00:00This is the second part we're about to do on the Brun Valley Forest Park.
00:06And we're at the back of the Prestige Building, which is one of the most historic buildings in town.
00:14You might not think so, because it was only built in the 1930s, but its history is a remarkable one.
00:23It was built at a time when a lot of Burnley's industries of the past, the engineering, the cotton, the mining, were coming to an end.
00:34In 1929, two of Burnley's biggest textile companies closed down.
00:41Several mines also finished as well.
00:44Hundreds of people, well in fact thousands of people, became unemployed.
00:51And Burnley Council, remarkably, decided to do something with it.
00:57And the council, and I know that many of you realise I'm an ex-mayor, but the council needs to be acknowledged for what it did.
01:07What happened was that the Prestige Building, and you've seen images of it, became the world's first factory built out of the raids.
01:21In other words, the council built it, searched the world for a tenant, found one in America, and they decided to base their European manufacturing in Burnley.
01:40And they produced kitchenware, which went all over the world.
01:45We're here in the grounds of Bank Hall, and behind me there is the modern equivalent of Bank Hall, which is a care home for the elderly.
01:58But going back to the Middle Ages, particularly in the early modern period, there was an ancient house on this site.
02:09It was a half-timbered building, rather like the houses of South Lancashire, particularly Speak Hall.
02:16But in the 18th century, in the 1780s, that half-timbered building was demolished and was replaced by Bank Hall, which was the home, originally, of the owners of the mines in the Burnley coal field.
02:36That was the Hargreaves family.
02:38But ultimately, when the Hargreaves died out in the male line, the two daughters married the Reverend William Thursby and the future General Scarlet.
02:51And General Scarlet's Burnley home was Bank Hall as it was built in the late 18th century.
02:59In the years that passed, the Hall transferred to the Thursby family because the Scarlets didn't have any children.
03:08And the eldest son of the Thursby family made this building his home.
03:16Eventually, the Thursbys allowed the home to be converted into a military hospital in the First World War.
03:26And in 1919, Burnley Council bought it for the town's maternity hospital.
03:34And lots of Burnley people were born in Bank Hall Maternity Hospital.
03:41One of the features of this part of Burnley was the cannons.
03:47Now, people getting off the bus used to say the cannons.
03:52Alternatively, they'd say station approach.
03:55But the cannons referred to two Russian cannons that were taken by British involvement in the Crimean War in the 1850s.
04:08Now, I've already mentioned General Scarlet.
04:11He was promoted to the rank of a major general.
04:16And he was put in charge of the heavy artillery.
04:19And in the war, he distinguished himself from leading the charge of the heavy brigade, which was a great success against the Russians.
04:31When the war was over, there were several attempts to make reference to the Burnley contribution.
04:40Because a lot of Burnley men joined up with General Scarlet, particularly those from his estate.
04:47And they decided that one way of memorialising was to accept the offer of two Russian cannons,
04:56which we erected, as we have described in this introduction to the subject.
05:03And we now have got photographs of them.
05:08However, they have rather a sad end.
05:11Because during the Second World War, a lot of metal goods were taken as scrap to be melted down,
05:19to be made into weapons to fight the Germans.
05:22These guns were taken down to South Sea on the south coast, near Portsmouth.
05:28And when they got there, it was found out that they were not really suitable for military equipment.
05:36And they were taken out to sea and dumped in the sea, at South Sea, where they still remain.
05:43Unfortunately, they were never returned to Burnley.
05:48And it's never been the case that other guns have come from elsewhere.
05:54The Civic Trust in Burnley has always wanted to see the guns restored, but we've never managed to do it.
06:00It would be a great feature if we could.
06:03In the grounds of Bank Hall, earlier on we mentioned the weir on the River Brum.
06:13Now, this was a very important installation.
06:17It dates to the late 13th century, when Burnley Corn Mill was opened.
06:23And it stopped the water in the brum and channeled some of it into a long leat,
06:34which eventually passed through Keithley Green in Burnley, into the time centre,
06:42where the corn mill stood.
06:45And it drove the water-powered wheel that determined all the grinding activities of the corn mill.
06:54But, it's still there.
06:58Today we've discovered it's, sort of, surrounded by trees that fell in the last time there was a flood here.
07:07But it should be restored, and people should know what it was.
07:14Because it's 700 years old, and one of Burnley's more significant medieval remains.
07:21We're on the Greenway here.
07:26This is not the Brum.
07:27This is the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
07:30But we are very close to the Colm Road Bridge.
07:35It was originally called Warehouse Bridge, because, in front of where I was,
07:40Burnley's first canal warehouse was built.
07:43However, the building in the background is Nightbridge Grove,
07:47which were very good houses for the time they were built.
07:51In 1890, in fact, the end one that we're looking at now was the Nurses' Home for Bank Hall.
07:59Of course, it wasn't originally, because it was built before Bank Hall became a hospital.
08:06But, in the period of the First World War,
08:10the nurses needed somewhere to live,
08:13and they converted the end house into the Nurses' Home.
08:16And, in 1819, they received an equal price a famous number of people that were
Be the first to comment