Delph Road

 

My English grandmother lived in a little stone cottage on the edge of the town in Great Harwood. This was a “grace & favour” house belonging to the Church of England. There was a date on the doorjamb 1828. The walls were 18 inches thick and we children could sit in the windowsills inside. The doors were massive and the lock was about 10 inches by 7 inches and the key was 6 inches long, and must have weighed a quarter of a pound. The lock was supplemented with a big iron bolt. The whole place was covered with Ivy, not the common Ivy, but a kind my grandmother called Hiven. The tiny reddish purple leaves would show in spring, these would then develop into green leaves as big as my hand, and in autumn would turn to red and gold and fall off, so the house was never damp. I often had the job in summer time, of cutting back the ivy tendrils from around the windows with a pair of scissors.

The roof was covered with flagstones an inch thick. The rafters must have been oak beams, and massive, because the roof showed no sign of sagging and we had never had a leak. Under the stairs was the buttery, with flagstone shelves, and a bread crock on the floor. Bread was baked once a week and kept nice and fresh in this crock, which would hold a dozen loaves. We had flag footpaths around the house. One of the flags at the back of the house had a date carved on it, 1606, nicely carved with a border around it. It had probably come from a previous building on the site. We had a sizeable garden back and front, with stone walls around them. The front garden had been so built up over the years that we had to mount two steps to go into it.

The fireplace had ornamental jambs, and a seven-foot over mantel on which was a set of brass candlesticks, six of them. The fireplace was black-leaded; the black lead was put on with a brush, and another brush to polish it. The workday fire irons, i.e. ash pan, fender, tongs and pokers were made of steel, and had to be polished with emery paper, but on Friday night brass fire irons were brought out from under the couch for the weekend. The weekday lamp was just a plain glass kerosene lamp, but on Friday evening out came the reading lamp. During the week the reading lamp reposed on the chiffonier. This chiffonier was grandmother's pride and joy. It was a set of drawers nine feet wide, make of Honduras Mahogany, highly polished, with brass handles, and we kids were so well trained that we never went within two feet of it, at least not when grandmother was around.