Telling tales of pubs and sandknockers...
THIS information is taken from an article by John Cole and information from Smallbridge – A Lost Village, by Allen Holt.
Our main photograph of the week
dates back to around 1900 and shows how much Halifax Road has changed.
At that time, the area was well sprinkled with pubs, beerhouses and brewers.
As well as the Red Lion on the corner of Wardle Road, with landlord Fred Greenwood, there was the Cab Inn on Dye House Lane and John Chadwick, brewer, beer seller and cab proprietor at the Grey Mare Inn.
There was also the Welcome Inn, Steps, the Waggon and Horses, the Greengate Inn, the Store Tavern, the Wardle and Dearnley breweries, and numerous semi-legitimate ale houses.
In 1973 the Red Lion was renamed The Sandknockers in order to commemorate the old local trade of sandknocking.
It was also extended into what had been a Pioneers’ store and Hallet’s shoe and bicycle shop.
During the early 1800s, sandknockers collected millstone grit quarry waste free of charge from the thriving stone quarries on Blackstone Edge.
It was transported to Smallbridge by horse and cart and the stone clippings were crushed or ‘knocked’ into grains of sharp sand.
This sand was used on the flagged floors of houses.
As the occupants moved across the floors in their clogs, the iron on the clogs and the sand created a scouring action which kept the floors clean.
Sandknocking was described by Edwin Waugh in his Lancashire Sketches (1881).
He said: “There is a race of hereditary sandsellers or sandknockers in Smallbridge – a rough mountain breed who live by crushing sandstone or rock for sale.
“The people who knock this sand and sell it have been known over the countryside for many years as ‘Th’ Kitters’.”
Originally people involved in the trade were called ‘sandkitters’, after the Kitter family who, in their day, were famous sandknockers.
Kitter Square and Kitter Street were named after them.
The process of ‘kittering’ was also carried out in a two-storey building in Sand Street, built by the Harris family, and in an 18th century barn on Windham Street.
Kitter Square and Sand Street have been lost in the redevelopment of the village over the years, however Windham Street and Kitter Street still remain.
The Sandknockers pub was renamed the Spring Mill Tavern before closing and being converted into flats.
For more nostalgic pictures, visit discover.link4life.org.