2 Old Road

Tony Beswick has added to this story and explains how the address was changed:

I had an office at 53 Buxton Road, Furness Vale, and used to pass this building daily on my way to the Post Office.

As you say it was once owned by Eastwood Cash Registers and the registered address was not 2 Old Road but 67 Buxton Road. There was never anyone in there when I passed. However I traced the owner to a namesake of mine but no relation called John Beswick. I think he lived up Whaley Lane in WB. Well I managed to contact him and he told me he had used it as a store room and workshop. He was a builder just the same as I was.
We agreed a price and I obtained Planning Permission to convert it to a house. But I had trouble selling it as prospective buyers could not find it. The 67 Buxton Road address came from the access from Buxton Road via the platform leading to the doorway on the top floor of the building.
I again went back to the Planning Department and asked for a name change to the property. They could not help but put me in touch with the street naming department who did quite quickly agree that the property should be known as 2 Old Road.

Tony Beswick

Some Dove Holes Secrets

Before I went to school in Buxton I spent the first 13 years of my life living in Dove Holes and that really is my specialist historical subject. Some Dove Holes historians aren’t really historians at all. But a few are very knowledgeable about the village.
I lived at number 4 Cross Cottages which later became 65 Meadow Lane which was a real shame but some things you can’t change.
When we went to Dove Holes C of E School we would always be early because our parents used to have to go out to work so a gang of lads used to set off and we would go over the railway bridge and past the 3 massive hills and onto the A6 and then up to the school. We later found out the hills were a petrol dump. It had spiked railings all the way around to stop people getting in. I can’t recall ever seeing anyone in there. We would run down with a stick hitting each rail as we went. Rat at tat tat and this multiplied by six or seven lads. What a noise.
Later we found out that these green hills were massive steel holding tanks covered in turf so the Germans wouldn’t notice them.
Some times if we were a bit late we would climb over the wall at the far end of the railway bridge and run down the well worn track and over the sidings where the train tankers brought the fuel and we would emerge on to Alexander Road. I suppose it was a bit dangerous but we never worried at the time and it would make up a few minutes in time to get to the school playground for a quick kick about before assembly. What we didn’t bargain for was the headmaster, Mr Evans, hiding just around the corner outside Williams and Deacons Bank. As we went past each one of us would get a clip around the ears and were told we would be dealt with after assembly.
After assembly we were called out to the front, bent over and given a minute’s worth of thrashing with the slipper.
Years later a few of us were riding our bikes down Dale Road towards Peak Dale and just past the Dove Holes sewerage works on our right was an old wagon track opposite the entrance to the RMC Plant. None of us had ever been up that track before but for some reason on this particular day we decided to have a look.
There in a hollow, out of site of the road, were the very same black railings and the very same 3 green hills.

Eventually the three hills in Dove Holes were demolished and Horseshoe Avenue was built on the site. During the demolition an old school friend of mine approached the removal contractors and said he had lived there all his life but had never been inside and could they show him round. One of the men agreed and invited him in.
He then said come and have a look at this and took him to a doorway that went into a tunnel. They went down into the tunnel and there was a roadway from the Dove Holes site to the Dale Road site.
Apparently it was big enough to take large vehicles from one place to the other.
The tunnel must have gone under the A6 and as far as I know it is still there.

Tony Beswick

Dove Holes C of E Primary School

 If you were driving down from Buxton towards Dove Holes you would eventually come to Katy’s Diner on the left hand side in the lay-by. Behind that Diner are the remains of Bibbington’s Lime Tip or Bibby’s Tip as I used to know it. It has now mostly been removed and dumped in the old Victory Quarry on the opposite side of the road. The tip was huge, pure white and as kids we used to climb up to the top of it; I dread to think what would have happened to us if we fell off the large end closest to Dove but thankfully we never did.

My Dad told me that in the bad winter of 1947 some photographers from the national papers came to take photos of it believing to be the largest snowdrift in Britain.
When you could manage to get to the top you could look down on the blue pond below where the level never goes down no matter how hot the summer is. But looking down that is how this pond got its local name: The Cup and Saucer Pond. Because it looked just like a cup and saucer from high up.
So it is perhaps appropriate that the Diner has a cup and saucer right at the side of it.

 Strange but true.

 

Tony Beswick.

Flat Pack Churches

“You can buy anything from Harrod’s", so it was once said. You could certainly buy a church, or at least a Tin Tabernacle as these prefabricated, corrugated iron buildings came to be called. The parish church at Maesbury in Shropshire, illustrated here by Maggie Humphrys, was one such structure. Supplied by the Knightsbridge store in 1906, for just £120, it was delivered on the back of a lorry and assembled by two men.

Harrod’s catalogue offered a range of "flat-pack" buildings,; they were just one of a number of companies to supply them.

The technique of producing corrugated iron and galvanising with zinc to prevent corrosion was developed in the mid 19^th century. A range of buildings was available including churches, sports pavilions, village halls, railway structures, warehouses and even a diminutive shepherd’s hut. The town of Oban, in Scotland had a Roman Catholic cathedral built of corrugated tin until it was replaced in 1932 with a stone building designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

A Question about The Fernilee Worker's Village

In the 1930s when the Fernilee Reservoir was under construction in the Goyt Valley, large numbers of workers were recruited for the project. In order to house them, a temporary village was constructed using pre-fabricated buildings.  The village included a canteen and licensed bar.

The 1932 photograph, from Tony Beswick's collection shows the line of wooden buildings, and waiting alongside, a North Western bus, which no doubt provided transport for the "villagers".

Tony poses the question, "When the job was completed what happened to the temporary structures and where did they end up?"

Chris Simpson has provided the following story: 
"Most of these temporary buildings were sold off on completion of the work; incidentally Jack of Jack's cafe fame had a small wooden shop whilst all the construction was going on that provided essentials to the workers and their families which was situated at the top of The Green (opposite the village Hall). One day a local lad was given a beating by some of the children from the site Jack closed his shop and refused to re open until the culprits were found and made to apologise, apparently it didn't take long. There was another wooden structure which stood on the left hand side on old road above the village hall which was used by the Manchester Jewish community as a holiday home only seen a picture of it from a distance so you never know someone may have a photo?"

Several people responded by mentioning that at least two of these buildings ended up at Cadster.  Tony Beswick explains the fate of these structures:

Chris Wilman is nearly correct regarding the ones in the field at Cadster but they were not built round. The 2 new bungalows were built to the rear and when the people moved out into those new houses the temporary huts were then demolished and carted away.

Further up the hill, just on the WB site was Rookery farm and there were 3 up there. Peter Hodgson lives there now but it was formerly owned by his Dad George and his Mum Nora. After Nora died Peter lived in the prefab with his Dad but got planning permission to demolish it and build a stone bungalow. He built around it up to floor level and as soon as George passed away he built his new home.

There was still another one up Diglee Road in Furness Vale. It was down the side of that marvellous house Heatherby and there was a long track down to it wide enough for a car. The place and the land went up for sale eventually and the owners of Heatherby bought it, demolished the prefab and built a new house on the site. It was sold under sealed bids and I went to have a look at it and it was obvious that someone lived there until just before it was sold but I have no idea who that person was even though I lived very close to the property..

Before I go; remember that there was a café where Roland Melland's house is now. Roland lived in one of the stone cottages and the filling station sold Jet petrol. Remember that all you older motorists? And behind the filling station was a huge café called The Jet Café which stood on the site of Roy Melland's bungalow and a very interesting place it was as well.

Tony Beswick.

The following photograph shows one of the last pit ponies to work at Furness Clough Colliery. Behind can be seen the ex Fernilee hut in the Diglee Road location mentioned by Tony.

Peak Forest

Here is a photograph and quiz question from Tony Beswick. It shows the familiar crossroad at Peak Forest. But now there are traffic lights there.

As usual with these types of lights there is always a button to change the lights to red so that you can cross safely. But at this particular cross road the control button, although certainly there, is never used by pedestrians. The question is: "Why". Answer later in the week.

Vera Brittain and Buxton

“The myth of female inferiority has always been rooted in the contention that men die for their country but women do not”, Vera Britain  was author of Testament Of Youth and mother to Baroness Shirley Williams former British socialist member of parliament.

Having delayed her university education after a year, to work as a nurse treating the wounded who had survived the trenches of the First World War, Brittain was bereaved of four of her closest friends, including her beloved brother and her fiance. Exhausted and emotional she vowed that if she were to survive the war, she would do everything in her power to immortalise the memory of those lost to her. .
Her family moved from Macclesfield to Buxton when she was aged eleven. Despite the comforts of a villa in The Park, an exclusive corner of a fashionable English spa, she detested life in the town despising it’s Edwardian formalities. Educated mostly at boarding school and Somerville College Oxford she returned in 1915 to serve at the Devonshire Royal Hospital which at the time offered severely wounded soldiers, hydropathic treatments.
After the war she returned to Oxford to read History where a friendship developed with the author Winifred Holtby, known for her novel South Riding. They remained friends until Holtby’s death in 1936, sharing a house together, both determined to become prominent on the London literary scene.

Testament Of Youth, Brittain’s second novel, was published in 1933 and was an immediate success selling out on the day of publication and remaining a best seller to this day. This was the story of her wartime experiences.

From the early 1920’s she became one of England’s leading pacifists, her convictions becoming one of the major driving forces in her life. During the Second World War Vera served as a fire warden. Surprisingly her name appeared
in the Black Book of two thousand people who were to be arrested following a German invasion.

Vera had married George Catlin in 1925, a political scientist and philosopher. Their son John was an artist and author. Their daughter the previously mentioned Shirley Williams was born in 1930.

On a badly lit London Street on her way to give a talk on pacifism Vera Brittain stumbled and fell breaking an arm and her little finger, she nevertheless addressed the audience that awaited her. Thus beginning a physical decline that led to her death in 1970 aged 76. In her will she requested that her ashes be scattered on the grave of her brother Edward in Italy, stating “For nearly fifty years much of my heart has been in that Italian village cemetary”.   

Low Leighton Wesleyan Mission

Tony Beswick has sent this 1927 postcard showing the chapel at Low Leighton, New Mills. A pre-fabricated "tin tabernacle", the chapel was opened in February 1911.

New Mills suffered from a German air raid in July 1942 and the mission was destroyed. New Mills Fire Station now occupies the site. "Whitfield Villas", the semi detached houses just beyond the Mission was also hit  by a bomb. A ten year old girl died and five people were wounded at Low Leighton. There were other casualties and further damage in other parts of New Mills and Hayfield. 

The house at the nearest end of the row appears to be much larger than the others. This is deceptive for the entrance is at the side. There are signs in the ground floor windows suggesting that this might have been a commercial or business premises. Nowadays, it is divided into two flats.

Our article of 16th November 2019 "Flat Pack Churches" tells of other local "tin tabernacles"

A Whole Lot Of Gas

In 1877 the Manchester Times reported on a gale during which, the Whaley Bridge Gasworks was struck by lightining. "About ten o'clock there was a very vivid flash of lighting which alighted at the Gasworks, causing considerable damage. The massive ironwork which supported the gasholder was struck by the elctric fluid, and the greater portion of it completely destroyed. Two of the supporting pillars were smashed, and nearly the whole of the framework fell with a loud crash. One of the iron girders alighting upon the holder pierced it, and the gas escaped. The consequence was, the whole of the district was put in darkness". 

A lengthy contoversy began in summer of 1925 when the Gas Company proposed building a new gasworks at Horwich End. The company had purchased land which had been reserved as open space and faced considerable opposition. The company supplied gas to  Whaley Bridge, Chapel en le Frith, Chinley, Bugsworth and Furness Vale. They operated two gasworks, one at Whaley Bridge and the other at Bradshaw Edge, Chapel-en-le-Frith and proposed replacing both with the new works.

In June 1926, the Guardian reported: "There was considerable opposition to the scheme by the Fernilee and Taxal Parish Councils, the Manchester and District Town Planning Advisory Committee, and other authorities on the ground that the new works would mar the entrance to the famous Goyt Valley. At the public enquiry into the matter, the opposition described the proposed works as "a rusty lock on the gate of the Goyt".

Fernilee Parish Council offered to pay as much for the land as the Gas Company and would turn it into a recreation ground. Cost of the new gasworks was estimated at £45,000

Despite the many protests, the planning application was eventually approved and the gasworks built. 

One of the Horwich End gasholders. Photo courtesy of Tony Beswick.

Writing about the gasholders, Tony Beswick observed:  "On the gas holders you will notice the metal walls externally are not straight. They appear to have troughs running down the sides and if you look closely these are hinged at the bottom so that they go up or down depending whether gas is going into or out of the holders. These troughs were tight to the side of the metal panels and were full of water and they were always full and as they went up and down you could see from above if any of the panels had any gas escapes by looking for gas bubbles in the water. Simple but ingenious."

Gasholders were usually of one, of two designs, rigid or water sealed. Those at Horwich end are of the latter type. Theseare described extensively in a Wikipedia article:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder
The priciple is that the lower structure is a water tank in which the gas tank floats. The gas tank is open-bottomed and will rise or sink according to the quantity of gas which it holds; the water keeps the gas at a constant pressure. 

Tony Beswick wrote a further description of the gasworks: 

"One of the gas holders is smaller than the other one but I never realised this when I walked past them thousands of times when I lived in Horwich End.

Before these massive structures were built there were two smaller gas holders: one that served Whaley Bridge and one that served Horwich End.

The one that served Horwich End was within the Botany Land. I've got old maps that show that one.

The one that served WB was situated in the old Council yard and I'm fairly sure I have maps showing this one as well. To reach the yard you would drive down Bridge Street past Whiteley's leather and milling works on the right and drive round the back. I imagine you can still walk around even today. It was a public footpath up to the Bings. Half way up was a metal kissing gate; as I can't get out just yet I don't know if it is still there.

Also in the Council yard was a mortuary and bodies were stored in there. There was always a window at high level left slightly ajar and as kids we would go round and take a look inside. Thankfully I saw no bodies".

The discovery of North Sea Gas in the mid 1960s led to the end of so called "town gas" and the Horwich End works were demolished in the mid 1970s. 

 

 The retort house tower, just before demolition. photo courtesy of Tony Beswick