ACCRINGTON - Lancashire County Council

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Lancashire Historic Town Survey Accrington Institution was purchased by the Local Board (Whalley nd, 1), and after incorporation in 1878 it became the Town Hall. Public baths, though not owned by the Corporation, were opened in 1879 and were bought by the Town Council in 1893 (Singleton 1928, 111). During the later nineteenth century there was mounting pressure for Accrington to acquire other public buildings, both to provide facilities and to enhance the status of the town. At a public meeting in 1894 it was resolved to establish a cottage hospital. Foundations were laid in 1895 and the Victoria Hospital opened in 1898 (LRO HRAC 1/1; Anon nd, 23-7). Similarly, there was a public desire for a Public Library, and following a gift from Andrew Carnegie the Accrington Public Library was built in 1906-8 (Singleton 1928, 89; Whalley nd, 2). Water supply and sewage disposal In the early nineteenth century, Accrington’s water still came primarily from three wells – the Gambo well off Abbey Street, situated close to the later junction with Water Street, Molly Dennison’s well behind the Swan Hotel, and the Sate spring off the Manchester Road (Crossley and Ainsworth 1995, 4). The formation of the Accrington Gas and Waterworks Company in 1841 led to the provision of piped water derived from small reservoirs on the town’s outskirts. Adequate facilities for the removal of sewage were not provided as quickly as the water supply. In 1850 the town’s below-ground sewers were described as stone-built, flat bottomed with upright sides, and covered with flagstones. The stones were laid dry and unbonded (Babbage 1850, 29). As inadequate as such provision might seem, in some parts of the town the sewers were open drains. ‘The sewage from Chapelstreet, Hargreaves-street, Mill-street, Plantation-street and Elephant-street runs down an open ditch at the back of the houses upon the north east side of Abbeystreet’ (Babbage 1850, 30). One of the main recommendations of the sanitary inspector’s report in 1850 was the provision of mains Plate 11: Scars of openings for ashpit cleaning and coal delivery, Back Adelaide Street sewerage through the use of glazed stoneware pipes (Babbage 1850, 36-8). It was not until the 1880s, however, that the town achieved a mains sewage disposal system, and the first sewage disposal works were not opened until 1889, at Coppy Clough in Church (Singleton 1928, 118). Baxenden The settlement of Baxenden had arisen out of one of the former vaccaries of Accrington New Hold. It is not clear when it evolved into a distinct nucleation. It may have pre-dated the construction of the Manchester-Whalley turnpike road, because in 1848 a small group of buildings, including an inn, lay along the old highway which ran to the east of the turnpike (OS 1848). It was not until the later nineteenth century, however, that rows of dwellings were built along the Manchester Road to house workers in Baxenden’s colliery, dye works and bleach works (OS 1892). In 1884 a Public Newsroom and a Workmen’s Institute were opened (Crossley 1924, 58). By 1909 Baxenden had all the characteristics of a growing industrial settlement, and terraces of houses were extending from it up the Manchester Road to meet with terraces extending southward from Accrington. As part of the township of New Hold, Baxenden came under the jurisdiction of the Local Board’s building controls from 1853. Although a © Lancashire County Council 2005 32
Lancashire Historic Town Survey Accrington discrete settlement, distinct from Accrington, Baxenden can be regarded as an enurb of the town. In the twentieth century Baxenden has been subsumed into the urban area of Accrington. © Lancashire County Council 2005 33
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Originally published by Lancashire
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ACCRINGTON - Lancashire County Council

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