17th and 18th centuries, when whole windows were made up of smaller pieces and joined by the came. Look closely, you can see the tin solder that would have joined it to another lead came piece.
The melted end, but also marks where it was pulled through the former.
Looking even more closely, you can see the putty that would have weather-proofed it still inside the groove.
White putty visible.
Here is a 17th century window:
Typical Tudor & Jacobean diamond pattern window.
And here is our piece of lead in a mocked up window, showing how it would have been used.
Another rather poor drawing, but one hopes you get the idea.
How this piece of lead came came to be lurking in the soil on that rainy day is not certain, but it is in the right place – some of the oldest houses in Whitfield are right there, including Hob Hill Cottage with its datestone of 1638. The came must have originated in one of these houses, and at some stage either window was repaired, or replaced entirely. Indeed, if we look closely, we can see two marks where the lead flange has been lifted away from the glass to remove it.
The lead flange has been peeled back from the glass.
At that point, the lead has been lost or thrown away. I’d love to be able to say for certain which house it came from, and the obvious choice would be Hob Hill Cottage as it is just opposite the find spot, but in reality who knows? I am amazed at how much information it is possible to glean from what is, at first glance, just a small piece of twisted metal. And see, I told you it would be interesting.
More soon. As always, look after yourselves and each other, and until next time, I remain.
What ho, kind and gentle folk of the blog reading world!
Sooooo, today is back to some sense of normality in that I am looking at pottery. “Woo-hoo!” I hear you cry. Well alright, some of you cried “woo-hoo!“. Well alright, not that many of you if I’m honest. Certainly not enough of you. Well tough… it’s my blog, and I like pottery, so we’re doing pottery. Now pay attention, I may ask questions.
Actually, this stuff is interesting in two ways. Firstly, as bits of archaeology. And secondly, I didn’t find them! No, that dubious honour rests with my friend and fellow delver and obsessive, Charles Winford Lodge (actually not his real name, but then you are reading a blog written by a man who has been dead for well over 100 years, so it’s probably best not to start asking too many questions at this point). He goes by @2hrTV on Twitter, and usually has something interesting to say on the subject of the history of Glossop and area. Usually… I mean, I can’t promise.
Anyway, the conversation – pretty normal for us – went along the lines of: Him – “Years ago I found some pottery at Valehouse Reservoir. I’ve just re-found it in the house… want to see it?“ Me – “Absolutely, my good man… lead on.”
Out it comes (in a plastic doughnut box from Tesco – price £1.10 – bear in mind this is the man who once gave me some pottery in a camembert box, so doughnuts are a step up). Most of them are fairly standard Victorian sherds, but one or two made me sit up. Now, the sherds had not been washed (tut! tut!), and so I volunteered to take them, clean them, and blog about them. Which is how I ended up washing up someone else’s broken old rubbish. Please, no one tell Mrs Hamnett… it might not end well. For any of us. However, I think the risk was worth it.
Valehouse is an interesting place; now just the name of a reservoir in the Longdendale Valley, below the Woodhead Road, it was once a village that in its prime, and prior to its flooding, had roughly 600 residents in 100 cottages with a number of shops, a school, and other amenities. Samuel Oldknow built the first mill here in 1775 – the first to harness the power of the Etherow – and it is after this point, and largely in the early 19th century, when the mills were substantially expanded, that the majority of houses were built to house the mill workers. The valley was flooded in 1869 to provide Manchester with water, and the mills and houses were all submerged. I also have a personal connection with the village in that my great great great grandfather, Benjamin Livesey, was born there in 1824.
Valehouse prior to the 1869 flooding. Note the large mill buildings, and the many houses.
Valehouse as it was in 1899, and indeed still. Note the large quantity of water and lack of houses.
So then, the pottery. It was recovered during a drought a few years ago, and from the area around the viewing platform on the north side of the reservoir. Having studied the sherds, it’s clear they can be split into two broad chronological groups – early 18th century and late 19th century – which probably represent two different origins. I’ll discuss the latest first, before looking at the oldest, and arguably more interesting.
Not, at first glance, particularly inspiring.
1 – A Victorian earthenware jar or jug, vertical ridged decoration, with a body diameter of 9cm, and glazed in a lovely cobalt blue colour. Nothing special, but quite fancy.
2 – Simple sherd of blue and white earthenware, with the bog standard transfer print.
3 – Thick base to a Late Victorian Codd Bottle. It has ‘TON-U-LYNE’ embossed on one side, and a little research gives us ‘R.A. Barrett & Co.’ of Ashton-Under-Lyne. They manufactured soft drinks and mineral water, and were particularly noted for their ginger beer. Their factory still stands in Dean Street, Ashton.
A complete Barrett & Co. Codd bottle, and the factory as it stands today. The bottle fragment above would have been made in this factory.
4 – Fragment of bottle, probably Victorian mineral water or beer.
5 – Another fragment of green glass – probably Victorian, as it is quite thin walled, but it does contain large numbers of bubbles, suggesting perhaps an earlier date.
6 – A large, thick walled, earthenware sherd, perhaps part of a lid to a very large “Brown Betty” teapot – it is certainly the right colour for this, and curves the right way. The surface colour is a mottled brown, and is a type that deliberately recalls the earlier, 18th century, manganese ware. Interestingly, you can see how this effect is achieved by looking at the break. Two colours of clay – one dark reddish brown and one a creamy buff – are loosely mixed, and the clay is shaped into the mould. It is first fired, then a clear or slightly yellow glaze applied, followed by a second higher temperature firing. Where the cream buff forms the surface, it is a yellow or golden brown, and where the reddish clay forms the surface, it produces a dark rich brown, together forming the mottled effect. I quite like it, but much prefer the original 17th century stuff.
The appetising looking Victorian mottled ware sherd. You can see how the different coloured clay affects the surface colour
Right, let’s move onto the arguably more interesting stuff.
This material dates from roughly the early 18th century – let’s say 1700 – 1750… ish.
1 – Large and chunky strap handle probably of Nottingham Stoneware, and probably from a large jug or flagon. It measures 4.5cm wide, and is typical of its type. Stoneware is fired to a very high temperature, melting – or vitrifying – the clay, making it into a very hard and almost metallic pottery. It has a dark grey fabric, with a brown glazed surface which is very shiny – the result of adding iron to the glaze. Interestingly, this is not as fine or well made as the earliest material here, and shows some similarities with the later Derbyshire Stoneware, so it might be the somewhere in late 18th century.
2 – Base to a stoneware jug or jar, with a diameter of 10cm. This too has characteristics of both earlier Nottingham Stoneware and the later Derbyshire type – the glaze for example, is less lustrous than early sherds, but it has the classic grooved decoration running around the base. The underside shows wear suggestive of use and re-use over time. On balance, I’m going to say it is early, safe in the knowledge that no one is going to double check (as he scurries away and hides it).
3 – Lovely Nottingham Stoneware bowl, with a rim diameter of 13cm, and a slightly flaring out-turned rim. It’s thin walled, with a grey uniform fabric that was slipped in white before glazing. The surface glaze is a lovely melted chocolate colour, very lustrous and almost metallic looking, and is very characteristic, as is the horizontal grooved decoration on the exterior, and glaze drip marks on the interior. I liked this so much that a drew it using the archaeological method – essentially looking at the whole vessel in profile, and removing a quarter to allow both the interior and exterior to be shown.
The profile of the sherd is shown on the left, coloured in black – this shows the shape of the pot. The interior of the pot is shown next, with the wavy lines where the glaze dripped. Then the exterior of the vessel is shown next to that. I might do a post about this type of drawing, as I’d like to do more. It’s been a while since I did this last, though.
4 – This is a bit of an odd one. Stoneware, but potentially quite early. Certainly it fits with the 18th century stuff, but the surface is off – it looks like orange peel, dimpled all over with a salt glaze, and reminds me of the earlier 18th and even 17th century German stonewares that were imported in huge quantities. Whatever it is, it’s a huge rounded or pot bellied vessel with a diameter of roughly 26cm, despite being very thin walled. It is also a closed vessel, being glazed on the exterior only, so perhaps some form of small barrel or large bottle?
5 – Nottingham Stoneware – flask or bottle type. The body, shoulder, and beginning of the neck only, it has a body diameter of 18cm, so quite large despite being very thin walled. It has a double band of horizontal incised decoration which is showing the under slip where the glaze is thinnest. Like No.3, the glaze is lustrous and a melted chocolate in colour.
6. Finally, we have the star of the show – a rim fragment of a Staffordshire Slipware platter or large plate. This stuff is very diagnostic, and gives a clear date of between 1650 and 1750, with this sherd from 1700ish.
Interesting stuff!
Slipware like this is quite good quality, and a step up from the wood or plain wares that the average man or woman would eat from – or rather take from, as this would be a communal dish that everyone would eat from. Often broadly rectangular (as this is, I think), they are shallow, and would be completely covered in this linear banded decoration of yellow and dark brown. It’s quite striking, and would be a blast of colour in a world that was otherwise quite drab, particularly in winter. I still can’t work out whether I love or hate this stuff! Here is a complete example:
A complete example of migraine inducing 18th century pottery.
The process of decorating the pot went as follows: the pot is first moulded, then fired at a low temperature. The interior, and only the interior, is covered in a red slip, then overlaid with a white slip, and a tool is then dragged through this white slip, revealing the red underneath. The whole interior is then covered in a clear glaze and fired, transforming the colours to dark brown on the red, and honey yellow on the white. The whole process can be seen if we look at the break on the sherd:
Right – some of the red slip splashed on the exterior of the sherd, it remains red because it hasn’t reacted with the glaze. Left – all there elements can be seen in the break: the red and white slips, the tool that scraped away the white slip, and the glaze that overlays the lot.
So what does all this mean, then?
Because the valley was flooded to create Valehouse Reservoir, it gives us a cut off point (a terminus ante quem in archaeological terms – essentially the latest time an event could have happened) – any buildings and such there must have been built before this point. However, that is not strictly true with portable objects, especially those found near the edge of the water – the reservoir was almost immediately a picnic and pleasure spot, and plates get broken, bottles get launched into the water, etc. So we can suggest tentatively that although some of the material will likely be from the village before it was drowned, most of the Victorian material, and in particular the Codd Bottle, was deposited after the reservoir was filled.
The same cannot be said for the earlier material, and therefore there was clearly some form of settlement here prior to the Victorian period, as no one in their right mind is going to carry around 150 year old pottery to throw in a reservoir. Alright, I might… but most people don’t. So this material has to be from an 18th century dump of some form… but from where. Studying a map of Vale House prior to flooding shows clearly the mill complex and all the houses.
I love playing around with Microsoft Paint!
Circled in red is the rough location of where the pottery was found. But here, in the green triangle, is an odd looking group of buildings. Set apart and in its own land, it looks like the standard farming hamlet for this area, made up of the farm building, outbuildings, and farm worker’s cottages. And in Bagshaw’s Directory for Cheshire dated 1850, we read of Joseph Roe, Farmer, Vale House Farm. Even the name ‘Vale House’ suggests a house of some importance. I wonder if, as so often happens, the local big house or manor house became less important over time and ended up as simply Vale House Farm. If so, then this might explain the 17th – 18th century pottery, and given that it’s made up of several different domestic vessels, suggests strongly that this is the midden, or rubbish dump, associated with the farmhouse. All we have to do now is wait for another drought and we can see what else is buried there.
Valehouse Reservoir today. Somewhere in the middle of that photograph, below the water, lies the remains of a 17th century farmhouse.
Hope you enjoyed this weeks romp around with pottery… let me know what you think, anything at all, even to tell me I’m wrong about the stoneware base (I’m not… it’s my site, and therefore I’m always right!). Also, if you have any pottery that you want me to look at… just don’t tell Mrs Hamnett.
Next month, we have a very interesting tale to tell… more of that later. For now, take care of yourselves and others, and until then, I remain.
So, despite having half a dozen half-written posts, piles of interesting objects and sherds to talk about, and a few adventures to recount, I want to try something a little different today. “Oh no!” I hear you cry. But fret ye not, gentle reader, for it is still archaeology, it is still Glossop based, and it is still interesting. But it is a little… quirky. You’ll see what I mean.
I have a friend who is a writer, and quite a good one at that. He has often mentioned that stories usually start with what he terms a “What If?” moment, where something – often an object – presents itself, and the question is posed “what if…?” From there the story grows, based on and around that one question. The answer that comes doesn’t have to be ‘real’, it is fiction after all, but it has to be possible. What if a house was haunted? And what if the house fell down? And what if a brick from the house was haunted too? And what if a dashing archaeologist took the brick home to write about it on his extremely popular and incredibly interesting blog? What if…?
Archaeology, I think, uses a similar technique. An object is excavated, and the interpretation – the story – begins. However, where we differ from writers is that we base our ‘what ifs…?’ on evidence and supposition grounded in data. The interpretation, in this sense, has to be ‘real‘, although it is only ‘real’ for as long as the data supports it. Sometimes though, It’s fun to play “what if…?” – and here we join today’s post.
A stone head displaying all the characteristic features, including almond eyes. This one was allegedly found on Mouselow, and now lives on a wall in Buxton Museum
Stone heads. A lot has been written about them. They are cursed and evil. Or they are warm and friendly. They are ‘Celtic’ (i.e. Iron Age or Romano-British) in date. Or they are medieval or early modern in date. Or a combination of both. They represent an unbroken pre-Christian tradition, and an aspect of the whispered ‘Old Ways‘. Or they are simply folk art, and just decorative. Or they are magically protective (that wonderful word, apotropaic, again). Or both. Or neither. A brief trawl of the internet gives a lot of different sites and opinions, ranging from the scholarly and the more open minded, to what can only be termed outright nonsense.
Whatever they are, carved stone heads are a feature of this part of the Pennines – from Longdendale, over the hills to West Yorkshire, and up to the Calder Valley. I actually have a serious project that is looking at them; cataloguing known examples from Glossop and Longdendale, and trying to place them geographically, as well as giving some sort of date to them. There are at least 23 examples from the Glossop area, with more doubtless waiting to be uncovered. But it’s an ongoing project, and not really ready to publish – here, or anywhere else for that matter – and I just keep chipping away at it. It was during the course of trying to map where they were found, that I noticed something very interesting.
Stone head in Old Glossop. Image stolen shamelessly from the Old Glossop website (follow this link – the website is very good)
Before we go any further, I should state that my personal belief is that most of the stone heads are medieval or post-medieval in date (indeed, there is a record of them being carved in the 19th Century). That’s not to say that Iron Age ‘Celtic’ examples don’t exist (one was found at Binchester Roman Fort, in County Durham in 2013), it’s just that it is very difficult to date them as they usually don’t come from any secure archaeological context, and basing a date on ‘style’ or method of carving, as has happened in the past, is notoriously dodgy. That stated, there is the possibility that I might be wrong. And this led to my ‘what if…?‘ moment.
Back to the find location, sadly the majority of the heads are simply “found in Glossop area“, and thus have no exact place. But from various sources, I was able to identify where some of the heads were found. The distribution map is below:
1:10,000 map of Glossop. The Find spots – where the heads were found – are marked in red.
They seem to be dotted all around the area: Mouselow, Manor Park Road, several in Old Glossop, etc. However, looking at the above map, I noticed there was a distinct grouping in Whitfield – four of them centred around Slatelands Road and Hollin Cross Lane. Hmmmmm… let’s have a closer look, then.
Here is the Whitfield group on the 1:2500 map.
Duke Street, Pikes Lane, St Mary’s Road, and Slatelands Road. Geographically, they are in the same tangle of roads in that area. But the heads more than likely pre-date the Victorian roads, so we need to strip them back. What was there then? Well fields, mainly, though the medieval track from Simmondley to Glossop ran through here (that blog post is coming, I promise!). And before that, the Roman road also ran through here, along Pikes Lane, before kinking over Long Clough Brook and onto the fort and settlement at Melandra.
And then, the “what if…?” hit me.
For the sake of a good story, what if these heads actually were Iron Age or Roman in date? What could this cluster mean?
Looking again at the area stripped of the Victorian houses, it’s very clearly a promontory, a high plateau that runs between two brooks – Glossop Brook to the north, and Long Clough Brook to the south. In the Iron Age, they liked their elevated places – Mouselow, which dominates the area, is a classic Iron Age hillfort, and others exist nearby, at Mellor and Mam Tor. One only has to look at St Mary’s Road from Harehills Park to see how steep those slopes are (try doing it pushing Master Hamnett in a pram with a load of shopping from Aldi). And on the other side, who hasn’t cursed Slatelands Road halfway up, gasping for breath. This is a very real landscape feature, completely masked by later development, but one which would have been very visible back then. This would have been particularly true where the peninsular narrows at the west, leading down to the junction of the two brooks. This too, is significant.
Throughout prehistory water was a sacred thing, and was considered ritually important. A spit of land, elevated, defined by water and ending in the confluence of two bodies of water, would have been hugely significant. Actually, a perfect place for an Iron Age temple or shrine, perhaps one devoted to the ‘Celtic head cult’ as suggested by scholars such as Dr Ann Ross (in her Pagan Celtic Britain)? Indeed, the North Derbyshire Archaeological Survey notes that the number of heads in the Glossop area “might suggest a cult centre” based in the town in the Romano-British period (Hart 1984:105). It has been suggested that the heads are sometimes associated with liminality and boundaries, and were protective. What if they were they placed facing down the peninsular, to mark out the sacred space, and to defend it?
The Roman road moves through this promontory, sticking to the high ground away from the valley floors and marshy terrain, as the Romans preferred (see map below). But what if the location of the possible shrine or temple influenced the choice of road location, ploughing through the sacred enclosure, perhaps to make a point about Roman dominance?
The location of the heads in relation to the landscape. The blue is the waters of Glossop Brook (north) and Long Clough Brook (south), forming the spit of land. The yellow line is the medieval trackway, and the green line is the course of the Roman road.
What if…?
Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that that the above is absolutely true; this is a wild flight of fantasy, and pure fiction – a story. Indeed, doubts are being raised about the reality of the ‘Celtic head cult’ theory in general. But it is a possibility, at least: an archaeological what if…? However, if that isn’t the answer, there still remains the issue of why four stone heads were found in a cluster in this area. What is going on?
If we return to my original thought, that the heads are medieval or post-medieval in date, might they be related to the Simmondley – (Old) Glossop trackway in someway? If we look at the map above, we can see this track (marked in yellow) runs broadly along the line of Princess Street. And just to the east of the three of the heads run along the same alignment. Is this significant? What if people somehow, and for some reason, deposited these heads to the east of the track? But why? Well, I came across a possible reference to just such a practice in this area – Clarke states that “Oral tradition in the High Peak of Derbyshire suggests heads were buried as charms beneath newly-built roads, presumably to keep permanent watch over them” (1999:286). He cites no sources for this “oral tradition”, but this type of apotropaic function – preventing witchcraft and promoting good fortune – is associated with carved heads all over the United Kingdom (Billingsley 2016). Perhaps, then, we are seeing the ritual deposition of carved heads as part of the road building tradition.
What if…?
A pair of Whitfield Heads. These are at the end of Kershaw Street… and that is all I know about them. It’s on my ‘to do’ list, don’t worry.
No, it is a mystery, and ultimately we are left with questions for which there are no obvious answers. Three of the heads are in Manchester Museum, and the fourth presumably in the hands of the owner/finder. I will have to go and see them, as that might help in dating. As I say the project is ongoing, and any comments or help in the area would be greatly appreciated. Do you know of any stone heads? Do you have photographs of any? Or stories – they seem to attract folklore and superstition like nothing else! Please contact me in the usual way – email me, or through twitter ( @roberthamnett ). Or just come and find me in the street, as people are increasingly doing… so much for pseudonyms and anonymity!
I do hope you enjoyed the little flight of fantasy, but we’ll be back to business as usual next time – the sherds are mounting up! Until then, look after yourselves and each other.
And I remain, your humble servant
RH
References:
John Billingsley – Instances and Contexts of the Head Motif in Britain
David Clarke – The Head Cult: Tradition and Folklore Surrounding the Symbol of the Severed Human Head in the British Isles. (Unpublished PhD Thesis, accessed here)
Anne Ross – Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition
What ho! A short one this time… well, relatively short. As I think I have mentioned previously, I normally have about 5 blog posts half written at any one time, and I pick away at them until one ends up finished. But how do I choose the subjects? Well, sometimes, they are obvious topics, and other times it is purely a coincidence, and fate picks it for me. Occasionally my own research throws up something that I think you, gentle readers, might be interested in. And then sometimes, as is the case with today’s entry, the subject simply throws itself at me and the blog almost writes itself.
As I think I have also mentioned previously, mine is not what you would describe as a normal life; I live and breath the stuff of this blog… to the point of obsession. But thankfully I am blessed with a wonderful and understanding wife (or ‘carer’ as she terms it, which is a bit off), and also a child who thinks growing up in a house filled with bits of pottery and odd bits of old tat is perfectly normal. But even I had a slightly discombobulating moment last week – the archaeological equivalent of the alcoholic hitting the fabled ‘rock bottom’.
“Oh no!” I hear you cry. But worry not, I’m not quitting… (and I’ll have another glass of red whilst you’re at it). No, this one was a case of opening my front door and being forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: it turns out I have now reached a point in my odd life whereby people leave bits of old pottery and other stuff in my garden, without so much as a by your leave. Clearly “it’s old and knackered, so give it to RH” is now a thing.
For there on my front wall, wonderful readers, was a spoon. An old spoon, granted, but a spoon nonetheless. “What ho!” said I, and leapt forward.
A random spoon on my wall. Yup… my life is totally normal.
Now the sight of such might have caused a lesser man to quiver and fall, but I’ve been around spoons before – I’m no mere amateur when it comes to them. Indeed, it’s certainly no idle boast when I say “I know spoons”.
But from whence did said spoon come? The physical location of Hamnett Towers suggested only a few possibilities, and not knowing Uri Geller, my suspicion fell immediately on our clearly insane neighbours Helen and Sarah who, when not camping in their garden (mere metres away from a perfectly good house) or self harming by cycling to Tideswell and back, are amazing.
Turns out I was right! Sarah had found it in a wall in Whitfield, somewhere near the Beehive, and thought, correctly as it turns out, “good old RH might want that”. I looked closer, and my interest – already piqued – began to tingle. Writing… and possible decoration. The spoon was a welcome gift, but jokingly came with one condition, that I write a blog post about it. Well, here we are! Let’s look closer…
A spoon, yesterday. Honestly, it looks like Uri Geller has been here.
A close up – you can just about make out lettering and what looks like decoration.
The spoon is of a soup rather than serving type, and vaguely Victorian in shape. It was also very worn and covered in greenish verdigris – I really do get the best presents. I couldn’t read what it said where the maker’s mark normally is, nor make out the decoration so I took some very fine sandpaper to it, and removed what I could.
It becomes slightly more clear.And even clearer.
You can just make out the lettering – if you squint, and use the eye of faith – that reads “Walker and Hall. Sheffield” and a pennant/flag logo containing the letters “W&H“. And, over that a series of numbers stamped roughly onto the surface.
Walker and Hall were a company of silversmiths based in Sheffield. They were founded in 1845, but began operating with that name from 1853 onwards, and continued until 1920. This website suggests that the pennant logo should be dated between the late 19th century (say 1880) and World War 1 – which looks about right from the style of the spoon. Sadly, it’s not silver, but silver plated, and seemingly carries no mark, in which case it might date to before 1884 when Walker and Hall started putting marks on their cutlery.
As for the numbers, I have no idea what they might mean. I can make out “5, 4, 9, 9, 3, 2” Conceivably they could be the model number for the spoon type – there are examples of this being done – but these are very large and untidy, and seem to have been stamped in a haphazard way, with no easy way of reading them. Perhaps they were done by the owner as a way of identifying the spoon, but this leads to the question “why?”. The only explanation that I can come up with is that it was a ‘communal’ spoon, perhaps one connected with a pub or similar – the idea being it can’t be stolen because it is very easily identified. This fits nicely with where it was found, near the Beehive pub. It also fits with the wear pattern, too; it has been bent and straightened several times, as public cutlery often is, but also the huge amount of wear on the bowl.
The asymmetrical wear pattern at the tip
This wear is very visible at the left hand tip, meaning it was used by a right handed person or people. I would argue that a personal spoon wouldn’t worn that much if it was used for at most a meal a day. However, at a busy pub serving good mutton stew, that spoon might be scraped around a bowl 20 times or more a day. Do we have an original Beehive spoon? Well, I’m almost convinced.
Why it was placed in a wall is, frankly, a mystery. People do strange things with objects that are deemed ‘public’ (I look sheepishly in the direction of a wine glass that mysteriously ended up in my house, but which originated in a certain drinking establishment in a certain town), but it may well be that the spoon was too knackered and was simply thrown away, ending up in the wall via child or bored adult.
So there we are – a spoon! From a wall, to my wall, via my neighbours, and finally to you.
Right, that’s all for now. More coming soon, including the much talked about roads and tracks post that I keep promising. In the meantime, I’m going to put a box outside – if anyone else has anything old they want to give me, pop it in as you pass… who knows what I could find in it.
Until next time take care of yourselves and each other. And I remain
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.
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.
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.
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:
Dock fork, from the easyliveauction.com website – this one sold for £25… a bit more than the £17.50 it was valued at, with other implement, in 1750.
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“.
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.
A 17th Century meal ark.
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.
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.
The basic Two-Unit house plan. Cowper’s house was probably along the lines of ‘h’, although any could fit to be honest.
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
What ho! wonderful people. In case you hadn’t worked it out by the title, today’s blog post is all about pipes. I may have mentioned previously that I absolutely love clay pipes – there is just something so tactile and personal about them. And yet as an object they were disposable; I have referred to them as the cigarette butt of the Victorian period, as often they were bought pre-filled with tobacco, smoked, and then thrown away. I have previously posted a few good pipe fragments (here for example), but I have others…
This is no place for a general history of tobacco smoking, but it is worth mentioning that it was only 1580-ish that the first ships came back from the New World with the dried leaves as cargo. This provides us a nice terminus post quem (archaeology speak for the earliest possible date something could have happened) for clay pipes. Interestingly, we also have a terminus ante quem (archaeology speak for the latest date something could have happened) – the cigarette became very popular late in the reign of Victoria, gradually replacing the pipe, and it is generally taken that the use of clay pipes died out after about 1900. Obviously, this is not a hard and fast rule as people still smoked them (see one of the pipes below, for example) – and indeed you can still buy clay pipes – but it is a useful rule of thumb. So then, for a period of roughly 300 years, between 1600 and 1900, people were smoking these things. But the thing with clay pipes is that they are ridiculously breakable, which is good for us. Bowls are found rarely, and even more rarely complete, but the stems, looking like white cigarette butts, are very commonly found, and people amass huge numbers of them, even making them into jewellery.
If you interested in any way in clay pipes, then the National Pipe Archive website is for you – a goldmine of accessible factual information, and their ‘how to’ section covers everything from excavating and cleaning to dating and drawing. There is also a huge reference collection of books and articles on excavated pipes. I have lifted some of their images for illustrative purposes and make no claim to them – but please have a look.
Here is the anatomy of a pipe :
Here you can see how it works, and the terminology used.
They were mass produced in huge quantities using a white ‘pipe clay’ formed in a mould, and then kiln fired. In terms of date, they are quite difficult to pin down precisely without lots of detailed information. The rule of thumb though is that the smaller the bowl, the earlier the pipe – tobacco was very expensive in the 16th and early 17th century, but became much cheaper later on, leading to larger bowls, and a more wide appeal. There is also some chronological variation in the stems too – the earlier pipes had thicker stems and the bore (the hole down the middle of the stem) was wider too. And there are also very subtle changes in shape of the bowl, the stem, the heel, and the tip, that allow rough dates to be given to the pipes, but these too are very broad. A huge amount of work has been done on dating pipes, but the reality is that it is not hard and fast, and unless you have a manufacturers name or mark, or it comes from a secure archaeological context, pipe dating is in half centuries and decades, rather than specific years.
Here are some images showing dates for various pipe styles. It is worth remembering that each area has its own industry making these things, and thus what might apply in London, will probably not apply in Manchester, although the broader trends are applicable, and pipemakers did copy each other’s designs.
London pipes showing the broad trends regarding sizes through time.
A rather general image giving dating information.
So then, the pipes.
This first one is something of a rarity in that we can say a bit about it, and it has a date. It was found with some late 17th and 18th century pottery near Crowden, and thus I assumed it was of a similar date.
The decoration is at the left of the stem
It was only when I cleaned it that I realised that it had a rolled stamp around it which at first I thought was simply decoration. It was only after I had taken a rubbing that I saw the name ‘WILD’ printed. Fantastic!
It amazing the things you can do with cigarette papers.
Even more amazing, after only a few moments rummaging around some files, I found a perfect match to this stem from an excavation in Sheffield. This truly never happens! It was made by Thomas Wild, a pipemaker working in Rotherham between 1750 and 1790 – which is absolutely spot on for the date of the pottery.
I’m hoping you see the match.
The published version of mine is is in the Clay Pipe report by S.D. White (2015) to be found here (No.13 in the catalogue). The location of Crowden on the Woodhead Pass means it would have had easy access to the market at Rotherham, and thus the pipes. Honestly, it’s not often that you can make a connection like that – the place of consumption to the place of production, and all along a single road. It’s even been made in the same mould. It’s things like this that keep me alive in archaeology, and makes it all worthwhile.
I found a few other fragments in the area of this pipe but nothing as spectacular as the stem, alas, although the bowl sherd on the bottom left is quite nicely decorated, and dates to the same period.
The top two bits are also quite nice, being the back part of the bowl where it attaches to the stem, and with the spur underneath.
The next one is also a great find. From a Victorian dump near Hadfield, it just plopped out of the earth soil right in front of me.
Beautiful!
It is almost complete – missing just a part of the bowl – and looks as though it had never been smoked before it was presumably dropped and broken. It is an interesting shape in that it has a short stem, which means it was made for a manual worker of some form. The last thing you want if you are wheeling a barrow around or swinging a pickaxe is a long stem that would get caught and break. Manual workers would normally break off the stem to create what were called, for obvious reasons, ‘nose warmers’. Manufacturers caught on, and they made short stem pipes for such a market. This one, helpfully, has the manufacturer’s name on the side: Samuel McLardy of Manchester.
Helpful people – sometimes – these pipemakers.
I was going to give you a history of McLardy as a pipe maker, but this blog run by a pipe expert has done an amazing job already (it’s well worth a look). Briefly, then, McLardy was born in Glasgow in 1842, and set up his company in Manchester in 1865 in Miller Street, and then later in Shudehill. By 1895 the company was making over 5 million pipes per year, which is astounding, but in keeping with clay pipes in general, sales dropped, and the company was ended in 1930. There is a sales catalogue from the 1920’s in the above blog, in which the above pipe is listed as #392 (page 1). This provides us with a good date for the pipe – roughly 1920, or possibly a little earlier – very late in the history of clay pipes, which is interesting.
Also from the same dump, was this lovely, if battered, bowl.
Some nice rouletting around the rim.
Large, so late in date (1860-80 ish) it is marked with a crown above the letter ‘L’. A little bit of online research produced this article, which details the ‘Crowned L’ as a trademark of superior Gouda pipemakers of the 17th and 18th centuries. However, by the 19th century, English and Irish pipemakers were freely using the ‘Crowned L’ as a way of claiming that their pipes were of a similar standard, so the trademark became debased, and these pipes are very common. Incidentally, what on earth did we do before the internet? This sort of research would have taken weeks, months even; it took me less that 30 seconds – longer, in fact, to write this. Incredible.
I’ll end on an excellent, although sadly not complete, Victorian pipe. In the spirit of truthfulness, I should admit I found it on a Victorian tip in Lancashire, nowhere near Glossop, but it’s such a wonderfully ugly thing that it deserves its moment of fame.
Ah, the garish Victorian aesthetics!
It is an eagle’s claw holding an egg. Of course it is… what else would you want to see whilst you were puffing away on your pipe – the Victorian equivalent of heavy metal fashion. It is missing two talons, but still quite remarkable. Apparently the Victorians were really into their novelty pipes – football being a particular favourite subject.
I know I keep saying it, but I love clay pipes.
Right, that’s your lot for now. Please send me your pictures or comments about pipes, or indeed about anything vaguely historical/archaeological… all comments are welcome.
But for now look after yourselves and each other, and until next time, I remain.
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
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 18th 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.
Breath in!
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.
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.
Not at all creepy and gravestone looking. Nope. Absolutely not.
The path continues:
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.
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.
Found lurking below some dandelions.
Then there was this:
A bottle top
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.
Always nice to see.
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.
Possibly worn by traffic, the track is quite deep in places.
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.
It has seen better days, but there it is, slowly being overtaken by nature.
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).
The bench mark. This is what 616.77ft above sea level looks like.
The track continues until daylight is reached.
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:
The chapel is clearly marked.
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.
I love Microsoft Paint!
A closer look reveals what might be a mason’s mark. Possibly… but then I really rather badly need glasses.
Squinting, after two glasses of wine, and with the eye of faith…
So then, the pottery:
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.
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?
Ooooh, a mystery object!
I’ll give the answer at the end of the post… no peeking!
In the meantime, I spotted this sticking out of the ground:
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:
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.
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.
A Hague Street ‘H’
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.
The mystery object again.
Here’s a complete one in Bashall Eves in Lancashire:
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:
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.
I love Lean Town – it’s a good walk from my house (even Master Hamnett can do it with the minimum of fuss… mostly), and yet feels oddly distant. The houses are beautiful, and I sometimes feel a tiny pang of jealousy as I pass, so it’s nice to finally do this blog post that has honestly been years in the making. Part 2 is the finds.
Lean Town from the bottom.
As you can see from the above photograph, the houses are perched on the edge of a steep slope. Now, in the Victorian period, there was no rubbish collection – all household waste that couldn’t be fed to livestock, burned in the fire, reused, repaired, sold for scrap, or spread on the food crops, had to be disposed of by the individual. Now, I’ve probably mentioned this before, but humans are essentially lazy creatures. Almost as a rule, they will take only two considerations into account when disposing of rubbish: 1) can I see it? 2) can I smell it?
With this in mind, you can usually tell where a waste dump – or midden – will be by studying the area and asking a simple question: where would I put the it to get it out of my sight and smell, but with the minimum amount of hassle? Houses, situated on a steep slope, hmmm… there’s only one place they would chuck it. Any thoughts?
That’s right, well done, you guessed correctly and win a sherd of pottery (please email me with an address if you want it… I have many!). Over the back wall went the rubbish, and on the footpath below that wall went I. And by Jove, what a trove! This was all lying on the surface on the footpath that would have originally led from the houses to the well. Between myself and Master Hamnett we cleared out all we could see, but wait for the next rainfall, and more will pop up.
A proud parent! Master Hamnett was so excited to be picking the pottery up, stuffing it into his pocket, and walking along holding some in his hand. Like father like son…
So, what did we get? The short answer is masses of early Victorian to Edwardian bits and pieces – woo hoo! I divided the slope area into two sections: one directly below the back wall of the houses, and one a little further west along the slope.
The assemblage from below the houses. Very impressive, and with some interesting bits in it.
The assemblage from further west, also impressive.
Truthfully, they are both rubbish dump areas from the same set of houses, but old archaeological habits die hard, and it is easier to keep them separate than it is to re-separate them if I needed to after joining the groups. In pottery analysis we call this “splitting” as opposed to “lumping” – once lumped, pottery is almost impossible to split.
I’m only going to discuss the ‘interesting’ sherds here – there is a lot of it (see pictures above), and life is too short. As a pottery specialist, I have a system that I follow when studying pottery, the short version of which is that I look at only ‘feature’ sherds (bases, rims, handles, and decorated sherds), and discount the rest (there is also a very much longer version, believe me… I can talk for hours about it).
So then, here we are with the interesting bits. First up, below the houses:
The interesting bits from directly below the houses.
Top row: glass side to a square sauce bottle – possibly HP sauce, but certainly very common in the Late Victorian period; one can’t help but think their food was quite bland. Upper rim is from an open bowl, possibly a cooking pot. It measures 20cm in diameter, and is glazed in what appears to be a slip-ware glaze, which puts it late 18th early 19th century. Lower rim is from a stoneware open bowl with a flat lip, measuring 24cm in diameter – probably a mixing or serving bowl, and mid-19th Century in date. Next to that, the top to a stoneware ink or beer bottle, mid to late 19th Century – I love this, aesthetically, it just so pleasing. Next to that a very fine impressed mug or tankard, 10cm in diameter, with purple glazed body. This is very delicate and fine, and the impressed pattern is lovely, it’s possibly Wedgwood, but if not it would nonetheless have been expensive – which makes me think.
On the left we have a large sherd from a pancheon (a large milk or mixing bowl), with the interior, rim, and upper exterior surface glazed. Here we can see the upper exterior, with the classic dripped surface, which, rather than it being the result of a mistake, is a deliberate decoration. This example is very interesting, as it has been given a manganese ‘mottled ware’ glaze, rather than the usual black, which makes me think this is an early example – mid to late 18th Century, I would say. You can see a more common black example next to it, complete with external drips. Sherds from pancheons are quite common, due in part to most people having one, but also to the fact that they are large (larger examples can be 60-70cm across), which means they produce many sherds when broken. The clay they are made from is always reddish-orange, with pale yellow or grey folds badly mixed into it – don’t ask me why, but it is always so.
Greyish yellow folds within the clay. Is it odd that I find that quite appetising? Actually, perhaps a more important question is should I have shared that information with you, gentle readers?
Above the black pancheon sherd is a sherd of our old friend the feather edged ware bowl. It is another rather nice pearlware vessel, measuring perhaps 20cm in diameter, and was probably a shallow bowl with a flat edge. I have recently done some research on this type, and suggest a date of 1800-1830 for when this was made, which fits perfectly. A quick archaeological aside: when made, and when thrown away are two very different things – I have some of my grandmother’s crockery which I still use, and which must be at least 70 years old. Heirlooms like this do crop up in archaeology, and can cause problems, but generally, I would suggest that 10 years is probably a good innings for an average plate or bowl, especially when you remember there were few carpets and a lot of stone flagged floors.
The green glass fragment has the letter ‘F’ impressed on it, and is late Victorian or later. Next to that is a base to a delicate pearlware eggcup, measuring 4cm. Again, this is quite nice, as is the pearlware base and rim next to it (rim diameter of 18cm so a small plate or soup bowl). There are some spongeware sherds, and some blue and white transfer printed bits, including a green example which quite frankly shows how crappy some of these mass produced pots are – if you look closely, this one has a broken transfer roughly fitted together before being glazed. Above this, there is a moulded base to another very fine 18th Century tankard or mug. Below that, there is a creamware moulded bowl rim, probably quite early (1790-1800?), and again probably quite expensive. Finally, we have a group of stoneware vessels – bowls, storage jars, and the like. These are fairly standard, with impressed decoration (flowers, rouletting, and undulating lines), and date to, well, the Victorian period – made continuously, they were very utilitarian and common.
Next…
The interesting bits from further west.
Top left, is a large, rounded stoneware bottle or closed shape of some sort – beer, perhaps? Certainly Victorian in date. Next to it is a black ware sherd, with an inscibed decorative band on the exterior, and dating to the late-18th and early 19th centuries. The shiny glaze is the result of lead being added. Far right on the top row is a salt-glazed stoneware sherd, again from bottle, and you can just make out where it forms into the neck. This is interesting, as it looks like it is a continental stoneware – imported gin, perhaps? Below that is a base fragment from a small sauce or syrup bottle – the glass is early, judging by the colour, so perhaps mid-Victorian, but do continue into the 1920’s. These are normally hand blown into a mould, and have a rough rim where it is cracked off the mouth piece – check out a good example here. Actually, the whole website What The Victorians Threw Away is an amazing resource – essentially run by another lunatic like me, if you like this blog, you will love that whole project… it’s basically what I would like to do if I had the time and money (donations always gratefully recieved!).
To the left of that is a pair of feather edge fragments, both on a pearl ware background, and both of the same age as the above example. Below these is a clear glass cup with a handle; it’s moulded not cut glass, but is nonetheless quite nice and fancy. Below and left of this is a sponge ware sherd, possibly from a plate, and probably dating to the 1850’s. Above that (ignoring the tiny sherd) is a large fragment of a stoneware jam jar, and to the left of that is a large stoneware storage jar. The base diameter of this is 20cm, which makes it a monster – possibly a cider flagon, or similar. What is interesting is that it has a lot of wear on the bottom, meaning that it has been taken off and on a shelf or floor many times, and suggesting that it was refilled.
Below that is a large, roughly made, sherd from a large (2lb) stoneware jam jar, with the characteristic vertical fluting – once recognised, always seen! This has part of the base intact, with the words “ANCH” impressed into it.
I love it when I come across words. You can see clearly the stoneware fabric, and the glaze peeking through from the sides of the jar
Unless it was ‘ANCHOVIES’, this could only be “MANCHESTER”, and thus it has to be a Whittaker & Son’s jar, the base of which would have originally looked like this:
Love it! Moving on, below this, there are some random sherds, including four interesting ones. Top right, with the black tree on a brown background, is actually from a Mocha Ware pot, and would have originally looked something like this:
Mocha Ware. I can’t make up my mind whether it is truly hideous or whether I like it?
The tree like effect is created by applying, amongst other things, tobacco juice to the slip, where it spreads to create the effect you can see. In terms of date, it begins to be made in the late 18th century, but this is probably early Victorian. There are other Mocha Ware sherds throughout the pile I found in Lean Town (for example, the sherd immediately below this one, or the two sherds below the bottle top in the first photograph), so it seems to have been quite popular here.
In the middle of the group is a base to a pearl ware bowl – quite fine, again, and small, with a base diameter of 6cm. Bottom left is an open bowl of mid-late 18th century date, in a slip-ware glaze. Right of that is another very fine tankard with a moulded base, and dating again to the late 18th century. To the right of the group, there is a delicate blue painted porcelain fragment, again thin and very fine, and quite expensive. To the right, we have some clay pipes – nothing interesting there, I just like them! Below them there is some more of the brown glazed stoneware – bowls and jars, and including a handle from a hefty jug, which in my mind was filled with frothy home-made ale (but then, to be fair, most thing in my mind are).
That’s the end of the pottery, but now for the other material. In archaeology we make a distinction between what we call ‘bulk finds’, that is, material (usually pottery) that occurs in large quantities, and ‘small finds’, which are individual items, unique to the site or objects that can tell us more about the site than the bulk finds. Often there is overlap – a piece of pottery with an inscription, for example – and usually the small finds are what most people would call ‘the goodies’! And so it is here:
The small finds.
The stone on the left is, I think, a whetstone, used for sharpening knives. It is flat on both sides, worn on the surface and edges, and is the perfect shape, size, and stone type. It was probably discarded after being dropped and broken. Top is a glass stopper from a rather nice serving jar or wine carafe. It’s very delicate and beautiful – hand blown and hollow, with delicate cuts to give it a texture and grip around the top. Below this are a pair of marbles – right is brown glass with a white ribbon running through it – it’s worn, well loved, and certainly late Victorian. Left is a small, roughly made, ceramic marble, partly glazed and misshapen. Possibly early Victorian in date. Bottom is a tiny (2mm) glass bead, possibly from a decorated bag or similar. It’s lovely, and one assumes it was lost in the house, swept up, and thrown away with the rubbish. Don’t ask me how I spotted it… it just stood out against the soil.
So there we have it, Lean Town via the rubbish it once threw away, but what can we say? Firstly, the date. A lot of the material dates to the late 18th and early-mid 19th century, that is to the first decades of people living in the houses here. This is interesting, and suggests perhaps that in the late Victorian period, they buried most of their rubbish elsewhere. The second thing that stands out is the quality of the material – it better than you would expect from a simple worker’s household – some of it is very fine and tasteful, and it seems to have been expensive. Certainly the fine tankards, and the possible Wedgwood cup were, but also things like the glass stopper, the porcelain, and the pearl ware – not what I would expect from a humble mill worker’s house. I would suggest that after building it, Elizabeth Hampson lived here, or if not her, then someone like her – someone fairly well-to-do with taste. A little more research might reveal much more.
*
And finally, of course, what’s a blog post without a brace or two of benchmarks? There were several marked on the map:
The upper part of the lane and…
The lower part of the lane, including Lean Town itself and the footbridge.
Number 1 was easy to spot, although I suspect that the wall has been rebuilt, so it might not be in exactly the correct spot. Nonetheless, excellent work by whoever rebuilt the wall to include the benchmark – very conscientious! Here it is in all its glory.
This is what 705ft above see level looks like. Probably. I love the veining on the rock its carved on – each line representing a splashing wave laying down sand on a beach millions of years ago. Wow, that got deep!
Number 2 was also an easy spot, on the wall leading down.
This one is a bit worn, and seems to have been made sometime in the 1950’s or 60’s, as it doesn’t show on the earlier OS maps, so we have to go metric for this spot height – 201.34m above sea level (which Google informs me is 660.5ft in old money)
Number 3 should have been on the south east corner of the row of houses – I looked and couldn’t see anything (I didn’t look closely – nobody wants to be ‘that man who peered over our gate’, that’s how rumours start). According to this bench mark spotter’s website, the mark is definitely still there, but alas, I have no photo to show you.
Number 4, however, was there, on the stone base to the bridge across Bray Clough Brook.
The bridge has never struck me as being particularly old, and the bench mark doesn’t show on maps until the 1960’s, so I presume this is contemporary with Number 2 above. Anyway, here we are at 180.85m above sea level.
Bray Clough Brook joins Long Clough Brook a little farther upstream, and in turn it joins Glossop Brook at the bottom of Primrose Lane – I blogged about the confluence here.
Right then, I think that’s about it (I can hear you, you know, breathing a sigh of relief). I will try and be a bit more frequent in my posting… and try to tackle smaller subjects! When I started to write this, I really had no idea how large a post it would become! But there you go. Please, any comments and ideas are always welcome. More soon, I promise.
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.
Hague Street runs NW-SE, and an unnamed road runs due south from Hague Street, to Lean Town (circled in red).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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