The Bulls Head Inn once stood on the corner of Yorkshire Street and Burnley Road. Henry Baron was the first landlord to be shown. In 1910 Messrs Baxter's of Glenn Top Brewery made an application to have the Bulls Head demolished building in its place a new Hotel. The new Hotel would be known as the. King George  opened in 1912 it closed as a public house in 1983. At it’s opening it was the only public house in the country to carry the reigning monarchs name. The Bacup Natural History Society's rooms  were next door with Ward's Cafe, Meads Chemist, and the Angel Hotel  one of Bacup's oldest pubs when it was demolished in 1931.

 

 

The shops on the right on the picture above where known as the Townhead properties and due to the narrowness of the road the town council in 1926  made proposals to purchase and demolish the properties in order to widen the road thereby making transport access easier. One shop which stood close to the Queens hotel was Ted Pillings cloggers and to advertise his trade he had a large wooden clog hung outside his premises.  Behind this row of shops at the bottom of Lanehead was the old Buck Inn which at one time was used as the H.Q  for the British Legion, later they moved to St James Street.

 

 

Across the next opening was the White Horse chip shop (formerly a public house) run by a family called Holmes with a lodging house formerly a public house called Hare and Hounds now the home of the Bacup Natural History Society next door. During the 1880s the club was open from 7 to 10pm on weekdays and from 2 till 11pm on Saturdays. From 1889 until 1936 the Nat was based at 6 St James Square, moving from that location in 1937 to the Sunday School of Zion Baptist Chapel. In 1947 the Nat decided to rent the former Hare and Hounds public house at 24 Yorkshire Street. In 1951 the Nat bought the premises for a sum of £370. The first Committee members were Mr Thomas Aitken J.P First President, Mr Henry Halstead Vice President, Mr James Holmes Secretary, with Messrs J.P. Holmes, Robert Smith, Joseph Flack, Henry Kerr.  Across the opening and facing Bacup centre was Brigg's Provision and Corn Dealers  pictured right with their warehouse and garage for an ancient motor lorry behind. He used to deliver the feed to the hillside farms and was a very old business. At the time of his death in 1952 Mr Briggs was the oldest shopkeeper in Bacup.

 

 On the opposite side of the road from the Queen's Hotel  just after the first world war  the following shops were described . Hindles sweet shop, butchers shop, and Green Man Hotel, the Old Corn Mill used by Howard and Hargreaves, Printers, whilst on the top floor a firm spun silk. Behind the Corn Mill was Overton's Glove factory and Brigg's Wholesale Food warehouse. these premises surrounded the Corn Mill yard on two sides only, the Todmorden side being open. Mr Thomas Atkinson builder and owner of the Smelting kiln on Rochdale Road was the builder of the corn mill. He removed a old barn that once stood here and erected the mill which was at first run by the firm of James Thompson and Son later being taken over by the Sutcliffe family.

 

 

 

Behind Burwood House and Briggs shop were Bacup's oldest houses known as the Newgate Areas. With streets called Lower Cross Row , Mount Pleasant, Dawson Brow, Higher Newgate, Lower Newgate. A clearance order for the  Newgate area pictured above was issued in 1937.  

 

 

 

 

 

Before being used as a lodging house Doorstones was the home of a Mr Slattery mentioned elsewhere on this site. Mr Slattery was a chimney sweep and it is said he learnt his trade the old fashioned way by climbing up inside the chimney known as a Chimney Lad. For several years the lodging house was run by a man named Hurney who also had a shop in Yorkshire Street. When the lodgers were hard up they could go down to the shop and for the price of sixpence could pay for a nights lodgings and two meals. A half-penny's worth of tea and sugar which made two good cuppas. Halfpenny for an onion and and a penny loaf made two good meals.  At the back of Doorstones was the basket works for the blind people of Bacup. The original Buck Inn  was a very low place and one of it's doorways was under the boundary of  Ebeneezer Church right. At this time a lady known as Old Mrs Bridges lived at the Buck and one day the boundary wall fell exposing the old graves and bodies from the Ebeneezer graveyard. Asked what she thought about the accident the old lady said she was not afraid of ghosts in the day time, but she did object to them coming at night and disturbing her sleep.The burial grounds in Bacup left rather a lot to be desired whilst carrying out the public health report of 1849 Mr Lees described the Ebeneezer burial ground as appearing to be quite full. The last services at Ebenezer were on the 28th October 1962.

 

 

You can just see the railings that belong to Mount School in the picture above on the left hand side, people in Lane Head Lane suffered the same problems as many in Bacup when it came to toilets and water facilities in 1849. There was only one privy for 16 houses the maximum distance which the inhabitants had  to go to reach it was  96 yards and the minimum  was 35 yards. It was also used by persons passing by. A well for water was known as Peggy Spout. When this well dried up in summer the residents of Lane Head and no option but to walk to Broadclough for their water. Lane head was a favourite with local youngsters during the winter months when snow was plentiful on the ground. Its said the lads from  Mount Pleasant could sledge all the way from the top of Lane Head to the very bottom without having to worry about traffic. Perhaps sledging right out  into Townhead.

 

 

 

This island of shops at the corner of  Yorkshire Street and Bridge Street  started with Crooks the Clothiers. The buildings which looked onto Bridge Street  had been owned for many years by the Whittaker family of Broadclough Hall and they rented out the shops to various business over the years one of them at No 8 Bridge Street  Marks & Spencer's Penny Bazaar who rented the premises from 1913 to 1919.  In 1927 at the time of it's demolition the stone porticoes that fronted the building were removed and have since been situated in Moorlands Park.

 

 

By the 10th September 1927 the whole area of the Townhead property had been demolished and plans were made to erect a island refuge with traffic signals and direction signs. Various materials from the demolition of the old George were used to erect the toilets at Sheephouse and Height Barn.

 

On the opposite side of Bridge Street almost directly opposite Heyworth's fruitier  was Boots the chemist.Whilst there were several Doctors available in Bacup and Stacksteads during the working class would have tried to avoid the cost of having to call a doctor and would instead have relied on home remedies passed down through mother to daughter etc.Or bought a  medicine readily available at the local dispensing chemist of which in Bacup there were plenty Boots, and Sutcliffe's of  St James Street to name but two.