Church's Historic Waterfront - Page 3

JohnW · 24-08-2004, 11:01

What kind of operation was carried out at the building?

pendy · 24-08-2004, 12:46

Going back to the old Antley pub, when they turned it into a Muslim girls school, did they have to exorcise the spirits ..?

Sorry.

Doug · 24-08-2004, 13:18

Just a point here, Can anyone remember the Iron Barge that was semi submerged just past the Church yard. I think there where two at one time, the second being further up stream towards the pool. I think they where colliers, they had an open load area amid ships, covered bow and just a small platform at the stern…..it was this type of barge that I use to see being towed two at a time by a diesel powered river boats. The guy’s on the colliers had to walk them under Church Kirk Bridge to stop then hitting the side. If you look you can see these no toe path on the other side from the Kirk.

One more question, Is the chain bridge still there, it was a narrow affair with Chain guards that lowered when it was opened. It was between Church Kirk Bridge and the swing bridge before Dill Hall Farm if I remember correctly.

Pendy

Why Pendy?, do you think they may have had pendygeists? No, oh dear, pendygeists = poltergeists Sorry…………………..I won’t do it again. lol.

pendy · 24-08-2004, 13:21

Has to be said, I am no stranger to pubs, or to spirits. In fact, so far as my local bar, you could say that I haunt it ...

Acrylic-bob · 24-08-2004, 17:48

The Warehouse was built by the Hargreaves' of Broad Oak, so it seems reasonable to suppose it handled printed calico at first.

Doug · 24-08-2004, 17:55

I'm not sure of my information at this time, but I'm led to believe that Cotton Weaving was conducted on the premises some time between the wars. Could the height of the arch having anything to do with drying the Calico mentioned by bob?.

Doug · 24-08-2004, 17:57

Just found this.

ACCRINGTON BOROUGH COUNCIL

ARMS: Gules on a Fesse Argent a Shuttle fessewise proper in base two Printing Cylinders issuant therefrom a Piece of Calico (paisley pattern) also proper on a Chief per pale Or and Vert a Lion rampant Purpure and a Stag current Or. CREST: On a Wreath of the Colours an Oak Branch bent from the sinister chevronwise sprouting and leaved proper fructed Or.

Motto 'INDUSTRY AND PRUDENCE CONQUER'.
Granted 26th August 1879.

The shuttle represents cotton spinning, and the cylinders and calico the industry of printing that material. The stag is from the arms of the local family of Hargreaves, of Broad Oak, who were closely connected with calico printing. The lion is that of the ancient family De Lacy, who held Accrington by grant of Henry II.
The oak branch is trebly allusive to the name: it is bent into the shape of its initial letter; oak (Anglo-Saxon ac) expresses the first syllable; and the acorns recall the old form of the name, Akerenton.

Acrylic-bob · 28-08-2004, 19:10

I have paid another visit to Church's Historic Waterfront and I have pleasure in including the following snaps which better illustrate Tealeaf's question.

I am also including a photo of the back of the Commercial Hotel. Considering that the Hotel was built in 1834, I think this is little short of CRIMINAL.

janet · 29-08-2004, 09:15

Anyone know who owns the pub, and why nothing is being done about the state it is in.

WillowTheWhisp · 30-08-2004, 20:37

When I said "tree" I was exaggerating ever so slightly. (Islamia girls school/ex-pub) There's something growing from the troughing.

Didn't Thwaites Brewery own the Copmmercial at one time?

Darby · 31-08-2004, 05:43

Quote: A-Bob
"I am also including a photo of the back of the Commercial Hotel. Considering that the Hotel was built in 1834, I think this is little short of CRIMINAL"

I wholeheartedly agree. When will some of the Heritage money be spend on something like the commercial?. Or is it seen as a "private venture"?

Acrylic-bob · 31-08-2004, 06:58

HBC appear to have a problem funding anything which carries with it a committment to maintenance. That is why we lost Oak Hill Mansion and why the parks are in such a desperate state. Have a look at their website, in there you will find a number of reports which reveal the attitude of the council to matters of heritage.

The council says it spends 99% of it's budget on what it calls 'Core Services' and has to seek external funding for anything else. Core Services, thats a good one! With the amount of money that the Council collect from us and from Central Government and from Europe we should have 'Core Services' that are second to none and a shining example to the rest of the country. Instead we have filthy streets and a council that appears incapable of getting anything right at the first attempt. They have been responsible for collecting the same refuse from the same areas for the last thirty years and yet to hear them talk you would think that they only started to tackle the problem last week. If it was only refuse collection that was problematic that would be bad enough, but this goes right through every department.

In such a climate of institutionalised incompetence, what chance does our rapidly vanishing heritage stand?

Darby · 31-08-2004, 08:26

A sad state of affairs A-Bob...."Responsibility" is no longer an accepted word, not in political circles at least. And certainly not in HBC it seems!

Tealeaf · 02-09-2004, 17:13

Right....back to the subject of the warehouse & the 2 questions I originally posed, one of which has been correctly answered by A-B., that the rear design allowed for loads to be moved from/to barge-warehouse-cart in whatever combination neccessary, unlike most other warehouses or wharfs which simply backed on the the canal and loading/unloading was restricted to 2 of the combination.

But the genius of the design does'nt stop there, and that can be seen in the height of the entrance arch, which at first glance appears to waste potential storage space. Some of you, however, may be aware of the concept of "just-in-time-delivery", i.e. where fresh produce is delivered several times daily to ASDA by an artic wagon which draws up & everything is offloaded from the back. But this modern stuff is pretty primitive compared to what the Church Warehouse allowed for.

Look at A-B's last set of piccy's, and the one taken looking up into the roof of the arch. You can clearly see a loading hatch....goods could be hoisted straight up from the back of a lorry and straight into the warehouse. Alternatively, they could be slung to the side and delivered into the first floor loading bays.....all of course, within the shelter of the elements. It all means that a large cart can come in, get unloaded & be reloaded at the same time...as the jargon goes, "minimising turn-around time." I do not think that most modern warehouse storage and lorry delivery systems are yet capable of doing this.

So there we go. We have a fully integrated, flexible, warehouse/storage/transport system which fulfills it's design function and will no doubt look pretty when/if it's all cleaned up. I do not know of any similar Georgian/Victorian industrial building which fulfills it's criteria as well as this, and it certainly puts these modern warehouse white boxes with their multitude of loading bays to shame.

Bazf · 15-09-2004, 23:59

Just read a good book about leeds liverpool by Mike Clarke.
The History of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal

Originally the Leeds & Liverpool Canal was not going to serve the larger towns of East Lancashire. It was planned to follow a route through Padiham, to the north of the River Calder, crossing into the Ribble Valley over an aqueduct at Whalley Nab. Limestone was thought to be the canal’s most important traffic, and this route would have enabled the quarries at Clitheroe to be served by a branch.
The canal was expensive to build, and only the sections from Leeds to Gargrave and from Liverpool to Wigan were opened by 1777 when money ran out. Because of the American War of Independence, it was another thirteen years before money for further work could be raised. By that time the canal company had discovered that coal had become a more important cargo than lime. The builders of the canal now wanted to serve the growing industrial towns of East Lancashire and the local coalfield, so the route of the canal was altered to pass through Burnley and Blackburn. The canal reached Burnley in 1796 and was extended to Enfield Wharf, near Accrington, in 1801, some 31 years after construction of the canal had been begun.
As the Leeds and Liverpool Canal winds its tortuous way through East Lancashire it seems to carefully avoid Accrington. However, when the canal’s route through East Lancashire was planned in 1793, it was to continue up the valley of the Hydburn, crossing it at a point close to the old Grammar School on Blackburn Road. The proposed Haslingden Canal was to join it here, creating a waterway link with Bury and Manchester. Had this happened there would have been a wharf near the junction where goods to and from the town could have been handled.
Instead the route was altered. The Peel family asked the canal company to avoid crossing the Hyndburn above their textile print works at Peel Bank. At that time it was one of the largest factories in the world and used the river's waters during the printing process. Building the embankment for the canal to cross the Hyndburn would have interrupted this supply and caused production problems. Instead, the canal was built downstream, rejoining the original line at a right angle junction at Church.
Much of the land for the canal deviation had to be purchased from the Petre family of Dunkenhalgh. Although they were quite happy for the canal to be built, they requested that the towpath was made on the side of the canal away from their house and lands.They hoped that this would prevent poachers from gaining easy access to their estate!
A further nine years were to pass before the canal opened to Blackburn as there were difficulties in crossing the many rivers and streams around Church, and the deep cutting at Sidebeet also took time to complete.
The canal finally reached Blackburn in 1810, forty years after the construction of the canal had begun. Seven boats were reported as sailing in procession from Enfield to Blackburn on the occasion of the opening; two children and three men fell into the water, and one man seriously injured his hand whilst firing a small cannon as the boats arrived at Eanam Wharf.