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These premises were, for the most part, scattered about on or near what is still known as the Old Ground, in the centre of Ramsbottom. It extended across what is now Bolton Street on the west, to Silver Street on the east, to Bridge Street on the north, and to Smithy Brow on the south.1

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The Bridge Street of to-day was then mainly the bed of a brook, and, at first, very appropriately, it was called Water Street. There were stepping-stones across from the works on the Old Ground side, to a row of old cottages, which occupied part of the north side of the brook, above where the Primitive Methodist Chapel was afterwards built. Mr and Mrs Samuel Wilson occupied one of these cottages in 1824. The stepping-stones were about opposite the present Post Office, or the Royal Oak, as pointed out by Mrs Wilson (in September 1891). Farther up, a house stood by itself, not far from the old Post Office, and near to the ground afterwards covered with the premises occupied by Mr Samuel Wilson till his death in 1879, and now tenanted by Mr Schofield and Mr Sutcliffe.

In the region of what is now St Paul's, from Messrs Ashton's works to Bridge Street, extended the Crowtrees farm. It was long occupied by Mr Richard Schofield and his son. The farm-house, with a cottage at its east end, occupied the more western portion of the area now covered by St Paul's Church. To the north, and extending nearly half way down the lane, was

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1 Beyond this there was then a long drying-house at Scotland Place. When transformed into dwelling-houses in after years, Dr MacLean lived in it for some time before going to Barwood House.

2 Now Mr Holmes' Furniture Warehouse and Ramsbottom Observer Office.

well-remembered rookery-“the crow trees"1-from which the name of the present street-Crow Lane-as well as that of the old farm itself was derived.2

From a point eight or ten yards beyond the north-east corner of the cottage, eastwards, the orchard wall went right to Bridge Street, and the orchard extended round the south front of the house to Crow Lane; from which, about opposite the entrance of the present vicarage, the front door of the farm-house was reached by a flagged approach about eight yards in length. From the orchard wall on the east, the Crowtrees Meadow extended down to the old toll-house, and from that point was bounded by the goyt extending round to Messrs Ashton's factory. The farm itself was bounded on the east mainly by that goyt, on the south by the line of Bridge Street, on the

1 When the crow trees in Crow Lane were removed, the crows went to the trees which long ago grew near the cricket-ground and the papermill; and when these also disappeared, the dusky denizens migrated to their present home between Barwoodlea and the Square.

2 A tenant of this property, whose name is still kindly remembered by older people, had a vein of originality in his character. Before taking the Crowtrees farm, he lived some distance farther up the valley; and near his house grew a favourite tree. He resolved that its timber should enclose him, when

"In his narrow bed for ever laid."

The tree was felled, and the admonitory receptacle duly made. For years, in the first instance, he utilised it as a clothes chest; and, when the end came, it enshrined the aged tabernacle as it was laid in its last restingplace. The Athenian hero had cedar, the Roman, marble or stone, but the worthy tenant of Crowtrees farm chose his home-grown sycamore or elm, which answered the final purpose equally well, while it paid "a double debt," like Goldsmith's

"box, contrived a double debt to payA bed by night, a chest of drawers by day."

3 Water-channel or mill-race.

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north by Messrs Ashton's factory, and on the west by Crow Lane wall. That wall was about five feet high, and finished with triangular coping stones, familiarly known as "cock'd hats." It extended from Bridge Street past the orchard, the farm-house, and the "crow trees," right down to Messrs Ashton's. On the opposite side of the farm, between the old toll-house and the present constabulary premises, may still be seen part of an old boundary wall also covered with "cock'd hats." Where the wall abuts on the pavement, chiselled upright stone bears on one side WG & B, and on the other S & TA- that is, William Grant & Brothers; Samuel & Thomas Ashton. Mr Richard Schofield the younger, still a vigorous citizen, remembers well ploughing this meadow, and leaning occasionally over this boundary wall at the end of his furrow, and chatting with "old John Grime," whose son still occupies the old toll-house.

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Forty-seven years ago, the railway struck through the Crowtrees meadow, some twenty or thirty yards from this point; and since then the farm has been occupied by well-built streets and factories, with a commodious sanctuary for the living, and a sleeping-place - God's acre1 for the departed sons and daughters of toil. The Church - St Paul's-was built in 1850, and enlarged in 1866. Its first incumbent was the Rev. James Hornby Butcher. In 1870

1 This resting-place of the dead, now so closely surrounded by the habitations of the living, ought, we think, for obvious sanitary reasons, to be reverently closed. It might in time be transformed into a comely garden of flowers and shrubs. More than a generation ago there were many well-tended little garden allotments within the old farm area. they have only transmitted to us their memory in such names as Garden Street and Garden Mill.

But

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