Worksop of Yesterday - Page 2 *** pressley.co.uk ***

During the year 1856 the first sod was cut on the site of the future Shireoaks Colliery. That simple action marked a vital turning point in the story of Worksop. Previously it had been an agricultural market town. From that date, although the change was slow and at first barely noticeable, it began to take on the appearance and character of an industrial town. By the end of the century agriculture still held sway though industry was steadily advancing. As well as Shireoaks, collieries were already working at Whitwell and Steetley and, even closer to the town, sinking operations were planned at Manton in 1897. Although the numerous malt-kilns still scented the air with their aroma, their day as Worksop’s basic industry was almost over.

Throughout the day of Tuesday, 14th December, 1897 shops and houses along the main streets between the station and the Manor Park Gates in Park Street were festooned with flags and bunting. Promptly at seven in the evening the Prince and Princess of Wales alighted from their train. They were greeted by the Duke of Portland, protected and escorted by additional police and local members of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry Cavalry and loyally cheered by packed pavements of the eo le of Worksop and district. The town through which their Royal Highnesses were driven has been described as, “remarkable for its prettiness”, and so it may well have seemed, not only to the visitor but also to many an inhabitant whose business did not take him into the corners where poverty and its attendant miseries were never far absent.

On that December day of the Royal Visit about 13,000 people lived in Worksop, a town that was roughly bounded by the Iron Bridge Sunnyside Bracebridge, Netherton Road, Park Street, Beard’s Mill and Sandy Lane. Within this loose perimeter much of the land was not built on, remaining as field, garden, orchard or just open space. It was possible for youngsters to go bird nesting in the very centre of the town. A wide swathe of open land divided the new northern part of the town form the older southern part. The cattle market stood on the west side of Bridge Street, stretching from the Chesterfield Road to the wooded banks of the River Ryton. This was known as the Town Dyke and was crossed by an ornate sided bridge. Local anglers fished its clear waters and lucky ones had even been known to land trout. Beyond the bridge were the well-tended grounds of Netherholme and the smaller house of Mr. Fred Nawton, a local cooper. A cluster of malt kilns and the gaunt block of Mapson’s Mill bounded the open space on the north. Behind the cattle market on the site of the present bus station, was the sports’ ground and a line of newly built houses was straggling along the roadside towards Beard’s Mill. Between these houses and the canal, not a building broke the skyline.

The eastern side of Bridge Street was slightly more built up. Opposite the cattle market were the extensive premises of R. Shaw and Sons, Ironmongers and, facing its main source of custom, the Cattle Market Hotel. On the northern bank of the river, in pleasant grounds, was the Nurse’s Home. Built in 1887 to commemorate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, the occupant ten years later was Miss Copley who would attend to many of the duties now carried out by a District Nurse. A few shops continued the frontage to the Congregational Chapel, a few more to the Marquis of Granby and then the sequence ended as it began with another ironmonger’s, that of T. J. Green, which spread round the corner into Watson Road.

Behind this built up facade was an uninterrupted view of the Priory Church and the Priory Mill. Old prints show a scene difficult for the modern eye to imagine.

A large, tree-lined lake-in effect the mill dam-its surface ruffled only by the drifting swan, filled much of the area, the rest was pasture, parts of which were used as games fields by local football teams and by the boys of the Pestalozzian Private School in Potter Street. Already the days of this vast open space-known for centuries as “The Buslings”-were numbered. Kerb stones fixed in place marked the course of Watson Road which already had been built on from Bridge Place to the river and Ryton Street was cutting through the field where for many years Shaw’s horses had taken their ease after a day between the shafts.

Bridge Street and Potter Street were the principal thoroughfares of the town; a status that they had enjoyed for centuries. As long ago as the mid-sixteenth century a traveller wrote that Worksop was, “A praty market of 2 streates and metely welle buildid” and much later in 1810, another visitor noted that, “It consists, indeed, only of one long street, and another leading to Radford; but both these contain good houses;...” Along these two streets were many of the shops of the town and the houses of the professional and tradesmen. Most of these people still lived above their places of business though one or two had their houses on the outskirts of the town. Mr. J. H. Coulson, a solicitor, and Mr. G. H. Lucas a surveyor, both had offices in Bridge Street but lived in Carlton Road. Mr. Tom Marris, a well known personality who owned both a chemist’s shop and an ironmonger’s in Bridge Street, as well as a foundry in Potter Street, also preferred to live in Carlton Road while Messrs. J. S. and C. A. Whall, solicitors, walked daily from their home in Park Street to their offices in Bridge Street.

Then, as now, the market place stood at the southern junction of Bridge Street with Potter Street. Seventy years ago the space had not long been open to general view, previously it was almost completely surrounded by buildings, entrance being by two narrow alleyways. The market was held on Saturday evenings from 5-30 to 11 o’clock or even later and thither thronged townsfolk and villagers to bustle round the naptha-lit stalls and mingle their chatter with the cries of the stall-holders as they searched for the elusive bargain.

At the eastern end of Potter Street alterations had recently changed the appearance of the Priory Gatehouse. For countless years a roadway had run through the arch of the Gatehouse itself. Mr. Thomas Green’s blacksmith’s shop almost abutted upon the south-west corner of the Gatehouse and adjoined the Cross Keys Inn. Under a scheme devised in 1891 and completed in 1894 the blacksmith’s shop was demolished and a new road built to the west of the Gatehouse. Two years later the cross was moved to its present position and the encircling railings erected that have only recently been removed. Although the new road could be used by heavier traffic and was a decided improvement, the prime reason for the alteration was the fear that vibrations caused by the continued passage of traffic through the arch would weaken and cause damage to the fabric of the Gatehouse.

To the south of Potter Street and bounded by Abbey Street, Newgate Street, and Cuthbert Street was an area called Marecroft though, in fact, that was only the name of one of the streets that crossed it. It was made up of a warren of streets, alleys and courts lined with terraces of grim and cheerless cottages, some back-to-back, packed into every available space. Built between 1830 and 1860 of the cheapest materials, small of window, devoid of privacy: life in Marecroft could never have been easy and yet these seemingly adverse conditions appeared to breed a strong and lively community spirit. The Marecroft area had its inns, little shops and even small “domestic” workshops some of the products of which enjoyed a wide local fame.

Most famous of all were its sweets. Taylor’s boiling shop stocked a stall at the Saturday market and, at 4d. a pound the sweets were in brisk and popular demand. The late Mrs. Norah Brailsford recalled, as a girl, selling as many as fourteen biscuit tins of humbugs and butterscotch in one evening. Marecroft no longer exists, part was demolished around 1936, the rest in recent years and, as a final act, the last of its inns, the Black Swan, closed its doors on the 29th of November, 1966.

Cheapside, Lowtown Street, Netherton Road, Abbey Street and Newgate Street still retain many buildings that were standing seventy years ago. One noticeable casualty of time and neglect stood almost opposite the junction of Cheapside with Bracebridge. This was Jesus House, after the Priory Church and Gatehouse, the oldest building in the town. Originally it was part of the Priory estates and may have been first built during medieval times. In 1636 it was described as a building of six bays, surrounded by a moat. A well to do farmer, Henry Cole, lived in it, cultivating the nearby land and grazing his flocks on the 924 acres of the “Manton Sheepwalke”. Two hundred and sixty years later it presented an odd assortment of shapes and materials; stone, brick tile, timber and plaster. Partly ruinous and soon to be demolished, it sheltered a family named Foster during its final years.

Westgate never had a gateway; its name simply means the way to the west and during the last decade of the 19th century it was a street of much variety. Hill’s Cash Boot Stores stood at the junction with Park Street and adjoining it were the New Ship Inn and a row of small, neglected cottages. Two imposing houses in their own grounds, and still standing, were a little further down and the sequence also included a disused Congregational Chapel, B. G. Arthur’s mineral water manufactory and “Duck Row”, six tiny stone built cottages, the front wall facing the road being no more than eleven courses high. Out of this street of contrasts Worksop’s first planned street ran to the New, or Chesterfield, Road. This was Norfolk Street, a regimented row of small houses built about 1790 to house the workers at two textile mills that had been recently opened in the town. Both industrial enterprises failed. One of the mills was adapted for flour grinding and the other converted to a saw mill.

Norfolk Street, Westgate, Bridge Street and Castle Street enclosed a maze of short streets and courts that contained some of the poorest dwellings in the town. Worst of all was a dilapidated and depressing group of buildings known as Bedlam Square. The only access to this insalubrious block was by a narrow and steeply sloping passageway that began in Castle Street, turned sharply to the right and led into a rubbish-strewn space around which the grim, fortress-like houses were built. One of the best known inhabitants was Caroline Moore, popularly called Cal Crow as her occupation was scaring birds from growing crops.

“Bedlam Square”, demolished in the early years of this century, backed, onto Lead Hill, an area with a history as long as that of the town itself. It covers the lower slopes of Castle Hill and in 1636 was used as a Tenter Green, that is a place where lengths of locally woven woollen material were stretched out to dry. Pack horses carrying lead from the Derbyshire mines unloaded there, hence the name, and at the beginning of the 18th century a bull ring was laid out on the hill so that a by-law could be obeyed that stated that all bulls had first to be baited before they could be slaughtered. Another snippet from the story of Lead Hill is that on the 29th’of July, 1780, paying his only visit to Worksop, John Wesley spoke on it, “only to a small company of as stupid people as I ever saw”. All the seeds may not have fallen on stony ground, however, for later a small chapel was built there and survived until fairly recent times. In 1826 the town’s workhouse was on the hill. This may have been the same building where, in 1795, eighteen destitute people subsisted on a diet of milk porridge, meat with broth, bread and light suet dumplings with treacle sauce. Those wanting outside relief were supplied with flax and were paid one penny for every three hundred yards that they managed to spin.

All that now remains to complete this brief survey of the layout of Worksop in 1897 is to consider the northern part of the town. The 12th of September 1777 is a key date in the story of the development of the area for on that day the Chesterfield and West Stockwith Canal was opened. It soon attracted buildings to its banks. Houses, maltkilns, warehouses, inns and woodyards all lined the canal side, the narrow boats bringing in the stone for many of the buildings and taking away the malt, timber and other local products. To serve the town better two off cuts or basins were constructed. The largest ran south from the canal, behind Mapson’s mill roughly parallel with Bridge Place. Into it the barges chiefly brought coal and from it they took malt. The second flowed north into the Common Piece, the area between the canal, Kilton Road and Eastgate, and was used by local timber merchants.

A further impetus to the growth of the northern part of the town was the opening of the railway. This was in 1849 and the iron tracks seemed to act as magnets, pulling the ever lengthening rows of buildings towards them along the present Carlton and Gateford Roads. Carlton Road was largely residential as were the two roads parallel to it, Sherwood Road and George Street. Gateford Road had a more workaday look, like the area to the west of it. Between 1870 and 1900 a large estate of industrial housing was built there. This consisted of a complex of streets to the south of the somewhat older Sandy Lane: John Street, Trent Street, Crown Street, Humber Street and others in that vicinity. Many of the early tenants of these houses would trudge the two miles to Shireoaks Colliery for their daily work, some would awaken the echoes with their singing in the Zion Chapel in John Street and small groups would perhaps discuss the distant doings of the Independent Labour Party.

This was the growing area of the town. With the turn of the century housing would shoot northwards along Gateford Road and open spaces, favourite youngsters’ playgrounds for generations, would disappear as the road makers and builders carved out Overend Road, Clarence Road, Elms Road, Welbeck Street, Stanley Street, James Street and Percival Street.

All the new buildings that were going up or had gone up during the second half of the century were of brick, nearly all of them had slate roofs. Worksop’s reputation for “prettiness” owed little to these drab and often ugly houses: it owed less to the damp-walled, decrepit dwellings of “Bedlam Square” and the like. But it could boast some handsome houses such as the Georgian ones in Potter Street. Elegant and graceful when built, they retained these qualities in 1897 and, given reasonable care and attention, they still would today. Many buildings in Bridge Street were of similar age though inserted shop fronts had. spoilt their one time appearance while here and there were some that were appreciably older. The shop now occupied by Messrs. Skinner and Rook; stone built, two dormer windows peeping though its pantile roof, was probably the oldest building in the street. Other houses of similar size, style and antiquity to the Georgian ones dotted Westgate and Newgate Street but these apart, many of the more humble were not without visual appeal. Terraces of brick-built cottages such as still stand in Netherton Road and stone ones like those that used to line the southern side of Eastgate always looked neat and trim and had a satisfying functional air. Seventy years ago they would be that much newer and fresher. Still standing then were many cottages that reached back much further into the past: white-washed plaster walls, green window frames and red pantiled roofs. The last of these to survive was the row on Potter Street that ran up to the junction with Bridge Street. When they were demolished in 1960, it was revealed that the walls were of timber-frame construction which would date them to the 17th century at the latest. The older streets presented a hotch-potch of buildings of ever varying shapes, sizes, materials and skylines; many of the newer streets showed greater uniformity and regularity.

Whatever the houses; if the roads were metalled they would be cobbled and if they were illuminated at night, that would be by gas. In 1897 the Worksop Gas Company undertook to maintain 198 public lamps throughout the town. Each lamp was to be lit for at least two thousand hours in the year. For this service the company charged £2-5-6 per lamp per year. The local gas company was incorporated in 1856 though the gas works were originally established in 1832 on the initiative of a Mr. Malan.

As with gas, so with water; the first piped supply was provided by private endeavour and was later taken over by the local authority. Before this was turned on in June, 1878, the town’s water had come from pumps and wells. Recurring epidemics of diseases attributable to impure water led to the discovery that some of the wells had been contaminated by seepage from nearby privies. Such disclosures left the majority of the Local Board of Health unmoved but did spur a small group of townsmen to action. Led by Mr. William Allen, partner in the firm of Smith and Nephew, brewers, and later managing director of the Worksop and Retford Brewery Company, they petitioned Parliament for permission to promote a company to supply the town with piped water. In spite of local opposition, much of it stimulated by certain members of the Local Board of Health who feared an eventual heavy charge on the rates, the authorising Act was passed. For a number of years, the undertaking worked at a loss and for a number of years wells and pumps were still used in parts of the town. One of the old wells was recently discovered in Norfolk Street and tradition has it that there were once three wells or pumps in that street. By the turn of the century the Water Company was prospering so much so that in 1911, when it was taken over by the Urban District Council, the price of the transfer, fixed by arbitration, was £64,612.

Sewage disposal was a direct responsibility of the local authority and as early as 1859 the Local Board of Health had undertaken the laying of sewers and drains throughout the town. This, however, did nothing to improve the condition of living of those who had still to make use of the privy-midden. The contents of these were periodically wheeled by barrow and emptied onto the roadside whence they were shovelled into wagons making their nocturnal rounds, hurricane lamps dangling from each axle. Following the wagons men spread chloride of lime onto the dumping spots though those who recall such days say that a good downpour of rain was needed before the street was properly cleaned. By the turn of the century many households still had no chain to pull and the night-soil men still made their necessary but nauseous round.