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