Bygone Burnley: Bridge Street and 1292 corn mill

Burnley Express

Bygone Burnley: Bridge Street and 1292 corn mill, with historian Roger Frost MBE

Transcript

00:00We're in the middle of Burnley and in lots of ways it is really the historic centre of Burnley

00:09because we're in front of the Bridge Inn which is now known as the Bridge Beer House and a very good local pub it is

00:18but we're on Bridge Street and Bridge Street is where the very first Burnley buildings were put up in the 13th century

00:29there was the Corn Mill which was built in 1292 and the street itself came down from St James Street

00:43and that was Bridge Street and in this direction towards the station it was known as Mill Lane because of the ancient Corn Mill

00:57and the Corn Mill was built by the Lord of the Manor who asked Edward I if he could have a royal privilege to build a Corn Mill

01:10so that he could collect the rents off all of the grain that was milled in the building

01:17now we know that the main crop that was grown in Burnley was oats but Burnley could also grow some wheat and it needed to grow barley

01:28barley because of the brewing industry so the Corn Mill was just round the corner from where we are now

01:36there's nothing left of it at all now but adjacent to it there was a malt kiln and there was a brewery, the old brewery, Hargreaves' Brewery

01:49which was taken over by masses in the 1920s

01:53right we've now come behind the Bridge Beer House and we're in the car park which is just a little bit further on

02:02but even this car park has got an interesting history

02:05as I said near the Bridge Inn was the brewery and the Corn Mill

02:13but the water to drive the Corn Mill was taken from the River Brougham behind where we are near where St Peter's Church is

02:22the ancient weir which controlled the water is still there

02:27and the leet which took the water from about a quarter of a mile away through where St Peter's Centre is

02:39was there in my youth when I was a young man

02:44but the car park itself was the Mill Pond

02:49they had to accumulate a great deal of water to allow the Corn Mill to work for much of the working day

02:59and in summer when the River Brougham is not all that high they accumulated the water overnight

03:07then let it pass on to the Corn Mill, they ground the flour

03:13the Lord of the Manor took a percentage of all the takings

03:19and that's how the system worked

03:22incidentally I mentioned the Lord of the Manor

03:25this was the Earl of Lincoln, Henry III Earl of Lincoln

03:29he had been brought up by the Royal Family

03:35and was a personal friend of Edward I

03:38and they had been brought up together in the same Royal Household

03:43but Henry when he became of age succeeded to his estates

03:47Edward became King and they were lifelong friends

03:51so the Lord of the Manor of Burnley was a great friend of the King

03:58and when the King died in 1307 his son Edward II was fighting the Scottish Wars

04:07and he lost them ultimately

04:10but Henry de Lacey became the Regent of England

04:14and when he died in 1310 he was buried in the Great Cathedral at St Paul's in London

04:23where there is still a memorial to him

04:27the last thing we'll say today is just something that lots of you will remember

04:32a very well known local character David Wilde the artist

04:37he did a lot of his work in the town centre

04:41in the building directly behind me in the middle floor of this building

04:45which when he occupied it was on Bridge Street

04:49and before that a lot of older people will recall

04:54that when Lucas's came to Burnley in the Second World War

04:59they worked on the development of a jet engine

05:04and a little side line is that the world's first official flight of a jet powered aircraft was over Burnley

05:13to thank the people of Burnley for all the work they put into developing it

05:18but Lucas's were a company that looked after its people

05:24and the top two floors of the building behind me were made into Lucas's first social club

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