East Lancashire's Industrial Past in Water Colour

When growing up in the fifties this scene was typical of the tired old cotton towns.

Before leaving school, I use to deliver meat for the local butcher. When the clocks were

turned back, and the shops were still open, the whole place was to my eyes transformed

into a magical place as I pedalled on my delivery bike. Of course every house and

factory was belching smoke, which trapped the mist.

As far as the painting goes, the technique is perhaps the most difficult, Wet in Wet.

The location is the hilly town of Colne on the north of Pendleside

         This is another example of Wet in Wet

  My painting 'The Entrance to Gannow Tunnel'. The

      horse that towed the barge, was led over the hill here in Burnley, while the man legged 

it on his back through the tunnel

                       

The Leeds and Liverpool canal was opened here in 1804, cutting right through

Burnley, this area is well preserved, and remains more or less just

as it was when I painted it in the eighties. Cotton mills were

built all along the banks, this part is known as the

Weavers Triangle

The old from the new, the new was a multi storey car park from where I first got this

view of the town. The old has now gone, the river Brun as been cleaned up 

after its pollution from iron ore deposits.

The viaduct is where the railway crosses Burnley, A little

known fact about Burnley, is that at the begining of 

the nineteen hundreds, more cotton was woven

here than any where else in the world.

Back in the sixties, the town was a forest of factory chimneys