dodworth chronicle: 2013

THIS ITEM ALSO APPEARS ON THE STAINBOROUGH CHRONICLE AND WENTWORTH CHRONICLE BLOGS - THIS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT - BUT DUE TO ITS IMPORTANCE - THE 'CATHERINE WELL' WILL DISAPPEAR IF NO ACTION IS TAKEN TO SAVE IT - THIS SAME FATE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED TO MANY FEATURES OF OUR ENVIRONMENT - SPEAK OUT FOR THIS ONE - AND SHOW YOU CARE - BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE - TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS ITEM, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO CAN BRING ABOUT CHANGE.

The Sunny Hollow

At Stainborough is a place known to locals as the ‘Sunny Hollow’, at present it looks like anything but a sunny place, yet in the 1950’s to 1970’s; and certainly well before that time, it was very much a pleasant play and picnic spot, where in the early days families went – often walking from Dodworth Bottom and later Snowhill, and where later mainly young people dammed the stream (actually the River Dove) to make a deep pool of water, swam, swung on a high rope swing and dropped into the pool, and generally splashed around enjoying themselves. The users of the swing were invariably lads!

Lowe Lake

The tall tree from which the single rope swing hung, was firmly rooted in something that was definitely not the colliery spoil heap slag which was generally visible about the area. In fact it was rooted in an enormous clay dam which was concealed beneath the colliery slag tipped on top of it. The clay dam was built around 1730 by workers from the Wentworth Castle estate, and it ran from one side of the valley to the other at that point and thereby created the variously named ‘Lowe Lake’, an ornamental landscape feature of the early Wentworth Castle estate. A house known in the late 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s as ‘Cotterell’s House’ after people who lived there at some time, was close to one end of the dam, and when built would probably have stood at the side of the lake.

The Dam

Originally a landscape feature, the lake later became used to feed the reservoir at Worsborough and thence the Dearne and Dove Canal which ran to Worsborough Bridge. It was drained when the coming of the railways that ran through the valley made the canal system less viable, and finally when it interfered with the working of the Strafford Colliery, which was sunk many decades after the dam had been created. At its peak the waters of the lake covered about 24 acres of ground, were about 34 foot deep, and stretched all the way up the valley (about 1 mile) to what is more usually called ‘The Dam’ and they covered what are known as ‘The Stepping Stones’ and what was called ‘The Whirlpool’ – the latter being another pool created by kids damming the River Dove, so that they could jump in and sometimes swing above it – perhaps they still do. They certainly still use ‘The Dam’ as a picnic spot – for which it is well suited.

The clay dam

The clay dam is still in place and may be detected by careful examination of the stream bank at the location in question. Dams of that type of construction had an overflow, this one still exists, and it has regularly and unknowingly been walked upon by countless people in the years since the dam was finally drained about 150 years ago. This overflow is at the northern end of the dam, the one nearest to where the longer and lower of the ‘Two Tunnels’ would have had its southern or western exit, i.e. the end nearest where the ‘Power Station’ used to be.

Before it was built, on the site of the dam was some sort of water mill used for grinding corn, and maybe it was used for other purposes connected with metal working, and nearby was situated some cottages. This was long before the area became known as the ‘Strafford Pit / Colliery’ and before the pit had ever been thought of, in fact before mining on that scale began anywhere in the Barnsley area. The area did have a name though, it was called ‘Damsteads’, and activity may have occurred on that site since at least the 1600’s. It seems possible that the name ‘Sunny Hollow’ may date from this same early period.

Stainborough Mill

After Lowe Lake was created it was used to drive a replacement water mill, and to fill the mill-pond necessary for such an operation. The mill, known as the ‘new’ Stainborough Mill, was on the southern bank of the River Dove, just below Stainborough Bridge, about a half mile downstream of the fine new dam. The Stainborough Mill has been much altered in recent years and is now a fine large private house, noticeable at night by its being floodlit. The mill-pond, that served the mill, was located on the same side of the road as the mill, right where a large splendid private house now sits, the last one on the left before the Stainborough crossroads. The ‘mill-race’ i.e. the water channel that carried water to the mill-pond from the Lowe Lake ran in a straight line from the ‘Cotterell’s’ side of the big clay dam directly to the mill-pond. At present a substantial hedge is present on almost the exact line of the mill-race, running almost that entire length. Just how the water in the mill-race was conveyed across the road is not known.

The culvert

Back to the story! - the Sunny Hollow pool was fed by the stream, River Dove, issuing from an open, circular, brick culvert of about 4 foot diameter. At some time before the mid 1950’s the culvert may have had a wrought iron grill on it, to prevent people entering, there was certainly a metal grill on the other end for some years after that time. Looking into the culvert, light could be seen at the other end, the tunnel being about straight, approximately horizontal and about 100 yards long. A local mining surveyor has suggested that the culvert was ‘put through the clay dam’ as part of the work to drain the Lowe Lake, and to enable the tipping of colliery waste from the Strafford Colliery into the bed of the lake and on the southern side of it, close to Lowe Wood, and onto the top of the clay dam itself – which is why the dam is not clearly visible today.

Strafford Brick Works

Some readers may recall occasions when the culvert got blocked at its upstream end by debris such as trees carried by floods. On such occasions the ancient dam came into operation and the lake returned! The water from the River Dove filled the dam all the way back up to the Stepping Stones – just as it had been designed to do in the early 1700’s. On what was almost certainly the last such occasion; perhaps around the late 1960’s or early 1970’s, the blockage was cleared, and the top half of the culvert was exposed by removal of part of the clay dam and the many tons of colliery waste on top of it, then that top part of the culvert was removed, making an open channel for the River Dover to flow through. The operation was very untidy and much of the debris thus created may still be seen in the stream bed to this day. Amongst that debris are some ‘Strafford Bricks’, these are bricks made at the local Strafford Colliery brick works, at one time readily identifiable by local mine workers, who used them in the course of their work. The brick works were on the left side of the track leading from Stainborough Lane to the old Strafford Colliery site, which is now a small industrial estate, and they were on land now underneath some large warehouse type buildings. The actual site was between the track mentioned and the River Dove.

The Sunny Hollow bridge

Very close by and just downstream of the pool was a flat bridge, wide enough for a farm cart, and perhaps notably having no handrails, which in the 1950’s had a surface made of used railway sleepers. The sleepers were of some age and one day failed, causing a young girl walking across it to partially fall through the resultant gap, causing a serious laceration of the leg involved. The injured girl was my elder sister who is now approaching 70 years of age. That accident caused the then responsible authorities to replace the bridge with a fine substantial metal structure, made of steel girders, and reminiscent of a Second World War military ‘Bailey Bridge’. It is my understanding that the bridge at the Sunny Hollow was designed and constructed by the mining engineers of the ‘Levi Pit’ which was located a couple of miles upstream of the bridge, and that those same people installed the said bridge.

The metal bridge still was still standing the last time I visited the site a few weeks ago, but it is now in a bad state of repair and has been declared to be dangerous, so using it is not advocated. The stream can still be crossed by using informal ‘stepping stones’ placed by parties unknown, but caution is advised if doing this as the potential for accidents is considerable. The piers on which the bridge stands are made of very substantial dressed stone, which was apparently not purpose made, but recycled. From where that recycling occurred is not known – but it is speculated that they were originally part of the structures; which according to old maps and drawings included a bridge, at the southern end of the clay dam – and which formed the intersection with the mill-race and presumably some sort of sluice mechanism to control the flow of dam water into the mill-race.

The Catherine Well

The purpose of the Sunny Hollow bridge was to allow passage over the stream, and a legal footpath exists on both sides of it, possibly since the tipping of colliery waste onto the dam started. The part of the path heading towards Stainborough Lowe has on its left a field – and this is the main purpose of this article – so read this next bit carefully please! In the field, and easily visible from the path just mentioned, is a single tall tree, that was once part of a hedge. That tree has been there for over 70 years to my certain knowledge and possibly for a long time before that – others may know more about that… At the base of the tree is a spring known as ‘Catherine Well’. At least that is the spelling I imagine for I have never seen it written down anywhere except on a very old map, and I cannot recall the detail of that, but it could of course begin with a K. Wells dedicated to St Catherine are quite common; at least in the British Isles, and especially in Ireland. Many such wells were in the past, and may be still today, believed to have healing or health giving properties, this one is no exception. I can personally think of several stories related to such in the case of this well, and I can think of other stories associated with it too.

The Catherine Well was well known to me as a child and to everyone else that I can recall living in the vicinity, and they all knew at least the same tales about it that I did, and it was to them universally known by that name.

In those far off days access to the well was not restricted and we frequently visited it, and knew it well. The spring water coming out of ground fell into a massive rectangular stone trough about 4 foot long and 2 foot wide. The trough was more like a large stone sink than the stone ‘horse troughs’ that were commonly around at time. It’s depth was less than a foot as I recall, and all about it the grass would be soggy with the overflowing water, that eventually found it’s way down towards the River Dove. I never recall the spring being dry, even in the heat of summer.

In the trough and about it grew ‘wild water cress’ which kids picked and took home for their mum’s. This practice had gone on for many years – a lady of 91 who died this year told me that, in her young days, children walked from as far away as Kingstone to the Catherine Well to gather the watercress, to take home to their mum’s for use as a garnish on the Sunday dinner.

A local historian told me that “…the old people of Gilroyd used to ask for a ‘cup of watter from’t Catherine Well’ to drink before they died.”

Another local, with a fund of reliable stories about things that happened a few decades ago, told me of young locals with ‘sticky eyes in the morning’ - ‘bathing their eyes in the Catherine Well water, each day for a while’ apparently to successfully cure the common inflammation known today as blepharitis.

In the 1950’s and 60’s, youngsters with acne like conditions bathed their faces in the water of the Catherine Well.

The ‘Brailsford Tank’

Near to the well and just by the edge of the field was a large rusty coloured, tubular shaped, metal tank, of substantial construction and great strength. It stood, horizontal, on two brick plinths and from the ground to its top may have been more than 7 foot, its diameter being about 5-6 foot, whilst its length may have more than 15 foot. It was of riveted construction, and had a short metal pipe of about 3 inch diameter on its upper surface. Children often climbed onto the top of the tank whilst playing. A former coal miner when asked about the tank, remembered it from his younger days and described it as a ‘Brailsford Tank’. Just what the tank was, and what it was doing there is not known, but it seems that it was moved in the 1980’s.

A popular drawing (the Badeslade birds eye view print] of the Wentworth Castle estate show several fields on the south side of Stainborough Lowe Lane, one of which is shown as Katherine Well Field. The image is dated 1730, testifying to the ancient provenance of the well.

Official maps, from about 1905 and earlier, show the presence of footpaths going to the Catherine Well from Lowe Lane and the Sunny Hollow direction. These paths are no longer to be seen on the ground.

Over the past decades the site of the Catherine Well has gradually been obscured by presence of vegetation, weeds, and debris. Nevertheless the tree mentioned around the start of this tale stands as a marker, for the time being. The stone trough mentioned earlier is also know to still exist, in its original location, beneath the current ground level, AND, the spring is still there, trickling into the trough just as it has done for centuries.

Why the trough is in that location is not known, but without question it did not get there by accident, it must have been deliberately positioned in that place, for a purpose known at the time – and yet to be discovered.

WHAT IS FOR CERTAIN – IS THAT THE CATHERINE WELL WILL DISAPPEAR BEFORE LONG – AND THAT IF AND WHEN IT GOES IT WILL BE A GREAT LOSS TO THE HERITAGE OF THE STAINBOROUGH AREA.

It will also be a sad loss, and one unlikely to occur in areas of this land where heritage is more highly valued than around here.

So if you know anything about the Catherine Well – share it – on this site – and anywhere else prominent – do not keep it to yourself.

Help – do your bit …

It is possible that others remember something of the places mentioned in this article and that some of those may even have been involved, perhaps in the making and installation of the bridge, or maybe just as users of the Sunny Hollow and the bridge and the other features mentioned. If so – you are urged to share what you know – before it is too late – contact this site and arrangements will be made with you for you to tell your bit of this story – alternatively just send a response or get someone else to do it for you – Dodworth Library (and most other libraries) have readily accessible facilities to enable you to share what you know – don’t delay or think that what you have to contribute will not be worth the effort – it will be highly valued. In general the above appeal applies to any recollections that you may have about this area – let’s create a unique record for future generations – if we don’t do it – nobody else will – because nobody else can…

Samuel Johnson

dodworth chronicle

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Blog Archive

Sunday 22 December 2013

Catherine Well map coordinates

Dodworth Colliery Brass Band and a tribute to Graham O'Connor

Monday 18 March 2013

The Catherine Well – and references to - the Sunny Hollow, Lowe Lake, The Dam, Stainborough Mill, The Huskar Disaster, Damsteads, the River Dove …

Friday 8 March 2013

Coffee morning - every week - at St John's Church - all welcome

Green Road - replacement of water main

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