Robin Longbottom
Oakworth
Friday, February 15, 2013 11:05 |
Photograph of War Memorial 1921
Very interesting photograph submitted by Tony Ingham. It not only shows the Memorial, perhaps at the time of dedication, but it also shows the field beyond Holme Lane and now completely built over. The field name was Scott Close and is still remembered in the street of that name. The land was originally farmed from Bow Hill, next to the Black Bull. My great aunts lived at the farm house about 1900, they told me 'it was a very old house with mullioned windows', it was subsequently pulled down and rebuilt by John Willie Hartley. The other two interesting features in the photograph are the gas lamp on the right and its replacement on the left. Electricity was new to the village and the new electric street lamp would have given far better light than the dim, mellow, glow of the gas lamp. The arm of the new street lamp is supported by an interesting lattice steel pole of a type manufactured during the 1920's by British Insulated Cables Ltd of Prescot in Lancashire. According to family tradition my maternal grandfather's firm, Craven & District Electrical Construction Company of Keighley Road, Skipton, undertook the work. Replacing the gas lamps at this time would have been a considerable undertaking, although it is likely that the new street lamps would have been linked by overhead conductor rather than underground cable. To reduce cost existing gas lamp columns were often fitted with electric lamps, a number of these remained in the village into the 1960's and I well remember swinging on the arm of one in Low Fold as a boy. |
