THE
WOODPECKER INN AND THE WHISKET
Shade,
Todmorden
The
Woodpecker Inn does not appear named as such until 1881. Before
this, it is listed in most sources as just a beer house, so it is
difficult to know which one would have actually been the Woodpecker
as the addresses have also changed over the years. The same can
be said about the Whisket, so this is a brief look at some of the
beer houses in the area including the Woodpecker and the Whisket.
Mr.
Shackleton, a tanner from Hebden Bridge, was the first to own premises
in the Little Holme area. When he died, he left one of his daughters
three houses in Little Holme Street, and three on the main road,
which eventually became a butchers and a drapers.
This
daughter married Dr. Thomas, also from Hebden Bridge, and it was
he who built the houses at Lock Street and Shade Street. The early
naming as Physic Street of this area reflected the doctor's profession.
Most of these houses were built before 1840 and some of the stone
came from the Old Mason's Arms at Gauxholme, which had to be pulled
down with the making of the railway.
One
beer house that was in this area was the Whisket, built by William
Fielden who came from running a beer house at Hanson's old timber
yard in Todmorden. He had probably seen an opening to cater for
the needs of Thomas Butterworth's bobbin shop, which had been set
up at the canal end of High Street around 1837. William,
with his family of four, one still an unnamed baby, was running
the beer house at Bobbin Shop, as the area was known, in 1841.
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Hanson's
timber yard, where William Fielden's original beer house had
been, was situated on the site of the present day Conservative
Club, which had previously been Fielden's Coffee Tavern and
Temperance Hotel. It seems ironic that the staunchly temperance
Ellen Fielden should have built her hotel where once had stood
an edifice of all she abhorred. |
The
Conservative Club |
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Cross
Street |
In
October of 1862, Abraham Tidswell had called at the Whisket
on his way from Bacup to his home in Cross Street, just off
Halifax Road. |
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He
was taking a short cut along the canal bank and accidentally
fell in at Wadsworth Mill. His body was not recovered until
the next day. Abraham
had once been a billposter and his family originally came
from Jack Lee Gate in Langfield. More recently, he had been
working in an iron foundry. |
The
canal at Shade, looking towards Wadsworth Mill |
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He
was 31 and left a young widow, but thankfully no young children.
His brother Thomas had worked
as a postman in the Burnley valley for many years and he was awarded
a pension in 1881. He was known affectionately as "Tom Post". He
died in February of 1895 aged 69 at Wellington Terrace, Todmorden,
where he had lived for at least 34 years. He had been blind since
1885. They are both buried
at Mankinholes Chapel.
The
Whisket is mentioned in a report in the Halifax Guardian from 1863
and it makes interesting reading: (submitted by John Alan Longbottom)
19th
Sept 1863
Petty
Sessions - Thursday.
Disorderly
House - The mistress of a beerhouse at Shade, known by the name
of the "Whisket" was summoned for permitting drunkenness
and disorderly conduct in her house on the 12th instant. She pleaded
guilty, but endeavoured to show that the fault was not hers. Inspector
Heap, in reply to the bench said that the defendant kept a prostitute
as servant. Fined 10s and 10s expenses.
In 1869, the following advertisements appeared in the Era newspaper:
The Era (London, England), Sunday, May 30, 1869;
WHISKET MUSIC ROOM, SHADE, TODMORDEN
(Proprietor W. Redman)
WANTED Immediately, a CHARACTERISTIC VOCALIST and DANCER (female)
Must be good
To save time, write at once.
Talent wanted for future dates.
*
The Era (London, England), Sunday, July 25, 1869;
Music Hall, Shade, Todmorden.
Wanted, a lady pianist and vocalist for a free-and-easy.
To live in the house.
A long engagement to a competent person.
To start on Monday next.
Address; Wm. Redman, as above.
The
Whisket had its licence taken in 1869 along with the Mechanics Arms,
also in the Shade area. One has to wonder if it was anything to do with the female dancer!
The Mechanics commenced selling ale and
porter on the 13th of June 1848 and the landlady was Hannah Cryer.
Very little else has been recorded about this pub.
In
1861, there were three beer houses in the area.
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Lock
Street |
One in Lock Street had a landlady
by the name of Christiana Bepler. She was born in Frankfurt
in Germany around 1830, and in the early 1850's she was working
at the White Lion, just a bit further down the road in the
Wadsworth Mill area. She obviously had a taste for pub life
and decided to start out on her own instead of working for
someone else. She and her older sister Caroline took on the
Lock Street beer house, Christiana having three children aged
between six and three. |
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A
boarder at the house was John Hoyle, an unmarried man, eight years
older than Christiana. Christiana had left the beer house by 1871
and was living at Old Lane, Knowlwood with the same John Hoyle,
the lodger at the pub. By now, she had seven children, all with
the Bepler surname.
The
second beer house was in School Street at Shade and was kept by
62 year old Mary Mitchell helped by Betty Binns, a single lady of
36.
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The third was in Shade Street,
where Joseph Cockcroft was selling beer. This was the most
likely one to be the Woodpecker as its address in various
sources is given as Shade Street. It is possible that the
entrance was once in Shade Street, or that the end of Shade
Street once extended onto Rochdale Road. |
Shade
Street |
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Joseph
was a young man of 36, and he and his wife Sarah had two children
aged 10 and 4. They took in lodgers and at the time of the census
had three, all labourers. They had left by 1871 and were living
at Hanging Ditch.
Any
of these three beer houses could have been either the Woodpecker
or the Whisket, or indeed the Mechanics. What we do know is that
only the Woodpecker survived. The Whisket, and the Mechanics both
closed in 1869 and we shall never know if it was Christiana Bepler
or Mary Mitchell who employed the lady of ill repute.
A
beer house mentioned at 6, Shade Street in the 1870's and kept by
John Howorth was the Woodpecker Inn. John was the son of John and
his wife Sally Jackson of Square, a local man. He married Sarah
Ann Crowther and had two children, Betsy and Alfred who were both
with the couple at the Woodpecker. They had moved from Woodbottom
to take over the beer house, so did not have to stray far from their
home. John was an excavator
as well as running the pub, but with both children at school, his
wife would be in charge of the inn during the hours John was at
work. John and his family had
left by 1876, and they went back to Woodbottom and later to Pexroyd,
where he carried on working in the stone business.
James
Farrar then took over for a couple of years and his daughter Ann
was born there in 1876. James and his wife later moved to the White
Lion and later still their daughter Ann was to marry Walter Ratcliffe
of the Golden Lion.
Another
John Howorth was the next landlord of the Woodpecker, but he was
no relation to the previous John Howorth. John was from Knowlwood
and in 1877, he married Sally Haigh, the daughter of James and Hannah.
John's father was Jeremiah Howorth, also a publican, and John was
no stranger to the way of life as he had grown up with it and had
supported his widowed mother who had been left running the Spinners
Rest at Knowlwood after her husband's death.
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Sally
standing at the door of the Woodpecker about 1895, photo by
kind permission of Roger Birch |
By
the early 1880's, the pub became known as the Woodpecker,
and John and Sally ran it until John's death in 1893 aged
45. The address for the pub has now become 224, Rochdale Road,
Shade.
Sally
stayed on at the Woodpecker but was not long a widow as she
remarried in 1895, to Charles Hollinrake. Charles was also
a widower, his wife Alice having died in 1886. Sally
and he ran the pub together, but Sally advertised as the landlady
and the one in charge, saying it was still under the same
ownership.
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photo
by kind permission of Roger Birch |
Next
door to the Woodpecker was a butchers shop, run during the
1890's by the Greenwood family. The slaughterhouse was just
around the corner in Little Holme Street. The photo shows
the family and shop and just on the right of the photo, the
slaughterhouse can be seen. |
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The
butchers shop was acquired by the brewery around the late
1960's and used to extend the pub premises. |
This
is how it looks today |
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Sally
was left a widow again in 1903 when Charles died, but she carried
on running the pub until her death in 1907. She is buried with her
first husband at Christ Church.
The
Woodpecker has since seen many changes in landlords and it did not
become fully licensed until 1960. It is still there today, on the
busy main road leading from Walsden to Todmorden.
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