Sawley (or Salley) Abbey was established by monks from Newminster Abbey in Northumberland at the beginning of the 12th century. It stood not far from the river Ribble in what was the West Riding of Yorkshire until the 20th century county boundary changes gave it to Lancashire. Little of the abbey remains today, but at the entrance to an adjoining field there is a curious gateway with a fascinating history.

Much of the village of Sawley, is built from stone plundered from the abbey ruins after it was abandoned in the 16th century. By the second half of the 18th century nothing remained ‘but a few old walls overgrown with Ivy’. Not far from the abbey stood what the historian Thomas Dunham Whittaker described in 1805 as a ‘gateway, a mean building’. Whittaker noted that the walls were dotted with carved masonry from the abbey, including a ‘richly ornamented tabernacle’ which contained a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus.

This is the building which was recorded by William Richardson and illustrated in his The Monastic Ruins of Yorkshire, published in 1843, shortly before major ‘improvements’ were to begin at the abbey.

At the time this view was published the abbey was owned by Earl de Grey, gentleman archaeologist and antiquarian. In the 1840s he began excavations at Sawley Abbey, having already worked on Fountains Abbey which just happened to stand in his back garden at Studley, near Ripon in Yorkshire. When work began the abbey site was described as a ‘great rubbish heap’, and in the fashion of the time Lord de Grey tidied up the site to create a pristine and aesthetically pleasing (if not necessarily historically accurate) ruin.

Lord de Grey pulled down the ‘old dilapidation’ known as the gateway and in its place erected two neat arches incorporating the carved fragments of masonry from the abbey. Although some believed that this was an ancient structure restored, others were more sceptical, and an 1882 guidebook called it a ‘modern construction’ built ‘without taste or judgment.’ The most distinguished fragment was the niche containing the statue of the headless Virgin and Child, carefully moved from the older building, and there were also shields bearing arms and other decorative enrichments (some of which were later criticised for being placed upside-down).

A century later, on Saturday 29 December 1951, a brewery wagon hit one of the arches and ‘a section of one of Ribblesdale’s most picturesque landmarks crashed in ruins’. The damaged arch was the one housing the statue, but this was already lost, having apparently ‘fallen to the ground’ and mysteriously disappeared in 1934.

Locals were keen to see the arch re-erected within the abbey grounds, and the Ministry of Works was approached for help, but the costs were prohibitive, and there was a further complication as no-one seemed to know exactly who owned the structures. A Mr Ingham declared he was going to remove the damaged arch to Bamber Bridge (sadly the newspapers provide no clue as to what he wanted to do with it there), but Bowland Council sternly declared he had ‘no authority’ to touch the ruin.

Nothing happened until the end of the 1950s, when the council became concerned that the arches, one standing and one in ruins, were a danger to public and road safety. Again there were discussions about pulling them down, and the Ministry of Works declared they had no objection to this, although the villagers remained keen to see the arches saved. In July 1960 there was a further accident when a van struck the surviving arch and a youth was later charged with driving without due care and attention. The arches were demolished in the autumn of that year.

But very happily that wasn’t the end of the story. After the Ministry of Works had collected the most important fragments of masonry, George Braithwaite, farmer and heritage hero, collected the residue and had the present arch built as a grand gateway to one of his fields.

Sawley Abbey is in the care of English Heritage and you can read more here https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/sawley-abbey/history/

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High above the Gisburn to Barrowford road a simple castellated tower dominates the skyline. It was built by Jonathan Stansfield in the late 19th century, but no-one is quite sure why, although there are of course the stories…

A modern plaque on the tower records that it was built in 1890, and it first makes an appearance, as the ‘Stansfield Tower’, on the Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1891-92. Stansfield is said to have built it so he could see Blackpool tower under erection, or alternatively to give a view into the Ribble Valley. Working without plans, he was apparently gravely disappointed when he found his tower was not high enough to see far at all, for the view was blocked by the mighty mass of Pendle Hill.

Another theory has it that it was built as an observatory for his son William, who was ‘a great student of astronomy’. Or was it a tribute to Stansfield’s first love who jilted him? A final no-nonsense answer is supposed to have come from Stansfield himself: ‘I have never drank or smoked in my life so I am taking this as my hobby.’

One of Stansfield’s contemporaries, the Rev. Gough, composed some lines on the tower that were published in Jesse Blakey’s Annals of Barrowford in 1929. The poem begins:

Friend Stansfield pleased his fancies
With Blacko Tower so high,
That draws admiring glances
From every passer-by.
E’en if no other token
His lasting fame secures,
His name will be outspoken
Long as that tower endures.

Though, like the men of bible,
Whose tower came to a stand,
He found himself unable
To finish all he planned;
More grace to him was given
Than to have had the will
To build right up to heaven
From Blacko’s stately hill.

Jonathan Stansfield was a ‘manufacturer and grocer’ according to the 1871 census return, and lived with his wife, children and a boarder in Back David Street in nearby Barrowford, an ordinary street of terraced houses. Did he really save enough money to build a tower just by abstaining from cigarettes and alcohol? The poem suggests that Stansfield was unable to complete the tower, and legend has it that the building project foundered when he went bankrupt. But Stansfield went bankrupt owing £2,300 to his creditors in 1873, and he didn’t die until 1894.  So did he bounce back with great success in the last twenty years of his life, enabling the construction of the tower? The 1890 Ordnance Survey map shows ‘Stansfield House’ close to the tower – was this his new home and the tower an eye-catcher in his garden? This very prominent tower keeps some of its history well hidden.

By 1933 the tower was described as ‘somewhat decrepit’ and in 1948 ‘an enterprise for the restoration of Blacko Tower’, as it was now known, was launched by Mr Frank Barritt of Colne. Parts of the tower had collapsed, only one of the castellations remained intact, and the floor of the viewing platform had rotted away. Local craftsmen gave their time, and with the help of the Scouts the tower was renovated. A plaque was erected which reads:

BUILT BY
J. STANSFIELD
1890
RESTORED 1950
PS.127.v.1.

It’s not clear if the original tower also carried the building date and this biblical reference, or if it was added during the restoration (Barritt was active in the Methodist church). The text it refers to reads:

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain,
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

A close look at the Ordnance Survey map shows that when first constructed the tower was in Yorkshire (but only just), although the settlement of Blacko was in Lancashire. The county boundary changes of 1974 ensured it was united with the village in the county of the Red Rose.

The tower is clearly visible from the road and from public footpaths, but stands on private land and visitors are not welcome. The folly is as inaccessible as its full history, but it remains a dramatic eye-catcher from miles round.

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