Rossendale

I felt in love with the modern world.

I felt in love with Wannapen and Rossendale.

Because I had the radio on.

I felt like a road owner.

Hmm.

On September 3rd, BBC website reported that local Rossendale and Darwen MP, Andy McNair, said he had been assured that this scheme would be included in the final version of the county's Transport Implementation Plan.

The article went on, "Campaigners have long called for the return of passenger trains to Rawtenstall, which has been without a rail service since its station closed in 1972.

The proposed City Valley rail link would use the existing East Lancashire railway route between Rawtenstall and Bury, with passengers connecting to Metrolink services into Manchester." Richard, this seems a far cry to me from the Severn Valley scheme.

I'm Mike Kelly.

I'm based in Rossendale, which is about 20 miles north of Manchester, just on the edge of the Pennine Moors.

My work is broadly based around photography.

For a while, I called myself a photographer, but I've kind of drifted recently.

It's

more,

I guess the landscape around here in Rossendale is, I know very, very well.

I've lived here for decades.

For surely the Vale of Cliviger, seen in its spring garment, when the fresh green of the buds that have burst is thrown up by the rich purple of those that are bursting, is one of the glories of Lancashire.

Bacup and Rawtenstall flank the highlands of the Forest of Rossendale and Deerplay Moor, where the Irwell takes its rise.

Blackburn, which is only separated from the beautiful Ribble Valley by a low range of hills, has the heights of Darwen to the south, while on the west it shares with Preston the country round Haughton Towers.

Preston itself occupies its own commanding position at the head of the Ribble Estuary, with the green country of Haughton Bottoms and Samlesbury Bottoms to the east, and the picturesque villages of the Fylde to the north.

Hence partly the numerous faults near the Lancashire border.

This great fold of the Pennines runs, as we have said, north and south, but our relief map shows that a number of minor folds run across Lancashire in a generally east to west direction, or to be more accurate, slightly north of east to south of west, apparently thrusting bold masses of high land westwards over the county.

The chief of these are the Rossendale anticline, over which we were looking a moment ago from the summit of Holcombe Hill, where the millstone grit, protruding boldly through the coalfield, gives us the high ground that separates the Burnley coalfield from that round Bury, and is continued westwards in the groups of grit hills furrowed by river valleys that lie between Blackburn and Bolton.

The next in order, proceeding northwards, is the Clitheroe and Skipton anticline, which has left on its southern slope the great mass of Pendle, on its northern slope the line of Longridge.

The oath taken by the ale-taster on assuming his duties was as follows.

you shall swear that you shall well and truly serve the king's majesty and the lord of this leat in the office of ale taster you shall have diligent care during the time of your being in office to all the brewers and tipplers within your office that they and every one of them do make good and wholesome ale and beer for man's body and that the same be not sold before it be assayed by you and then to be sold according to the prices limited and appointed by the king's justices of the peace and all faults committed or done by the brewers or tipplers or by any of them you shall make known and present the same at this court whereby due punishment may be inflicted upon them for their offences accordingly and in every other thing you shall well and truly behave yourself in the said office for this year to come so help you god in the early days the punishment for brewing and publicly exhibiting bad ale was either a fine or a two hours seat upon the cooking or cook stool before the culprit's own door the drink if pronounced by a discriminating judge to be undrinkable being handed over to the poor folk the late richard taylor of bake up the rossendale ale taster may with propriety be described as the last of the ale tasters as such he deserves a word of commemoration spindle dick he was usually called the writer knew him personally and had many a confab with him dick and his idiosyncrasies are referred to in the history of rossendale since that work was written poor dick has gone to render his account to a higher court than that of the lord of the honour he was a fellow of infinite humour not wanting in sound judgment but with that kind of twist in his nature that never would allow him for two minutes at a spell to treat any subject in a serious mood his proper calling was that of a spindle-maker hence his sobriquet of spindle dick a rare workman at his trade when he chose and in his soberer hours in his hands there was nothing incongruous or far-fetched in the office of ale-taster its duties encrusted with the antiquity of centuries came as naturally to him as though he had been living in the time of the heptarchy and was to the manner born the incongruity was when he forsook as he occasionally did his ale-tasting labours and applied himself assiduously to his business of spindle-making poor dick taylor i always felt grateful to his personality and to the humour which girt him round he was a link that bound us to the past a kind of embodied poetical idea in keeping with the ancient forest and its traditions i have more than half a suspicion that he must have been lying dormant for centuries in the muniment room of clitheroe castle and like rip van winkle awoke at late to resume his interrupted duties I never conversed with him without being carried in imagination back to bygone times, and on such occasions it was with a half-resentful feeling of annoyance that the proximity of a later, shall we be justified in saying a higher, civilisation in the guise of a smoky factory chimney dispelled the illusion.

After all, it is only in a district like Rossendale that such an interesting relic of the olden time could have survived.

to me when i first knew them the old people of rossendale always seemed to differ in many respects from the people of other districts this was not due to any single cause there was a variety of circumstances which contributed to the result but the chief cause in my opinion is to be found in the natural character and formation of the district by reason of its hills and wide-reaching moorlands that environ it on every side it was in the earlier days before the advent of the railway removed to a large extent from contact with the outer world and the changing fashions and tendencies of wider social conditions the older representatives of whom i speak are fast dying out and the younger generation has lost or is losing the distinguishing characteristics of the race At one time in his career, Dick kept a beer house, the sign over the door being a representation of the globe, with the head and shoulders of a man protruding through it, and underneath it the legend, Help me through this world.

By way of counteracting any bad moral effects that arose from his vending of beer on weekdays, he taught a Bible class in a room over the beer shop on Sundays.

he christened one of his sons gentleman gentleman taylor being determined as he said to have one gentleman in the family whatever else when in discharge of the functions of his curious calling of ale-taster dick carried in his coat-pocket a pewter gill measure of his own fashioning of peculiar old-world shape with a turned ebony wood handle in the form of a cross that projected straight from the middle of the side this symbol of his office was secured by a leathern thong about half a yard in length one end being round the handle the other through a button-hole in his coat after a day's official work he might occasionally be seen with unsteady gait wending his way up the lane to his domicile on the hillside with the gill measure dangling below his knee not unfrequently he had to appear before the bench for being drunk and incapable and though he was sometimes mulcted in five shillings and coss as often as not some smart sally of wit won the admiration and sympathy of the great unpaid who let him down as softly as their sense of duty would permit dick on those occasions would declare that it was his legs only and not his head that was drunk which i am inclined to believe was true he would also assert that like a barrel he was easily upset when only partially filled but when full to the bung and end up he was steady as a rock as a matter of fact however he was not a heavy drinker whatever his detractors may say to the contrary his centre of gravity was displaced by a very limited supply of the beverage regularly as the month of october came round dick put in an appearance at the hallmark court of the lord of the manor or honour held at haslington was reinstalled in his office with due formality and dined with the other officials of the court when the formal business was concluded the following from the history of the forest of rossendale is a copy of a memorial presented by him in october eighteen sixty four to the court it contains some touches of dry humour highly characteristic of the man to the foreman and jury of the halmot court at haslingden the respectful memorial of your energetic ale-taster for rossendale richard taylor gentlemen from a natural bashfulness and being unaccustomed to public speaking which my friends tell me is a very fortunate circumstance i am induced to lay my claims before your honourable court in writing hoping you will give them your most favourable consideration The appointment which I hold is a very ancient one, dating, as you are aware, from the time of good King Alfred, when the jury at the court leet appointed their head burrers, tithing-man, burse-holder, and ale-taster, which appointments were again regulated in the time of Edward III, and through neglect this important office to a beer-imbibing population ought not to be suffered to fall into disrepute or oblivion.

in rossendale there are countless numbers of practical followers of the school to which that illustrious dutchman mynheer van dunk belonged and while they imbibe less brandy they make up for it in to some rossendale men indeed beer is meat drink washing and lodging and do away with the office of ale taster an inferior quality of the beverage may be sold and the consequent waste of tissue among the working classes would be something awful to contemplate your honourable court then cannot but perceive the vast importance of my office With the spread of intelligence in Rossendale, there has been a proportionate increase of licensed public houses and beer houses, which has created a corresponding amount of responsibility in my duties.

At the time when Rossendale was in reality a forest, and a squirrel could jump from one tree to another, from Sharniford to Rottenstall, without touching the ground, the office of ale-taster was no doubt a sinecure.

Yeah.

You, Rossendale, you've all left because the Conservatives are too left-wing, and yet they've never been led by someone more right-wing.

And she may be credible in-

Yeah