Re: Priestly Clough
I and many of my pals, girls and boys, who use to live on and around Higher Antley Street in the 50’s use to play in the clough all the way from Highams Mill up to the Five Arches. We’d build dens and dams, light fires, climb trees, catch minnows, frogs and newts and go nesting in the spring. We’d leave home after breakfast and not come home until tea time. I remember when the Red Barn had a roof and an upper floor; it even had a few windows left to smash. The trains also use to set the embankment on fire and we’d nick coal from the sides of the track to make fires in our dens. We also use to put pennies on the lines and wait for the trains to come passed and flatten them.
It’s about ten years since I walked in the clough and I was recently told they’ve just demolished Highams’s Mill. I’ve looked on an old OS map and I can’t see any rights of way through the clough other than the lane that runs down past Neloson’s farm over the river then the railway bridge up to the playing fields. I think this road/ track is an unclassified county road and if so will be on the list of streets held by the local or county council.
Also as a young lad, I use to walk up through the Clough to get to Howarth Art Gallery when I was supposed to be at Church on a Sunday morning. My dad and mum didn’t go very much but they use to make me. They eventually found out and we had an almighty row, I’d be about 16 then and the clough gave way to the snooker halls and later the pubs.
I still dream about the clough, happy days.
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