Crawshaw Head House

[THYLACINE]

I read a recent post by Hildweller titled 'A Tale of 2 Cemeteries' in which he mentioned Crawshaw Lodge. I think this is the same place I knew as Crawshaw Head House. Back in the late sixties my friends' parents rented the house for £1 a week and I was a regular visitor. I used to ride my motorbike from Firvale and on a few occasions I was priviledged to stay over. I loved the place and I spent one of the most amazing nights of my life there. As I rode up through Stannington on the Saturday afternoon the weather began to turn foul and by the time I reached Crawshaw I was fair soaked. They had prepared the spare bedroom for me, even lit a fire in the hearth and, cosily tucked up in bed I was mesmerised by the flickering flames. There were no curtains in the room and through the huge sash window I looked out across Rivelin Valley towards Redmires and Wyming Brook. I watched the storm roll in across Hallam Moor bringing thunder and lightening and torrential rain. And down in the valley on Manchester Road I could just make out the eerie lights of Hollowmeadows Asylum. The storm raged on and I fell asleep and dreamed of Wuthering Heights and the Hound of the Baskervilles. I see that image of the moors in my minds eye and it stays with me wherever I go.

This is one of the few photo's I ever took of Crawshaw Head House, it shows the MASSIVE stone wall that separates the house from the road. Unfortunately in those days I was interested more in bikes than the house. I would love to know more of it's history if anyone has any information?

[DaveH]

As I rode up through Stannington on the Saturday afternoon the weather began to turn foul and by the time I reached Crawshaw I was fair soaked.

Unfortunately in those days I was interested more in bikes.

Did quite a detailed reply to this yesterday which has now disappeared.

An amusing story of me and my brother motorcyling in this area in 1980 and getting absolutely soaked just like THYLACINE.

If I get the time or inclination I will tell the story again.

[DaveH]

Did quite a detailed reply to this yesterday which has now disappeared.

An amusing story of me and my brother motorcyling in this area in 1980 and getting absolutely soaked just like THYLACINE.

If I get the time or inclination I will tell the story again.

OK so its a nice sunny day in the summer of 1980.

My brother and I decieide to go out for a nice little run on our motorbikes in the nice weather.

I am riding on my Honda 250N Superdream and my brother is on the pillion.

(In my previous lost post I thought mt brother was following on a smaller Honda, but he didn't have a bike at this time having suffered a serious accident some months earlier in 1979)

So us Arbourthorne lads set off, down East Bank road into town, Queens Road, Granville Roundabout, St. Marys Gate, Arundel Street, Arundel Gate, Hole in the road, Angel Street, Snig Hill, Gibraltar Street, West Bar, Langsett Road.

Straight through the City Centre, - amazing how easy this journey was in 1980 before town planning and the Supertram messed it up.

At Hillsborough corner I turned left onto Holme Lane and then at its junction with Stannington Road followed round onto Loxley Road heading out towards Redmires. What a lovely summers day out.

While travelling along Loxley Road it turned cooler and darker and there was the odd hint of a spit of rain. Although on a motorcycle we were not dressed for unexpected bad weather.

It started to get worse and as I drove to the end of Loxley Road in Bradfield the sky ahead lookedthreatening, there was a rumble of thunder and it was definately looking like rain.

At the junction of Loxley Road, Wood Fall Lane and Brown House Lane I drove the bike straight into the car park of the Old Horns Inn and stopped briefly to talk to my brother and get a second opinion on the weather.

We agreed that the best thing to do, having come this far, was to turn around and head for home before the storm reached us.

We set off back along Loxley Road, but even though we were making a fair pace those storm clouds caught us up and it was bouncing it down with rain before we reached Holme Lane. By the time I finally had to pull up at traffic lights at Hillsborough Corner we were both absolutely soaked and the rain was bouncing off the road higher than the foot rests on the motorbike and staem was coming up from the hot exhaust manifold.

We were now slowed down by traffic and it would have been dangerous to move at any speed in the weather conditions so we had no option but to grin and bear it. The rain continued all the way on the slow journey through town, but, at the St. Mary's end of Arundel gate it ssuddenly stopped and the sky turned bright and the sun came out.

But it was not over for us yet. While we were going along East Bank Road beyond the junction with Park Grange Road towards the traffic lights at S.R.Gents a number 95 bus was coming the other way down the hill. Its front wheel hit a large pot hole in the road which had filled with rain water. It threw the water out of the hole and all over us, coming the other way and just in the right position to catch the lot.

It was like having a 5 gallon bucket of water thrown over you.

Half way up East Bank Road the road was dry and it was clear that it hadn't even rained on the Arbourthorne.

We arrived home like 2 drowned rats on an otherwise dry and sunny day. Our mam saw us and wondered what had happened,- she didn't even know it had been raining and was in fact in the process of hanging the washing out to dry.

I can clearly remember when I got in the house to undress from a load of soaking clothing removing a £1 note (Yes, - £1 was still a note in 1980 and not a coin, - it had Isaac Newton on the back) from my jeans pocket and wringing it out and being amazed at how much water came out of it, - and that had been in my pocket!!

[THYLACINE]

Thanks Dave, for the time and the inclination. It was well worth it. Don't you hate typing up a post and then seeing it disappear before it reaches the forum? I have adopted the habit of copying before posting, saves a lot of gnashing of teeth.

[DaveH]

Thanks Dave, for the time and the inclination. It was well worth it. Don't you hate typing up a post and then seeing it disappear before it reaches the forum? I have adopted the habit of copying before posting, saves a lot of gnashing of teeth.

People seems to think that computers are fantastic, fast and efficient BUT those who actually have to use them see the other side of the technology.

It can't do a job the way you want it to (a custom job) , only in the way some programmer told it to

It can run tediously slow, especially where Internet connections come into the equation.

It can require more time on maintenance taske than actually in use, it can crash and lose stuff, it needs vbacking up, cleaning up, defragmenting and so on.

So I am quite used to computers going wrong and playing up unexplainably from time to time

It's just one of those things you learn to live with.

Having said that THYLACINE,- I'm glad you enjoyed the post and thank you for reminding me of the incident.

[DaveH]

I am riding on my Honda 250N Superdream and my brother is on the pillion.

(In my previous lost post I thought mt brother was following on a smaller Honda, but he didn't have a bike at this time having suffered a serious accident some months earlier in 1979)

So here is the actual motorcycle on which me and my brother got soaked

and here is the motorcycle my brother bought later that year which I thought he was on at the time, - but he was actually on the pillion with me.

Had he not been on the same bike as me he wouldn't have copped for that water from the pot hole that the bus went in.