LOOKING Back's glimpse last month at the Griffin Lodge mansion at Witton, Blackburn, of the mill-owning Dugdale family brought forth this picture of a pageant in its grounds around 1900.

Sent by Knuzden reader Mr David Mooney, it features his grandmother, Mrs Margaret Alice Duerden, wearing a light-coloured bonnet, at the very centre of the front row of seated ladies.

Mr Mooney does not know what the occasion was, but the presence of the clergyman in the back row suggests it was connected with nearby, but now-closed St Philip's Church, of which the Dugdale's were prominent supporters. The parson is probably the Rev. John Osborne Pinck, who was vicar of St Philip's in 1900.

Next to him is a young girl dressed as Britannia and at sitting on the grass at front right is a youngster attired as John Bull while at the other end of the row is a boy in Highland costume while the girls in between appear to be in Dutch national dress.

Griffin Lodge, now the home of the North West Museum and Art Gallery Service, was built around 1856 by Dr Thomas Dugdale, founder of nearby Griffin Mill -- which 85-year-old Blackburn exile Fred Marsden, of New South Wales, Australia, tells Looking Back was always referred to by his parents as "t' Physic" and the incline at the end of Griffin Street, where the mill was, was called "t' Physic broo" (brow).

"Apparently, at one time, a large bottle of 'physic,' or medicine, and a spoon was kept in the mill's office, or watch house, and any employee who appeared to be a little under the weather was hauled into the office and given a dose of it whether they wanted it or not," says Fred.

He does not know what the ingredients of the physic were, but wonders whether it might have been brimstone and treacle, which, he says, was a common concoction among the home-made remedies of his father's younger days.

"It was a mixture of powdered sulphur and black treacle and was largely administered in the early spring as their was a common belief that the blood used to stagnate during the winter months and this physic was to clear it of all the 'mud' that had accumulated in the system!" Fred laughs.