Henry's Tour of Littleborough in 1986 (Part 2)

This is the gable end of the top house in Victoria Street opposite the chapel. I was almost surprised not to see a set of wickets chalked on this wall.

We played cricket incessantly in the summer, on any unoccupied surface. (Not with a ‘corkie’ ball on this pitch though).

Sam Mills lived in this top house. He kept a keen eye on the churchyard opposite, although I never knew him go to church. He used to come out and shout at us if we were playing in the churchyard. All the church buildings have gone, thanks to dry rot.

 

The posh end of Brown Street.

The houses were faced with Accrington brick, the end ones had bay windows, and all of them had ‘tippler’ closets. I never quite understood the mechanism, but understood that a bucket received the human waste, but stood also to receive all waste water from the kitchen and bathroom of the houses. Every time it filled, it ‘tippled’ and emptied itself into the sewer pipe. The closets were behind the houses. This row of houses obscured the gas holders behind.

Turn right at the end of Brown Street on to ‘Gas Lane’. We used to play cricket here as well, but in the 1920s and 1930s it was a cinder track. Hitting the ball into the gasworks counted ‘six and out’. To retrieve the ball meant risking being shouted at by the workmen.

It was fascinating to see the red hot coke being barrowed out. Then a hose pipe would be played on the coke to cool it. My father liked his coke to be delivered during a dry spell. He didn’t like paying for rain water!

The waste ground in the background used to be in good order for hen pens, gardens etc. The fair used to come here as well. But in the late 1920s the Python Mill, which had stood empty for years, was bought by a Dutch firm, Breda Visada, to produce artificial silk. That ground became a massive tip for the tons of horrible waste from the mill.

Agnes and Mary both worked in the mill and came home stinking. Any silver coins in the pockets of workpeople calling in the shop for their Woodbines or for a pie, were quite black, I suppose from the H2S, a by-product of the manufacture.