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Hi,
My name is John Jones. Roger (Frost) may remember me or, more likely, my late wife Sylvia Jones whose postcards I have inherited.
I have two old postcards. The first (A) is of the Byerden Mill (listed as Colne Road) fire on October 22nd 1905, the 2nd (B) is of the Lodge Mill fire on Barden Lane in 1905. The two mills were a maximum of a few hundred yards apart.
The second is uncaptioned and the stamp (and postmark) have unfortunately been removed, but the sender has written "This is a snapshot of Lodge Mill Fire which recurred on Sunday last" It is clearly Lodge Mill as evidenced by the canal on the left (it was where Barden Mill was until recently). According to National records:
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov. ... /C14131895
a photo of the fire was copyrighted on Oct 24th 1905 by a Thomas Winskill, but hasn't been digitised yet. (So the fire was a few days before?)
Now if I look at both views then both seem to have happened on the same day (?) Moreover the damage to the left side of the mill is identical.
My conclusion is:
a) Either the two mills were one and the same (contradicted by the fact that they were owned by different people and are listed in archives separately), or
b) that the Byerden Mill photographer put the wrong caption on, and it is actually Lodge Mill
I have a variety of books on Burnley, but none have mention of this fire.
Can anyone please help? (This is for my own personal local history project as, from September, I will be President of the Burnley Philatelic Society and want to present a talk on local mills etc).

Hi John,

The two mills were most certainly different - Byerden Mill was on Colne Road, a bit north of Brennand Street. This old map shows it next to Primrose Mill - unfortunately it's on the edge of the sheet, but if you look on a modern map you can see the streets still. https://maps.nls.uk/view/126517130#zoom ... &layers=BT

Here's a map showing Lodge Mill: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101101679#zoom ... &layers=BT

The photo captioned "Byerden Mill" seems to be taken from the railway embankment. If you look carefully at the left edge of the photo at the base of the building next to the chimney, you can even make out what appears to be the canal. A couple of white vertical objects appear to be reflected in the water.

I'd say that whoever captioned the photo got it wrong.

All the best,
Dave

PS. Did you by any chance go to Heasandford School between about 1965 and 1970?

_________________
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Thank you for your reply. I agree that the Byerden Mill Fire postcard is incorrectly captioned.
I was further confused this morning by a picture in Burnley: A Pictorial History plate 41 which shows my Lodge Mill card but is captioned Byerden Mill. Similarly the card shown at:
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/ ... -1905-rppc
shows the same mill (Lodge) after the fire of 22nd Oct 1905 and again it is captioned Byerden Mill (same photographer?).
Based on that I can't find any reference to when the Byerden Mill Fire was, as all web references relate to the Mis-captioned cards.
1965-70 I was living in my home town of Dunstable - I moved up here in 1977
Best Wishes
John Jones

Hi John,

I've just been looking through my "Images of Burnley" book (published by Burnley Express in 1996). There's a photo of the fire at Lodge Mill from a different angle. The caption says "This blaze was at Byerden Mill (also known as Lodge Mill) ...". So it seems not to be quite so clear-cut.

I'll try to scan the photo and post it.

In the meantime, a couple more photos from the web:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com ... f=1&nofb=1
... also calls the mill Byerden Mill

https://redrosecollections.lancashire.g ... 9813094791
... presumably before the fire.

Have fun!
Dave

_________________
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Here's the photo ...

_________________
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Hi,
Some early morning thoughts (7 a.m.)

Attached are 2 more old views.
The first is uncaptioned and not postally used but someone has written on the back - "Fire at Lodge Mill Burnley October 1903". The writing is old but I don't know whether it was written early 1900s or written later and the writer mis-remembered the date.
The 2nd is 'borrowed' off the web and shows the fire at Lodge Mill October 1905 (captioned) - but the same mill as the Byerden Mill fire photos.
My original posted photo of Lodge Mill says the fire 'recurred' - was there an earlier fire in 1903?
In 1891 Lodge Mill was owned by Thomas Birley, Byerden Mill by Richard Stuttart. So they must have been different.
Byerden is the old spelling of Barden (relevant?).
It seems unlikely that the local photographer who captioned his photos Byerden got it wrong (a national photographer might have done), but see below

9 a.m. This morning I have pinpointed Byerden Mill as being on the other side of Colne Road to where I thought it was.
https://burnley.moderngov.co.uk/documen ... l%20St.pdf
between Primrose Mill and Duke Mill and more or less opposite Ainsworths Building Supplies so it couldn't be the same as Lodge Mill (and is nowhere near the canal).
So my conclusion has to be that all photographic links showing Byerden Mill Fire actually show Lodge Mill and the captions are all wrong. There are therefore no known photos of the Byerden Mill Fire. The Images of Burnley has to be wrong in stating that they were the same, unless Lodge Mill was taken over and renamed Byerden Mill (II) and immediately burnt down. (Unlikely)
So... was there ever a fire at Byerden Mill, since all links to that are of the Lodge Mill Fire on October 22nd 1905 and mis-captioned? Why have so many people, over the years, got it wrong - is it all based on mis-captioned photos? Has it all turned into a kind of urban myth?

Why am I so interested? Although I'm from Dunstable, I have spent over two thirds of my life in this area, and I'm very interested in it from the viewpoint of old postcards (1900 onwards). In three weeks I will become president of the Burnley Philatelic Society and hope to give a talk on local history through postcards. In starting to put it together I got stuck on the first one (as this thread shows)!
best wishes and thanks for the replies
John Jones

Hi John,

I can't find a mill called Duke Mill anywhere nearby on the old OS maps at maps.nls.uk. But I've found some modern agents' leaflets advertising it for sale.

I grew up in that area of Burnley. My gran lived at 54 Brennand St. and there were other relatives and close family friends living nearby. Primrose Mill was on the right-hand side of Martin Street (facing northwards) and there was another mill on the left hand side. Even then, in the 1960s, Martin Street was gated off after the back of Rawson Street.

Between the back of Brennand Street and the Tivoli cinema, bounded by Steer Street and Colne Road, there was a working mens' club called Byerden Social Club. I have a vague recollection of it being built in the early 1960s.

My dad rented a lock-up garage for a while on land that appears to be where Byerden Mill stood. So it's possible that Byerden Mill had been destroyed or partially destroyed by then - but I wouldn't stick my neck out to say there was a fire - it may just have been the decline of the cotton industry.

If you go on streetview on Martin Street facing north, you can see Paradise Mill on the right. On the left, there's a building with a typical zig-zag roof that may have been part of Byerden Mill.

As far as I can recall, there was never a mill on the site of Lodge Mill during my lifetime.

The reason for the mistaken identity of Lodge Mill may be nothing more than local naming. The road that crosses over the canal in one of your first photos is Barden Lane, formerly known as Byerden Lane.

In any case, it's pretty clear that all the photos we have seen so far are of the mill by the canal at the bottom of Barden Lane, whatever it was called.

Have fun!
Dave

_________________
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Thanks for all your help.
This is where I got Duke Mill from;
burnley.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s12970/19%200027%20Randall%20St.pdf
Your site says this is blocked so I have removed the https:// from the beginning. (It came up on page 1 of Google - Byerden Mill)
Best wishes
John J

Hi,
Final word from me - I've checked with National Archives - there was no recorded fire at Byerden Mill 1905-1980
best wishes
John J

It seems that there was a Barden Mill after all, but not until 1920. It was on the opposite side of Barden Lane to Lodge Mill. Here are some links:

https://maps.nls.uk/view/126517124#zoom ... &layers=BT - a 1920 map showing both mills

https://live.staticflickr.com/2885/1346 ... 21f2_b.jpg - a photo of Barden Mill just before it was sold and demolished to make way for a housing development. Before that, it was used as a mill shop.

https://live.staticflickr.com/4048/4687 ... cbdf94.jpg - a close-up of the blue bar that's visible in the first photo, confirming the year of construction.

The 1937 Barretts directory has an entry: "Barden Mill Co. (Burnley), Ltd., Reedley Hallows Mill, Barden Ln" - just to add to the confusion about the name.

I mentioned Lodge Mill to my mother last night. She remembers it as the mill where Grenfell cloth was woven. My mother worked in the 50s and early 60s as a sewing machinist for Grenfell, but not at Lodge Mill.

https://redrosecollections.lancashire.g ... 9974563004 - confirms the Grenfell connection and mentions that after the 1905 fire a smaller mill was built on the site.

That's yer lot

_________________
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.