I have written about the Slawit Moonrakers previously, and thought it time to reflect on the legend of the Marsden Cuckoos. One version goes that realising that the arrival of the cuckoo marked the welcome return of fair spring weather, the people of Marsden decided to try to prolong this by building a wall around the cuckoo’s nest to prevent it from flying away. There is logic there somewhere, I’m sure.
Marsden sits at the far western end of what is now a picturesque and beautiful Colne Valley. Because of its relatively isolated location, it once had the very unkind reputation of being inhabited by people who were, what shall I say, not the brightest buttons, not the sharpest knives. It has been said – though obviously never by me – that the birthdays of the people of Marsden are always in April and May, they have blonde woolly hair, are named Bahahahry, or Bahahahbara and live in Mahahahrsden.
This is in my experience unkind and wholly unjustified. I find the people of Marsden to be pleasant, wholesome, friendly salt-of-the-earth types with an excellent (I hope, in the case of Marsden readers) sense of humour.
Marsden’s two woollen mills
The village is dominated by two huge woollen mills, one is situated in the centre of the village and the other overlooking it from just under Butterley Reservoirs. They are both empty and quiet and on the verge of being described as derelict.
The mill near the reservoir was built in 1824 and is named Bank Bottom Mill, assumed to be so called because it sits in the shadow of the earth bank reservoir. But as the mill was built 80 years before the res, it is likely that the name derives from the mill sitting at the far end of the Colne Valley, just as the land begins to rise steeply to form the Pennines.
The mill in the centre is named New Mill or Colne Valley Spinning Company. There were many companies or individual mills within a larger group that specialised in the spinning process. Several large mills within the Colne Valley were owned by the Crowther family.The two in Marsden were owned by J E Crowther and Sons.
Different times, different customs
If we ever got to talk to one of the mill owners at that time, we would have to address them as “Mr…” followed by whatever their first name was. I never came to terms with this. During my early apprentice days at another huge mill complex further down the valley named C&J Hirst’s, the owners at that time were two brothers called Charles and Edward.
During all the years I worked at that mill, I only had to address one once, and the experience was one I could have done without. It was a trivial enquiry but calling him “Mr Charles” made me feel demeaned, which I’m sure was the aim. “Mr Hirst” would have been fine and to be expected when a spotty teen was addressing the big boss, but “Mr Charles”? No, it was wrong then and wrong now.
Mills were noisy and hot
The name of the mill in the centre of Marsden suggested, as many others had, that they just carried out the carding and spinning process between sheep and cloth, and indeed this particular mill had 32 carding machines and probably a similar number of mule spinning machines. But they also had 260 looms, and as I have described in my previous “mills of the 60s” ramble, these will have made a right racket.
The sound must have dominated the whole of the village, and even if the good people of Marsden were lucky enough to live on the far side, it still must have been a constant ‘white noise’ in the background. Sundays must have been a godsend in more ways than one.
This is Bank Bottom Mill. The buildings to the left and behind the chimney are the weaving sheds. As in the cottage industry of previous generations, the weaving and mending needed as much natural light as possible.
This is a good example of the southern facing upstairs windows of the weaving rooms during the time of the textile cottage industry. In this case itis the Colne Valley Museum in Gowca, well worth a visit.
When progress dictated that textile processes were brought together in one mill, the weaving and mending were always situated in a single-storey building with one side of the ziggy-zag roof structure fully glassed and facing as near south as possible.
During the summer the temperature inside the building would occasionally become uncomfortably hot, so a man was sent into the roof with a bucket and long handled brush to smear the windows with a weak lime solution to reflect some of the sun’s rays. During the late summer and autumn the rain would wash it off to allow the full rays of the sun to penetrate again: simple, clever and cheap.
Textile mills: a presence felt by all in the Colne Valley villages
Even if you lived at the far end of any village in the Colne Valley between 1800 and 1960, it was difficult to avoid the presence of textile mills. If it wasn’t the racket that they made, it was the black and often dense smoke, and many mills had sirens blaring away two or three times a day to remind their workers that it was time to start or finish their shift. I suspect these were the sirens left over from WW2 to announce the ‘all clear’ – at least it’s to be hoped it did, or everyone in the Colne Valley would be diving into their Anderson shelters three time a day.
There was also the constant smell of lanolin – the natural oils secreted by animals of the sheep family – and mineral oils used in lubricating the machinery, which in my humble opinion was not unpleasant; but it was a smell that only cleared along with the smoke during the textile holiday fotnit. On the rare occasion, sometimes on Moi’s knitting wool I experience the same smell which immediately takes me back on a nostalgic journey to my younger days.
Marsden today: green and pleasant
Like its neighbour Slawit just down the valley, Marsden has all the facilities needed for a fulfilling lifestyle and again like Slawit no nightclubs. It also has a regular transport system, and the canal and railway enters the very impressive Standage Tunnel on the outskirts of Marsden. There are many wonderful walks, and there are plans afoot to do something with the mills at last. It’s now a green and pleasant land, not quite as yuppified as Slawit perhaps but not far behind.
