Recollections of a Moorland Lad

Product Description Withnell Moor in Lancashire appears a lonely wilderness today, to be enjoyed by walkers and wildlife. But only 120 years ago, it was a thriving community and where today piles of moss-covered stones scatter the land, there once stood farms and cottages, green pastures and meadows, all thronging with families who lived, worked and played there. Botany Bay Farm once stood where the tree on the jacket of this book now marks the spot, and here lived the author of this book, stonemason Richard Robinson (1883-1963) one of a large family, and this is his account of his life and times on the moor. He writes of his schooling, his childhood games, his first incredulous visit to Blackburn. He recalls the mills and the millworkers, the local customs and trades, and the characters and travelling salesmen who worked on the moors. Richard Robinson began work at Marriage & Pinnocks Mill, Withnell, at the age of 10, before becoming a local stonemason. A keen amateur historian, his unique first-hand account of a moorland life now gone forever, is a remarkable and important insight into a lost era. About the Author Richard Robinson, 1883-1963, stonemason, was born and bred on Withnell Moor where he lived and worked all his life except during active service in the First World War. He was still working there at the age of 73, building a porch for a Withnell church. His grand-daughter Barbara Butler, who also lives near the moor, has brought his memoirs to light. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. If you ramble on the many worn tracks and footpaths of Withnell Moors, take time to imagine what it was like to live there some 120-130 years ago in one of the farmsteads that dotted the landscape, now with few exceptions all sadly reduced to piles of moss-covered stones. Each of these farms and cottages once stood in its own enclosure of stone walls, green pastures and meadows. Botany Bay Farm (or Summer House as it was known locally) was one of these moorland farms where Richard Robinson ― my grandfather ― lived for the first nineteen years of his life from 1883-1902. He was educated at St. Paul's Elementary School, Withnell, long since taken down. It stood where the road to Fellstone Vale branches off Bury Lane. After being at school for a year he could read and write quite well. Recalling taking home his first book and sitting by the turf fire, the farm work done, he began to read aloud. 'My grandfather stared at me in astonishment. It seemed to be beyond his understanding that I could read while he himself couldn't read his own name, never having attended school.' (compulsory education finally became law in 1880). In the 1950s Richard Robinson wrote down his memories of a Withnell Moors childhood. It is best that you read these stories as they have been written down by himself, some sixty or so years ago, after his retirement as a stone mason. I hope you will enjoy reading them.