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Whitewell memories

Here are memories of Whitewell and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Whitewell or a Whitewell photo.

Seedhill Cottage

The house in the foreground is known as Seedhill Cottage.  My family lived there from the mid sixties to late seventies. My father was the gamekeeper for the local shoot and water baliff for Whitewell area. My mother was the school cook at Dunsop Bridge. My sister and brother attended school in Dunsop. The family moved to Hellifield when the shoot closed in 1979. I've been back a number of times and it is still a beautiful place.

Memories of Lancashire

Early Years

I was born 1945 at Mason Green Farm and attended the little school from 1950 until 1954 when my father moved on to other employment away from the area to Furness in north Lancs. My sister Barbara who is 4 years younger than me only briefly attended the school. My memories are of a small happy group of kids in 2 separate classes with a very loud but firm Headmistress, Miss Arms, followed by a Miss or Mrs? Leeming and another teacher, Miss Doris Stanley. When I visit the old place now I notice the Reading Room and Assembly Room are now private houses and the shop/post office has gone, the school also, as did the chapel, the filling station came and went too. I remember "Pop" Chew on a chair in the reading room and Mr and Mrs Wilson who ran the shop/post office. On certain Sundays the school doubled as the church and the minister from Mitton, Canon Calderbank, officiated. I recall the trips by the bus on... Read more

Happy Memories of Slaidburn

My first introduction to Slaidburn was in the middle of the very cold and snowy winter of 1949-50. I had just driven down from Inverness to this charming Lancashire village with my Dad. It had been a long, cold drive in a 1938 Morris roadster car, loaded with luggage and a big tool box. I was to begin a new job working for Cementation Ltd where my father also worked. The contract was to drill a tunnel from Ellerbeck to supply water to Manchester. I was to continue my apprenticeship as a heavy duty mechanic. We arrived at 23 Church Street Slaidburn late in the day, tired and hungry. Our landlady, Mrs. Waterworth welcomed us with open arms and a nourishing hot meal. After a good sleep we drove up to the Site at Ellerbeck for me to see just where I would be working. Dad showed me around and introduced me to several of the engineers and workers. I would enjoy working here!  Back at our lodgings I was... Read more

Clitheroe And Trough of Bowland

My father, Ken Hatton, worked as a surveyor with Cementation, a civil engineering company from Bentley Nr. Doncaster. They were driving a water tunnel under the Trough of Bowland. At that time we lived in Clitheroe at 12 Windsor Avenue off Henthorn Road. I remember going down Low Moor to a beauty spot known locally as "little Blackpool" on the River Lune, for some reason I always associate it with that popular rhyme at the time "ten green bottles..". At that time the whole area was less built up than it is today but I was fascinated by the Sewage Works down that way at the end of Henthorn Road and a stream where my uncle took me fishing for sticklebacks and I recall a crab apple tree.

Sometimes dad would take me out with him on his trips to work in an open top jeep, probably ex Army, and he used to say I would fall asleep stood up in the fresh open air. I remember one day... Read more

Home Sweet Home

1981 The year we moved into West Bradford, to Gable Cottage, built about 1790. For 28 very happy years we lived here. Aunty Nancy the cottage ghost showed her present sometimes! No gas, no lights overhead electric wires and telly pole in back garden! Well, in 28 years on we had gas lights etc etc! Well, it was time to move on. We settled on Portugal! Now we live in a village with no gas, sort of street lights, and a telegraph pole on front garden! We miss west Bradford!

The Old House

The Old Mill House c1950
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This is a picture of the house I lived in as a 8year old boy, I used to catch trout and eels by hand in the stream/creek. It was called the old mill house, to the left was the old bobbin mill. The driveway was directly opposite to the Bayley Arms.

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