Colne - Lancashire County Council

Lancashire Historic Town SurveyColne(Pevsner 1969, 106-7). A library was opened in 1895 but it was not until 1907 that, withfunding from the Carnegie Foundation, it obtained its own premises at The Gables, anotherformer mill owner’s house in Albert Road, (Harrison 1988, 63, 124). In the early 1900s, theCorporation developed the only remaining area of open ground in the town centre, betweenMarket Street and West Street and to the east of Colne Lane, where there had been afootball ground in the early 1890s (OS 1893 1:2500). The area was laid out as a crescent,called Ludgate Circus, centred on a new cattle market, with a new public baths on the westside, and with, in 1906, a new Council school to the south (Harrison 1988, 120).Public UtilitiesColne’s status as an early centre of the woollen cloth industry led to the early establishmentof a water supply. In 1806 a waterworks company was established to provide Colne withwater piped from Flass Spring near Laneshaw Bridge about two miles east of the town(Harland 1870, 29). The main customers were businesses, however, and many inhabitantshad to rely on local springs. Although a small reservoir was subsequently built at Bents,which was rebuilt in 1867, complaints about the poor quality of the water continued(Harrison 1988, 52), and the town was hit by an epidemic of typhoid early in 1876. TheLocal Board acquired the water company in 1880, although a new reservoir at LaneshawBridge, begun in 1884 was not completed until 1889 (Harrison 1988, 61-2). A sewageworks was built at Greenfield in 1885, although the system was not finally completed until1888 (Harrison 1988, 61). In 1838, the Colne Gaslight and Coke Company established agasworks in Gas Street (Wightman nd), and the first street lamps were erected in 1840,and by 1842 a new works was built on land in Green Lane (Harrison 1988, 61). In 1877 theCompany was taken over by the Local Board (Farrer and Brownbill 1911, 530) and theworks at Green Road were extended further in 1891 and 1894 (Harrison 1988, 61).Attempts were made to improve the streets from as early as 1823, by the construction ofcauseways, which were patrolled by nightwatchmen until 1840 and a paid constable wasappointed in 1834 (Harrison 1988, 51). In 1859, land was purchased for a cemetery,opened in 1960, which had ‘two handsome chapels with elegant spires linked by a gatewaywith a tower over’ (Pevsner 1969,106) designed by Pritchett of Darlington (Harland 1870,29). In 1901 the supply of electricity began from the works on Phillips Lane (Wightman nd,1).© Lancashire County Council 2005 26