My Great Aunt Olive is 93, recently I went to chat to her about her memories of living in Stacksteads in particularly the area of Blackwood. Aunty Olive lived up Blackwood up until her marriage in 1935 when she moved to Lee Wood.

Here are just a few of  her memories.

When Did You Move To Blackwood?.

I was born in what was known as the Lighthouses in  Blackwood in 1912, my Father had come down from Scotland to work as a Engineer/Labourer on the building of Baxter's Brewery at Glenn Top. He hadn't been working there many years when he became ill and was taken into the Workhouse Infirmary at Moorlands, I can't remember him but Mother said he was there for a long time and then she brought him home to die.

 

 

Baxter's Brewery

 

After Fathers death we moved to Kidderminster to live with Granny Venables. She had a lovely big house there, but even so I think she found it hard coping with the five of us including Mother, and so when Mother got a letter from a lady she had been keeping in touch with up Blackwood to say she had got us a house we moved back to Stacksteads living on  Lloyd Street Blackwood. When we first came back we had no furniture, we just had to depend on what the neighbours could scrape together. But that was what was so special about those days and Blackwood everybody helped each other. Later we moved to 55 Blackwood Road which we thought was quite alright because it was a through house. The floor in our house was made of flags and we had to do it with a donkey stone. We put the carpet down on Friday night and picked it up on Sunday night. We had to black lead the oven and we had a big square table that was scrubbed white. Our Alice and me had to do all the work, me Mother always let the lads off they never lifted a pot. 

 

Carpet Shakers

 

 What Was It That You Liked About Living There?.

I loved living up Blackwood, because everyone treated everyone the same we where all working class and so no one thought they were better than anyone else. Everyone helped each other, if you were sick you didn't need to worry because there was always someone  that would pop into help.  Although saying that we did used to look down on the people that lived at the bottom in the houses that where known as Frost Holes.

Where Was Frost Holes?.

You know where the houses have just been built today at the bottom of Blackwood, well on the opposite side of the river that was where the Frost Holes houses where, and  the houses right at the bottom of Blackwood where home to the families of McGuiness, Claxton and Murphy's families. If you were in with them you were alright but if they were agin you, you were always frightened of going past em, we always used to fare alright. There were some right good houses called Random Row why ever they took them down I will never know. About halfway up Blackwood row was a pub the Loyal Arms, and a little higher up was what they call today a Convenience Store and a selling out shop the beer  from the selling out shop was kept in a big keg  kept on a stillage, with a tap on the front and you took your jug in and filled it up.

 

McGuiness, Claxton and Murphy's

 

Which School Did You Go To?.

I went to Tunstead school, some of the teachers were good some were rotten but looking back I don't think we did so bad. The one thing about it then was if you did wrong you got chastised at school as well so you made sure you didn't do it again. We had fireplaces in the classrooms and in winter the fires were always lit. We didn't get school dinners then so if the weather was right rum you had to take something with you and a kit of tea, the teacher would put your kit in the hearth, the tea must have been stewed rotten now thinking about it but we used to drink it just the same.

 

Did You Used To Wear Clogs?.

Oh yeah!  we wore clogs right from being children to when we started work, and then I got a pair of shoes.

 

What Kind Of Games Did You Play?.

Oh! Skipping Rope, that were a good un, Checks and Bobbers, four square checks made out of pot and a bobber.

You had to bounce the bobber and then pick up as many of the checks as you could in one single bounce. Top end of school yard at Tunstead it were earth and they used to put circles on there and numbers and play at hopping round it, that were all.

 

What Was Your First Job When You Left School?.

I went to work at Riding and Gillows, Dyers and Bleachers at top of Waterbarn. I enjoyed working there because it were right clean you were as clean on Friday as you were on Monday. I worked there till I got married and then it closed down and I went to work at Maden E.s at Throstle Mill making dressed for Marks and Spencer's.

 

Riding and Gillows

 

Most Of The Shops Have Gone Now In Stacksteads Did You Used To Have A Lot?.

Oh yes, they were lovely shops, first there was the Railway Tavern then a good greengrocers next door and a butchers called Stanley Pilling, then there was the Conservative Club.

Next door to that there was like a bit of a hardware shop that sold everything, he sold everything there did Joe Barrett.

The post office is still there and then another grocers shop, next to that there was like a baby's shop, one half were baby's things the other half was toffees and stuff. Right at the end was another butchers called Coopers. There were about four chip shops and one up Blackwood, that was a good one was that.

Again the Commercial was a flower shop, and a frozen meat shop, then there was a little bank and then just across that little cutting they built another bank, and that's a chapel of rest now.

Next door to that was a Ironmongers, and next to that was a dress shop, she was called Sarah Collinge, if you could afford to go there you were doing alright, she had some lovely dresses. Where Schofields is now that was called Ingham's  and the room upstairs was a cafe and they used to do funeral teas. Next door to them there were a lad who was in my class at school he used to live there and that was a shoe shop.

 

Stacksteads Shops

 

Did You Used To Go Anywhere Else To Shop?.

Sometimes we would catch the train to Manchester, if you went early I think it was 1/2d return. Oh it were grand when train were running. If it were raining we used to go down the station steps and play under the subway to keep dry. We didn't go to Bacup so often but they did have a good Redmond's at Bacup and a good Maypole Diary that sold butter, and on the corner there was a Bradley's outfitters where men could go and get  a suit for 30shilling.

 

How Did You Manage During The War.

Well we did have air raids and then we'd go down into the cellar. I remember a bomb being dropped up Thorn and a plane came down up top of Blackwood up by the rake, I  know the boys didn't come home from school that day till late Cos they had been up Blackwood finding souveneirs. There were a soldier station up top of Blackwood on the moor, because there was a old road up there that you used  to be able to get Rochdale over, well they closed that and they had search lights. We could always see the glow  when Manchester was getting bombed. We never starved even though there was rationing because lots of people had allotments up Blackwood and you could go and buy any kind of fresh vegetables.

 

What Did You Do For Fun?.

I used to go Skating  I was a dab hand at skating I loved skating, it was a shilling if you was having skates and sixpence if you was a spectator.

Premier Skate Rink Stacksteads

 

We used to go to what is now the Rose and Bowl dancing, because in them days it was two storeys high and the top floor was a good dance floor and you used to go in at the end door to go up there, it were called the Imperial Hall and it were sixpence. We had a fair every year on Stacksteads Rec, and our Bob was friends with the son of the man that owned it Walter Holland he was called, soon as fair came our Bob would be down there in Walters caravan, it was horse drawn but he said it was beautiful inside.

 

 

Fair on Stacksteads Rec

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article by Miss Marie Ashworth.
 

FROM OLIVE STREET TO TUNSTEAD SCHOOL

Starting from Olive Street, the first thing I remember is Mother Raynor's Sweet Shop. I don't know why people called her "Mother" Raynor as she was an unmarried woman. She seemed to be there for years and years. Then across the road, Olive Street/ Queen's Terrace was one house longer each side. These two houses were demolished to help take some of the bend off the road, but this was much later than 1920.

From there to Fernhill Drive was a good high stone wall with meadow-land at the back, no houses. The lodge house at the bottom is still there. At the top of the drive, which was then a private road, was "Fern Hill", just one house. A family named Mitchell lived there, but I do not remember them. Then during the 1914-1918 war Fern hill was used as a military hospital, staffed I believe by local people and local farmers on a rota delivered milk free. I think one or two pints a day for two weeks at a time, and just tipped it out of the milk can into the measure and then into the chum which was waiting in the lodge house porch. After the war a family named Disley lived there. I remember one hot Sunday afternoon walking along the path at the back of Fern Hill and seeing people bathing in a huge water tank at the back on the house, it must have been their private water supply.

 

Fernhill Gates

 

There were no houses on either side of Fern Hill Drive. Further down Newchurch Road, I think number 167, lived Mr. Barnes, the Headmaster at St. Joseph's School, and I think it was next door at number 169 lived the Ferguson family. They must have been Army people. Mr. Ferguson was known as the Drill-Sergeant and had something to do with the Drill Hall (which is now the Ambulance Station), the Territorials, and the Shooting Range which used to be up on the moor.


The Drill Hall
In the detached house at the top of Farholme Lane, (it is number 173?), which backs on to Acre Mill Sunday School, lived the Simpson family. Mr. Simpson must have been a Vet., but he was always known as the horse doctor. I seem to remember a blue lamp over the door. Up the lane past Acre Mill Sunday School was a farm on the left near the bottom known as Huttock End Farm, then nothing else until we come to another farm and some cottages at the top backing on to Huttock End Lane and also known as Huttock End Farm. Going straight on to Sow Clough Farm and turning right were 'some more cottages, four I think. An old man called Bridge lived in one, and in the others lived the Weavers, the Barton's and the Balshaws, who all had children attending Tunstead School.
 

Huttock End Lane

Back to Newchurch Road, - there was the Co-op building, now demolished, first the grocery, and next door the boot, shoe and clog department where one could go in and sit down, take one's clogs off, arid wait until Mr. Jowett nailed new irons on them. At that time Co-ops always had lovely warm stoves in winter.
What is now Cheadle's Bakery was once a skating rink. I was taken there once only, as a spectator by a girl who was a few years older than me. She was called Annie Rourke, and later became a nun in America. I believe she still has relatives living in the Huttock End Lane area. She visited Stacksteads not many years ago. The rink later became a cinema and I saw my first movie there before I was nine years old. I think this cinema was called the Olympic. I have an idea the rink was opened again at a later date but was not a successful venture.

 
Further down Newchurch Road, in the last block of buildings on the right before Toll Bar, (they are still there) the top house was the Police Station. Inspector Barrow lived there, and I am told he kept Shetland ponies but I never saw them. Next door was Dr. E. W. Falconer's surgery, and next door again was Carlton Holden, the dentist. He later moved up to Farholme into the "Horse Doctor's" house.
We now come to the garden at the bottom of Huttock End Lane, on this site used to be an old world house called "Ivy Cottage". What a pity it was never restored!

 

 

Toll Bar

 

At this stage must explain the Falconer family. The Rev.
Falconer was the vicar of Tunstead Church. His son who lived in. a detached house, "Heath Hill", was Dr. E. W. Falconer. "Heath Hill" was then in the middle of what is now Heath Hill housing estate but then belonged to Dr. Falconer. His three sons were Dr. Allan Falconer who left the district, Dr. Douglas who died as a young man, and Dr. Francis who has recently retired and left the district.
At the bottom of Bankfield Street was the Sweeps house, and to advertise his trade he had a sweeps brush fastened to the chimney pot, and sticking up in the air. Across Bankfield Street at the bottom of Booth Road, now an open space used for parking cars, was a seIling-out shop or off-licence, kept by the Laycock family, who emigrated to America.

 

Next door going up Booth Road, was Jim Law's second hand shop. Later this was Harry Harkers plumbers. Next again was the coal staithe which was at the end of the narrow gauge railway line which carried tubs of coal from the Hile pit. The end of the line was elevated and the full tubs ran into a sort of box frame which turned them upside-down, emptying the contents into waiting horse-drawn carts. Then the carters would take the small loads to the customer's houses and tip the coal on to the flags by the cellar grate, or on the ground by the coal-place door, from where the coal was shovelled in if it hadn't gone down the cellar chute. This coal was not in bags. The big loads would be taken to the local mills to fire the boilers which produced steam to drive the engine which in turn drove the machinery. There was a weighbridge at the coal staithe. The empty carts as they entered drew on to the weighbridge and were duly weighed, and as they came back with their loads of coal were weighed again, the difference showing the weight of coal in the cart.
On the other side of Booth Road was the back of a house .called "Castle Hill" where the Cox family lived, then the backs of Primitive Fold. We have now reached "Little Brow" with the Chapel House on the top side. I wonder if it will be allowed to stay?
 

Coal Staithe


Back to Toll Bar and Newchurch Road, what is now a printers was a branch of Tunstead Co-op which later joined up with Stacksteads Co-op, which also joined up with Bacup Co-op. This has since joined with Rochdale Pioneers!!!
The next was a block of perhaps four houses, two on Newchurch Road and two on the back. The top one on Newchurch Road was Tom Jowett's Clog Shop. Tom was the son of Mr. Jowett at the Coop previously mentioned. I have seen Tom cutting clog soles with a very interesting tool which I am. going to have difficulty describing. I seem to remember it looked like a very sharp knife or axe with a good handle on it, the other end being hooked to an eye in the bench. Next door at the bottom of Little Brow was a house, one time a greengrocer's shop. On the back of this house going up Little Brow was a house occupied by a family called Williams, they had a son called Baden Powell Williams.

Newchurch Road

 

At the top of Little Brow, on the comer facing Primitive Fold, was a small piece of ground partly walled round. This was the ash tip, as people did not always have dustbins in those days.
We often had a Fair on Stacksteads Rec., and sometimes we had a circus.
Further up Booth Road is Plantation Street. Almost at the far end, turning down to Mount Pleasant I can remember an old water pump. It was not in use but at some time would have been the water supply for all those houses. I am told, but I do not remember, that there used to be another pump either in or near the narrow entry between Plantation Street and Union Street, opposite the old Boy's Gate to Tunstead School.
If we enter Union Street from Booth Road we pass what was the Primitive Methodist Chapel on the right. It is now a factory, and so once more we come to the former Boy's entrance to Tunstead School.



Tunstead School