Burley Key's Sundial

In March 2010 I published a photograph of Haughton Green Post Office at the top of Gibraltar Lane.

The post generated much comment regarding Burley Key who lived down the lane.

One commentator wrote

"I remember that post office in the late 1960s and 1970s when it had wooden doors, and roll-down security shutters were nearly unheard of. I bought National Savings stamps in there when I was 10 to save up for a play tent that I couldn't put up at home on the council estate because we had no garden but I played with it in Haughton Dale. Gibraltar Lane dipped steeply down and went to dirt after only a couple of hundred yards. On the left as the lane drops away out of sight was a house occupied by a local identity called Burley Key. His house had a high thick hedge round it and a wooden bench he'd made sat in a cutout of the hedge facing the lane. Carved in the back of the bench was 'Coom sit tha down and rest thy sen, it winna cost thee owt'. An invitation to people walking back up the steep hill, it was a written version of the broad local dialect Mr Key still spoke. As a child I could barely understand a word he said though my mother would stop and have conversations with him on our walks up and down 'Gib' Lane. Oh - it meant 'come sit down and rest yourself, it won't cost you anything'. Thanks again for the memories!"

Another wrote

"Burley Key was my great uncle. I used to love visiting his house with my mum. It was full of such interesting things for a youngster like me. Mum told me that Uncle Burley built his house using second hand bricks from the blitzed areas or Manchester. He and his wife (May?) cleaned all the bricks by hand for ages before work could start. Haven't been down Gibraltar lane for years. Must pop down sometime. I still have a handmade bird table he gave my mum, with hand cut miniature tiles on the roof. Very precious to me."

Paul Key wrote to say

"I'm Burleys great grandson and have a picture hung in my house of that very bird house and him and my dad looking at it. I have also heard the story of his house from my dad but I thought that it was made from the bricks from the mill at the bottom of gib lane"

Paul has now sent me a copy of the photograph. He wrote

"The sundial was made for a raffle at the church and this picture was in the newspaper in an article about the raffle. The sundial was made from salvaged bricks from gib lane mill. The older man is Burley Key, the child that is the closest to the bottom of the picture is my dad, John Key and the other child I have asked my dad about many times before and he has no idea who he is. I'm not too sure when it was taken but at a guess, around 1971. Also I'm not sure which house on gib lane it was but I think it's about half way up the lane."

I was by the top of Gibraltar Lane recently and took a new view of Haughton Green Village Post Office which can be seen on Hyde Daily Photo.

Hyde Hall in 1794

Hyde Hall in 1794

According to Pigot & Company's Trade Directory of 1834

Hyde Hall, the seat of Hyde John Clarke, Esquire, is a building of some considerable antiquity; recent improvements have deprived the exterior of its ancient appearance, but a greater part of the interior is in its original state. It is pleasantly situated on the river Tame, but the rapid progress made in manufacture, and the introduction of machinery to such a vast extent and power has materially deteriorated from the beauties of the adjacent scenery.

Hyde Hall (not to be confused with its surviving namesake in Denton) was situated on the left bank of the river Tame, a short distance to the east of Clarke's Bridge over the river (not to be confused with Captain Clarke's Bridge over the Peak Forest Canal). The drive to the hall was off Mill Lane, just above the bridge. On the opposite side of the river in Glass House Fold, Haughton, Lancashire, the Clarke family worked coal pits where a company of refugee Flemish glass makers and blowers had settled during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Around 1793, George Hyde Clarke built Clarke's Bridge over the river Tame at the bottom of Mill Lane. He did this in order to improve the supply of coal into Hyde and also in anticipation of the opening of the Peak Forest Canal, in which he was a major shareholder. The lower level of the canal opened in 1799/1800. However, this single-arched bridge was seriously damaged, and possibly destroyed, by the great flood that occurred on the 17 August 1799. (The present Mill Lane bridge over the River Tame was erected in 1895).

Notwithstanding this, a tramway was constructed from Glass House Fold, over this bridge, or its successor, along the side of Mill Lane for a short distance and then up the field by Hyde Hall to a wharf on the canal where coal from the pit, carried in horse-drawn waggons, was loaded into boats. The date of abandonment of this pit is unknown but there is no reference to it in the 1888 Distance Table of the Peak Forest Canal.

The original Hyde Hall, dating from the seventeenth century, was considerably altered in the mid eighteenth century creating the Georgian country house pictured above. The hall was demolished in 1857, but the farm building, on the left in this picture, survived into the twentieth century. The site of the Hall was purchased by Hyde Corporation in 1924.

A map dated 1882 appears to show Hyde Hall itself occupying the land that is now Kingston Recreation Ground. Hyde Mill is shown adjacent to the river in an area now occupied by a Fairhaven caravan park.

A fuller account of the Clarke Family of Hyde can found at http://www.pittdixon.go-plus.net/clarke/clarke.htm

Recent photographs of Kingston Recreation Ground can be found on Hyde Daily Photograph and also on Hyde DP Xtra.

I'm indebted to Paul Hyde-Clarke for bringing some of this material to my attention.

Haughton Green Equitable Cooperative Society Ltd

This picture of a Haughton Green Equitable Cooperative Society Ltd anniversary plate was sent to us by Fred Anderson who tells us that the old coop was opposite the "tommy todd".

His family lived in Gibraltar Lane before moving to Gee Cross, and finally left the area in 1967.

Gibraltar Mill & Gibraltar Row

Gibraltar Mill lay by the River Tame between Apethorn and Haughton Dale. It was demolished in the 1960s.


This row of houses has also long since gone.