Salterforth took its name from the FORD that went across the stream that runs through the village and was used by the pack horse trains that carried SALT from The Cheshire mines into Yorkshire.
Leeds Liverpool Canal, Salterforth
The village was once more important than it looks to today thanks to the coming of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1816. It played a central part in the transportation of stone from the surrounding quarries that have all now closed. It was interesting to note that the quarries on the Western side of the canal produced Gritstone and on the Eastern side, Limestone. Gritstone was transported to the canal at Salterforth by two tramways, operated by an overhead cable, and most of the stone setts which line the streets of places like Burnley and Accrington were brought from here by horsedrawn canal boats.
At Salterforth the canal bends sharply and rollers can still be seen that prevented the ropes linking barge to horse from coming into contact with the bridge itself. These rollers are around 5ft high.
During the 1st world war it was decided that two places in Britain would be used for the storage of Cordite explosives. One was in Gloucestershire and other was on Salterforth Moss, between the canal and the Kelbrook/Foulridge road. A network of sidings, connected by rail tracks from the main Skipton to Colne line were built, and Nisson Huts were erected. The site was selected because of its accessibility by rail and the absence of settlement on this almost flat valley floor; it also adjoined the Leeds & Liverpool Canal where the boxes of cordite could be delivered or dispatched by barge. A number of storage huts were constructed on short concrete pillars at various locations within the site, around which was a perimeter fence. The rails are thought to have been lifted by 1929 and the last remains of the storage huts disappeared in the 1950s.
Due to its proximity to the Cordite Store, Foulridge, the village to the South of it, had a Methodist Chapel that gained the curious distinction of being one of the few buildings insured against zeppelin raids.
Benjamin Ingham
There were so many religious denominations here, in a small village. They had Quakers/ Inghamites/ Methodists/ Baptists/ and a long lost medieval chapel of ease.
We were able to see the Quaker Meeting House building (now a private house) and were very kindly allowed to go inside the rare Inghamite Chapel, that was one of only two that survived into the 21st century. It closed its doors in 2010 and is now privately owned by Blades Funeral Services.
Benjamin Ingham was a charismatic preacher from Ossett. There is still an Inghamite chapel in Ontario, Canada.
Original outside of the old chapel
The Chapel has an auditorium feel and is steeply banked. The original organ is still in place.
Inghamite chapel
We were able to see Castle House, where Cromwell once stayed and Cobble row, adjacent to it, was the barracks for his men when they were stationed there in 1642 and 1643, when battles took place in nearby Thornton.
The cotton mill that provided employment from 1888 finally closed in 1974, before Silentnight took it over for a few years, but it was good to see that at least half of it remains and is being turned into luxury flats.
At lunch time we made our way to the old Grammar School at Earby, an attractive Elizabethan style house built in the early 1600’s of local sandstone. It was left by the philanthropist clergyman Robert Windle for educational purposes. Initially it was a free grammar school that closed in 1911. Since then it was used for various purposes until the 1970’s when the Earby Mines Research Group took over the building and turned it into a Lead Mining Museum. This closed in 2015, when most of the artifacts were transferred to the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes. Since then the Grammar School is back in the hands of the Trustees, and monies that are raised from the group cover the cost of repairs to the building and grants to local schools and groups working with children.
We were welcomed by the volunteers there, and enjoyed a lunch of soup, roll and delicious homemade cakes, before being shown around the building by Margaret Brown (trustee), and visiting their charity shop.
Research and words by Frances
Content created by Keith P
