Bygone Burnley, with JACK NADIN

MONK Holme was a large house located just beyond the Leeds and Liverpool Canal down Robinson Lane at Reedley.

This lane forms the boundary between Reedley and Brierfield and the building, therefore, was just on the Burnley Borough boundary.

A photograph in Burnley reference library shows the building to have been a substantial stone structure, two stories high, four windows long and three deep.

At the front there was a large stone-built entrance porch with columns, and what appear to have been two stone lions. The building probably dated from the late 1860s and is first mentioned in the census in 1871.

At this time it was the home of Anthony Buck Creeke, and his wife, Caroline Elizabeth, who was born at Mirfield in Yorkshire.

Two of the couple's children are also listed, young Anthony Buck, aged ten, born at Habergham Eves, and Herbert Buck aged six, born at Reedley, both of whom were in later years to become prominent members in Burnley's past.

A number of servants included Mary George who was aged 41 and who had been born at Nottinghamshire, who was classed as being a cook and domestic servant.

Annie Ray, was a lady maid born at Distington near Whitehaven and was aged 25 years.

Nineteen-year-old Mary Henderson, Yorkshire born, was aged 19, and was a housemaid.

Other staff included Samuel Fleming, aged 31, a gardener, Joseph Adams, aged 38, a coachman, and his wife Elizabeth, 35.

We can see then that the house and its owner-occupants were of some high ranking.

Mr Anthony Buck Creeke was born at London in 1831, but came to Burnley at the young age of twelve years, being adopted by his uncle, Mr Anthony Buck, solicitor in the town, and one of the first Aldermen of the Borough. Anthony Buck Creeke was educated at Egremont and at Burnley Grammar School. Under normal circumstances, he would have expected to become a solicitor like his uncle, but in 1855, the Crimean War was on, and he joined the militia.

He served both at Aldershot and in Ireland, and it was only on his release that he joined the legal firm of Buck and Eastwood, which later became Messrs Buck, Eastwood and Creeke. In 1856, Anthony Buck Creeke was elected on to the board as one of the Burnley Improvement Commissioners, and even though he was still a young man became chairman of several committees.

When the Charter of Incorporation was granted to Burnley on October 24, 1861, Mr Creeke was one of those first few elected to the first Burnley Council. Two years later he resigned to become the town's second Town Clerk, succeeding Mr Handsley, the first town clerk in November 1863.

He was to hold this office for a period of twenty-two years. On the death of his uncle Anthony Buck in 1862, he inherited half of his fortune, estimated at some £200,000, a huge amount of money even now but in today's terms it would be more like two million pounds.

It was at this time that he ordered the building of what was to become known as Monk Holme which was to be erected while he was travelling abroad with his bride.

When he returned home he told the builder in no uncertain terms that he had used the wrong materials and told him to build it all again using the right ones!

Perhaps because of his military connections, Anthony Buck Creeke was said to have ruled the house with a rod of iron. While both his sons, Herbert and Anthony entered the legal profession, the elder escaped to London.

The younger Herbert was required to live at home with his parents, but spent the weekends away. It was only many years later that it was discovered that those weekends away were spent with his wife and six children! The death of Mr Anthony Buck Creeke was reported in the local newspapers on February 12, 1919. He had died at the ripe old age of 87 years.

He had moved out of Monk Holme before this time, and had lived at Barcroft, a large house that used to stand on the corner of Brunshaw Road and Brunshaw Avenue.

By 1896, the house named Monk Holme was lived in by Mrs Lucy Hartley, who probably had connections with the firm H. Hartley and Sons, who operated the Jewel Mill just down the lane and over the river.

The original Jewel Mill was built as a water powered mill, in 1828, but this was demolished sometime after 1886. A Robert Shaw is listed as working Jewel Mill in 1865. Another mill was built on the same site in around 1890, and was worked by H. Hartley and Sons, although in later years owned by Lockwood, Buckley Ltd., and used as a weaving mill.

However, this too succumbed to progress being demolished around 1979 to make way for the new motorway, the M65.

Plans were afoot to make this into an industrial museum for the area, but it came to no fruition. All that remains now is the mill dam and water race upstream near Quaker Bridge.

Monk Holme was occupied by Mrs Ellen Tunstill, and by the 1920s by the surgeon Alexander Callan when it became a nursing and maternity home.

Hundreds, if not thousands of children on that side of Burnley, and from Brierfield and Nelson, were born there prior to the Bank Hall maternity home at Burnley.

Mr Callan died in September 1959, when his obituary was in the local press as follows: "Mr Alexander Callan, who devoted nearly 25 years of his life to surgery in local hospitals, died in Edinburgh, at 30a Mansion House Road, on Sunday, he was 78.

"The funeral will take place at Edinburgh Crematorium today. He leaves a widow and a son, Mr David Callan who is also a surgeon. Mr Callan came to Burnley in 1912.

"He served in France during the First World War, was awarded the D.S.O. and mentioned three times in dispatches.

"He will long be remembered by his comrades in the Lancashire Field Ambulance Unit. The Unit was affectionately known as Callan's Own because Mr Callan formed it at Burnley Barracks, and was its first commanding officer.

" After the war Mr Callan joined with Mr Munro in general practice. He obtained his Fellowship at Edinburgh, and was appointed to the hospital staff at Burnley General Hospital in 1926.

"On his retirement in 1950 he was entertained by the practitioners of Burnley and district, and was presented with a silver tankard engraved with over thirty signatures. He became a local magistrate in August 1942."

It must have been around the mid 1950s, that Monk Holme was allowed to decay, it is marked on the maps for 1961 as ruin.

Today, the gatehouse to this fine house survives, albeit in a ruined state, and was the home of Frederick Bristow in 1923, although nothing remains of Monk Holme itself.

A new house has been built in its place. I can remember as a lad with a group of chums wandering along the canal from Barden Bridge and seeing the ruins of the old Monk Holme although at this time I did not know what the ruins were. We eagerly explored the dilapidated building and the cellars were open and inviting to the young adventurers.

We found a good number of old broken clay pipes, chipped pottery and other exciting troves, and vowed to return to collect the "hidden hoard of gold" and other treasure we were sure was there.

I often strolled along these canal banks on lazy summer days in later years with my trusty dog as companion and never realised the history of old Monk Holme until now.