River Spodden

Fairies Chapel, Healey Dell

The River Spodden is a watercourse in Lancashire which is one of two major tributaries of the River Roch. It rises in the south Pennine hills north of Whitworth and flows south through what is now known as the Whitworth Valley to Rochdale, where the river merges with the River Roch.

Nestled within the picturesque wooded valley is Healey Dell Nature Reserve.

Name

The river has been known by many variant names over the centuries. It was known by the name of "Sprotton" in 1577, as the "Spotton brook" in 1611, It gave its name to the township of Spotland, one of the four original townships in the Parish of Rochdale, which was first known as "Spoddenland", and, within that township, acted as the boundary between its subsequent divisions of Spotland Further-Side (to the west) and Spotland Nearer-Side (to the east).

The river was also known in the 18th and 19th Centuries as the 'Spod' or 'Spot'; "In ancient charters this rivulet is spelt Spod, and Spodden sometimes occurs." Dr. Whitaker, a respected local historian, writing in the early 1800s, stated that "Spod or Spud, in some dialects of the Teutonic language, signifies a spear, and the term appears to have been applied to this stream, from the unbended straightness of its course, which terminates at its junction with the Roch. " The Spodden valley, and Spotland, was described in 1854 as "a district where the leaven of the old Saxon tongue, customs and character is less adulterated than in most other parts of Lancashire, as the naming of the Thrutch, below, indicates.

The road alongside the river, northwards from Spotland Bridge, was, and remains, Spod Lane. The river was known locally as the Spod as late as the end of the 1970s.

Source and course

The river rises at Freeholds Top, on Shawforth Moor, north-east of Shawforth village@, Whitworth, east of Britannia, out of Bacup, and south-west of Inchfield Moor. In the early 19th Century, the source was listed as "near High House".

From here the river flows south through its narrow valley through Shawforth, Facit, Whitworth and Broadley It then flows through Healey Dell, Shawclough, Lowerfold, Spotland Fold and Spotland Bridge to join the Roch at Mitchell Hey, Rochdale, some 2½ miles downstream from the Roch's other major tributary, the River Beal.

The Spodden falls 770 feet in its length of 7½ miles, and is fed by nine direct tributary streams and a further four indirect streams.

Historical interest

Mills

The power of the River Spodden as it rushes through the gorge at Healey Dell was probably first harnessed in Anglo-Saqxon times to power a corn mill. In 1636 the old corn mill became, or was replaced, by a wool fulling mill, and a replacement corn mill was built upstream at Broadley. The remains of the 17th Century mill, which was built on a bridge over the river, and known as "Th' Owd Mill i' t' Thrutch, may still be seen. Thereafter the river waters were extensively used for industrial purposes; in an 1851 census of mills there were 9 solely-powered cotton mills, and 7 solely-powered woollen mills, in the Rochdale district. An 1890 sale catalogue for Broadley Mill (Cotton) detailed two water wheels, each of 14 feet, which supplied the mill with 30 horse-power.

With increasing need for power, many mills used river water to utilize steam power; in the 1841 mill census, 6 cotton mills and 42 woollen mills used water in ths way. At the Rochdale Waterworks Amendment Bill Enquiry, preceding the enactment of the Rochdale Waterworks Amendment Act 1847, evidence was given by mill owners adjoining the River Spodden that proposals for new reservoirs north of the river would affect the operation of their mills.

In total, 30 woollen or cotton mills were sited alongside the river, together with a stone dressing mill, a plate metal works, and a brick works. Foot Mill, a mill beside the first bend of the river north of Spotland Bridge, featured in Edwin Waugh's Besom Ben story.

The Railway and Viaduct

A feature of the River Spodden is the 100-foot high former railway viaduct, built in 1867 for the Rochdale to Bacup branch line of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. The viaduct has eight arches, built of locally quarried stone, calculated to contain over 156,621 cubic feet. During the construction of the viaduct, the river had to be diverted. The railway line followed the course of the river from Lower Fold, more or less to near its source at Shawforth Moor, thence to Bacup via Britannia. Much of its traffic was stone freight, for example from Broadley Stone Sidings, beside the river at Broadley Stone Rubbing Mill. The initial building of the line to Facit was "of great service in conveying stone and coal from the quarries and mines in the Whitworth valley to their destination." The railway line closed, and the track was taken up,in 1967; the viaduct remains with a footway and the Rochdale to Whitworth sewer pipe over it.

Turner Brothers Asbestos Mills and Works

In 1855 one of the original Turner brothers built, in partnership with another, a cotton mill called Clod Mill alongside the river, at Spotland Fold. The firm of Turner Brothers was formed in 1871, and diversified firstly into the manufacture of asbestos packing, then, by 1879, into weaving asbestos yarn and asbestos cloth. It rapidly assumed a national, and later a global, prominence. The Clod Mill site expanded considerably. Later still, the firm manufactured combination products with rubber and asbestos, including clutch and brake linings, leading to the mill complex being described as "Asbestos and India Rubber Works" in 1910.

With the growing awareness in the third quarter of the 20th Century of the health risks of asbestos, and a growing number of asbestosis claims from past and present employees, the company went into decline, and ceased operations on site. Partial demolition of the works commenced in 2001, though problems continued until 2013.

The July Flood, 1838

On 4 July 1838 a storm struck at southern Lancashire, described as one of the most violent storms ever known in the area, and heavy rain and hail led to the river rising, near to the site of Spotland Bridge, to a height of fifteen feet. The July Flood, as it was known, caused great destruction in the Spodden Valley.

The swollen river swept Spotland Bridge away, together with minor bridges in the area. "All the mills and houses near to its banks were much damaged." Mills along the river up to Broadley, including Healey Hall Mills, Foot Mill, and Meanwood Die Works, were "almost demolished". The Fairies Chapel, in Healey Dell, (see below), was also damaged.

On the following day, hailstones on Rooley Moor were found, weighing as much as 12 oz. The hailstorm was so fierce that it broke skylights and windows in houses and weaving sheds. At Moss Mill, Rochdale, the hail was said to have broken one thousand panes of glass.

The Fairies Chapel

The Fairies Chapel is an unearthly but natural formation in Healey Dell where the River Spodden squeezes through a narrow gorge, called The Thrutch, "thrutch" being a Lancashire dialect word meaning to push, to press, and to crowd, derived from the Anglo-Saxon "þrycan".

Within the gorge, the river waters had carved out a cave to the side of the river, and the rocks there had assumed strange shapes, described as "a pulpit, reading desk and seats", leading to the area being imagined, and described, as the Fairies Chapel. A woodcut of the Fairies Chapel, in 1854, is reproduced in the Victoria Pictorial History of Lancaster.

William Robertson, a local historian writing in 1881, stated; "The credulity of the uneducated working class was something amazing...the chief topics at (holiday-time social) meetings was the doing of fairies, who were regarded as real human beings, whose chief business it was to thwart evil designs, and especially protect those whose good the fairies had at heart." The Fairies Chapel was held to be under the control of the Fairy Queen, who was regarded as having the gift of prophecy. Her most famous prophecy was given to Lady Eleanor Byron, a relative of the poet Lord Byron, when her marriage and widowhood on the same wedding day was foretold.

Some parts of the Fairies Chapel were destroyed by the July Flood, 1838.

Healey Dell Nature Reserve

The River Spodden forms the centrepoint of the Healey Dell Nature Reserve. In addition to the river, with the Fairies Chapel, the Nature Reserve contains many species of wild flowers and grasses, with brightly coloured fungi, such as Wax Caps, visible in autumn. From the height of the Viaduct footway, migrant birds such as swifts and martins, by day, and bats, in the evening, may be seen in summer.

Tributaries

• Red Brook
• Shawclough Brook
• Caldershaw Brook
• Smallshaw Brook
  • Dunishbooth Brook
• Prickshaw Brook
  • Fern Isle Brook
• Tong End Brook
  • Cowm Brook
    • Walstead Brook
• Hud Brook
• Knowsley Brook
• Red Shore Brook

Pictures

• 
  Facit
• 
  Confluence of Tong End Brook
• 
  Fairies Chapel
  Healey Dell
• 
  Confluence with the River Roch in Rochdale

Outside links

• Healey Dell Nature Reserve
• Healey Dell Heritage Centre & Tea Rooms
• "Visit Rochdale": Healey Dell