Bygone Burnley: Lowerhouse

Burnley Express

Bygone Burnley: Lowerhouse, with historian Roger Frost MBE 20-3-25

Transcript

00:00Today we're in Lower House, which is now part of Burnley, but historically Burnley was in the huge

00:09township of Habergham Eves. It wasn't even called Lower House, it was called Thornhill,

00:16and at Thornhill residents of Burnley and Habergham Eves had the right to graze cattle,

00:25to graze their sheep, and they even had the right in some instances to dig for coal

00:32on what was commonly owned land, and this remained the case until the late 18th century.

00:41In 1786 a map was produced one inch to the mile of this part of the Burnley area,

00:49and it doesn't even mention Lower House, although we know that it had been built.

00:57It was in fact a splendid example of an early industrial community.

01:04There were several of these around Burnley. One was in Readley at Jewell Mill, there was another

01:10in Briarcliffe at Exquistle, and there was a third amongst others in Hapton, where early

01:19industrial buildings were constructed, and around all of them, but particularly Lower House,

01:28houses were built for an ever-increasing number of workers in the buildings. Now the company

01:36that started Lower House was the company owned by the family of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel.

01:45The Peels started in Osseltwistle near Accrington and built their first mill buildings in that part

01:54of the world, however they extended to other parts of Lancashire, Derbyshire, Cheshire,

02:01and had mills all over the northwest of England. Burnley became the site of all their mills, and

02:08the first one that they constructed was here at Lower House. They remained here as basically

02:17cotton spinners, although they did introduce calico printing, until about 1813, and in that year

02:28they sold their mill and other industrial premises to a family called the Dugdales,

02:37who came from Great Harwood. They took on what the Peels had started, it took them

02:44about 20 years before they really got to grips with the possibilities that Lower House

02:52actually showed them, and they developed both sides of the industry, calico printing

03:00and cotton spinning and weaving. In fact it was the only integrated site in the whole area

03:10where all the processes in cotton weaving, spinning, and calico printing were all carried out.

03:18Now we're standing at Riverside Mews, a charming modern development of houses in the Lower House

03:26area, and residents probably don't realise that it was here that the huge spinning mill,

03:35which also had a weaving department, was constructed. Now we'll show you an image of this mill,

03:42which was built in 1836, in one of the photographs that go with this story,

03:49but it's difficult to believe that it was directly behind where I'm standing now.

03:55One of the features of Lower House is that it was a completely integrated textile community,

04:03and behind me now you can see part of the entrance to the calico printing works,

04:09which were a secondary industrial operation introduced by the Peel family.

04:19There's quite an assortment of houses in Lower House, and behind me you can see some of the

04:25properties that were built for the managers at the mill, or perhaps the calico printing works.

04:32They're called Victoria Terrace, and so they're a bit later than much of the other property in the

04:39village, but they show that there was a division between the owners, the managers, and the workers.

04:49At the bottom of the scale were the workers, and the smaller cottages were for them.

04:55We're standing on Lower House Lane at the corner of Wellesley Street. They're both in Lower House,

05:02and Wellesley Street originally was Peel Street, named after the family who started the

05:10industrial operations here in the late 18th century. But the street has, or the row of houses,

05:18has two shops on it, and one of them, and I'm not sure which, was the shop belonging to the Lower House

05:33Cooperative Society, which was founded in 1872. Now this was in the days of the Dugdales when they

05:42owned the mill, and the Dugdales were very good employers in some respects, but they had run a

05:51system where they owned the village shop. They charged almost whatever they wanted to for the

05:59prices, because they weren't competing with shops in central Burnley, which is quite a distance away

06:05from here, and of course in those days there was nothing between Lower House and Burnley of any

06:12size. So they made big profits. However, their workers were not the sort of people who would

06:23accept this, and they, along with their employers on in some occasions, founded institutions.

06:32Now we're talking about the Cooperative Society at Lower House. It existed for just over 20 years,

06:39occupies one of the two shops on the row behind me, and we know a little bit about it because

06:47it served half the families of Lower House. That was 400 families, and the food that they

06:57bought there and other items for domestic situations were good value. However, in 1895

07:08the Burnley Cooperative Society, which was a much bigger society with over 100 outlets at one time,

07:16bought the business and incorporated it into the Burnley Cooperative Society.

07:22Behind me is the Lower House canteen, which the Dugdale family gave to the people of Lower House.

07:31It was used like a sort of social club. Lots of events for children, young families were held here,

07:40just as is the case today. And Lower House also benefited from the Dugdale family

07:48in that all the churches and chapels in the area and schools were given funding by the family.

07:56So Lower House became a community largely owned by the family, but it was a real community.

08:07We're now standing outside the scoreboards of Lower House Cricket Club. It's a famous club

08:15in the days of the Lancashire League. It's been very successful recently, but the club was founded

08:23by the Drew family who owned the Calico Printing Works. Several of the Drews were very good sportsmen.

08:33One of them represented Scotland. In fact, he played in the very first international rugby match

08:41that Scotland ever played. He and other members of the family tried to encourage

08:47sporting activities for their workers, and Lower House Club is a remnant of that.

08:58It's significant that the street of the houses next door to the ground is Thornhill Street,

09:05which is the name by which the whole of the Lower House area was known in the past.

09:11The grounds, as you can see, are very well maintained. They're in a bit of an isolated spot,

09:18but Burnley has two good cricket clubs, Lower House being one and Burnley being the other.

09:26We're on Colvid Way, which is just off Kidrow Lane. Now, Kidrow is a unique name for a road, so far as I know,

09:37and it comes from a spelling of Clitheroe. In the past, it used to be the lane

09:45that led through Paddington to Clitheroe. There are various spellings, but we are left with

09:53Kidrow, but if you say Kidrow and think about Clitheroe, there is still that connection, so

10:00there's no other Kidrow Lane, so far as I know, anywhere in the country. The other thing to say

10:07about this location is that in the 18th century until the mid-19th century, this area was known

10:16as Sweet Clough. The Sweet Clough was a stream which drained this area alongside the Green Clough

10:25and the waters ultimately got into the Calder. But the cottages were charming little cottages,

10:33and we've included an illustration of the cottages, which comes from a Burnley Express calendar

10:40of 1956. They were long gone by that time, although the smaller image shows where we

10:49are standing now. We are standing where Burnley High School used to be. It's been replaced by

10:58lots of modern houses in recent years, but the Burnley High School was built in 1950

11:06as Burnley's girls' grammar school. Of course, the boys' grammar school was located nearby,

11:13and the two schools merged to form Hammergan High, which has also been

11:20consigned to history as well, because none of the three schools survive today.

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