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Early tourism and local milk

We had a look round the little village of Thwaite last week. It features on one of our trails and we wanted to check out how many agricultural buildings you walked past on the proposed route. This little cow’us caught our eye, right beside the roadside.

Painted milk sign, Thwaite

We assume that in days gone by, tourists staying perhaps at local campsites, could call into the farm here and buy milk fresh from the cow. Those were the days!

We also love this little anecdote (there is a well-known campsite at Usha Gap farm):

“The stories used to be…if a young farm lad had had a rough night, the night before, hard work getting up, but get up, go out into the warm [in the cow’uss], get his head into a cow, sat on a stool milking, able to nod off again…just milking the cow, the warmth of the cow”

Annas Metcalfe (73) of Usha Gap Farm

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The cow’us with three names

We’ve already mentioned Kierton (or is it spelt Kearton?) cowhouse and how it got the nickname ‘Lightning House’ when it was struck by a bolt of lightning in a previous blog post. Researcher Glenda Calvert has been out and about talking to the local farmers and she has discovered that it actually has a third name – ‘Burnt Down Spot’.

Several people still remember the day it happened:

“I can remember, there was thunderstorm, and we were having tea in the kitchen and we see’ed, like a bolt of lightening come down, just up on Kisdon there. Then after, not very long after, see a plume of smoke going up. So we went up to see what had happened. It [the barn] had been struck. Then fire brigade came and knocked windows out, then…it went faster than ever! [laughs]…slates were exploding like…yeah, y’didn’t go so near!”

Tom Metcalfe (74) formerly of Usha Gap Farm

Lightning House or ‘Burnt Down Spot’ (photo: Glenda Calvert)