I have a document with the heading: 'Lands gaind by the new Clow'
Its an undated document relating to Thornton and the only meaning I can come up with is a ravine, steep slope or steep sided valley. I can't see how this would gain lands though?
Your on the right track with the meaning I thing although most references I've seen also include some sort of water course - so I'd be tempted to suggest clow equals a steep sided stream.
Are you being to perverse in interpreting "lands by the new clow" as "lands gained because of the new steep sided stream"?
Could it not simply be "lands gained beside the new steep sided stream".
A new steep sided stream sounds suspiciously like a newly cut mill race to me.
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
I suspect that 'clow' was the document writer's attempt to spell 'clough' which is variously pronounced around these parts even today as 'cluff', 'clow' or 'cloo'...depending on which bit of the Fylde and Wyre you live in.
A clough is a long sunken rift running down the slope of a hill, sometimes just a natural fold in the landscape, sometimes created by a watercourse. Think 'Parlick Fell' and the enormous (rather disturbing when you're standing next to it) 'clough' running down towards the road. The word originates, I suspect, from the verb 'to cleave', which means...er...to cleave.
So, in other words, imagine a cleaver thwacking into a huge wedge of meat, leaving a vertical gash, and then apply that image to the landscape. And that's a clough.
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:32 am Posts: 265 Location: Preston
'Clow' (OE cloh) is the modern word 'clough' which is usually a natural steep sided valley or ravine (water not essential) Maybe it was a landslip? I agree that it probably means 'beside'. Maybe not rule out mill race but it seems odd to use a topological term for a man made feature.
Brian just beat me to it!
I was thinking about this is bed last night and initially I had thought that the land was gained by the creation of a 'clow' but I think it might also mean by the side of the Clow as you say. I'm trying to narrow down the date and just wondered if it had anything to do with the enclosure of the marsh but it seems not.
Sorry should have said (my edit button has gone again) I didn't post these docs on here as they are privately owned even though they are at the Records Office. Have been waiting for permission and the owners who have said I can use them only on the Thornton Through Time website.
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
Melanie,
Michelle's had a thought. With all those field names being in and around Stanah (Sea Sic incidentally was originally Sea Syke, possibly refering to a stream of some sort running down to the river), the clough, most likely, would be 'Stanah Clough', i.e. the deep depression cut into the riverbank next to the car park...you know the one, where people launch their jet skis and dogs like to take flying leaps into the unknown etc.
Stanah Clough originally drained Thornton Main Dyke into the river. Main Dyke was cut by one of the Hesketh's (can't remember which one off hand) when he enclosed Thornton Marsh (well...it was cut by his workers at any rate) and at the same time he embanked the edge of the river, reclaiming the salt marsh in the process. This was circa 1800/1810...which might also tie in with the Bickerstaff mentioned in your document, as he was (if Michelle's memory serves) the constable for Thornton village at the time.
Have been doing some more digging and the dates which seem to link the names on the list are the early 1700's to around 1750. Unfortunately there are a long line of Robert Bickerstaff's .. it's one of the names that gets passed down from father to son.
I have been through the Records list at the Records Office for Clow and there are lots of mentions but unfortunately no explanations. One does mention that ' the stone from the old Clow must be re-used' and most of them are referring to water of some sort.
I did come across the following:
(please note am not trying to push a point re the earlier mill disscusion .. it just didn't make sense with just the 'bold' bit)
"Please enlighten us southerners on the meaning of the following words, goit, tail goit and clows." The reply was as follows: "A goit is a watercourse leading from the river to the mill and was originally used for the purpose of supplying water to the mill wheel. A tail goit is a watercourse from the mill to discharge water lower down the river. A clow is a vertical valve to control the flow of water to and from the goit."
I don't personally think that the Clow on the doc has anything to do with a mill but I think as Stanah Clough is not on Yates' 1786 map that it could be referring to some earlier flood defences at Ramper Pot. Although some of the fields mentioned are on higher ground and at Stanah like 'Craw Scear' .. my head hurts
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
The fact that Stanah Clough (or Hillylaid Clough as it would have been known back then) isn't mentioned on Yates' map doesn't mean it wasn't there, of course. Yates missed a lot of stuff off his map...including just about everything in Fleetwood.
The valve/water control device is an interesting one (there's a giant corkscrew at Stanah Clough today used to control the flow of the river to stop Thornton from flooding on particularly high tides I believe) and my best guess, considering that most of the fields mentioned in the document fall along the Hillylaid Pool route, would be that, with Stanah Clough lying at the end of Hillylaid Pool itself, some sort of water control device to prevent the pool from backing up had been introduced shortly before the document was written. This might even explain where Stanah (nee Hillylaid) Clough gets its name in the first place. Presumably it would have been a pre-hydro-powered-corkscrew 'clow'...but 'new' for its time.
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