# Suprising bungalow - November 2010



## nij4829 (Nov 8, 2010)

Visited with Nick. This place I have passed many a time, and decided that we would nip in and see what was happening.

This little bungalow has many outbuildings, which has many delights to offer us. The interior seams to have undergone some restoration within the last ten to fifteen years, but the elements have sadly taken over.






























































In the main shed, we found leather aprons as well as a 'under floor' drive mechanism.









































The next shed was a bit like a large potting shed, with a huge hopper.
















This shed was my favourite, an old railway truck, the shell was in a relitavely good condition, but the floor was very rotten. There wasnt anything of interest in here. 











This shed was empty, which is probably a good thing considering the condition of it. If it wasnt for the razorwire fence, it would be totally toppled over. 






The stables


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## Judderman62 (Nov 8, 2010)

oooh I like that lots. Nice one fella


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## nij4829 (Nov 8, 2010)

Judderman62 said:


> oooh I like that lots. Nice one fella



Cheers mate, its been taunting me for a bit. Glad I have done it, though going by the roof it is well past repair and will either fall down or be pulled down


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## Incognito (Nov 8, 2010)

nice find, any idea on what the leather aprons and underground machinery were used for??


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## Richard Davies (Nov 8, 2010)

Leather aprons are often worn when metalworking normally when working with hot metal.

There could have a forge on site, or someone was doing some welding.


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## evilnoodle (Nov 8, 2010)

Ahh.....how sad. That was someones little house and now it is all empty and forgotten


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## nij4829 (Nov 9, 2010)

Incognito said:


> nice find, any idea on what the leather aprons and underground machinery were used for??



We think it was a kind of farriers or blacksmith due to the stables but there wasn't anymore evidence there.


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## Incognito (Nov 9, 2010)

nij4829 said:


> We think it was a kind of farriers or blacksmith due to the stables but there wasn't anymore evidence there.



Thats cool, thought it would be something along those lines but thought best to ask rather than look a tit which a completely wrong answer lol


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## oldscrote (Nov 9, 2010)

Nice little report nij, that last photo looks suspiciously like an old single hole privvy,must be the oldest loo shot seen on D.P.


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## nij4829 (Nov 9, 2010)

oldscrote said:


> Nice little report nij, that last photo looks suspiciously like an old single hole privvy,must be the oldest loo shot seen on D.P.



Cheers mate, its the most complete outside loo I seen  There wasnt a nail for the newspaper though


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## RichardB (Nov 10, 2010)

According to a report on another forum it was this...

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=46552

That _is_ pretty damn surprising.


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## nij4829 (Nov 10, 2010)

RichardB said:


> According to a report on another forum it was this...
> 
> http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=46552
> 
> That _is_ pretty damn surprising.



That was my next surprise, was going to get in the shaft, BUT after further investigation we found that it is flooded.





So the end of that, we did consider any possibilities of pumping it out, but the density of the water and who knows what corrosion to the stone/soil/coal means the the probabilities are that the whole thing would collapse in


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## projectzip (Nov 16, 2010)

I think its more likely a blacksmiths after reading this article 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...oal-extracted-garden-semi-detached-house.html
And looking at the pictures the houses in the background dont match the bungalow.
But I have been wrong before


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## nij4829 (Nov 16, 2010)

projectzip said:


> I think its more likely a blacksmiths after reading this article
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...oal-extracted-garden-semi-detached-house.html
> And looking at the pictures the houses in the background dont match the bungalow.
> But I have been wrong before



The back shed, yeah thats our conclusion also - but cannot understand the 'mechanical' equipment built into the floor


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## ceejam (Nov 16, 2010)

Nice stuff really like this, well done.


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## nij4829 (Nov 16, 2010)

ceejam said:


> Nice stuff really like this, well done.



Cheers mate, I am just trying to get some local stuff done lol


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## projectzip (Nov 17, 2010)

nij4829 said:


> The back shed, yeah thats our conclusion also - but cannot understand the 'mechanical' equipment built into the floor



Do you have any more pictures of the mechanims??
I love stuff like this is excellent to try and work it out and do the research.


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## nij4829 (Nov 17, 2010)

projectzip said:


> Do you have any more pictures of the mechanims??
> I love stuff like this is excellent to try and work it out and do the research.



not yet - i needed more light to get it, so will make a return soon and post them up


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## projectzip (Nov 18, 2010)

Excellent I look forward to it!


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## Potter (Nov 18, 2010)

That would be a nice house if fixed up. Cool radiogram, and there is even a double adapter left in a socket.


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## robbie1003 (Jan 16, 2011)

good photos of a place where iv passed so many times. keep saying we must investigate the place.


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## nelly (Jan 16, 2011)

Incognito said:


> nice find, any idea on what the leather aprons and underground machinery were used for??



Have you ever seen Hostel????


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## Vickyvlr (Jan 21, 2011)

How enchanting....... i bet this place was thriving with life once upon a time ago......


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## klempner69 (Jan 21, 2011)

Many thanks for sharing this,that looks like a Parkray 88 in one shot.


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## Dirus_Strictus (Jan 21, 2011)

Presumably if this property was owned by Bram Pashley then this is his second mine, the drift mine at Newmillerdam - opened up when compulsory land purchase for the M1 extension closed his original shaft in 1967. 

From some of the comments in this thread I can see that nobody is old enough to remember the 'good old coalman' - the Clean Air Act removed some very colourful characters from our streets. The photographs indicate that this property obviously belonged to a coalman at some time in the past, the 'shed' with its large hopper was obviously used to fill the 1cwt bags with coal. The leather 'apron' with its attendant studded leather back protector was standard wear for all coalmen, and easily recognisable to any 'towny' of my age! You try handling 1cwt bags of coal all day for a living without wearing that piece of kit! Did Mr Pashley also sell his coal by the legally weighed 1cwt bag, or if this property was not owned by him which local coalman did own it?

Stables were another necessary part of the coalman's property for many years, even in the late forties/early fifties many a ton of coal was delivered by horse drawn dray. I know of one instance where smokeless fuel deliveries took the place of the traditional coal and allowed the business to continue well into the nineties, the dray horses in the stables being replaced by the grand daughter's prize show jumpers!

I could be wrong, but I suspect that the flat roofed brick 'workshop' originally had nothing to do with the cottage and other buildings on this site. It looks like it could have been a pump-house or something similar - one really needs to look at the 1930/1940 maps for the area and see if some Utility built the structure.


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## nij4829 (Jan 23, 2011)

Dirus_Strictus said:


> Presumably if this property was owned by Bram Pashley then this is his second mine, the drift mine at Newmillerdam - opened up when compulsory land purchase for the M1 extension closed his original shaft in 1967.
> 
> From some of the comments in this thread I can see that nobody is old enough to remember the 'good old coalman' - the Clean Air Act removed some very colourful characters from our streets. The photographs indicate that this property obviously belonged to a coalman at some time in the past, the 'shed' with its large hopper was obviously used to fill the 1cwt bags with coal. The leather 'apron' with its attendant studded leather back protector was standard wear for all coalmen, and easily recognisable to any 'towny' of my age! You try handling 1cwt bags of coal all day for a living without wearing that piece of kit! Did Mr Pashley also sell his coal by the legally weighed 1cwt bag, or if this property was not owned by him which local coalman did own it?
> 
> ...



I have scoured for arial shots from the 30/40's but nothing seams to be available, all i have are maps from the 20's but they show nothing.


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## rikj (Feb 2, 2011)

Dirus_Strictus said:


> I could be wrong, but I suspect that the flat roofed brick 'workshop' originally had nothing to do with the cottage and other buildings on this site. It looks like it could have been a pump-house or something similar - one really needs to look at the 1930/1940 maps for the area and see if some Utility built the structure.



A quick timeline of the site:

1854 - coal pit marked in adjacent field
1893 - shaft marked on site
1906 - pumping shaft marked on site, also another shaft
1932 - pumping shaft marked on site, also another shaft
1955 - pumping shaft marked on site, also another shaft
1961 - no shafts marked.

Quick stab at the story would be, started off as a small pit sometime between 1854 and 1893 with one or two shafts. At some point between 1893 and 1906 one of the shafts became a pumping shaft. I'd guess this was for one of the larger collieries that were within spitting distance. Why sink a shaft when there's one already there that can be bought or leased?

That it's marked on maps for the next 50 years hints that it was serving a much larger enterprise than a single mine. If it was a colliery pumping shaft then the only mystery would be, where did they pump the water to? Nearest watercourse is a tributary of Flockton Beck about 500 yds to the east. Flockton Beck itself is a similar distance to the south. Anyway, just a theory.

The whole area still has active pumping going on to cope with the South Yorks coalfield minewater rebound. The nice ochre coloured sludge ponds at Caphouse are clearly visible on google earth.


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## nij4829 (Feb 2, 2011)

Thank you for that mate, may I ask where you got your info?


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## rikj (Feb 2, 2011)

nij4829 said:


> may I ask where you got your info?



Sorry, should have said, this is just what is marked on OS maps for the dates listed. And of course maps are just the surveyor's interpretation of surface features.

Also, OS maps often suffer from what's know as the SALT Principle. Same As Last Time. Features that have long since vanished keep being repeated on new maps just because they were on the old ones.


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