Bacup’s Wall of History

The Newgate Garden stands next to the Bacup Natural History Society & Museum on Yorkshire Street and houses what is known as the Wall of History.

 

The wall was suggested by the society and paid for by the Manpower Services Commission, assisted by Rossendale Borough Council and carried out through a community programme by masons Alan Altham and Bill Wyld, assisted by Michael Thomas and Raymond Stott, Craig Smith, Gary Hibbert and Trevor Banyard. The area was once houses, cottages and warehouses.

The wall of history is made up of a collection of various stone artefacts that were collected by members over a period of about 100 years from buildings in and around Bacup and Stacksteads that were being demolished.

 

The garden is also home to the Bacup stocks and a three-ton grinding stone which was moved to Bacup from a local quarry near the Sourhall in Todmorden in August 1977, firstly being installed on the lawn of the new Bacup Health Centre before being moved across the road in 2006.

 

Sitting on a bed of stone and driven by horse power it was used to crush the quarried sandstone into sand which was then bought by householders to scatter on the floors of their houses.