History
Remaining Mysteries.
Factory House.
This building or set of buildings is marked on the ordnance survey map of 1860 and can be found occupied to various levels in all the census records from 1841. In most periods there is one occupant of high status and varying numbers of more lowly households. The cleric, Frances Benson and his servant were the sole occupants in 1841 but by 1851, Ralph Madison, a colliery owner and employer of 70 men lived there alongside eleven other households recorded as either Factory House or Factory Cottages.
Ten years later this was the home of Thomas Bell the retired flannel manufacturer who had run the Burn mills. The question is, why was it called Factory House? Clearly at the time it appears in the census, it is being used as a dwelling and this includes the period when the woollen mills of Haltwhistle were at their peak. It is also one of the few buildings at the western end of the town to be marked on Walker’s map of 1838 although no name is included.
Factory House was built on a road shown on the 1844 Tithe Award map as Quaker Lane- now renamed Aesica Road. Could Factory House be the original Quaker’s manufactory built in the town? The evidence for this is circumstantial but if Bell was the successor to the Quaker’s business- and it would seem likely- and Madgen was the successor to Bell and said to have a weaving establishment in the town, then perhaps the Factory House was always linked to the Burn Mills. Put that together with the location on Quaker Lane and it would seem quite possible that here was the weaving establishment of the “manufactory of course bays” established by the Quakers.
Carricks Dye House.
Occupied in the 1851 census by the Dryden family –agricultural labourers, but not mentioned again it appears in the census between Fell gate (but which house is this?) and a dwelling which is almost indecipherable probably something Tower. It seems to be in the Town Foot area and is likely to have been within easy reach of the Burn to get water. It is likely that it was used as a dwelling by 1851 rather than as a place of work, certainly no woollen workers were living in it as there were in High and Low Mills at the same time. Pictures from the turn of the century of the Burn Bridge at Town Foot, show a ruined building on the spot now occupied by Shepherds Terrace. It had been ruined long enough to have had a smaller building constructed within it and had a sizable area beside it which may show evidence of drying frames. This enclosure was later known as the drying ground. Incidentally the land upon which it stood was owned in 1844 by William Madgen. Who owned the building remains a mystery.
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In the beginning.
Find out about the Geology of Haltwhistle Burn here....
Riches from the earth.
Discover Haltwhistle’s long history of mining for coal here...
Seventeen and a Half Candles
Lighting up Haltwhistle- find the story of the gas works here....
Tiles, Bricks and Pipes
Discover Haltwhistle’s history of brick and pipe making here...