Colne - Lancashire County Council

Lancashire Historic Town SurveyColneface, although Colne has a high proportion of later nineteenth century terraces withsquared stone blocks, producing a semi-ashlared face, in comparison with many other eastLancashire towns. There are few brick buildingsin the town, even from the end of the nineteenthcentury and early twentieth century, when factorymadebrick was readily available relatively locally(Egerton Lea 2001a, 39). Stone continued to beused for many of the terraced houses well into thetwentieth century, indicating the high aestheticvalue placed on stone.Plate 16: Middle-class houses onKeighley Road with ashlared façadesThe traditional roofing material was sandstoneflags, quarried from local sources. As elsewherein east Lancashire, the coming of the railway inthe mid-nineteenth century opened the market forsandstone flags to be exported all over thecountry where the high quality stone was indemand. Conversely, cheaper and lighter, Welshslate was imported for local use. Flagstone is stillhighly regarded which, in view of the reduction inquarrying and high re-sale value, threatens its local survival, and many roofs today havehad such materials replaced with lighter and now less expensive substitutes. Sandstoneroof flags can still be seen in Windy Bank and Skelton Street.5.3 Housing typesBy the mid-nineteenth century, the street frontages along Church Street and Market Streetcomprised an area of dense development with closely packed courts and passageways tothe rear. Lack of available development land had resulted in areas of back-to-backcottages on both the north and south sidesof Market Street. Large areas of this postmedieval and early nineteenth centurydevelopment was demolished in twentiethcenturyclearances. The area to the north ofMarket Street and east of Windy Bank wasfully developed by 1761 (CL L2), and manyof the buildings would have been used byhandloom weavers. There are examples ofsurviving loomshop windows at second floorlevel in the Jovial Hatters public house,which dates from the 1740s (Harrison 1988,168) and in properties between DockrayStreet and Skelton Street. Eighteenthcentury properties with square mullionsPlate 17: Buildings on Skelton Street,kneelers at the eaves have been identified probably built a warehouse and houses forin Spring Lane (McGlinchy 1980, 13), wherehandloom weaversthere are also some surviving examples ofback-to-back cottages (Barrett 1980, 21). Cartographic evidence suggests that many ofthe back-to-back cottages and some of the court developments on the north side of MarketStreet, had significant numbers of cellar dwellings (OS 1851 1:1056). Many of thesehouses were probably developed by the Colne Union Club House Building Society, whichwas in existence from at least 1816 to 1831 (LRO DDBd/14/24), as the short terracessuggest an element of organisation.© Lancashire County Council 2005 38