Mick Paskins Blog

Barnoldswick

Barnoldswick

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  • Fri 2nd Jun
    A long drive, and, unusually, not made longer by the M25, which was on rare best behaviour. Not so the motorway round Manchester, very slow. But, we arrived at the Rolls Royce Leisure Centre in Barnoldswick in time for fish and chips. Long way to go…..
  • Sat 3rd June
    Caught the bus into Skipton. We had been there before many years ago, and liked it then.
    Saturday is market day, quite a large number of stalls sprawling down the high street. Enjoyed looking around, an astonishing number of stalls (and shops in the town) selling sweets, and elsewhere, a very persuasive man sold me a whizzy whiskie thingie. Convinced me how good it is, and what a bargain at the ultra low price of £10.00. Found out subsequently, sold by Amazon for £6 something. Well, I do try and avoid Amazon…..
    Then to a canal side pub for lunch. Except the canal was obscured by trees and foliage. The very large, very not us, menu was a challenge. I ended up with a “sub”, a first for me. Decided on the basis of this, admittedly not comprehensive, test, that a sub is an inferior, flabby attempt at a baguette, surprisingly devoid of taste. Sue fared rather better, with a baked potato. Seems the Purveyors of Buggered Up Food haven’t found a way to “improve” the humble spud.
    After our lunch, off to Skipton Castle, the site of a three year siege during the civil war, which only surrendered “on honourable terms” when it was the last Royalist stronghold in the north of England. Cromwell agreed, subsequently, Lady Anne could restore the castle as a residence, provided the walls were “slighted” (made thinner), and the roof was weakened so it could not bear the weight of cannons. The walls, as slighted, were still enormously thick, but only about half of their original thickness.

    The gatehouse
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    The castle Inside the gatehouse.
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    To the right of the castle, but within the castle walls, are Tudor dwellings, which obviously survived the siege, apparently undamaged.

    The Yew Tree, planted by Lady Anne.
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    The dungeon. A couple of minutes visit was quite enough!
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    The Great Hall, being lorded over by Sue and Josie.

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  • Sun 6th Jue
    Just south of Barnoldswick is the Bancroft Mill Engine Museum, which is “steam up” on a couple of days per month – and today is the day! Too good an opportunity to miss, off we trotted, helped in part by a local bus.
    The museum is all that remains of a cotton mill, the mill shed and majority of the equipment have gone, but some local enthusiasts managed to save the engine house and engine.
    The museum is dog friendly, but we were warned about the noise of the machinery frightening the dog, so I was charged with controlling Josie, whilst Sue was charged with taking photos. We started by watching one of two looms weaving cloth – and noisy clattery it was. Josie at first was worried, but quickly accepted the strange world to which we had taken her.

    The loom, weaving tea towels material. Which are sold in the shop. So, of course we have one. To go with our vast and growing collection of tea towels!
    The main engine then started, a huge affair with two pistons, one high temperature, and the other utilising the used steam at the lower temperature. This drove a huge 20 ton (not tonne!) flywheel, and then the drive shaft to the missing workshop. Unfortunately, Sue forgot to take a photo of it.
    The next shed contained another engine, which came from another mill near Skipton. This was quite different to the first engine, but I didn’t find out anything about it. And, Sue forgot to photograph it.
    Thence down to the boilers, very hot unsurprisingly, and burning waste wood – old pallets, the odd door, a few window frames – just like our wood burner at home, but on a very much bigger scale! Sue forgot to photograph it.
    The final shed, I think called loom room, had a pair of boilers, not working, with automatic hoppers, and a scrubber, which one of the volunteer staff explained to us – the steam returning from the boilers is reused, still warm of course, and it passes through tubes which deposit accumulated muck from its passage into the tubes, which are then scraped clean. Emptying the muck from the bottom is, apparently, not a favourite job! Unfortunately, Sue forgot to take a photograph.
    She did, however, take a second photograph.
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    Rather like the first.
    Waiting for the bus in Barnoldswick town centre, we happened upon a coronation post box.

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    Tried using my whizzie thingie to whip milk into cream, something the persuasive man in Skipton demonstrated. He used semi skimmed milk, I used full fat milk. Didn’t work. Cannot fathom out why not……

  • Mon 7thJune

    Left Barnoldswick, and drove south to Baddersley Clinton, a National Trust house in Warwickshire. And very interesting it was. Relatively modest (by Manor House standards), it was started around 1290, although not much survives from then.
    Unfortunately, they were closing early, because of some function, so our visit was a trifle hurried.
    In 1517, the house passed to the Ferrers family, who lived in it for nearly 500 years. They were never very wealthy, so the house never had any major rebuilds.
    We were able to view the entrance to the priest hole, where 5 priests hid during a hunt by the authorities. They had to stand in a row, ankle deep in water, in a sewer tunnel for several hours. One of the priest wrote an account of this in a biography many years later.

    The outside, and moat.
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    Entrance to the house.
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    The main living room, the huge fireplace, far too big for the room, was moved here from an upstairs room.
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    Towards the end of last century, some workmen burnt some rubbish in the fireplace, and the ceiling caught fire. It was rapidly put out (having a moat is helpful!), but the ceiling damage revealed it to be a false ceiling, hiding the original beams, and the finials ontop of the fireplace. Not often a fire has a positive outcome!
    Other rooms….
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    A Narwhal tusk.
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    A rather odd space, the oldest part of the house.

    That evening, we parked up in a very agreeable field, Josie became quite animated running round the edges, getting excited by I know what.

  • Tue 8th June
    Drove to Tring, where we met John, who stayed many times at Paskins Hotel through the 1990’s, and we have remained in touch ever since. We met up in an Italien Supper Club. For lunch. A very early supper.
    And then home.