2025

In November, Darren Cranshaw, the Society’s own archivist, explained the history of the Brindle Estate and also how the Cavendish pub got its name.  Darren was well placed to give this talk, since his family have been tenants on the estate for four generations.  He began by noting how history is constantly evolving since he gave a talk on the same subject 21 years previously, but then we met in the old Village Hall which is now consigned to history.

Land as part of the Leyland Hundred was originally granted by Henry III around 1200, and by 1473, Peter Gerard was identified as holding the manor of Brindle.  In 1541 in defiance of the King, the catholic Thomas Gerard was supporting two priests in Brindle.  At the same time, Bess of Hardwick, one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful women, owned around 100,000 acres of land and to demonstrate her wealth, she built Chatsworth House and later Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire.  Mary Queen of Scots was held captive in Hardwick Hall, and in trying to free her, Thomas Gerard was sent to the Tower of London in 1582.  Whilst Thomas was banished, Sir William Cavendish, Bess’s second husband, “purchased” the Brindle estate through dubious means and for the next 250 years, the estate was passed down through the Cavendish family who became the Earls of Derbyshire.

In 1611, an extremely detailed survey of the estate was commissioned which showed that it covered a very similar area to the current parish of Brindle.  The survey listed farms, fields and cottages and named all the tenants and many of the names are still found in the village today.

In 1819, the Brindle estate was transferred to a minor branch of the Cavendish family who also owned Holker Hall and Baron Chesham from Buckinghamshire was still the owner in 1915.  In 1919, however, the estate was offered up for sale and considerable portions of land were sold, much of it to the de Hoghton family.

Since then the estate has remained largely intact.  Lord Chesham was a good landlord visiting Brindle several times and was proactive in building the Parish Institute in 1923 on the site of the current Community Hall.  The Cavendish Arms was clearly named for the Cavendish family, but prior to that was known as the Devonshire Arms, and even at one time as the Three Stags after the Cavendish family coat of arms.  Brindle Band still use a stag’s head on their insignia.

In the 1950s the estate was offered to each of the tenants at a price of eight times their annual rent, but no-one could afford that outlay.  Instead of being broken up, a lady called Patience Aspinall bought the entire estate for £54,000 with money she acquired through selling the mines she owned around Burnley when they were nationalised.  Patience died in 1985 and the estate passed to her sister Ruth who owned a publishing house and also wrote romantic fiction.  Huggart’s Farm and Wilcock Cottage were sold at that time to pay death duties.  Miss Aspinall visited Brindle each year from her home in Cornwall and took a keen interest in the tenants and their farms.  She had no children, but named her godson, William de Hamil, as her heir and upon her death in 2012, Willliam moved into Lady Hall Farm off Marsh Lane and has been very supportive of the estate since then.  He recently moved back to his home in New Zealand but not before instructing that the farm at High Cop should be redeveloped as three dwellings to be let for a peppercorn rent to Brindle residents.  These will effectively become the first alms-houses built in the UK for around 200 years.

The Brindle Estate currently comprises around 1,200 acres (down from 4,000) and is now run by land agents on behalf of William de Hamil.

I have a confession.  Whilst I thought I knew what the Home Front was, I hadn’t appreciated what it actually meant until the Brindle Historical Society meeting on Monday 20th October.  Just in case you are as ill-informed as me, I’ll explain. 

The First World War was more than just a military war; for the first time, the whole of society had been mobilised, not just soldiers and weapons production.  Now that everyone was involved, the term Home Front embraced those of the population left at home to keep the soldiers fed and armed, and to ensure that there was still a recognisable society for them to return home to.  Much of these activities fell to the women, and the speaker, Keith Vernon (Honorary Principal Lecturer in History at the University of Lancashire), focussed on this aspect, explaining how new opportunities arose for women who previously were only seen as mothers and home-makers. 

Keith used his specific and extensive knowledge of WW1 history to explain in simple terms how society was changed by the horrific events of a century ago.  The new opportunities for women arose largely because the men left to take up arms, leaving women to do the work the men no longer did.  Tasks still included the traditional female roles (preparing food and nursing the sick) but now also encompassed munitions work, public service and administration. 

Women had long been involved in public service work, but now they were seen in positions of some authority such as post mistresses, cab drivers or firefighters and in administrative roles more women became the decision makers.  Whilst munitions production was traditionally a skilled role, the shortage of workers led to the ‘dilution’ of tasks where once technical roles were broken down into smaller, simpler activities requiring less skilled input.

Women’s leisure was significantly affected since for the first time many young women found themselves away from home, earning their own wages and having some autonomy over their lives.  One consequence of this was the establishment of clubs and societies such as the famous Dick Kerr Ladies football club. 

Not all changes were positive, however.  Many women had to endure the loss of their menfolk or needed to care for disabled family members for years afterwards and so while some gained new opportunities and freedoms, these came alongside great emotional and social burdens. 

A specific action that combined traditional female roles and the new authority women were assuming was the establishment in Preston of the Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Free Buffet at the railway station.  This was started by female volunteers in August 1915 and continued throughout the war operating 24 hours a day for over three years.  The buffet grew from providing tea to 386 men on the first day to serving almost 12,500 men in 36 hours just before Christmas in 1916!  The women had organised a rota of 300 – 400 volunteers who provided free tea and refreshments to service personnel passing through the station.  The women even devised a system of ensuring that men who used the area to catch up on sleep were awakened in time to catch their train. 

The many legacies of all this disruption led to a profound change in society over the next few years.  Women had proved what they could do and the genie was truly out of the bottle.  Many lessons learned during this period of rapid change were also adopted in the 2^nd World War (which happened all too soon afterwards).  The Home Front, the Land Army and rationing were all new concepts from the Great War which were developed and re-used to good effect two decades later.

We were very fortunate that Martin Jones was able to step in at short notice when our scheduled speaker was unable to present to the society in September. In a follow-up to an earlier talk, Martin continued telling us about the army remount depot established near Ormskirk in 1914.  In March last year we heard how Martin had become interested in this fascinating piece of history on his doorstep and tonight, he described how Lathom House firmly established its place in military history.  

He explained the history of the Stanley family of Lathom and described the magnificent castle they built in 1496.  The castle was destroyed and replaced by a beautiful house with its own deer park in 1740 and later, in 1880, the first Earl of Lathom was created.  We then skip forward to 1910 when the 2^nd Earl died young, leaving all his property and land to his son who became the 3^rd Earl, but being a minor, a trust fund was established for him, one of the trustees being Lord Derby.

At the outbreak of war the British army only had 19,000 horses it was realised that substantially more animals would be needed.  A notice went out to requisition horses from farmers and hauliers and within just 12 days, 165,000 horses were available.  If a horse owner objected to his animal being taken, he could challenge the decision but this process could take several weeks and in the meantime, the horse was taken and underwent training before being sent abroad.  In 1914, the 3^rd Earl along with Lord Derby in his capacity as trustee of the Lathom Park Estate, offered the use of the estate to the War Department.  This was established as a remount depot which was where animals could be trained to replace war horses which had died or become too tired to work. 

The remount depot at Lathom clearly needed many workers, including men to build the facilities, and later to train the horses and to grow additional produce to feed everyone.  Horses were brought from all over the world, with the first 1,600 arriving from Canada in October 1914 on eight trains from Liverpool docks.  These horses were wild and took many weeks to train sufficiently for army work.  A local circus owner not only donated huge tents to provide shelter for the animals in winter, but he also offered the services of his Mexican trick riders to help train the horses!   A railway branch line was built from Skelmersdale station into the Lathom estate to help deliver the horses and by the end of 1918, a total of 330,000 horses had passed through the depot.

At the end of the war, 5,000 remaining animals were sold off and all the buildings auctioned.  Although the estate is still there, only one building remains from this time.  It was initially built as a theatre so the 3^rd Earl could promote his plays and invite well known people, which included Noel Coward and Ivor Novello, to visit the Lathom Club and perform musical evenings for invited guests.  Then in 1932, it was used by the local Women’s Institute and later in 2000, the Ormskirk Scouts took it over.  It was refurbished and extended in 2017. 

Once more, the Brindle Historical Society were delighted to be able to hear a talk from one of our own members, this time from Bernard Fleming who, for almost 50 years has lived at Top o’ th’ Lane in Brindle, very close to the site of the Brindle Workhouse.  When Bernard moved to the area friends told stories of the workhouse and he heard talk of a chapel and of a secret mass house.  He felt that this oral history may soon be lost, and so he began researching in old documents, maps, census reports, newspapers, parish records and minutes from the Poor Law Union.

From this research, Bernard was able to open his talk with a little drama where he took on the role of Thomas Wilde, a governor of the workhouse.  Acting as Thomas, he role-played interviewing applicants to enter the workhouse, explaining that entering would be far from an easy option.  For being housed and fed (at the parish expense), inmates will have to work very hard from 6am to 6pm (perhaps breaking stone for road construction, or chopping firewood), live in separate male and female accommodation with no contact between the sexes.  Evening attendance at prayers was compulsory and bed time was strictly 8pm.  Largely, although the conditions were harsh, most people voluntarily applied to enter the workhouse since the alternative was to starve.

Early records indicate that the catholic Gerrard family owned a small chapel where mass was secretly held but after 1715, this was confiscated and given to the parish.  By 1734, it was being used as a workhouse and lunatic asylum.  In 1760, a survey of workhouses indicated that 60 people lived in the Brindle workhouse, far more than the size of the village would suggest.  (A much larger building must have been built to accommodate such numbers).  It appears that the Brindle workhouse had begun to accept paupers and lunatics from other establishments, probably the hard cases that they couldn’t cope with.

In 1826 a local JP visited the site and declared that “…the house is too small, the food insufficient and of poor quality and the people were wretchedly clothed”.  Despite these complaints, and the workhouse being transferred to the Poor Law Union, the same people continued to run the place with little improvement to the conditions.

Over the years, the numbers in attendance fluctuated widely, probably due to changes in local economic conditions.  From over 200 people in the early 19^th century, the 1851 census suggested that 51 people were in attendance, more men than women with only five actually from Brindle, and over half from outside the region.  In 1861, the census records 75 inmates with half aged over 60.  One third were cotton weavers and eight were handloom weavers.

Around that time, the conditions in the Brindle workhouse were reported in the national press with accusations of poor treatment and even manslaughter.  Despite this, conditions barely improved and in 1871 there were 99 inmates, including 20 cotton workers and 19 labourers.  In December of that year, they were all transferred to new accommodation at Eaves Lane in Chorley (which later became a hospital)

There is very little left to see of the Brindle Workhouse, just a plaque on the wall commemorating a few of the many people who passed through its doors.

Finally, Bernard offered a treat to the attendees, as a bowl of gruel was available to any who wanted to try it.  There were very few takers, and certainly no-one asked for more.

Although tonight’s speaker, Lindsey Barrow only worked at the Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Chorley for a short time, her reason for wanting to research the history of the factory was interesting.  As a member of Buckshaw Village WI she was surprised at the number of people unaware of the fascinating history of the former ammunitions factory on which the village was built, and so she began studying old archives and photographs.

In the mid-1930s, although the UK government were very aware of the threat building in Germany they were unprepared for another war.  Consequently, Douglas Hacking was commissioned to identify sites to build 20 factories to increase ammunition production in preparation for war.  Hacking was the MP for Chorley at the time and clearly saw substantial job opportunities for his constituents if a local site was chosen.  In late 1936, a contractor from Blackpool began the massive task of building the ammunition filling factory at Chorley in what was one of the world’s largest civil engineering projects.  In the end, 16 factories were built, with Chorley being the largest.

Around 15,000 construction workers built the facility which was producing weapons by 1938 and at peak production 30,000 people, mainly women, were employed on three shifts.  The site had its own boiler house which provided steam for heating and to generate electricity.  It also had its own water supply, railway network, vehicles, canteens, a surgery, laundry, and a sports & social club.

Common across all ordnance factories was an apparently complicated but very logical building numbering convention.  All sites were divided into groups numbered according to the work undertaken in each.  Group 1 was for production of small caps and detonators which were tiny, highly sensitive devices which provided the initiation of the explosive.  The buildings housing these processes were small but numerous to reduce the effect of damage should an accident occur.  In contrast, Group 8 was used for filling the large high explosive shells which were much less sensitive and consequently based in larger buildings.  Any non-explosive areas of the site were designated group 10 which housed the administration, engineering and ancillary areas such as canteens.

The main road through the site ran North from the main gate on Euxton Lane and was known as Central Road.  All other roads running on a North-South orientation were known as Streets whilst roads running East-West were called Avenues.  (The recent renaming of the main road through Buckshaw Village as Central Avenue breaks this convention.)

Lindsey explained the difference between ‘clean side’, where explosives were handled, and ‘dirty side’ where they weren’t.  She described how ‘shifting houses’ were used by all employees and visitors when passing from one side to the other.  In these buildings, everyone had to change their clothing and leave behind all contraband (forbidden items), such as anything that could cause a spark or a flame.  On the clean side, everyone had to wear special non-conductive footwear.

The Royal Ordnance Factories were privatised in 1985 before being acquired by British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) in 1991.  Over the next few years, production at Chorley was transferred to a sister site in Glascoed in South Wales before the site was decommissioned and finally closed in 2007.  On the site now, there are dozens of businesses both large and small along with over 2,000 houses.

It’s always great to have one of our own members speaking at the Brindle Historical Society, especially one who can almost claim kinship with the protagonist of the talk.  Our speaker this month was John Winstanley who opened his talk by asking who had heard of Gerrard Winstanley of Wigan.  Scarcely any hands were raised, but by the end, the audience was delighted to have heard about the exploits of one of the founders of modern-day socialism.

John explained that his interest in Gerrard Winstanley was inspired when he heard Billy Bragg sing a cover of a song called “The world turned upside down” which was written in 1975 following the publication of a book of the same title.  This book, by Christopher Hill, brought to much greater prominence the work of Winstanley who died in 1676.

When Borough status was granted to Wigan in 1246, this allowed burgesses to set up merchant guilds which bestowed upon them certain rights to use materials necessary for their trades.  However, the Rector / Lords of the manor abused their powers until finally in 1618 the burgesses in Wigan had had enough and collectively went to the King with their grievances.  They received an acceptance that they were able to use common land to collect certain raw materials, e.g. clay for the potters.  These people became known as the Wigan Diggers.

Gerrard Winstanley was born to a family of cloth merchants in 1609 and moved to London in 1630 to conduct his trade.  However, as the English civil war escalated, times became very difficult for Gerrard and in 1643 he was forced to abandon his business.  He made his final payment of debts in November and moved out of London, stating, “I was beaten out of both estate and trade and forced to accept of the good will of friends crediting of me’.  In near destitution, he found work in Cobham, Surrey as a cattle herdsman and in 1646 he was one of six who were fined for digging peat on the common. 

It was during a period of reflection between 1647/8, that he analysed the causes of society’s ills, including his own financial collapse.  In his 1648 publication, ‘Truth Lifting up its Head Above Scandals’ he vented his anger at the trading practices that had ruined his business.  He asserted that “the earth is a common treasury and is a storehouse for all, giving liberty and freedom to all and that none should own it” and so he set about offering a remedy. 

He knew of the collective actions of the Wigan burgesses in 1618 and used their success to escalate his theory to a national level.  He produced pamphlets which advocated passive occupation of common land as part of the freedom for all, for which the commoners and Parliament went to war with the King. 

Today, the Digger Movement of 1649 is what he is most remembered for, since this was when he and others occupied common land on St George’s Hill in Cobham where they dug the soil, planted crops and set up shelters to occupy the commons as a future settlement where they intended to live as free people.

Ultimately, his efforts were unsuccessful since they were driven off the land and forced to flee and abandon the cause.  Despite this, his writings secured his future as the foremost radical thinker of the era, although it has taken many centuries for his actions to be fully acknowledged.   In commemoration of these events in the 17^th century, the Wigan Diggers’ Festival became established as an annual free music event, which this year will be held on 13^th September.  All are welcome.

Everyone who lives in Bolton believes that the Rivington Terraced Gardens are located in Bolton but those of us who live in Chorley know that they actually lie within Chorley’s boundary.  The talk by Graham Gough in March at the Brindle Historical Society clearly explained to the audience not only where the gardens are but also gave a fascinating insight on how they came to be built, why they fell into disrepair and what is now being done to restore them.

William Hesketh Lever was born in 1851 the son of a Bolton grocer and one of his first jobs as a boy was to help in the shop by cutting up blocks of soap.  While still very young, he realised the potential of selling good quality soap which was attractively packaged and marketed.  In 1885, he set up the Lever Brothers company and from that enterprise, he became hugely wealthy. 

In 1899 much of the moorland East of Chorley was owned by Rivington Hall estates and when this came up for sale, Lever bought it for £60,000.  He only wanted the part where he was to establish his gardens and park and so four years later, he sold the remaining land for £140,000!  He built a huge house on the hillside which he quaintly named Royton Cottage although his main residence was Thornton Manor in Wirral.

Lever persuaded Thomas Mawson to become his principal landscape architect and instructed him to build a series of gardens and lakes set into what was previously just bare moorland.  He also built a large summer house so that he could entertain guests whilst enjoying the views of Morecambe Bay and the Lake District fells to the North and Liverpool Bay and the Welsh mountains to the South.  In 1912 he also built a folly beside the reservoir known as Rivington Castle which was a scale replica of Liverpool Castle.  This was constructed as a ruin and left unfinished.  After the first world war, work continued building the lower gardens and the ravine which was a man-made waterfall fed by an artificial lake around which was built a Japanese garden.

Lever died in 1925 and his family showed no interest in continuing the garden development; they only saw the cost of the venture and sold the gardens to a local brewer John Magee for £15,600.  After Magee died in 1931 his family eventually sold the bungalow and grounds to Liverpool Water Corporation in 1940 who paid just £3,000.  For the next 60 years the gardens were abandoned and nature took over with many rhododendrons overwhelming the area. 

United Utilities (the current owner of the gardens) set up the Rivington Heritage Trust in 1997 who in 2012 managed to secure a grant of £3.4m from the Lottery Fund to restore the grounds.  Since then, considerable work has been undertaken by both paid contractors and many volunteers to begin the restoration of these remarkable gardens and buildings. 

The Pigeon Tower has been fully restored and is now open for visitors on the first Saturday of every month to raise funds for continued restoration.  Guided walks and tours can be arranged through the Friends of Rivington Terraced Gardens.

At the first meeting of the new year, the Brindle Historical Society welcomed Nigel Hardacre who is a volunteer at the Lancaster Canal Trust and a member of Friends of the Tram Road Bridge and so was ideally placed to talk about this important trade route which passed close to Brindle.

By 1800, Preston required some 20,000 tons of coal each year and the roads from the nearest mines at Wigan couldn’t cope with this demand and so a canal was planned to bring coal from the south to pass through Preston and on to Lancaster.  In addition, limestone from the north could be brought south thus improving the economics of the venture.  The northern section of the canal was completed smoothly, but crossing the River Ribble proved very expensive and so a cheaper temporary tram road was built to cover the five miles from Preston to Walton Summit.  The engineer John Rennie was commissioned to design an aqueduct over the Ribble, but by the time funding was available for this, the railways had made the scheme uneconomic and so the tram road section remained. 

The tram road descended through what is now Avenham Park using concrete sleepers and flanged cast-iron plates.  Unlike modern railways, the sleepers were not the full width of the track so as not to impede the horses who walked between the rails.  Two horses were used to pull four wagons with a capacity of up to two tons each.  The descent to the Ribble was too steep for the horses and so a steam engine was installed to haul the wagons up the 1:6 incline by means of a continuous chain.  The tram road had two tracks and so a system was designed to use the weight of the descending wagon full of limestone to help lift the coal coming from Wigan.

A wooden trestle bridge was erected in 1802 to carry the wagons across the Ribble.  Following storm damage in 1935, the wooden supports were replaced by reinforced concrete which remained in place until the bridge was demolished due to safety concerns in 2024.  Work on its replacement is underway and is expected to be completed by January 2026.

Approximately 500 navvies were paid 2s 6d per day (considerably more than the average farm worker) to build the tram road which was on an embankment seven feet high (2.1m) across the flood plain to the south of the river before beginning to climb up to where the canal ended at Walton Summit.  Parts of the old tram road are still in place, but the construction of the M61 in 1969 and subsequent house building meant that many sections were lost.  Today no evidence remains of where the tram road ended at the canal basin at Walton Summit.