Sam Riley
Newton Rigg College
Monday, April 14, 2008 18:57 |
Bairstows Mill Dam and Goit
Bairstows Mill Dam
Dear all
Having seen the latest photo in the gallery, of Bairstows Mill Dam, I was wondering if any one else out there had any similar images, or even plans of the dam system. I am current researching the history of the area; as there is currently a move to see the dam’s goit (dam inlet channel), at the back of Sutton Allotments, be renovated into a wildlife garden/area and I am using the area for a landscape architecture project at university.
Part of the site assessment for this is understanding the historic use of the area. We are fairly aware of what actually went on in the goit channel, but the connectivity with and details of, the actual dam area a bit more fuzzy. We know that the goit enters from the beck at the large weir below Holme Bridge and that it had a secondary drainage pipe into the beck, before it entered the main dam. It is also known that before the water entered the dam if ran over a weir, this was possibly a silt trap to avoid too much sediment entering the main dam.
From the Hosfall/Heyfeilds sale map (Date Unknown aprox. 1930), it can be observed that the dam did not lay over the allotment area but over what is now the western portion of the Millers Croft development (most of the old boundary walls are still in place but hidden, under fences and vegetation).
What we do not know is:
1.Protruding from the face of the weir into the dam, is a large cast iorn pipe (1 ½ ft) with a large, partially buried, pointed cast iron cover; that runs toward the main dam. We do not know what purpose this pipe served, when 3ft away at a right angle there is a similar bore pipe that would have drained water straight out of the goit into the beck if necessary.
2.What the sight looked like during the mills operation, as we have no primary source images/details of the goit, weir or the inlet from the beck.
3.How the outlet and take-off to the mill worked.
Any help or information would be gratefully received
Yours
Sam Riley
|
Andrew Monkhouse
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 04:35 |
Would you Adam ‘n’ Eve it, who’d have thought that Sutton Mill dam would one day become the focus of a university project !
Sorry I can’t shed any light on your specific inquires Sam, but good luck with the assignment. It’s good to know that Sutton has found its way into the higher echelons of tertiary educational.
|
Alan
Thursday, April 17, 2008 17:28 |
Sam,
The date of the Hayfield sale is on the cover of the catalogue, 1938. I thought that I had let you have all the information regarding the sale including the plans. If not please feel free to get in touch. Your grandma Wallbank of the webmaster can supply my address ( e mail or sanail mail)or 'phone number. |
Joan
Cowling
Thursday, April 17, 2008 20:09 |
Referring to the mill dam c.1895 photo, does anyone know when Eastfield Place and the first part of Gordon Street were built? My parents lived at the gable end no. 2 Eastfield Place, and the gable end upstairs window was always bricked up, and it looks like it was then? Been down to Sutton to sus it out, a bit clearer now. |
paulw
webmaster
Thursday, April 17, 2008 21:57 |
According to the maps in "Sutton-in-Craven - The Old Community", Eastfield Place was built between 1868 and 1893 and Gordon Street after 1893. The 1901 online census shows 42 property entries for Gordon St.
Paul |
Sam Riley
Newton Rigg College
Friday, April 18, 2008 12:28 |
Alan
Thank you for providing the date of the map. I still have the plans you gave me and I am ever grateful for your help. The trouble I had when writing the above piece was, that the maps were at home and I was away studying at Askham Bryan College, so did not have them at hand to reference correctly.
As regards the Eastfield Place query, people may find the entomology of the name interesting. The name is a historical reference to the medieval common farming system. Of which the large open field were often named after the cardinal points (Rackham, 2000). These common fields were enclosed around the 1700’s, and then several subsequent enclosure fields retained the name East Field (Tithe Map, 1841). Eastfield Place, was subsequently built upon one of these ‘East Field’ enclosures and retained the ‘East Field’ portion of the name.
|
Joan
Cowling
Saturday, April 19, 2008 19:10 |
Many thanks, v. interesting. We have one c.1895 taken under Glusburn Bridge when very dry, and a faint one of maybe Hayfields Mill taken from near beck just below bridge, and 8 on our Cowlingweb site, all among same batch, many taken abroad (maybe owner was from Malsis Hall or Carr Head)?? Do you want those 2 down there??
|
Sam Riley
Newton Rigg College
Sunday, April 20, 2008 10:15 |
Joan
Thanks for the offer but my search is more concentrating, on the Holme Bridge area, the allotments and Bairstows Mill and its dam workings.
Just to keep every one informed, my search so far shows:
That the first area of allotments appeared between 1851 and 1889 and were located on the beck side of the road, between the western edge of the Sand Park and the eastern boundary of the current allotments (Ordnance survey, 1951, 1889).
The allotments then expand between the 1889 and 1909 ordnance surveys to encompass this older area their current site (Ordnance Survey, 1909). Then between 1919 and 1935, Barstow’s mill expands and the combing department (Riley, 1996) is built over the area of the original allotments. Leaving the approximate area we see in use today. This area may have been eroded slightly on the eastern edge, by Silent Night, when the mill dam was back filled and the large western entrance was built to the site. (This has now been removed, with the modern housing development).
Little information can be found on what actually happened within the goit area, as digital copies of the survey I have are a little fuzzy, so the finer detail of areas like the goit are blurred.
Finally an interesting of entomology has cropped up:
Holme (as in Holme Bridge) or is a corruption of an Old Norse (ON) word for dry area or island, within a marshy or wet area. (The Viking Network, 2006).
Many thanks
Sam
|
Paul Longbottom
Sutton
Sunday, April 20, 2008 15:57 |
Sam,
If you are interested in the study of place and field names, have a look at 'The place names of the West Riding of Yorkshire' VolXXXVI part VII edited by A.H. Smith. This edition contains an excellent dictionary that is far more applicable to this area than those by Ekwall etc. Part VI contains a list of place and field names for the whole of the Kildwick area and throws up some good early examples for Sutton. |
paulw
webmaster
Monday, April 21, 2008 08:45 |
Joan - I'll gladly add the Glusburn Bridge and Hayfield photos to the gallery, thanks. Paul |
Denis Pickles
Norfolk
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 13:28 |
Sam,
I can remember the weir, sluice and the goit which were constructed to draw off beck water into the mill dam quite well. I can picture ithe arrangement in my minds eye but as youngsters we couldn't gain access to the strip between the beck and the dam very easily. It was guarded by a pair of swans which nested there. We were scared that if we did trespass there, 'one blow from the swans' wing will break your leg!' I was easily frightened!
You mention the problem of silt entering the dam. Dredging the dam was undertaken periodically. The process involved erecting a temporary timber bridge across the beck which permitted the scoops full of mud dredged from the bottom of the dam, to be hauled over the beck and emptied into Thompsons[?] field. I'm pretty sure that the motive power for the whole operation was provided by steam tractors. It's all a bit hazy after all these years but perhaps someone might have photos and be able to fix a date. I would have thought it would have been 1940 or thereabouts.
Incidentally Sam, I think you have inadvertently stuck an extra 'n' in the word etomology. Entomology is the study of insects, not words, as I'm sure you know. |
Denis Pickles
Norfolk
Thursday, April 24, 2008 07:55 |
I'll put my hand up Sam. I have it wrong as well! The word is etymology! |
Alan
Thursday, April 24, 2008 18:14 |
Now then, there's a novelty. |
Andrew Monkhouse
Friday, April 25, 2008 08:18 |
Hmm, fifteen love to Pickles the younger ! |
Alan
Friday, April 25, 2008 17:40 |
Don't you believe it Andrew. All meant in fun and I hope, taken that way. |
Andrew Monkhouse
Friday, April 25, 2008 22:46 |
Of course Alan, I wasn't hinting at there being ever such a slight suggestion of sibling rivalry from days gone by in your previous comment.
Unlike my sister & I who still irritate the life out of one another, it's never my fault though ! |
Sam Riley
Newton Rigg College
Saturday, May 3, 2008 23:11 |
Thanks for the Info Denis; dyslexia is a terrible thing for an academic such as myself, with only a computer to do my proof reading for me. Sorry for not replying sooner, but I have been lost in a black hole of dissertation work (For which I am guaranteed to have lost all the marks available for spelling and grammar).
Thanks
Sam
|
Andrew Monkhouse
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 22:56 |
Well fella's, entomology, etomology or etymology; fundamentally the prolongated application of a polysyllabic vocabulary infallibly exercises a deleterious influence on the fecundity of expression, rendering the ultimate tendency apocryphal. Or so I was once told ! |
Alan
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 08:21 |
What is the world coming to? I suppose there is always one. I bow to your superior vocabulary. Keep at it Andrew. Educashuns a wunderfull fing. Don't believe all you are told. |
