A Riverside Village

Transcript of a cassette by Simeon Rogers:

This is a story about Thornsett from 1920 onwards as I saw it. I’ve lived in Thornsett for over 70 years and through this time I have seen many changes taking place, not always for the best I might add. As part of a loving family of mum, dad, two brothers and a sister, we endured the hardship of poverty and ill health due to my father being involved in a work’s accident whilst we were still very young. The shock from the accident, where his chest was crushed in the cog wheel of a machine, left him with asthma and eventual inability to work again. Times were hard for us as they were for many families of the times and we learned the hard way that one didn’t get what one desired even by hard work and frugal methods but we were satisfied with our lot and we had the loving care of our parents.

Health and Safety at work was not a priority during the days of the 20’s and 30’s. Unions didn’t fight for compensation with the same vigour and financial backing of today’s unions, so my father was not compensated for his loss of earnings or the misery of his injury induced asthma. We had no cash to fight the case privately. Dad was employed by the CPA at Birch Vale at the time of the accident and I can remember, as a young boy, the sound his ex-workmates walking past wearing clogs in the early hours of the morning. They always gave a whistle as they went past, always the same notes so we knew it was the Smith Brothers from New Mills. Most workers wore clogs to work and at work too, as protection, in areas where chemicals or wet conditions were part of the working environment.

The CPA works at Birch Vale was only one of many textile processing plants in the area around New Mills, Hayfield, Birch Vale, Watford Bridge, Strines and, of course, Bate Mill. All were thriving businesses and employed many of the locals, often with complete families of working age working at the same place. The CPA at Birch Vale was part of a large combine of companies concerned with bleaching, dying and printing of fabrics of various constructions. Textile processing requires large amounts of water and most textile mills were found near rivers. The rivers were a ready supply of water for the works’ lodges and, providing your mill was not too far down stream, little treatment of the water was required.
Apart from supplying water, the rivers also took away waste water after filtration from the filtration beds. The rivers lower down would have to put up with alkaline or acidic conditions and the colour from the exhausted dye process. One good point, I suppose, where there were trout the red dye changed them into salmon. Good stuff! Trout were not often found much further downstream than CPA works at Birch Vale, but were still a feature of the water near Bate Mill works . Today, of course, trout unchanged by the colours are found in both rivers, as far as Watford Bridge and also in the Rowarth Brook at Bate Mill. Herons and a local fishing club tend keep the numbers down now rather than the pollution of old. River Boards have over the years kept tight control on the state of the rivers as part of effort to help the environment.
The CPA, of course, were not the only ones polluting the river. Years ago the Garrison Works also used the River Sett to transport away effluent. Once treated it was great to see clear water in the rivers at week-ends and holiday shutdown times. The CPA at Watford Bridge would draw off water by means of an underground system, taking water from the weir at Bate Mill to replenish their lodges. The quietness when they opened the sluice, cutting off the water from the weir, was strange after having the noise for most of the time and living so close to the river. Bate Mill drew its water from the river from Rowarth, the Rowarth Brook we called it. The textile processing works at Rowarth had closed so the water was clear. Apart from field drainage and water from an old pit working, the water had no real contamination and as a child I must have drank gallons of it. It always looked so cool and inviting to drink as it passed over the stoney river bed. I certainly wouldn’t like to risk it today with all the chemicals used in farming now, although the trout still seem to survive.

The river from Rowarth was dammed up regularly near the Bate Mill works area and swimming and picnics were part of the summer scene here, giving pleasure to people from all around the area. Bate Mill works was a busy place in the 20’s and 30’s era and their business was bleaching of cotton yarn in the hank form. The work’s buildings were typical of factory buildings of the time with walls about two foot thick, all in stone. They were designed to carry the heavy shafting and belt and pulley systems to drive machinery and to carry the heavy pipework for water and steam around the works. The works then covered a larger area then they do today and originally fronted onto the main road with the boiler house actually open to the road for easy access for unloading coal to feed the boiler. During the times of unloading coal into the boiler house the road would be blocked but as there was little traffic on the road at the time, apart from the half hour bus service to and from New Mills, it didn’t create much of a problem.
Inside the boiler house, at one end was a large bench type seat where the boiler man could rest between stoking the boiler and taking his refreshment. Apart from feeding the boilers he had to rake out cinders periodically. These he would wheel outside in his metal wheelbarrow to be dumped to cool and later used as filtration material for the filter beds. This was a warm job for the boiler man and once he had re-stoked the boilers again he would take some refreshment, usually fruit or a drink from his billy can. The billy can was a white enamelled jug with a fitted cup lid and supplies of tea would be taken in by his family or us kids from round about. We would also take them their midday meal in the wickerwork dinner basket, made up by the lady of the house, and I can still visualise a boiler man having his meal with a drink from the billy can and then throwing the dregs onto the coals in the boiler house.
Jack Barber and Mo Wharmby were the boiler men at the time and they used to let us sit with them on the bench seat, showing us how to plait string to make whips for our whip and top. We always played near the boiler house. They used to torment us at times but we always were glad to go and sit with them to give them some company. Sometimes they would let off a burst of steam or bang on their shovels to scare us as we passed by. Like so many of the works in the area they had a work’s whistle or buzzer which was blown at specific times to denote start or stop times, it was the boiler man’s job to operate this. Each work’s whistle had a different note so you could always tell which was which by the note. What with the works’ whistles and the trains which ran from New Mills to Birch Vale and Hayfield always on time, one didn’t need the old heavy pocket watch with the silver chain to know what time it was. Birch Vale station was a busy Station and at the time was a depot for coal supplies for both domestic and commercial use.
At times we were able to look inside the general work’s area at Bate Mill from the outside of the buildings. Behind the boiler house was the bleaching department, a wet and very steamy area. Inside the doorway of the department one could see a large open cylindrical steel vessel with a centre pipe with a mushroom head. Hot water and chemicals were forced up the pipe to be sprayed onto the hanks of cotton loaded into the vessel. Liquid drained through the hanks to be reheated and circulated again. Before all this scalding of the hanks could take place the hanks had to be tied in what they called Dollies, looking very much like rag dolls. They would then retain their hank shape during processing. This was a job for the ladies as soon as the hanks arrived at the works. After the full bleaching and drying had taken place the hanks were opened to the original shape, then parcelled and delivered back to the customer.
Outside the works, in the yard area on the Thornsett side of the boiler house, carboys of acid and alkali were stored along with empties. It seems amazing in light of today’s health and safety legislation that we, as children, had open access to these carboys. Carboys, if you are not familiar with the name, were large glass containers placed in a framework of metal strips, cushioned by straw to prevent breakage and widely used then to carry acid and other corrosive chemicals. Plastic containers are now used instead and the carboys seem to be antiques in a way as they are used for flower arrangements. Often unaware of the dangers of the contents of the carboys we would remove the stoppers of the empties and dump in items to watch them shrink or change colour. Contact with the chemicals could have proved very dangerous or even fatal but fortunately I never remember any injuries.

Across the road, also on the Thornsett side of the works, was the coal stock where a supply of coal for the boilers was stored. Also in this area were the filter beds beside the river. Nearer to the Thornsett end were allotments, carefully tended by locals on a rented basis. At the bottom of the work’s entrance roadway, at the start of the long row of terraced cottages, was the work’s office. We would often call at this work’s office to buy postage stamps or change coinage for the gas meters. I used to clean the flagged area outside the office weekly for a small amount of money. It was a sad day when the works eventually closed down. We would miss all our friends and the atmosphere of the place we remembered as a busy, happy workplace. The mill lay idle for some time with old Jim Rowcroft acting as caretaker until the works was eventually stripped of machinery and parts demolished, including the boiler house.
This, it now seems, was the beginning of the end of the textile trade in this area. Take-overs and closures were to soon be the pattern for the textile trade in later years. Lack of concern by consecutive governments was to almost wipe out this regional trade in the years that followed. Closure of the CPA and later the Garrison works meant that a wealth of textile knowhow and skills would be lost forever. At the start of the war in 1939 the old office was taken over for an ARP post. VX5 was its code number and it was duly fitted out and sandbagged where it remained until the war ended. Now this is a garage for the private house, once 95 and 97 Bate Mill Road. I wonder if any of the ghosts of the old wardens still have their meetings there?

The row of houses at Bate Mill survived the previous large families and lack of repairs, to remain relatively the same from outward appearances apart from the TV aerials, of course, but are now all privately owned rather than rented and have all mod cons instead of outside loos and the old tin bath. Mr Platt, who lived at 97 next to the office, used to keep hens on a stretch of land behind the cottages as far as number 81. We would often hear language we, as kids, didn’t understand when the hens wouldn’t go in the cotes on request. He also had some hens on a small plot across from his house and he would keep a pile of stones on his windowsill to aim at the hens if they strayed onto the road. He never hit one but it did seem to have the desired effect and the hens returned to safer grounds.

The family who lived nextdoor-but-one to us, the Plummers, had only one son. He was older than us. His dad, Jack, worked at the Garrison Works, as did Bert later, and Mrs Plummer had a full time job in the home. She would often bake bread and muffins and I remember the large earthenware bowls she used to leave with a tea towel over the top in front of the hearth waiting for it to rise. She made good bread and, as she often thought about our condition, would always bring us a few muffins. They were great. She was a caring women, Mrs Plummer. Emma was her first name. At holiday times, the Wakes Week we called it, the family always went to Blackpool for the week. They would catch the trip train at Birch Vale Station and we would wave them off as they went down the line toward New Mills, now the linear park. They would be at the carriage window, waving back until they were out of sight. We could always rely on Mrs Plummer to bring us back a stick of rock on their return and this was the nearest we ever got to a holiday as kids.
These were the days of gas meters and later electricity and the common struggle to find the correct coinage for the slot meters when the lights went out. At times it meant calling on several houses before we finally found the change we wanted. We were not alone in this search for change. There was always someone doing the same thing from time to time. At one house we would be invited in whilst they searched around for change. There would be small amounts of money under tablecloths, ornaments, in small jars or in cupboards, all sorted out to pay the rent, insurance, milk, club man, papers and so on. We had no bank accounts, credit cards or such so we had to have ready cash to pay our way. Holidays were usually funded by savings schemes at work where a man collected each week what you thought you could spare and then paid back the week before the annual holidays. The collector would pay for his holiday by the interest on the savings and tips. There were no holidays with pay then and for many there was no holiday either.

Almost opposite the garage and the small wooden shop that was there, with the two cottages nearer to New Mills, were a few rather dark looking houses which were reached by a few steps down from the footpath. Legend had it that one of them had a ghost. This house always seemed emptier apart from the ghost of course. People said they had heard the ghost playing a piano but I never stayed there long enough to find out. Further along to New Mills stood a large building, Sam Marshall’s yard, they called it. It was originally a garaging area for lorries but was used by Sam as a store place for his plumbing business and some of it as a farm building. These two have now gone and the area is now a wild life reserve. Near the white cottages opposite was Watford Lodge House, now owned by the Council and let as flats Originally an old lady resided there and we would take her newspapers for her, usually asking if we could pick up any windfall fruit in the orchard on the right hand side of the drive. She always agreed. I don’t ever remember seeing her picking any herself as she was getting on in years.

Thornsett, once a busy place, has changed over the years. It looked so different when we were pupils at Thornsett school on Aspenshaw Road where it still functions, after three generations of our family attended. The building of the new band room, in place of the old barn type building they used, brought new activity to the area. Apart from the usual band practices each Sunday Morning and one night a week, whist drives and dances were held on a regular basis as a means of funding the band. Mum and Dad would attend the whist drive and often won prizes. There was always an inquest as to who should have done what and who should have played which card if they weren’t successful.

Dances were quite an event, usually held at week-ends, attracting many dancers, all formally dressed for the occasion, ladies in lovely dresses and fancy shoes, men with their suits and patent leather shoes, all very posh. We, as children, often looked in. During the early evening the doors were left open for some cooling air during the hot weather. At that time dancing was a contact thing, not like today’s isolated twitching. It all looked so graceful, couples dancing in complete harmony with coloured light illuminating the sequins and the adornments on the ladies’ attire. The band room still stands today but, alas, vandalism has meant the bricking up of the windows on the roadside after so many glass replacements. A new junior band is now developing to replace the famous Thornsett prize band, a band which was quite famous and won many trophies in its time. Funding now comes from karate and judo clubs and from the education fund who use the school for PE activities for Thornsett school. Opposite the band room, in Cox’s field, stood an old barn. This has now gone. Did it fall or was it pushed, who knows? Going up the hill at Thornsett, on the left are several houses which at one time housed people with strong connections with the band. Both houses and families have long gone and the area is clear now up to the farm.
Opposite these houses at the time was a pub. It was called The New Inn, christened locally as the “Bottom House”. The New Inn has been a private dwelling now for many years. It has recently been renovated and enjoys an open view now where houses once stood. In the cottages on the same side as the New Inn, and higher up the road, were other houses. One was a barber’s shop giving the usual short back and sides, shaves and, of course, the mending of umbrellas, a common trade at barber’s shop. Higher up the road still, Aunty Ruth had a small provision shop but with the Co-op doing good trade she found the trade unsupportive. This again became a private dwelling house as she moved on. The Co-op was a busy place with the divi being a great incentive to shop there. The divi would be paid quarterly, based on the amount spent at any Co-op during the quarter. It was a godsend to many families and a way of buying much needed clothing items or household goods. The Printers’ Arms still remains today as a pub in its set-back square even though the Co-op building is now a nursery place. Opposite the Co-op, on the opposite side of the road, were some small cottages and these extended to form a blind corner on the bend of the road, Blind End Corner they called it. These houses have now gone too but not before a man on a bicycle was killed when he hit the bus on the bend many years ago. Thankfully the corner is open now.

On the other side of the road from the Co-op stood a couple of houses and small holding called Morton’s Farm, some farm, just a few hens and geese. Now both the farm and the cottages are gone leaving some untidy waste ground. Next door to the Co-op, up the hill near the long row of houses, was a small cottage where the band master lived. He could often be heard practising his instrument when you went in to the back room of the Co-op. The back room housed a chute arrangement where spuds and so on would be loaded from the room above. Also in this back room was a large coffee grinding machine The assistant would first of all make a paper cone from a cut piece of paper and then grind in the coffee beans to fill your order. The smell in that back room was great, freshly ground coffee and freshly baked bread delivered on large flat wooden trays. Later in the day the smell wasn’t quite as fresh, with greengrocery not at its best, but it was a good clean shop with a great variety of groceries for sale. Like so many shops today it closed down when people became more mobile with private cars and shopping and Supermarkets became the in thing. Just a few doors up from the Co-op, at the start of the main houses on the road, Mrs Baxter used to make homemade ice cream. When we had the cash to spare we would take a basin and buy some to go with the tinned fruit. It was delicious and such a nice change from the Tommy Walls “Stop me and buy one” ice-cream.

Daisy Hadfield was an enterprising person at the time and she had a small wooden hut at the Thornsett end of Doctor’s End where she sold sweets and tobacco. It was a good area for business as the kids, eager to spend their coppers on the way to school, would always be welcomed. Later she also opened a chip shop in one of the properties higher up and did a steady trade there too. At the very top of Thornsett at the junction with Aspenshaw Road was a house that seemed triangular in shape. In it lived the Flories. He was a quiet man, she, supposedly a “mystic meg” of her day, a fortune teller. She would often be seen on the flag pathway to her door, done up like a dog’s dinner with powder and paint, a real character of a quiet nature too, but a legend of her time. All the houses have gone and in their place a wooded area developed, dressed with daffodils planted by pupils from Thornsett Infant School. It looks much prettier now of course but the memories of the houses and occupants remain for those of us who still live In the area.

The churches and chapels of the time, around Thornsett and Birch Vale, are now all closed The Congregational recently was the last to close as a place of worship and sometime polling booth. Tin Church, as we once knew it at Birch Vale, has gone completely now, being a private area for the picnic site at the Sycamore Pub, I can still picture old Mr Towers, the white haired caretaker of the Tin Church, chasing us round as we played, before going into the service. The chapels were very active. They would have an annual sermons’ day when the congregation would parade around the area to sing hymns, accompanied by Thornsett band, stopping at the rows of houses en route and making collections towards the upkeep of the Chapel. My opinion was that this was more of a show off of one’s new outfit rather than the sharing of a spiritual experience. The talk among the chapel goers a few weeks before the sermons was of what they were having new to wear. There were genuine Christian people of course among the flock but many were just Sunday Christians as we found out when we were kept apart due to our lack of decent clothes.

In the days of no television and few radios, sport of one kind or another was one way of spending one’s leisure time and we had football, bowls and tennis clubs to choose from. We had one tennis club near the river on the private road to the Garrison Works where people from round about spent many hours playing tennis on the court. The tennis hut was a large black and white wooden structure and housed the equipment and the changing room. I believe there was many a love match result in the hut but not many scores were kept. Bowling, always popular around here, was played on the green opposite, belonging to the Printers’ Arms. Football was mainly played on a field on High Hill Road, now the New Mills Cemetery, but also at odd times on one or two other fields of Cox’s. Many a Thornsett team played on the High Hill field over the years with limited spectator appeal, but what there was, was very enthusiastic. On the other side of the road from the field was Fred Broadbent’s cobbler’s hut. He was a craftsman at his trade and was always busy repairing shoes and clogs and actually making clogs out of old shoes with good uppers. Apart from the cobbler’s business, Fred would look after the footballs for the teams, keeping them in good repair at no cost to the club. He was also one of the best supporters, attending all the home matches, giving advice to players and suggestions on how to rectify poor eyesight of referees. They used to say he would trip opposing wingers with his stick but in truth I never saw him acting as twelfth man.

The football field was also used for the annual May Queen celebrations and the annual carnival. The May Queen was quite an elaborate affair with private cars bedecked with flowers and the Queen and her retinue in purple velvet and white lace outfits. The crowning ceremony took place on a field and there were other activities too, very much like the Hayfield May Queen Day. The Hayfield one survives, of course, but the Thornsett one has long since ceased to be part of the calendar of events. We were fortunate later to have our own National Cotton Queen selected from entrants from far and wide and she used to work at the Garrison Works. The Thornsett Carnival was a grand affair, with bands, dancers, decorated lorries and individual comedy features, all trying to win prizes for their efforts. People, like the Hazel Grove Twins, and all the participants, collected en route with all the collection going to local medical charities.
I hope you have enjoyed this story. There are more stories to tell around Thornsett of course, but maybe another day.

Transcript produced by High Peak Community Arts in 1996.

Thanks to the Rogers family for their help with this page.

Elsie Nichols Age 23 1913

Elsie and Fred

Fred Ibbotson RAMC.

Inside Bate Mill bleachworks. Workers at benches packing hanks of cotton after bleaching. c1895
Man on left is Henry Thomason (grandfather of born 1863, came to New Mills to work at Bate Mill 1884 died 1928. Man 2nd from left is Thomas Wyatt