the stream - west park/notre dame

[nb from rome]

Do you remember the stream that separated the playing fields of notre dame and west park? At least they said it was a stream, I never got close enough to see any water. Were there any trees along it? It was expressly forbidden to us girls to approach it (we might have spoken to BOYS that way). Did any of you ex-pupils ever speak to anyone across that stream?

[NIMROD]

We knew it as Windle Brook.

 

 

 

Nimrod.

[Griffin]

You were posh, then. It was Spurs Brook or, more commonly, Spoggy. It meanders its way through quite a bit of the town, where I think it joins the St. Helens Canal, if that still exists. There are some interesting old threads on the brook and the area in Kirkland Street past which it flowed in the culvert. At West Park, we were not told to stay a particular distance away from the Brook, as I believe the girls were, but oddly I never remember any boy attempting to communicate across it. After all, if you wanted to chat to a girl, Alder Hey Road was full of both boys and girls when school let out. Did they stagger the times to minimize this possibility, though? I know our finishing time altered at one stage.

[nb from rome]

Griffin, the fact that we could speak to any number of boys outside school was, of course, irrelevant to the nuns. Communicating with them during school hours was just not seemly.

We came out of school at 3.55 (!!! was there some reason for this?) but I think in fact that the boys took other buses into town because I don't remember seeing many on our buses. I do remember meeting up with several in Victoria Square (boys, not buses that is).

[Griffin]

Were you there when the girls got to use "our" swimming pool? I remember, when that was mooted, the outrage in the common room among the more staid boys (my circle, natch).

 

Back to the stream, I think I remember trees along it, but I don't imagine they were very big ones. One recollection is of myself and another boy hanging on to the legs of Paul Mather, one of our games masters, as he retrieved a rugger ball from the stream. The stream was only shallow, but the cut in which it ran was extremely deep. Nowadays, health and safety regulations would probably insist it be fenced off along both sides. Nor did we have safety glasses in the science labs, and explosions were by no means unknown (I was responsible for a modest hydrogen explosion myself).

[Alan]

It actually joins Spoggy in the plots that were part of Ruskin Drive complex at the end of Swinburn Road

[Griffin]

By 'eck, it's not often thou art wrong, but thou art reet this time. Spoggy is the brook which flows beside the school in Bleak Hill Road, according to my old map, and crosses under Kiln Lane, before doing what you so correctly describe in the plots. When I was buying this house, my solicitor in Pembrokeshire developed a thing about environmental searches, and I had one done. We are, it appears, officially within the flood plain of the brook in question. Knowing the brook since childhood, I heard the information with indifference, but imagine what that would have sounded like to someone who was unfamiliar with it. I still keep me wellingtons handy, though.

[Alan]

On a related subject, does anyone know what stream or spring feeds Taylor Park lake. I've just mentally walked all the way round the lake without finding the answer

[Dave D]

It actually joins Spoggy in the plots that were part of Ruskin Drive complex at the end of Swinburn Road

Think this is the one causing all the problems for Tesco ? Their garage forecourt is sinking resulting in closure one of the staff who i know told me that under the forecourt the concrete supports are okay but the brick pillars have been washed away. They are also having boreholes done all over the car park testing for further water erosion damage under ground.

[Griffin]

Bridge Street was appropriately named, although the brook was later culverted. Does anybody know where it goes in that area?

[Woden]

The stream is Eccleston Brook and I often had to jump in in it in order to retrieve a rugby ball. It had a sandy bottom and when in full spate ran swiftly and deeply. I for one certainly occasionally talked to a girl across that stream if I saw her -- more accurately, I shouted and waved: she was my sister.

 

Eccleston Brook joins Windle Brook at the plots at Ruskin Park. Windle Brook rises on Catchdale Moss, I think. Windle Brook then becomes Spurs brook at Rec Park, where it is culverted. It was only culverted in the 1890s after the last of a serious cholera outbreak. The area known as "the brook" (hence Brook St) that ran near Beechams and upon nothing was built was the thinly covered arch of the culvert. The brook passes under the canal and briefly re-appears opposite to where the lead works is (was?), only to enter a culvert again, whence it finally spills into Sankey Brook on the other side of where the kimiks used to be in Gaskelll St.

 

I remember when WP moved to Eccleston the sister (Sister Mary?) who was boss at ND seriously proposed that the boys use the 16 bus service and the girls the 15 (or vice-versa, can't remember exactly) so that there would be no liaisons. I think her suggestion was put into action; in fact I'm sure it was, but it rapidly fell into disuse through it being totally unmanageable and impracticable.

[Dave D]

Bridge Street was appropriately named, although the brook was later culverted. Does anybody know where it goes in that area?

Do you not remember when they knocked the Bridge Pub down as the digger was in the cellar area of the pub knocking the internal walls down it broke through into the culvert it ended up in six feet of water and was a write off. I have been in the Culvert it runs alongside The Hotties as you go under the railway bridge there used to be a wall around six foot tall into Hollman & Mitchells lead works this is where you can get into the culvert and explore either back towards Tesco or in the direction of Peasley Cross.

[nb from rome]

Were you there when the girls got to use "our" swimming pool? I remember, when that was mooted, the outrage in the common room among the more staid boys (my circle, natch).

 

I think the girls started using the pool the year after I left (1960-67). I do remember that all the time I was at Notre Dame we were collecting money for that pool. I don't remember now if it was originally supposed to be a separate pool but anyway I hope the staid boys were aware of the fact that we paid for it too. The number of raffles and events was endless. The poor parents were in a bind - they couldn't refuse to take part but at the same time many of them knew their own children would never be around to use it.

[Marie]

The culvert you mention near Bridge Street, would that have anything to do with the problem at Tesco? I believe that is something to do with a culvert.

[splus]

It does Marie.

 

http://www.sthelens-connect.net/forums/ind..=29818&hl=Tesco

[grotter]

By coincidence I was talking about the brook and the swimming pool to my daughters today. When I was at Notre Dame we were supposed to keep away from the brook -except on swimming lessons when we had to cross it by a plank ,have our lesson and then be back with dripping wet hair, in time for our next lesson ! Happy days .

[splus]

When were you at ND Grotter?

[Veronica]

The Brook goes under the roundabout as you go into Tesco, Was a big problem with it a few years ago as well and they had to do repair work on it.

[grotter]

Sorry splus i have only just spotted your question. I was at ND 1971-1978

[stephen nulty]

Were there any trees along it?

 

Just stumbled across this thread. I was at WP from 1968 to 1973 and as I recall, there were quite a few clumps of bushes at various points along the brook, but I don't recall any trees.

 

We used to go over (when the weather was OK) to talk to the girls, but for some reason they always moved when we got there!

 

And reading the reference to the "flood plain" reminded me of the way the hall at WP flooded whenever it was really wet. The oft-asked question was "WHich bright spark designed a bulding with a hall below ground level in an area that always floods?".

 

My uncle worked on the building of the school and he told me that once, a dumper truck sank overnight after heavy rain. When they turned up the next day they had to get a crane to lift it. Probably just a yarn, but sounded dead exciting to us at the time

[Griffin]

I was at West Park from 1963 to 1969, and we moved to the new school for the Autumn term of 1965. The subsoil in that area is impermeable clay, as reflected in the names of Kiln Lane and Kiln Close. The latter is built on the site of the old brick kilns. A builder I knew said they came across remains of them when building an extension. When the new school was designed, it was anticipated that it might flood, because a pump was provided below the hall and chapel area which, as you say, was below ground level. The order just happened to own that particular site which, prior to the construction of the new school, had been our sports pitches, with a changing block where they later added on the swimming pool just off Millbrook Lane.

 

I'm assured by female acquaintances that the nuns at Notre Dame told them to move away if any boys tried to engage them in conversation across the brook.

[gilly]

I was at West Park from 1969 to 1974.The brook got narrower behind the baths,cleared it a few times.Didn't realise there was so many former abused dyxfunctional former old boys on this site.Griff you were lucky you missed the reign of the infamous SKULL.The name still sends shudders down my spine

[Harry]

I was at West Park from 1957-1964. Our playing fields were at Alder Hay Rd, on the land where the new school was built. It was very good sport to manage to kick the rugby ball over the brook onto the girls' hockey pitch and leap across the brook in a showy off style. Even better: manage to punt the ball into the brook itself.

[Olliebeak]

There's an old map of Newtown on the 'Newtown, St.Helens' website and you can see the 'unculverted' Brook running alongside Lingholme Road (may not have been Lingholme Road when the map was made) with 'Spray Bridge' marked close to Boundary Road - obviously where Spray Street gets its name from. It also shows the Baptist Chapel, and sluice gates adjacent to Boundary Road/Kirkland Street junction where the brook turns left to go towards where the gap in the houses that was to be known as 'The Brook' was to eventually be.

 

http://home.freeuk.c..ownst/NTmap.htm

[llanyb]

[Can't find a modern/1960's map when I need one, but . . .]

 

Surely it's Mill Brook between the schools [sorry, where they were]. Eccleston Brook is the one that comes by Watery Lane [oh, memories of freezing cross country runs 1961-1967] and under Kiln Lane before they merge and go on to [eventually] pass under the canal via a sump somewhere near Tescos and merge with Sutton Brook to form the Sankey Brook/River.

 

As I remember, there were large bushes along it. Quite deep and steep down from the field to the water level.

 

I seem to remember sometime in 1966 or 1967 that we (West Park) changed school times to finish earlier - so we'd be clear of the area before the girls got out. All it achieved was plenty of time to stroll up Alder Hey road to meet the girls.