OneGuyFromBarlick

Indeed, the original plan had housing on the brownfield site and at the other side of the little cut, in the foreground of your picture. Fine on the former mill site but no further. Not sure what actually got passed by the planners or on appeal. No extra infrastructure that will be a given I bet.

This is the 'published' plan


Pic courtesy of David Whipp

Thanks Kev, that makes 66 houses on the flood plane by my reckoning. The water will have to go somewhere and I wonder how many will be affordable housing for first time buyers?

The. new estate called Cotton Meadows , Skipton Rd, looks really nice.

Apart from the fact that all the houses are 300K plus and there has been no expansion of the local support infrastructure, (schools, dentists, doctors, sewage, etc)

But plenty of profit and massages the Labour plan for more houses.....



Same view in 1982.

Taken on a trip to Blackpool in 1981. It would probably be illegal to do this pic today.... How times have changed!

1979......

The last tobacco advertisement in the UK. It was for Silk Cut cigarettes. Quite brilliant but how many remember it today?

Cross Keys and Seven Stars corner, 1983......

The view from the engine house window at Bancroft. How many work stations had wallpaper like that?

Dee Mill engine at Shaw vandalised beyond any hope of recovery. A great shame because it was a fine engine.....



Here's what it looked like in happier times. All gone and forgotten now.

One of my heroes..... Nye Bevan. We have forgotten what politicians should be. This man was a giant!

I tripped over this pic I did of three friends of mine walking down Rainhall Road in 1980 before the new police station was built... I realised that I had accidentally got a picture of the house that used to stand on the corner which was for many years a doctors surgery. Was It called Fernbank?
Whatever, it's definitely a forgotten corner now!

I took an American friend of mine to visit the Barritt family at their dairy farm, Kayfield, over 25 years ago. They were wiped out by F&M disease in 2001 and I visited yesterday. All these buildings are gone and farming has ceased. This is true of so many small farms round here these days..... A very sad forgotten corner.

The level crossing at Earby in the days of steam. A forgotten corner on so many levels....

Les Burrell, tinsmith in the Bridgefield works of Rochdale Electric Welding.... Les was a magician with thin sheets of metal, a dying trade and I don't know where there was another one. The world has forgotten the trade.

Norman Sutcliffe using his favourite machine at Ripponden in 1987.

Rueben would like one of those!

To which Reuben do you refer Peter? The reason I ask is because the only Reuben I have known was Norman's brother.



Thirty feet long and weighing about 35 tons, the twin flued 'Lancashire' boiler was the most common steam raising equipment in the world for many years..... Superseded and forgotten now....

Stanley wrote: ↑23 Aug 2025, 02:14 To which Reuben do you refer Peter?

Reuben Owen of` Our Yorkshire Farm' who has launched his own heavy plant machinery and groundwork business featured in his own TV series. TV series

Ah, I didn't know about him Peter.



Ornamental slide turning rest mounted on Johnny's 1927 copy of a Birch Lathe. Gone are the days when Johnny needed a lathe so he set to and made one. Then, just to make things more interesting he made it an ornamental lathe. A bit like playing three dimensional chess. Fascinating and I have refurbished both of his ornamental lathes. I freely admit they are beyond my pay grade!

Stanley wrote: ↑24 Aug 2025, 02:35 Ah, I didn't know about him Peter.

I'd have thought you'd enjoy those programmes with all the heavy machinery and massive trucks!

The Lad with Norman Sherry in 1981. Norman was an incredibly flawed but brilliant man who tutored me in English Lit at Lancaster. He was the man Graham Greene trusted to write his biography. He was also the recognised authority on Joseph Conrad. (LINK)
I remember him saying to me one day "Personally, I don't understand why you're pissing about. You're quite obviously a writer...." He might have been right!