Recycling at Bodkin Hall

Take a good look at the photograph below:

Can you guess where it is?
All right…the fact that Ling Row Pilling is written in the bottom right hand corner might be a give away. Also the mention of Bodkin Hall in the title of this article, not to mention our obsession with the place in recent weeks, might hold a few clues. On the off chance that you haven’t guessed yet, however, this is Ling Row in Pilling with Bodkin Hall just visible in the background. It was taken at some point during the Victorian period.
These cottages were demolished just after the Great War, incidentally. Not because they’d been bombed or anything. Just because their owners didn’t like them much anymore, we assume.
Anyhow, now take a look at this:

This is a scan of a ‘small find’ excavated from Bodkin Hall on the 28th September 2008. It was discovered between the Edwardian layer and the Victorian layer, which effectively dates it to somewhere around the turn of the twentieth century. Any ideas what it…or rather ‘what they’, because there’s two sections to it…might be? Don’t forget, there’s a clue in the title of this post. They’re made of metal, albeit extremely rusted? There’re usually two of them per side? These are a bit on the ‘broken’ side?
Oh, for God’s sakes! It’s a bloody bicycle brake, isn’t it? What’s wrong with you people?
Now, wouldn’t it be great to think that this particular brake lever once belonged to the bicycle in the photograph at the start of this posting? (See how it all comes together so easily?) Don’t ask us what series of events might have led to them being buried outside the old blacksmith’s…we’re not Time Team, you know…we don’t go in for highly inventive stories that suddenly become facts as the programme progresses…we’re only speculating here. It’d just be great if that’s what it turned out to be, that’s all.
Now that’s where this article would have ended (and a very short article it would have been too) if it wasn’t for Michelle’s diligent research. You see, according to Sobee’s ‘History of Pilling’: ‘Pilling has provided some of the early pioneers of cycling. The “bone shaker” type of bicycle was made at the smithy next to the Ship Inn by Joseph Danson, grandfather of Mr. Fred Danson, and Richard Gornall made the type known as “ordinary” or “penny farthing”.’

Yes, we know that ‘boneshakers’ didn’t have brakes. Well, they didn’t have brakes other the heels of your boots being slammed into the ground. They didn’t have pedals either so, unless you were hurtling down a very steep hill, brakes wouldn’t have been much use. Nonetheless, both brakes and pneumatic tyres had been invented by the 1880s, so our own particular ‘small find’ still lands squarely in the Victorian/Edwardian period.
Now, we’ve probably mentioned somewhere in a previous article (long, long ago and far, far away) that Mr. Cross (owner of Bodkin Hall in Edwardian times), married to Mrs. Cross (dressmaker) and unfortunate bloke who tripped on his way out of the pub one night and broke his neck, was also the blacksmith’s at the Ship Inn. (Before he fell over and broke his neck, of course.)
This would have been after Mr. Danson’s stint as the smithy there, so it’s highly possible that the side trade in making bicycles was passed onto Mr. Cross.
It’s also highly likely that Mr. Cross continued to make said bicycles at his blacksmithing shop at Bodkin Hall, which is why the brake lever (and various other Edwardian bicycle bits and pieces) ended up in his yard.
See…it really does all come together in the end doesn’t it?