NOT A BRIDGE TOO FAR

Many of you will be aware of the Marple Website's campaign to save the beautiful Iron Bridge in Brabyns Park. Mark and I decided to try to push for its renovation as we felt that, unless some attention was paid to the structure, it would not be long before it collapsed into the River Goyt.

Along with our co-campaigners and council representatives we have formed a group that has made some headway towards this goal. An application is now to be made for Heritage Lottery Funding to pay for a full structural survey that will ascertain the work necessary to repair the bridge.

All this set us thinking about how many jewels in the crown of Marple have been or are close to being lost forever.

One can list the obvious tragedies; first, Marple Hall, which, had the structure and estate survived, could have become a visitor attraction to rival any of the Cheshire and Derbyshire estates, such as Capesthorne or even Lyme. Due to a combination of indecision and the work of vandals, the bulldozers moved in during 1959 after the Hall was declared unsafe. Who knows what might have resulted had a more determined effort been made to secure the Hall's future, instead of allowing it to sit unoccupied for years? Then there was Brabyns Hall, nowhere near on the scale of its neighbour but with its own history to make it stand out. After the death of Miss Hudson in 1941, hopes were high that the Hall would be saved and, indeed, Marple U.D.C. bought the building and drew up plans to convert it into a small conference hall and community centre. These hopes were dashed, however, when it was found that the structure was suffering from severe dry rot and, in 1952, it too was demolished. Thankfully the parkland remains and is used today for all manner of recreation.

Unfair, you may say, to dwell on the mistakes and misjudgements of the past but have we learned from them? I fear not!

At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries Marple was beginning to change its identity from a mainly farming community to one where the working man and woman earned their living in the mills and mines. The main instigator of this change was a man named Samuel Oldknow. It is not my intention to talk at length about him here, but suffice it to say, he acquired large areas of Marple and Mellor on which to build his empire, of which he was quite rightly proud.

For reasons possibly built on pride, Oldknow instructed that on a hillside overlooking his land, which included all the area around what we now know as Roman Lakes, there should be constructed a large stone seat. Regularly he would climb the slope and sit on his chair, surveying his achievements and maybe planning his next scheme.

When Oldknow died in 1828 his estates passed over to the Arkwright family in order to cover the massive debts he had run up in the building of his empire, and over time the land has been split and sold off.

Around 200 years after the chair was placed on that Mellor hillside, Mark Whittaker and I felt that, as we had seen photographs but never the real thing, the time was long overdue for us to pay a visit to Oldknow's chair. A suitable Saturday morning was selected and the relevant permission sought, as the chair sits on private land. Having obtained instructions as to its whereabouts, we set off.

The instructions were detailed but the chair didn't seem to want to be found and after some time we wondered if we were in the wrong place - we were not! This artefact, from a time when the mill owners were almost nobility, was buried beneath a mound of brambles and weeds. The original structure had a stone pillar at each end, only now one of these has been knocked over and lies on the ground in three pieces. The view, which once allowed Oldknow to survey all that he owned, now reaches perhaps twenty feet, after which it is blocked by a tangle of trees and undergrowth.

Some may feel that we are only speaking of a rough structure of five pieces of stone, and indeed that description would not be wholly inaccurate, but to us the chair is symbolic of the attitude that has seen the disappearance of many pieces of Marple's heritage.

Yes, there have been successes and those that spring to mind are the aqueduct and the canals. But following the collapse of part of the aqueduct in 1962, if it hadn't been for campaigners, we might not even have had a canal in Marple today. After the appearance of a 30-foot long breach in the structure, British Waterways could either have repaired the aqueduct in its original form as a waterway, or rebuilt it as a water carrier. Costs given were £32,000 for a repair of the original aqueduct, or £21,000 to partly demolish and rebuild as a water carrier. The loss of the aqueduct would have been a blow to the growing numbers of canal enthusiasts, and in June 1964 the inaugural meeting of the Peak Forest Canal Society was held. A campaign began to reopen Marple's flight of locks and the Ashton Canal, overturning the plans to pipe the water out and fill in the waterways with rubbish. The revitalised waterways now link with other surviving canals to create The Cheshire Ring, encouraging leisure activities and bringing much-needed revenue into places like Marple.

The fight to protect our heritage and invest in its future is a cause, which, as this example proves, can benefit us all and this should act as a spur. Unfortunately it is sometimes a fight against uneven odds. Large companies with massive bank accounts threaten to change the face of towns and villages in the name of profit. Take, for example, the case of the Jolly Sailor pub. Owned by the unusually named Unique Pub Company, who are themselves ultimately owned by a Japanese bank, they claim that there is no longer a call for its use as a public house and are seeking planning permission to demolish it and build retirement flats. Whilst personally I am certainly not against retirement flats in general, have "Unique" ever considered whether the people of Marple want the building flattened? I doubt it. From opinions I have gathered, the majority verdict is: OK if it can no longer be used as a pub then would the building not fit the bill as a community centre for example? This would be something that would benefit many in the community and we would still preserve one of our older and, given a good clean up, more attractive buildings.

Although permission for flats has already been refused on the grounds of access, one can only feel that the Jolly is a battle we may struggle to win. This should not stop us trying, however, and, as we hope to prove with the Iron Bridge, the application of the correct pressure through the correct channels can still have an effect. It's too late to save Marple Hall, and Brabyns Hall will now exist only in pictures, but there are still gems out there like Oldknow's Chair that we can help save for future generations, if we are prepared to care and just put in a bit of effort.

Don't forget to get in touch with Mark or Peter using our contact us page if you have anything interesting to share regarding Marple's history and heritage.

Watch out for a new book by Ann Hearle and Peter Clarke entitled 'Marple & Mellor – Then and Now.' It contains many old photos of Marple never before published and is due in the shops in mid-September.