The second of the Society’s traditional series of three autumn/winter talks was postponed last year due to adverse weather (snow, thaw, 55mm rain!) and power cuts.
It has been rearranged for Saturday 29th March at 7.30pm in The Old School, Tatham Fells. Map | Directions
The speaker will be Bill Deller on Farming in north-west England before the Romans.
Followed by light refreshments. Free to members, visitors very welcome at £3 for entry. Info Mike Winstanley 015242 21277
Eighteen members enjoyed a(nother!) sunny afternoon for our second summer walk, this time led by Millhouses resident and THS secretary Mike Winstanley. We started at Lane Head, briefly a public house in the nineteenth century, then headed down Millhouses main street to the site of the old mill. Despite having been in use well into the twentieth century, very little remains of the mill itself, though a stone pillar is still standing – it supported the timber launder carrying water to the overshot mill wheel – and the mill after-race can be seen though the vegetation. From here we followed the river and road to investigate an old path leading down to the Hindburn where the rocky bed forms a ford. There is Ordnance Survey and anecdotal evidence of a long-gone footbridge here, once used by Millhouses residents walking up to the former chapel near Higher Broadwood, but no convincing sign of exactly where it might have been.
With time pressing, a planned field path route was discarded in favour of a quick march down the road to Hindburn Bridge, and then along the drive to Gamblesholme, a former farm in an idyllic setting. In the garden, we were welcomed by its owner; he first lived at Gamblesholme in the early 1940s, and was able to answer our many questions about life there over the intervening 80 years. From there, a short, sharp climb through fields brought us to Far Mealbank farm, and just beyond, to Mealbank farm, where we admired Tatham’s most magnificent and ancient oak tree, and the fine views across Lunesdale. There remained a short walk back to Millhouses down leafy Agnes Ing and Trinket lanes, each prompting speculation about the origins of their names.
Our thanks to Nigel and Mary for car parking, and to other local residents for permission to access some private areas.
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A dozen members were treated to a sunny and fascinating afternoon in the company of THS stalwart and lifelong Greenhall resident John Wilson. His farmhouse home is a listed building with many intriguing and unusual features, including a 1673 date stone. John described how this farm, like others in Tatham Fells, would originally have been created as a curvilinear enclosure of a small area of the “green” – rough moorland fell – as long as 800 years ago. He has researched changes in ownership over the centuries, before his grandfather became tenant and, from the 1930s, owner of Greenhall.
A short walk took us to Ringstones, where two houses – at one time distinct farms and both with date stones – stand next to the cobbled yard. From here we followed a field path to Lanshaw, and on past the site of a locally notable 1938 car accident to the open fell and the attractive Willy Close barn by Slaidburn Road. Then down to Moorcock, once an alehouse, albeit briefly – though long enough to have been the scene of a police raid in response to reports of illegal selling and consumption of alcohol on a Sunday. In a pre-bicycle age, the policeman must have walked miles to this remote spot, doubtless tipped off by a zealous Sabbatarian neighbour annoyed at the weekly flouting of the law.
A short walk on field paths returned us to Greenhall, where much-needed refreshments awaited.
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Tatham History Society’s traditional programme of three Saturday evening talks will take place on 11th November, 25th November and 9th December.
Historic England has an on-line archive of aerial photos which can be accessed through a map interface; you zoom into your area of interest and icons show what’s available. Some of the photos are historic (purple diamonds). Others (red circles) are more recent but include features of historic interest, though it’s left to the viewer to work out what they are! Sadly there is – as yet – virtually no coverage of Tatham, just 3 purple diamonds in Wennington which are 1932 photos including the station area.
Beyond Tatham there are a number of aerials of Bentham. And once started, your mouse is sure to wander to other places of interest to you.
Twenty members assembled at Tatham Fells Old School for a very breezy afternoon exploration on foot of local sites of historical interest, arranged and led by John Wilson, with the kind agreement of landowners. We visited a nearby circular depression, thought to be the site of a bloomery, a type of primitive iron-smelting pit. We then followed part of a disused mill race, which once supplied water to a mill beside Lowgill Lane, up to Foss Bank, a farmstead with an unusual and puzzling trio of adjoining farmhouses thought to have been built successively over the 17th to 19th centuries. At Beethams we learned of 17th-century ne’er-do-well residents involved in the often capital crime of coin-clipping, before heading out onto Burn Moor, with fine views of the Dales fells. We made a brief incursion into Yorkshire to visit the Great Stone of Fourstones (providing welcome shelter from the wind) before descending to Fourstones House, a nineteenth-century shooting lodge built on the site of Hodgsons Farm, and just inches inside Lancashire; its outbuildings are in Yorkshire. Then by field paths to Usherwoods, where time and hunger forced a slight itinerary adjustment, and a bee-line return to the Old School for tea and delicious home-baked cakes.
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We meet at 2.00pm at the Old School Lowgill, look at the bloomery, trace the mill race up to Foss Bank and then on to the top end of Aikengill Road/Whitepits Lane. To Moorlands and back to Whitepits Lane before dropping down from Barley Bank to the Old School where there will be light refreshments. Leader John Wilson reckons about four miles with some climbing and perhaps a little roughish walking, so wear good shoes or boots. No need to book; just turn up and hope for dry weather!
In summer 2022, Esther Nimmo of Lower Lythe, with support from the Forest of Bowland AONB, organised a community walk to her home, along public footpaths once trodden regularly by school children and parishioners on their way to and from school, church and chapel.
What did they wear on their feet in the days before boots and shoes were mass-produced in factories? Who made their footwear, and how?
To answer these questions, shoe-maker Daniel Nelson of Settle was on hand, and after a well-earned break for tea and cake, participants were treated to a fascinating talk by Dan about the history of shoes and shoe-making.
The event has been recorded in a superb 10-minute video, filmed by Daniel Saul and produced by Daniel Saul and Esther.
Every new investigation into Tatham’s history seems to lead to the discovery of unsuspected links to histories elsewhere, and Mike Winstanley’s latest web article reveals yet another, between St. James the Less church and two nineteenth-century cultural phenomena: the Arts and Crafts movement, and the pre-Raphaelite school of artists. The link is a “dossal” commissioned in the 1880s for St. James Church by the Foster family of Hornby Castle, and designed by one of the leading interior designers of the day, Aldam Heaton.
Tatham History Society’s traditional programme of three Saturday evening talks will take place on 12th November, 26th November and 10th December.