00:00For our bygone Burnley today we're visiting Reed and Simonson and we've
00:07decided to start at a quiet place a building which is not as well known as
00:13it should be. This is the parish church of Reed which dates back to 1884 and there
00:22wasn't a church in either Reed or Simonson until modern times although both
00:28places have got old histories. The two of them were both agricultural communities
00:37for centuries. None of them had villages until Reed itself got a small hamlet
00:45which was developed on the old road between Worley and Pallium in the middle
00:53of the 16th century. There was no such development in Simonson which like the
01:00rest of Reed was really an area of scattered farms, each one individual and
01:07surprisingly in Simonson there are a large number of these early farms some of them
01:14dating from the 16th century still in existence. In fact Simonson has got a large
01:21number of listed buildings. I went through it the other day and there are 22 of them
01:27and there are some very good buildings in Simonson. However as I said both areas
01:34have a history. Agricultural for both of them. Reed had very good building stone so
01:43there's a history of quarrying and in the Middle Ages when Worley Abbey was being built
01:49Reed was the source of some of that stone and the source of timber which the monks used in
01:55building the Abbey and in other buildings in the Worley area. There was coal in both places.
02:03Ancient mines existed in the 16th and 17th centuries. Of course I don't mean really ancient mines but old for this area and a few of
02:17them have been documented. I suppose we could visit them sometime because there are remains of them.
02:23But it's a history which is piecemeal rather than conjoined but there are delightful little spots like this graveyard that we're in now.
02:35Very fortunately we find ourselves inside the church of St John's which is an attractive building but in it there are several memorials which I've got to admit I'd forgotten about.
02:50One is quite recent from a Burnley man who rose to be one of the most important ministers in the government. I knew him as David Waddington. He was a solicitor in town and his family had been involved in the textile industry in Paddyham.
03:13He became the MP for Nelson and then for Clitheroe and then for Ribble Valley and he was the Home Secretary from 1989 to 1990 after which he became the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda an office he held for five or six years.
03:39I knew him. I knew him as a man who was very interested in Burnley and the surrounding area and it's very nice to record the life of David Charles Lord Waddington.
04:00In Bag on Burnley we've mentioned this man because he's one of the most distinguished clergymen who has ever lived or been born in this area.
04:12As you can see this is Alexander Knoll who was one of the leaders of the Reformation in England particularly in the middle years of the 16th century.
04:26He had to flee the country when Mary, Bloody Mary became Queen in 1553.
04:36But on her death she was only Queen for five years. Elizabeth came to the throne. She was a Protestant and he and lots of people who had fled to Continent came back.
04:49Now he became the Dean of St. Paul's which was a very important job in those days.
04:56And by the Dean of St. Paul's I mean St. Paul's in London.
05:00Normally this is a quiet part of Reed. It's one of the most attractive parts of the village as well.
05:09You can see the signpost behind us.
05:12But surrounding us is the parkland of Huntroyd and some of the early cottages of Reed village itself.
05:22There are some 18th century ones here.
05:25But the reason why I decided to stop here is that it's an opportunity to tell you how Reed and Symmenston got the name.
05:35Now starting with Symmenston, literally it means Sigmund Stone.
05:40And people have speculated that somebody called Sigmund in the pre-Norman conquest owned the land and had a boundary stone.
05:55So Symmenston probably means Sigmund's, not Simon's, boundary stone.
06:03And Reed means the headland of the female roe deer.
06:09And in the past of course this area was a hunting area and there were lots of deer in this area.
06:17Reed has got nothing to do with reading, writing and arithmetic as they used to say.
06:25It literally is the gentle hill by the deer park.
06:33Across the road from where we are there is the plaque to Mr. Kemp.
06:39Now he was the builder, or his family was the builders, of Victoria Mill, which was a cotton mill originally.
06:48And as we've said about Reed in particular, because we're talking about Reed now, Reed developed as a little hamlet on the old road.
07:00Well, the mill was on the turnpike road, a much later road, built in the 18th and 19th centuries.
07:09The mill itself, I remember it standing and it was being used by a firm that made domestic fires.
07:21Fires, what was called Valor.
07:23But the village is a consequence of the act of building that and the friendship mill lower down the road.
07:34The terrace houses of Reed are the consequence of the cotton industry.
07:39But of course there were other industries, I mentioned coal mining, there was a bit of coal mining close by, and you're quite close to much later factories.
07:51So, Reed village that we all know today, which originally was called Newtown, is the consequence of the late industrial revolution.
08:00We are standing outside Simonston, St. Peter's Church of England School, but behind me is the original National School of Simonston.
08:14It was built in 1879 as a national school, but we also constructed it so that religious services could be held here.
08:23And this is typical of the development of small communities, which were distant from churches.
08:32As soon as industry started, as soon as population increased, you get churches and schools being built.
08:41And this is an example of a wild run.
08:44And it's also significant, but on the wall you can see two First World War memorials, together with a memorial, a smaller one, to the day of the Second World War.
08:59And to the right, there is a building typical of what people have long since thought of Simonston.
09:09It's an attractive, relatively modern house, and the story is that people in Simonston came in their ones and twos and built houses when their businesses in Burnley had prospered.
09:29They wanted to build a nice house.
09:31And so Simonston got the name as Burnley's stockbroker belt because of the large number of nice modern houses with gardens that Burnley cop manufacturers, butchers and other business people built for themselves in this attractive rural village.
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