00:00this week bygone Burnley is about clarion houses and behind me is the only clarion
00:10house that's still existing anywhere in the country possibly in the world we're
00:16roughly and we're in beautiful countryside on autumn day but we're at a
00:23very historic local spot there are a number of clarion houses and in this
00:30week's edition we're going to take you to three or four others in the area but
00:36this one holds pride of place because it is the the one which is most well known
00:47of those that of those that survived to modern times the building is typical
00:53of its kind but it wasn't the first one it's the third building in the in Pendle
01:01side it was opened in 1912 just before the First World War and I was just being
01:08reminded it's in the same year as the Titanic but it's lasted over a century
01:14it is still in use and the people who are running it the independent Labour
01:21Party in Nelson have restored the site restored the trees they've now planted an
01:27orchard they've got children's play area it's open every weekend in the year
01:34just like it has been from early times when the people of this district and
01:40others wanted to get out of the smog and smoke of the industrial times of
01:47Lancashire and Yorkshire and they came to places like these either on foot or a
01:53little bit later by bus they would use the railways to get close to it and walk
01:58the rest of the distance but particularly on bikes the first carion was founded by the
02:07national clarion cycling club and the the club opened model clarions the first one
02:19was in Cheshire and throughout Lancashire and Yorkshire and in other parts the
02:24country I mean there were clarions in London I've seen one in Cornwall many years
02:30ago and it was a national movement to get working-class people out of the towns
02:40which I said were smoggy and dirty or where they didn't have very good living
02:45conditions and to show them something different and here at this location with
02:52Blackwell Tower in the distance you've got not only local history but you've got
02:59beautiful countryside countryside that lots of working people didn't get any
03:06chance to see and it was labor socialist organizations all over the country worked
03:14hard to produce facilities like this one of the local clarions was in Briarcliff in
03:24fact two of them were in Briarcliff but the one at Rogerham in Briarcliff was
03:32owned and started by the Independent Labour Party in Burnley this was in 1912 it was a cottage out in the
03:42wilds and it was behind the Rogerham Gate Inn where there was a large quarry and the facilities there
03:51included everything there was a children's play area there was refreshments were
04:00supplied socialist meetings took place there and famous socialist leaders came
04:07because this quarry was like an amphitheatre where someone could stand in it and could
04:14address hundreds of people from one position without a microphone and early
04:21socialist came and this the one at Rogerham became very well known and it is still in
04:28the ownership of the National Independent Labour Party land company although it's not used
04:38and it's in poor condition we're very fortunate I've got some good photographs of the one at Rogerham and it lasted effectively until the 1950s and since then although people visit it it is no longer in use it had been a cottage for hand loom weavers in in the 17th and 18th centuries
05:05and by the 19th century it had a fairly well known local figure Tattersall Wilkinson who lived there and we've got photographs of it with Tattersall Wilkinson standing outside
05:20he was a Worsthorn man a local antiquarian but he was self-educated and had moved from the Berlin District and gone to Blackpool made a small amount of money came back and lived in the Rogerham area for many years he died over 90 locally very well known and he was known as the Sage of Rogerham
05:48Rogerham a man another of the ILP clarions is this one it's a remote country pub originally called the farmers sometimes the farmers arms sometimes the farmers glory
06:07but it was an ILP clarion and this time it was the coal ILP that built it and there are lots of adverts of activities that took place here again it had refreshments it had even had a room where there was a piano and so people used to come and sing at the weekends and enjoy themselves but of course it was totally non-alcoholic
06:36non-alcoholic after the farm had closed and a lot of socialists were teetotalers and this was one that enjoyed a reputation not only for the quality of its food which by our standards would have been pretty basic but good all the same and it attracted people from all over the area particularly from the more industrialized parts in South Lancashire
07:05and West Yorkshire and West Yorkshire they came here in large numbers but it was the Colne ILP that ran it
07:12We're on Robin House Lane in Briarcliff and behind me is the row of cottages known as Robin Cottages originally there were two and they were occupied by handling weavers and stonemasons a third was added that became a pub but that closed in the 1970s the
07:34in 1869 the next pub the next building was added in modern times but it was a clarion in a sense it was organised by the SDF the SDF was the Social Democratic Federation one of the organisations that made up the Labour Party and it conformed to all of the principles of the SDF
08:02the SDF where cyclists walkers were welcomed there were refreshment rooms there was also accommodation of a kind not quite sure how good it was but there was and this is a different kind of clarion in earlier on I mentioned that clarions were set up by the clarion cycling club but this was never a clarion
08:31clarion cycling club but it agreed with what the clarion movement was about
08:38we're just outside the Robin Cottage one we've already seen and all of the original clarions were in the countryside the first one was in Cheshire but here in Briarcliff we've got a wonderful view of Pendle over Nelson and every one of the clarions was in Cheshire.
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