It’s a footie-free Wednesday window this week and The Friends of the Haworth are diving into the area to host our first local heritage and social evening. Join us at the Baxenden Village Club, (formerly the Conservative Club) on Manchester Road this Wednesday, 4th July at 7pm for an evening of culture, conversation and a coffee or two.
It’s set to be an interesting, relaxed and sociable evening with two speakers from our group sharing their fascinating research into the lives of those who lived at Hollins Hill and of the history of Baxenden and the surrounding area.
The event is free for anyone who would like to attend and we’ll even throw in a cuppa (but not through the window)! Hope to see you there.
Had you been living in Accrington in 1815, you might have passed the time occasionally by just hanging around Abbey Street, or on Manchester Road in Baxenden, for no apparent reason. But in fact, you’d have been loitering with unseen intent because you’d heard tell that a stagecoach would be passing through, writes Roger Cunliffe.
The stagecoach was a tremendous innovation in its day and its arrival in your neck of the woods was met with great anticipation. The passage of the coach from Clitheroe to Manchester was greeted enthusiastically by large crowds that would line both sides of Abbey Street, jostling for a view of the carriage and its travellers, as well as the horses and coachmen.
Stagecoach and four preparing to depart
Travel was extremely costly, and even men of means begrudged the expense of journeying by coach. The fare was twice as much to travel on the inside, with less than two feet width per traveller. Coaches usually accommodated six passengers on the inside. In early coaches, passengers facing the direction of travel would also have the indignity of dust and rain blowing in their faces. Only in later improvements on the coaches were blinds or windows added.
The more modestly priced roof seating could accommodate twice as many as the interior, but there was the ever-present danger of falling off! Not to mention the greater discomfort to external passengers of inclement weather (a virtual certainty in the North of England). The combined load of passengers would bring the weight of the coach to some two or three tons, so gentlemen passengers on the roof were obliged to get off and walk up steep hills to alleviate the horses’ burden (this, incidentally, is said to be the origin of the nickname Ha’penny Brow on the main road north into Preston, where the cheaper fare necessitated a walk up the long incline).
The turnpike roads traveled by stagecoaches were maintained by payments at toll houses along the route (see earlier post on Blind Jack for more on the local turnpike). Accrington’s surviving toll house where tolls were collected on the turnpike between Manchester and Clitheroe, is in Oak Hill Park and can be seen inset into the park’s eastern perimeter wall on Manchester Road. A coach drawn by six horses would have to pay around three shillings to pass.
Former Red Lion, Abbey Street, Accrington
By 1818, there were at least two rival coaches on the road: the Rocket and the Highflyer. Either arrival was still regarded as an event on Abbey Street. The sound of the guard’s horn was the signal for the gathering of townsfolk round the Red Lion Inn (as it then was) to await the arrival of the coach with the latest news from Manchester or Clitheroe way.
Coaching Inns sprang up along the routes for the refreshment of the passengers and no doubt the guards too. The current Railway Hotel at the Baxenden-Rising Bridge border has characteristics of a Coaching Inn. The coaches did not stop for long, however, and if you missed hearing the guard’s horn, you would be left behind.
There was stiff rivalry to get back before the competition, this being a point of comparison in deciding which coach to take, so drivers were happy to take payments for getting back first. Accidents were occasionally the unfortunate result of accelerated speeds on poor roads and hills. The illustration shown above demonstrates how the Highflyer might have raced home in an attempt to beat its rival, the Rocket.
Nowadays, if you’re waiting around with no apparent intent on Abbey Street or Manchester Road, it might just be that your particular bus company has moved on. No names mentioned!
A walk through Haworth Park in early summer enchants the soul and the senses with the profusion of wild flowers. Interrupted only by birdsong and the antics of the squirrels, the Haworth’s peaceful surroundings are a haven for wildlife and a tranquil respite from life’s daily hustle and bustle. JeanEmmett takes a walk through its flora.
The Haworth presides majestically over the scene, as nature races against our efforts to tame it, and large swathes of buttercup and daisy peep through the lawns before their next trim has chance to arrive.
Swathes of buttercups
Wild flowers are encouraged to grow naturally along the margins of the park and a total of around 50 different wild flower species can be seen today. Young trees proliferate around these borders and the many species showing early shoots include the oak, the ash and the holly tree, all self-propagating from their wooded surroundings.
The great field below the Haworth is dense with buttercups just now; simply delight in the profusion of their yellow, yolk-like heads as you wind your way along impromptu footpaths made through the grasses by walkers and by children playing.
Yellow pimpernel
Many of the wild flowers will be familiar to most visitors, but alongside the better known species are large patches of yellow pimpernel, bistort and pink purslane. The vigour of nature at this time of year can amaze us with its ability to take over and fill every nook and cranny with so many marvellous species.
Pink purslane
Along the wall bordering Manchester Road, the beautiful bistort and pink purslane nestle alongside the familiar crowns of cow parsley. The wild flower drifts provide a haven for many insects, not least, of course, the bees, busy visiting to collect their nectar.
And, complementing the wilder areas, we can’t overlook the formal rhododendron plantings, made so many years ago, and still providing a glorious show.
It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that women from the North West of England played an immense role in securing votes for women – the Pankhursts of Manchester are synonymous with the fight for women’s suffrage, as are the Kenneys of Saddleworth – but Accringtonians should be particularly proud of a pioneering suffragist even closer to home: Lydia Becker of Altham, who was an inspiration for the Pankhursts and so many other women of her day.
Lydia Becker, the Altham suffragist who inspired the teenage Emmeline Pankhurst
Becker, a noted and home-educated botanist and astronomer, got her own inspirational spark in 1866 from TheEnfranchisementofWomen, a paper by sister scientist, Barbara Bodichon. Its contents ignited her passion for voting equality and spurred her to start the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Committee, the first of its kind in the country, in 1867.
A few months later, when widowed shopkeeper Lily Maxwell’s name appeared by default on an electoral roll, Becker saw an opportunity for a promotional push. She accompanied Maxwell to the polling booth, where her right to vote was upheld. Becker encouraged other female heads of household to petition for similar rights and was instrumental in bringing their petitions to court.
In 1870, Becker and Jessie Boucherett started the Women’s Suffrage Journal and were soon organising speaking tours of the country. Lydia presented to an audience of 500 at Accrington’s Liberal Club on March 21, 1872. The following year, the club presented a women’s suffrage petition and just a few years later, the Accrington Liberals instructed their representatives to vote for women’s suffrage. (William Haworth, himself a staunch Liberal councillor, was no doubt familiar with his nearby neighbour). It was at an event organised by Becker in 1874, that a 15-year-old Emmeline Pankhurst attended her first gathering in favour of women’s suffrage.
In 1887, Becker was elected President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. In VotesforWomen: TheStoryofaStruggle, Roger Fulford described Becker thus: “The history of the decades from 1860 to 1890 – so far as women’s suffrage is concerned – is the story of Miss Becker.”
More ardent in her support of votes for unmarried women than some of her fellow suffragists, Becker argued that single and widowed women were in even greater need of the vote than married women of means, who in 1918 became the first in the country to attain it. (On this point, Emmeline Pankhurst was to disagree with her). Becker also used her scientific acumen to campaign for equality in education, arguing that there was no inherent difference in women’s and men’s intellects.
This sometimes led to public ridicule, not least by politicians and the press. Lydia Becker was the subject of numerous cartoons, one showing her being thrown out of parliament wrapped in the Women’s Suffrage Bill. But her legacy is of course one of pride to those who know her story and indeed there is currently an effort to commemorate her indefatigable efforts by local politicians.
Reformers’ Memorial, Kensal Green, where Lydia Becker rightly rubs shoulders with other Great British reform agents
Lydia Becker died in Aix-les-Bains in 1890, aged 63. Her name is marked on the grave of her father, Hannibal Leigh Becker, in the churchyard of St James, Altham – and, quite rightly, on the face of the Reformers’ Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery, London, among the great historic figures of British reform and innovation.
Hollins Hill, now the Haworth, was built to stand proud above the main thoroughfare between Manchester and The Ribble Valley. Manchester Road (the A680), threads neatly northwards through the hills of Baxenden, passing Hollins Hill, and into the valley of Accrington’s centre before climbing again towards Harwood and on towards Whalley.
John Metcalf, better known as Blind Jack, civil engineer extraordinaireAstonishingly, reports RogerCunliffe, this road was built by a blind engineer, whose method for determining the route for his road was to tap it out out with his stick. John Metcalf – widely known as Blind Jack of Knaresborough – supplied the winning tender to the Bury to Whalley Turnpike Trust and built its Baxenden leg in the late 1700s. Prior to this, the route through Baxenden snaked along Back Lane, down past Lane Ends Farm (later demolished to build Hollins Hill), along the hill and down the steep incline of Hollins Lane into town.
Blind Jack lost his sight to smallpox at the age of six. But this didn’t stop him leading a full and fascinating, if sometimes fraught, life. He earned his early living as a fiddle player, playing in local inns, then as a goods carrier, which helped him master the geography of the region. Jack used his transportation expertise to help the English army mobilise its weaponry around the Scottish Highlands during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. He was captured by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s adherents and court martialed as a spy, but was acquitted on grounds of too little evidence. A narrow squeak, and further testament to Jack’s seemingly unbounded resourcefulness.
Not only was Jack prolific and successful in his road-building career – he built around 180 miles of turnpike road, mainly throughout northern England – he was also extraordinarily inventive. He devised a method of packing his roads with heather and gorse bundles to get them across marshy terrain, which gave him a significant advantage over his competitors. Jack built roads in five counties and his roadbuilding career would last for decades, but Manchester Road, completed in 1791, turned out to be the last of Jack’s turnpike roads.
Statue tribute to Blind Jack, surveyor’s wheel in hand, in his native KnaresboroughJack’s last road was also a losing venture for him. Although the project paid the princely sum of £3,500, he ended up being £40 out of pocket, which might account for the fact that he built no more. That said, he was by this time a spry 74-year old!
Stagecoaches traveled the turnpike for those who could afford them, revolutionising longer distance travel along the national network of turnpikes. A century later, trams would ply the route between Bash at the top of the hill and Accy at the bottom. But that’s for future posts! Stay tuned…
The Friends’ research is taking us on a fascinating journey into the Haworth’s lovely buildings, but also into the lives of the people who lived and worked here when it was Hollins Hill, a private house owned by William and Anne Haworth. Jean Emmett, who leads this research, has uncovered many personal details about the retainers who worked for the Haworths. Jean reveals some of her findings here.
William Beech, the Haworths’ coachman, hailed from Shropshire. When Beech came to Lancashire, William Haworth converted a small cottage for him in Hollins Lane, Accrington, where he lived while working at Hollins Hill. Slightly surprisingly to modern readers, perhaps, he and his first wife Mary had 13 children – presumably all under the same roof. Perhaps less surprising then that at the age of 73 Beech was still working for Anne Haworth when she died in 1920.
Joseph Taylor in the Haworths’ Rolls Royce Double Landaulette
The Haworths’ chauffeur, Joseph Taylor, was a Manchester lad. Originally a bicycle maker, and obviously mechanically minded, he became a chauffeur, which, in the early days of the motor car, required real mechanical nous. It was in this capacity that William Haworth sought him out and hired him. Part of this deal was that William bought – and furnished – a house for Taylor on Manchester Road, Accrington. During World War I, Joseph drove an ambulance in Palestine and Egypt. Like Beech, he continued working at Hollins Hill until Anne’s death, after which he bought the ‘Hole-In-Bank Garage’ on Manchester Road, Baxenden. Part of the generation to live through two world wars, he worked in this business until 1944. His son, a well-known local figure, affectionately nick-named Nobby, then took over the business and ran it until the early 1970s. A number of Joseph’s descendants continue to live in the area and have been very helpful to our research.
Abraham Whiston: Groom, Valet, Butler, Curator!
Abraham Naboth Imlah Whiston was born in Cheshire. Originally a horse groom, he parlayed his skills into grooming two-legged clients and became William Haworth’s valet. He and his wife Minnie had three children. Their first home in the area was also on Manchester Road, then on neighbouring Harcourt Road, though Abraham occasionally stayed at Hollins Hill after social soirées at the house. When William died, Abraham stayed on as butler, but after Anne’s death he became the first curator of the house, which the socially minded Anne bequeathed to the people of Accrington.
Ellen Priestly, housekeeper, nurse and Anne’s companion; a lovely lady, tall and stately.
Ellen Priestly was born in Russia, where her father was working, and was one of 11 children. As a small child she came to Heald (now Weir) in Lancashire to live with her uncle and aunt and to attend school. She started work as a cotton weaver but became a housekeeper and was hired by the Haworths to nurse William’s and Anne’s elderly parents in their home on Burnley Road. After their deaths, she stayed on as Anne’s companion and travelled with the Haworths to Europe and Egypt. In 1909 she moved with them to Hollins Hill and stayed on as companion until Anne’s death. Ellen loved music and the arts. She never married and had no children of her own, but had many nieces and nephews. She was described by one of Taylor’s descendants as “a lovely lady, tall and stately,” as her portrait also intimates.
Our research continues to give life to names and faces from over a century ago – an intriguing piece of the area’s social history. If you have any information about the Haworth or any of its occupants, we’d love to hear from you!
The warm and mellow Music Room beautifully set out for a wedding breakfast.
Congratulations to wedding couples everywhere! Whether Royal Family or Royle Family, you can enjoy your own right Royal Wedding here at the Haworth, where regal refinement won’t cost a king’s ransom!
Set on the brow of Haworth Park, overlooking the lush greenery of its nine acre grounds and surrounding hills, the Haworth is a brilliant backdrop for a sweet, stylish or sophisticated wedding. Continue reading “Tying the knot far from Windsor? “
A gorgeous sunny day and a warm welcome greeted new Friends and auction bidders on Sunday. The whole of Haworth Art Gallery, the Stable Block and gardens were abuzz with visitors to the Craft Fair and Open Day. All with beautiful buys aplenty.
Sunny smiles all round from auction bidders and potential new members at the Friends’ welcome desk
The wonderful turnout yielded great interest in new membership at the Friends welcome desk. We all look forward to welcoming our many newcomers to the fold.
Enormous thanks also go to donors and buyers of items in our auction, which raised a superb £200 for member research and activities. Thank you!
The winning bidders have been contacted individually and all items are available for collection during normal gallery hours.
If you weren’t able to make it on Sunday, but are interested in joining the Friends – whether to help with organisation or just to come along to the occasional meeting – please feel free to contact us at haworthaccrington@gmail.com. A warm welcome always awaits!
How would you like to help history come to life? By joining the Friends of the Haworth, you can get involved in bringing alive this historic gem for today’s visitors. And take home your own gem from our blind auction!
Haworth Art Gallery and gardens: the area’s loveliest example of Arts & Crafts architecture
If you’re interested in joining, or just in finding out what the group is all about, the Friends will have a welcome desk at the Haworth’s May 13th Craft Fair and will be on hand to answer your questions. Whether you would like to be a key member, involved in running and organising activities, or just to join a friendly group with similar cultural interests – even simply to attend the occasional event – all are welcome.
Friends will be on hand to meet and greet – and take your auction bids!
The Friends are also hosting a blind auction of brilliant buys to support their programme of activities. Items are available to view at the Haworth in advance of the auction. Come and have a peek!
Our friendly bunch of enthusiasts are engaged in researching and promoting the Haworth’s beautiful building, which began life as Hollins Hill, home to mill owners William and Anne Haworth. The group is particularly involved in researching the history of the house, the family and its retainers, including chauffeur, Joseph Taylor, who presided over the Haworths’ precious motor and its recently refurbished – and extremely rare – motor house, now a part of the wonderful Stable Block development featuring local artists and craftspeople. The neighbouring Art Garden offers numerous fun art projects.
The Haworth Stable Block and Motor House, home to local artists and craftspeople; and the lovely Art Garden
The group also supports community engagement with the Haworth and the range of activities it offers. The Friends foster promotion of the Haworth’s beautiful collections and many wonderful exhibits, while also developing its own activities. Recent projects include the amazing Hollins School Photography Exhibit, available to view for its final few weeks in the Haworth Education Room. The group enjoys supporting local cultural events and visiting centres of cultural interest in the region.
Make sure of securing the most prized auction purchases by arriving early. Doors open from 12 noon to 4.15pm. You can of course contact the Friends by emailinghaworthaccrington@gmail.comor visit haworthartgallery.org..
Congratulations to Accrington Stanley! The club is celebrating history by winning promotion to League One of the EFL.
Looking back over town history – and the heyday of the Haworths – Stanley antecedent Accrington FC was one of 12 founding members of the League in 1888. A proud boast for a small northern town.
Accrington FC, 1886, just two years before becoming founding members of the League.
Chequered progress ended in AFC’s dissolution in 1896, but by this time, Stanley had formed (in 1891). Its name incorporated that of another old Accrington club, Stanley Villa, and is thought to refer to Accrington’s Stanley Street, where early meetings probably occurred in the Stanley Arms. In the early 1900s, Accrington Stanley enjoyed a very successful stint under then up-and-coming manager, John Haworth (no relation?) and numbered among the best clubs in the region.
Stanley charted bumpy progress in later years – especially in the 1960s, when it left and eventually rejoined the League – but the club has gained enormous momentum in recent years under manager John Coleman and owner Andy Holt. Huge congratulations to Stanley and its supporters on their promotion win this week. Another proud moment for Accrington.
A visit to the Haworth and a trip to Stanley: a historic day out!
