Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

I drive sections of Burnley Road fairly regularly and today I got a flashback... I think.
I remember seeing a cable "car" system - hoppers taking materials from quarries in the Coppice area down to the brickworks. Somewhere near Bolton Ave I think.
Did I really see them or have I dreamt it? I say this because the more I think about it the more I can't recall when this was!

Ian

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

It seems to ring bells with me to.

There is one on teh way into Kirby Lonsdale that is still working.

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You must have been dreaming MovedtoBolton, cable cars going over Burnley Rd, never heard owt as daft :rolleyes: :D

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

It was there all right -I remember em well as a small lad in the 60's - used to take stone etc from the quarry at the side of the coppice to the Nori brick works

Cant remember when it stopped and was dismantled, must have been mid to late 60's

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Thanks Guys - It's reassuring to know the old grey matter still works, even if it is only in flashback mode :)
I spent a lot of time around Carlisle Rd and Heaning Ave in 70 and71 and I'm sure the cables had gone by then. Ironically I lived near the cemetery for several years in the 90's and had no recollections of this bit of Accy history at all!!!

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Atarah post this pic in 2004 in a thread titled
http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f...rick-4064.html

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Err isn't that the same Pic and thread I linked too :rolleyes:

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So it is :o sorry about that

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Think you were just to subtle KSH :rolleyes:

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

i remember cable cars from quarry to redack brick works in huncoat and there is a tunnell under burnley rd roughly accrington side of hillock vale and i have been through it wen i was a lad. in 1957.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

it crossed Burnley Rd, where that housing estate was built just up from the Whittakers, or the Cemetry pub in days gone by.:)

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

The cable car didn't come all the way from the quarry, though. At the quarry site itself, there was a little railway which went across a small bridge over the path that led down to Kingsway. Small trucks transported the clay down the hill to a point near Burnley road and it was then transferred to the cable cars.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

the cable cars did indeed go down to the
redac brickworks not the nori
it also had a great big wired safety net running across burnley road
so as to catch any falling shale

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

thanks ksh.for photo of cable car crossing burnley rd a pal of mine about 1964 one sunday set the tubs going done a lot damage lucky i was scared and di d not go i think he just got a fine he was a within grove lad some of you older members may know him he would be 57 now

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

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I think there was a lodge in that area to, am I right.

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There certainly was a lodge there, I remember that as it disappeared much more recently. The new estate "Foxwood Chase" is built on the site.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Did these cable cars link up to a railway line that ran down behind Accy cricket club ? I remember playing down there as a kid and the sleepers and track were still visible, I remember there being a bridge down there too.

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no the ariel cars only fed the redac brickworks
the railway behind the cricket pavilion locally called the donkey track
ran from the main line to the nori brickworks at altham
transreing coal one way and red bricks tother

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

no but the line yer on about used to have a great bogie, which used to gather great speed down the slope when we snaffled it.:D

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thanks beechy for the flashback to the railway that went past the cricket ground i used to go in huncoatbrick sdgs signal box has a lad when the loco used to come fron nori brickworks with a train of bricks there .is a railway mag called railway bylines july 2007 issue done a few pages on the railway from huncoat mine to altham and nori some good photos in there i am sure you can get back copies i know w h smiths sell it if are intrested

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Digressing a little, but do you remember all those cylindrical concrete blocks on their side on this land .. what were they all about ? Good fun though, jumping from one to another.

Was also good for bike rides, little paths through the grass .. sorta' mini scrambling track. :)

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there was a load of them dumped behind our houses on laneside 50s/60s
me mam always told me they were used to block of burnley road during the war ?
unless someone knows better :confused:

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Yes. Beechy that's where I meant .. the land at the side of the cricket ground and behind Laneside. Well, sounds a good explanation to me, would be interesting to have it confirmed though, wouldn't it ?

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well burt where did you live when you saw them i lived in huncoat in 1957 in Burnley lane and i remember my oldest brother and dad worked at the Brickworks amy bracewell

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

I have only just spotted this post, the lodge referred too above was in fact two reservoirs, run by the Accrington water works board, (or so I have always been led to believe).

I think the borough is now linked in to the Hawswater pipeline to Manchester which runs through Huncoat and under what is now Foxwood Chase, It is in fact four large diameter pipes.

There was also a large flooded old shale quarry with a ginny wagon track alongside that carried shale from the new quarry by Kingsway to the aerial flight is it was known that carried the tubs of shale to the Redac brickyard.

I, along with other newly started workers aged 15-16 or so were sent with hammers to knock the ice from the ginny wagon tracks and trucks.That was when we had proper winter's. (By god I still remember the trudge up through the snow). Yours Taddy.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Hi Amy, did your dad and brother work at the Redac in the 1960s? if so what are their full names ? as I presume, rightly or wrongly that Bracewell is your married name; I worked at the Redac from 1962 until 1967 and have lived in the village since 1954 so I could well know you and you family. Yours Taddy

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

I remember them,Redac bricks was the sign fixed to the so called safety guards,i think they still used it till well in the 70s.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Yes, you are right about the Redac sign Jack, I have a picture of the Aerial flight with the Redac sign on both sides of the,as you say, (so called safety guards)

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Amy's maiden name was Bracewell. She had a younger brother, Ralph, and maybe an older brother too. I will let her know about this thread being resurrected.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Ralph Bracewell does ring a bell in the old subconcious, but I just cannot bring him or the family to mind, maybe with a little prompting from this forum the memory's will return.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

The ariel flight crossed over Burnley Road and had a net under it to protect the cars etc from falling clay. I think it supplied Clay from the Quarries on the coppice to the Huncoat Brick works. Known as "Redac Bricks" I think

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Hi, if you look back to the start of this thread it tells you all about the aerial flight, Redac, etc. Yours Taddy

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Did R.Bracewell used to be in haulage etc.?

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No - that's a different family. Ralph has a sister, Amy and a brother whose name I have forgotten.

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Hi Taddy, I've just read this post. I'm trying to find a picture of Redac. My Dad, Auntie & Grandad worked there. Maybe yuo knew them. Dad was Reg Barnes (a foreman I think who may have worked nights& lived on Yorkshire Street until 1964). Auntie was Mary Haworth & Grandad was Joseph Tierney. Thanks, Alison Conboy (nee Barnes).

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Hello Alison,I have only just spotted your post, I don't use this Bill Gate's contraption to often, the predictive text does my head in.
As to your question, yes I do have an arial photograph of the Redac Brickworks the photo also shows the old railway viaduct that carried the coal from Broad Meadows Colliery, (Huncoat Pit), to Altham Coke Works.
As for Reg, I worked under him and Billy Middleton from 1963 until 1965 until I was trained as one of the three forklift truck drivers employed by Redac.
If you would like a copy of the above mentioned photo please P.M. me
Stay happy as ever, Your's Taddy
P.S. did you by any chance once live on Burnley Lane in the village ?

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

I can remember very vividly the "Cable Cars" going across Burnley Road. To my knowledge they were used for taking material to the NORI brick works.

Cheers

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

The cable cars, IE. the arial flight that ran across Burnlley Road fed the "REDAC"
brickyard, not the Nori, I have a photograph of the flight with the name "Redac"
emblazened on both sides.
The Nori, Enfield and Whinney hill brickyards had their own quarries on Whinney Hill, the Whinney Hill, or "Plastic", as it used to be known as is still in operation.
Your's, TADDY.

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I have been re-perusing this and I think that Ralph and Amy's mother was always known affectionatly as "Irish Ellen"; I have no doubt that Amy can put me right on that.Also I think that Ralph may have attended Woodnook School;
Again I could stand to be corrected.
Your's Taddy.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Hi Taddy,
I stand corrected, it was indeed REDAC.

Thanks & Cheers

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

No problem, I remember the flight well, as a fifteen or sixteen year old along with others of the same age, we had to clear the guard netting under it if the spillage from the tubs became a danger to folk underneath. No health and safety rules in those day's.
All the best, Your's, Taddy.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

I was in the Accy Mall Heritage Centre today and had a great chat with 'Attarah' who is a fount of local knowledge and a truly lovely lady!
We talked about lots of stuff and as I was brought up on Within Grove I too remember the Aerial Cable System over Burnley Road. It traversed the road just before the St Augustine's Vicarage, which was the next house on the right, as you head towards The Griffin's Head pub.:drink:
I too remember the triangle of rail track and tipper trucks at the quarry and the one at the end of the Cableway near to the REDAC works:signntme:
at the bottom of the football pitch on the spoil hill, used now by Huncoat United FC.:wave:

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The one at the Redac end of the cableway was known as the "Angle Station", I have climbed up it more times then I care to remember; when one of the buckets wheels became detached from the ropeway someone had to go up with a sledge hammer in order to knock the said tub off. The biggest bind was that it nearly always happened in the thick of winter.

Your's Taddy.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Hi Taddy, thanks for your reply. I would love a copy of the photo. Would you be able to send it as an email attachment? My Mum, Dad, sisters Linda, Susan & Geoff lived in the bottom house on Yorkshire Street until just before I was born in Feb 1964. We moves to Langdale Close, on the estate for my arrival because there wasn't any room left for a cot at Yorkshire St. Don't know a lot about Redac except that I spent my early years playing in the piles of bricks and sliding down the slope of the quarry & pond that was nect to Fish Lane. I did go to school in the village though. Unfortunately my Dad died in 1972 so I didn't get many years with him. If you can send the pic via email my address is:- [email protected]. Many thanks, Alison.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Some excellent photos can be found at
Huncoat Garden Village | Regeneration Project for a better tommorrow
The gallery includes the aerial photo and another showing the rope way over Burnley Road looking towards Accrington. It clearly shows the letters ‘REDAC’.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Hi Alison, I am sorry but I do not know how to send photo's, pics, etc via Bill Gates's infernal machine as I am only a 72 year old learner with this new! stile technology, Sorry.
Your's, Taddy.

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Alison,
Try the approach I showed earlier above.
I have also sent you an E Mail with the photo attached.
I hope you can access it.
Bob Mitchell

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Oh Taddy...it is easy easy...it must be...I can do it.
There is a lesson somewhere on the site which goes through it step by step....and I posted some pictures to make it even easier.
Thar nod a larner if thar learns nowt tha nose.

Sorry about the lapse into cotton talk.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

Ha,Ha,Ha, Everything is easy when one is interested and knows how to do it.
give me a hammer and a big screwdriver and I will build anything but this Bill Gates's infernal machine is not really something that I am over interested in.
Your's Taddy.

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I sympathise with you, Taddy I'm in the same boat

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seems yer not alone then taddy me also.

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Well, I used to think I was rubbish....but I am a learner too....ready to give it a go....and really the technology isn't new anymore.
I am sure I did some work on the internet for my city and guilds qualification....and that would be around 1987.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

A City and Guilds qualification ? I can't even manage a Village and Street certificate but I am good with dogs and ferrets.
Stay happy as alway's, Your's Taddy.

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Oh yes Taddy....a city and guilds in adult education....it was not really something I enjoyed doing, but was seconded from my job....they wanted me to teach student nurses....so I did it.
Much of it was practical. So, that was enjoyable....and I did well for a 'numb nooker ' who left school with no qualifications.
It is amazing what you can do when you are pushed(and being paid).

And anyone who can look out for dogs and ferrets is OK by me.

Re: Huncoat Cable Cars !
 

I think this is one of the Huncoat Cable Cars (photographed on the Huncoat Trail on the Coppice)