General Chat

............... I spent some time with Google this afternoon, looking up places in my home town in Lancashire ...........

the church where my parents were married, my brother and I baptised, and brother and I went to school is now on an endangered list as the stonework is in such bad shape that it is feared some both inside and outside the building might fall. There is currently no vicar, but it is a functioning church.

the Academy that replaced my old grammar school is on the Ofsted list

most of the shops in the city centre are closed and have been closed for years.

It is now too dangerous to walk some of those city centre streets at night time because of the youths who haunt the area ............... they have nothing else to do and no money.


I knew it had reached low levels when there was major rioting there back in 2001/2002 ............... but what I was reading just left me so depressed.


Oldham, Lancashire.

Well times change & life moves on but good memories. I count my blessings Barbara.

Sylvia, it's quite a depressing thing Google, I was a bit devastated to see the wreck of the house I lived in, in the Isle of Man. You couldn't see how bad it was from the road as it was down a steep lane, but it is up for sale ( or was) with pics, more or less derelict but with land £450k ! On the plus side, the beach and areas around are very much the same, and perhaps better cared for, and the Island does seem to be still a haven. I want to try and visit if I can.

They say never go back, but it is tempting to look isn't it?

I think what you've seen sadly applies to many areas, it's not helpful to the stability of the country, but I won't get all political on you lol. :-)

Sylvia, a couple of years ago OH and I took off for a week, booked into a hotel in rural Lancashire and visited all the places where a lot of my ancestors were baptised, married and buried (Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancs) before everyone went to Liverpool then spread further eventually.

We had a fab few days visiting a Quaker burial ground (where we were simply handed the key to go through the Hall and into the ground ourselves), several other graveyards and churches.

There seemed to be a lot of church halls doing coffee so we chatted to a lot of people and, without exception, everyone we met was extremely friendly and chatty. We plan on doing it again as we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Joy ................. which Quaker burial ground and hall did you go to??

Where you anywhere in the Sedbergh/Slaidburn/Whittington/Preston Patrick/Kendal areas???????

OH's ancestors also moved between Cumberland,Westmorland and Lancashire, and the earlier ones were Quakers .............. the belief in the family is that they moved when trouble got too much for them, exchanging mills with cousins or other relations!

But his 4 x gt grandfather preached at a couple of Quaker meeting houses, while also getting married, having children baptised and eventually buried in a CofE ...... not uncommon I understand.

Sylvia, Pardshaw.

Funnily enough on the way across from home, we went through Sedbergh but did not stop there for a coffee as we sometimes do.

The first place we stopped at for me was Tockholes then carried on from there. <3

I visited the place I was born in North London to see my Cousin and I certainly do not want to go back there ever again. It was a nice little village but now it is B@@@@y awful :-|

I go back to my home town regularly and always have a good time with cousins.

The house I was born in and spent my early years in is now a six-bedroomed student house! Externally it looks the same - so that pleases me. The area, though, has gone downhill drastically.

Sylvia, Tockholes, Keswick, Pardshaw, Kendal, Wrightington, Eccleston-by-Chorley, Wigan. Will ask OH whether I've missed any out.

We didn't visit Leyland and Cockermouth (also had ancestors there) so they're on the list for our next trip.

By the way, were you aware that Cockermouth has now been declared a slow city?

I think my second home in Oldham is still in a decent area ............... it was on the outskirts close to the Pennines. That house was however demolished in a city renewal programme in the early 1970s. The last time I was there was in 2001, and the house site was a green mound, and Google viewing the area it looks pretty clean and well-kept.

But where I was born and where my mother's family had been for many years as Glodwick, which was the centre of the race riots. My aged aunt lived in the house she and her husband moved into after their marriage ca 1936/7 until she died about 10 years ago ........ and went to St Marks, the "family" church every Sunday.

I knew there were problems, but it was the extent of them that amazed and depressed me.

Similar to what happened to OH's birth home and second home, Sylvia, but, alas, the areas they were in are not looking at all good. It is sad when it happens.

Your aunt did very well to stay in the same home for so long. Not many could compare with that at all.

Joy ......... Brigg Flatts Meeting House near Sedbergh seems to have been the one where 4 x gt grandfather preached.

In their latter days, OH's family was settled around Preston Patrick, and Heversham, with Kendal being the "big" town. We had a great time searching round there on our last trip back to the UK in 2008

Cockermouth didn't seem to enter their perambulations!

But the family appears to have originated in the Forest of Bowland, with 2 lines diverging sometime in the mid 1600s/early 1700s. Both groups use the same forenames over and over again (Cuthbert, Christopher, Gilbert), most seem to like wives called Elizabeth or Jane, all are millers and farmers, and both move back and forth between the 3 counties, often with a member of one line taking over the mill operated by a member of the other. It makes life very difficult!!

There was a Cuthbert who went on William Penn's 2nd fleet to Pennsylvania in 1682. I can't get the connection to him and OH's Cuthbert born ca 1725. But neither can anyone else studying "our" line. The line from the Cuthbert who ended up in Pennsylvania has been well studied.

Sylvia, next time we go through Sedbergh I'll look out for Brigg Flatts.

Penn's 2nd Fleet - good to have that in your family tree. I hope the connection will show itself soon.

Joy .............. sorry to hear your OH's homes have suffered the same fate.

Interestingly, the house I was born in, and my grandparents house across the street, are both still standing, in Glodwick ............ Victorian brick terrace houses so common in the northern mill towns. I took a photo of my old house in 2001, but didn't have the nerve to go across the street and knock on the door ............. I would have liked to ask if they had an indoor bathroom now!!!!!!


I'm not sure that Cuthbert the Quaker will be in OH's direct line ...... it's just strange how there is this gap in the records for "our" line. The other line has been traced way way back. I re-visit the various sites every now and again and see if I can find a possible baptism for Cuthbert born ca 1725 and thus get at least a father's name

The other really strange thing is that my daughter has an unusual first name, one that was the name of a character in a book I read in the early 1960s. I fell in love with the name and determined that I would give it to a daughter if I ever had one. I wasn't even involved with OH at that time, though I knew him.

The wife of Cuthbert b. ca 1725, and therefore OH's 5 x gt grandmother, had the exact same name ................. and it has recurred down the years since, with the last one that I know about being OH's gt gt aunt, born ca 1865. She moved to Liverpool, died there in 1936 ....... and OH's father knew her well.

The name is liable to mis-spelling, and my f-i-l always said that we had used the wrong spelling because it was different from gt gt aunt!

But how weird that I should marry into a family that had my favourite name choice as part of their history.

It is, Sylvia. I love coincidences but often wonder about second sight even though I am fairly rational - too much so at times.

I'd love to take a look inside my old home. As there'll be students in it, I may well visit the street next time and knock on the door. I'd probably stand more of a chance seeing it with them in it than if a family was in it.

Hopefully, they'll humour me if I dress in my old lady clothes and give them my best beaming smile. :-D

You know what they'll think about me. :-0 ;-)

:-D :-D