Newsletter

Editorial

In the last edition of the Newsletter I reminded members that, next year, we celebrate our 25th. Anniversary and that we should be thinking about how we should celebrate it. The Committee has decided that we should orgainse a Silver Anniversary Dinner and details of that will be published when they are available. There has not been a Heritage Open Day event in Briercliffe so we will have another "Briercliffe Heritage Exhibition" (probably in the autumn of 2008) in which items from our Local History and Heritage Collections will be put on display.
Last year such an event was organised, in the Community Centre, and it proved to be a great success but this time I would like to do something really special. Members of the Local History Group had the opportunity, at one of their meetings, to see the 1840 Tithe Map of Briercliffe thanks to Susan Holgate, the Local Studies Librarian at Burnley Library. Perhaps we could borrow it again so that all our members and residents can see this huge and fascinating document?
It could be that we might combine the Heritage Exhibition with a Heritage Walk. These are increasingly popular and I attended one at Knowle Green (between Hurst Green and Longridge) a few weeks ago. About two dozen turned up and the organiser took a group of people of all ages on a two mile walk around the hamlet. I think that we could do the same in Briercliffe. In fact we have already done this sort of thing before because, when you think about it, this is how the June Trails, we have organised over the years, began.
Other things that have been suggested are special theatre visits, a special June Trail and a 25th. Anniversary Social Evening (in addition to a dinner).
What do members think of our thoughts so far? Please contact Roger Frost. His phone number is on your membership card. (RF).

What's On?

Saturday 25th. August, 2007
The Briercliffe Society & Briercliffe Allotments and Gardens Society, present The Annual Briercliffe Flower Show.
In Haggate School. Judging, 12 noon. Open to the public from 2pm. Presentations at c3-45pm.
This is our Annual Flower Show, an event for which the Society is partly responsible. Your support will be greatly appreciated. Our Chairman, Mr. Ivan Eastwood will be making the presentations with Chairman of the Parish Council, Cllr. Mrs. Margaret Lishman. Members of our Committee are organising refreshments. Admission is .30p. Children, .10p.

Monday 10th. September 2007.
The Briercliffe Society Quiz Night.
Briercliffe Commnunity Centre at 7-30pm. Entrance is £1 inc. refreshments. Everyone welcome.
This is an event which has been enjoyed over the years by members and their guests. Please remember that teams of up to four are needed - and the more the merrier!

Wednesday 26th. September 2007.
Briercliffe Society Local History Group.
Haggate School, Burnley Road, Briercliffe. The meeting starts at 7pm. A small charge is made to contribute towards the rent of the room. This session we hope to establish a rota for refreshments.
This is the first of the monthly meetings of our Local History Group. The Group has been a big success since it started last year. The organisers are hoping that members will agree that part of the time of the Group should be spent in local research with a view to publication. Also it would be very good if members of the Group would share their research interests with others. It might be that the Local History Group will take a lead role in organising the 25th. Anniversary Exhibition? At the moment the Group is still settling in but it is clear that the interest and the commitment is there. A lot can be achieved. (See "Society News" in this edition of the Newsletter).

Monday 8th. October. 2007.
The Jack France/Ken Bolton Memorial Lecture. Light On The Land
An Audio Visual Presentation by Malcolm Roberts.
Mr. Roberts is very well known to us and the quality of his work can be counted on to be of a very high standard. Ensure that you have a seat by arriving in good time.
Briercliffe Community Centre at 7-30pm. Entrance is £1 inc. refreshments.
Everyone welcome.

Saturday 27th. October, 2007.
The Briercliffe Society Social Evening.
The evening will start with the "infamous" Beetle Drive which will be followed by entertainment and supper. Tickets will be available soon.
Briercliffe Community Centre at c7-00pm. Tickets will cost about £5 whcih includes refreshments.
Everyone welcome.

Saturday 10th November, 2007.
Burnley Light Opera's Production of Oliver
Burnley Mechanics Theatre, Manchester Road, Burnley.
Burnley Light Opera is very well known for the quality of its productions and the Briercliffe Society arranges visits to each of them. This will be the opening night of this production which is eagerly awaited by fans of this musical. Our chairman, Mr. Ivan Eastwood, is organising this event.

Sunday 11th. November, 2007
Remebrance Sunday.
The War Memorial at Briercliffe Bowling Green at 11am.
The Memorial Service takes place every year at this location which is properly named the Briercliffe War Memorial Grounds. The Chairman of the Society, Mr. Ivan Eastwood, and the Chairman of the Parish Council, Cllr. Mrs. Margaret Lishman, will lay wreaths on behalf of the Society and the people of Briercliffe-with-Extwistle. All those who wish to pay their respects are welcome to attend. The Parish Council, and the Bowling Club, will organise light refreshments.

Monday 12th, November, 2007.
Trench Art, by John Hartley.
This might be a good time to have this lecture, following, as it does, Remembrance Sunday. It is only relatively recently that the importance of Trench Art has been appreciated. Mr. Hartley's talk has been widely acclaimed.
Briercliffe Community Centre, 7-30pm. Entrance is £1 inc. refreshments.
Everyone welcome.

Monday 10th, December, 2007.
The Briercliffe Society
Annual Carol Service.
This is a Non-Denominational Service and is based on the popular Carols from Kings college, Cambridge. There will be readings, carols and a short Christmas Homily. We hope to have one of the childrens organisations present. Briercliffe Community Centre, 7-30pm. There is no entrance fee, but there will be a collection for a Local Charity. Mince pies and tea etc. will be served.

Society News. Red Rose Awards.

As members will know the Society makes Awards to those who instigate environmental and landscape improvements in the Parish of Briercliffe-with-Extwistle. This year three schemes have been suggested by members but it is not too late for others to be brought to the attention of the Committee.
All of this year's schemes are in the Thursden area thought there are others in the Parish which have been suggested but which are not yer completed. We will keep our eyes on these projects to see if they measure up to our standards when they are finished. It would be unfair, at this stage to let members know which schemes are currently being considered. all that we can tell you is that all three schemes have been contacted and all three have agreed that their projects can go forward to the final stage. This entails a visit by members of the Committee who will undertake an inspection. They will then make recommendations to the Committee and presentations will be made at one of our Monday meetings in the Autumn.
It might interest you to have details of the kind of schemes which are normally accessed. Barn conversions; extensions to existing properties which are in keeping with the original buildings; tree planting schemes; gardens; modern housing developments which respect local building traditions; improvements to commercial properties; recreation and leisure schemes; interpretive schemes etc. Though the schemes suggested this year are all in the rural parts of the Parish, the Society is equally interested in schemes in Harle Syke, the Cop Row area and Haggate.
Please remember, recommendations for all entries for Red Rose Awards are made by members. If you know of a scheme, or if you want advice about whether a scheme qualifies, please contact Roger Frost

Local History Group

The first meeting of this season's Briercliffe Society's new Local History Group will be at Haggate School on Wednesday 26th. September, 2007 at 7pm. Some information about the Group can be found on pp. 1-2. About 12 to 18 members have been regularly attending the meetings but we have room for more, if you are interested.
At this meeting members will discuss how they see the Group developing. Some ideas are mentioned on pp. 1-2 but it could be that all the Briercliffe Society's local history work is devolved to the Group. This would include research, publications, the preparation of exhibitions (permanent and otherwise) and the organisation of talks etc.
However, the Committee of the Society has made a decision which will affect the Group. The Committee has decided that members of the Group will have to be members of the Society. This is for insurance reasons which are too complicated to go into now but which are very compelling. There will be no annular fee for attending meetings of the Group though those attending will continue to contribute to the hiring of the room at Haggate. This means that there will be a charge of £1 at each meeting. It is hoped that refreshments can be organised.

Briercliffe Art Group

The Briercliffe Art Group , which meets on Tuesday afternoons at the Community Centre, has asked if it could become part of the Briercliffe Society. As most members of the Group are already members of the Briercliffe Society there should be no problem with the request. The Society is looking into the situation the main issue being insurance cover. However, the same rule will have to apply to the Art Group as now applies to the Local History Group; that all those who attend should pay subscriptions to the Briercliffe Society. We will keep you informed about progress on this matter.

Briercliffe Society Website

The Briercliffe Society now has its own web-site. It can be contacted on www.briercliffesociety.co.uk and it has been compiled by Melanie whitehead, one of our members who lives in the Midlands.
The web-site contains numerous images of Briercliffe mostly taken from old postcards from the Briercliffe Society Collections. There is a list of officers of the Society which also gives details of how to contact them and there is lots of other information about Briercliffe.
A great number of people have already contacted the web-site especially those who are undertaking family history studies. Our Hon. Secretary has seen a steady increase in correspondence from people seeking assistance about family history matters and the Society, which has little expertise in family history matters, has decided to ask Melanie if she would add directions to the site for family historians.
The Committee is very grateful to Melanie for all she has done for us. In fact I should apologise to her because I thought I had put the web-site information in a previous edition of the Newsletter but I do not appear to have done so. I have written about Melanie's contribution in the Burnley Express and it is very satisfying that so many people are using the facility. Thanks, Melanie for bringing us into the Twentieth Century!

Christmas Lunch

The Heritage Trust for the North West has contacted the Society to let us know that they organise Christmas Lunches at the Centre in the Park Hill Barn at Barrowford. The lunches are very popular and are available from 10th. December to 21st. December.
At the last meeting of the Briercliffe Society Committee it was decided that we should ask members if they would like to attend such an event. A date was chosen - the 17th. December - and the cost of the Lunch would be £16.95 per person. The menu looks to be very good with the traditional Christmas Dinner (Turkey and Pudding etc.) with fish (salmon) and vegetarian (chestnut and mushroom stroganoff) options. Coffee and mince pies will be served at the end of the meal. For those of you who do not know the food at Pendle Heritage Centre has a very good reputation indeed.
Roger Frost agreed to act as coordinator. We will need a minimum of 15 people to attend and if you want a copy of the menu please either ring Roger or write to him. He will need to place a booking by 14th. September, 2007. The date for the lunch (17th. December, 2007) has been reserved for us.

New Booklet

A new booklet has been published which has Briercliffe connections. The details are; "The Formation of Haggate Baptist Chapel: Connections with the Inghamites and other Baptist Connections", Rex Watson, published by the author, 2007. (£3 from John Bentley, Joint President of the Society).
The booklet, at 28 pages, is very attractively produced. It deals with the early history of Haggate Baptists, adding considerably to out knowledge of the process by which the Church was founded. I suspect, though, that the booklet will be of considerable interest to family historians as there is a very interesting Appendix which includes members of the families which were involved particularly at the beginning of the story of Haggate. Names include John Stuttard (the ancestor of the present Lord Mayor of London), William Smith (generally regarded as the first leader at Haggate), John Heap, James Hoyle, Abraham Nowell and William Robertshaw.
Mr. Watson, the author, has local connections. He says, in a preface, that many of his ancestors had their births and deaths recorded in Haggate's Registers. His book is a very useful addition to an interesting aspect of our history.

Briercliffe News Round Up. Historical Vehicle Cavalcade.

This year's Historic Vehicle Cavalcade will take place on Sunday 9th. September. It will start at Turton Tower, Bolton and end up at Towneley Hall via Queen Street Mill Museum, Harle Syke. On the day there will be free admission to all of the museums on the Cavalcade route.
The Cavalcade is only one of the thirty events which constitute Burnley's Heritage Open Day Weekend which runs from Thursday 6th. September to Sunday 9th. September. One of our Joint Presidents (Roger Frost) is involved in three events - Historic Hurstwood, Friday 7th. September at Hurstwood Car Park. 29pm., Burnley Cemetery Guided walk, Saturday 8th. September at bottom gates, 10-30pm. and St Peter's Church and Churchyard Walk on Sunday 9th. September at the Church, 2-30pm. Leaflets, which give full information, are available at public buildings throughout the town. (Next year the Briercliffe Society will be organising a Heritage Open Day event)

In Brief

Lots of residents are concerned about road safety in Briercliffe. Our four main roads - Burnley, Nelson, Todmorden and Halifax - have their problems though at least there is progress with work commencing on the lower part of Burnley Road. The County Council is responsible for our roads and the situation is that they intend to consult local residents, in the near future, about traffic calming schemes at least for Burnley Road. With regard to Nelson Road speeding, especially at the blind dip in the road, is the problem and the Parish Council has taken the issue to the County. There are also problems on the Halifax and Todmorden roads and these have been brought to the attention of the County.
An advertising sign has recently been put up, without permission, in Cross Street in Harle Syke. This has been reported to Burnley Borough Council and news is awaited. The paths between Haggate and Lane Bottom and Haggate and the Nelson boundary also need attention. These have been reported, again to the County Council.
Briercliffe Business Centre has a new company within the former mill. The firm is Open Door: Furniture Recycling Ltd. and the provide re-usable furniture and domestic appliances to disadvantaged residents of both Burnley and Pendle. Roger Frost attended the opening which was carried out by the Mayor of Burnley, and formerly a Briercliffe resident, Cllr. Peter McCann.
Briercliffe's Tree Warden, Mr. Anthony Sutcliffe, has had a considerable success in winning funding for the construction of a new path at Queen Street Recreation Ground. Only the first part of it has been completed as the money comes in two parts. The second batch of funding will arrive later in the financial year and the next part of the path will be constructed then. In the mean time the Parish Council has arrnaged for improvements to the drainage to be carried out near the new path.