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Pubs Clubs


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To Advertise here contact


on 01282 478125 Serena Bergin \ • < v


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j r . : ::■* •sV-.,': : ■ Sunday Carveiy 'JUcliUJi. IjftJt


The Black Bull Country Inn & Restaurant


Rimington Lane Rimington


Nr Clitheroe


■ BB74DS 01200415 960


Slaidburn Land, Waddington Clitheroe Lancs


BB7 3JB


Telephone. 01200 422333 www.moorcockinn.co.uk


Moorcock inn


Downham


Nr Clitheroe, Lancs' BB7 4BJ


01200 441227


The Higher Buck Inn


Nr Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 3HZ 01200 423226


The Square Waddington ^


Home cooked food at very reasonable prices


La Locanda


'. ' Main Street - Gisburn


- Lancashire BB7 4HH


01200 445 303


Greendale Restaurant


Chatburn, Clitheroe Lancashire BB74DL


Downham Road 01200 441316 Hark to Bounty Inn


Townend, Slaidburn, Nr Clitheroe


Lancs.BB7 3EP 01200 446 246


www.harktobounty.co.uk


lamih run Counttv Inn ^ct in the bLiiuiiful Lilliije of '^Imdhuin


Galfs Head Worston Clitheroe BB71QA


T he


01200 441218 www.calfshead.co.uk


M axwells Cafe


& W ine Bar 54-56 King St


Clitheroe, Lancs BB7 2EU 01200 443905


lust £6.00 B Edisford


Edisford Bridge Clitheroe


01200 422 637 Lancs, BB7 3IJ


Victoria Hotel 1 Market Place Clitlieroe Lancashire


BB7 2BZ 01200 422601


Coach & Horses


B 20 Main Street Tel 01200 447202


olton by Bowland Clitheroe BB7 4NW


ridge Hotel


The White Hart Inn Padiham Road, Sabden Clitheroe


Lancs, BB7 9EW 01282 771520


perhaps it is pure coincidence but.... A friend has just given me a fragment of a


P


newspaper, probably written in 1964, sent to her from her friend in New Zealand, because it mentions Clitheroe as the home of the Fletcher family. Nothing unusual there you may think, but it does refer to events in 1864 which brought fame, if not fortune, to Samuel Fletcher, who had grown up at "A Bird in the Hand" in "the small poaching village of Clithe- row", and his wife, Harriet, from Brinksway, in Cheshire. A 19th Century Clitheronian famous in New


Zealand? It sounded unlikely but worth pursuing so I


contacted Hastings Central Library in Hawkes Bay, NZ, and, armed with more material from their most obliging reference librarian, Madelon van ZijII de Jong, I promptly sought out Clitheroe's equally obliging "community history" librarian. Sue Holden, and left her to solve the puzzle of the exact location of "A Bird in the Hand". Less than an hour later, she received a visit


from Erin and Lowrie Baker from - Hawkes Bay! They were researching their family his­ tory and wondered where they could find an inn called "A Bird in the Hand", as their ances­ tors, the Fletcher family, apparently lived there before they emigrated! So just who was New Zealand pioneer,


Samuel Fletcher - and how did he come to be buried in the family's private cemetery on Pendle Hill? Born in 1838 to a cotton worker's family


in the shadow of Pendle, Samuel "loved the great, brooding broad-backed mound with a fervour that knew no bounds". Often identi­ fied as the centre of Britain, it was certainly the centre of the child's life. However, his whole world disintegrated when his uncle. Bill Wharmby, was arrested after someone with a grudge hung rabbit traps on his fence, during a purge on poaching by the local constabulary. Whilst Bill was finally deported to Van Die-


man's Land, Samuel's father, John, fearful of the same fate, fled on horseback to Liverpool and sailed for America, expecting his family to


. follow, but he died alone. This left Samuel to support his mother, Sarah, in running "A Bird in the Hand", until


erhaps I should have known better than to have trifled with superstition and witchcraft in the previous three editions of the Valley or


she married Jim Seers and, in 1856, they set sail on the "Alma" for the three-month voyage from Liverpool to New Zealand's north island, but only after Samuel had taken a final, wistful look across the sweeping, green valley from the top of his beloved Pendle. Now 17, Samuel left behind the local cotton


mill to take a job as a road builder in Welling­ ton, before sailing for Hawkes Bay, where he turned back to nature by learning to work with sheep and cattle and driving bullock wagons across the uncultivated wastes between the totara forests and Napier. Six years of such demanding physical


labour turned him into a stocky, muscular man with red hair and bushy beard, whose hobbies were wrestling and boxing, perfectly suited to what the future held in store. One day in 1862, amidst the Rouahine range


in the Wakarara district, he was suddenly struck by a magnificent sweep of high, broad green against the blue. By 1864 he had saved enough to take up the lease on 144 acres of this newly opened land, and in 1866 he introduced his new bride, Harriet Lomas, to


- Pendle Hill! Having loaded all their possessions onto a


bullock wagon in Napier, they had made the long and arduous journey into the wilderness, camping by the river each night, until they reached the clearing in the forest where they would live in a slab and totara bark hut, until Samuel could combine working for others with cutting a track through the bush to their


very own land. Finally, after a night of sleeping on bracken


under the bullock cart, Samuel made a start on cutting the rafters for the cosy clay hut, with walls two feet thick and thatched roof, which would later be extended to accommo­ date their many children, as well as his mother and stepfather with their family. And so the first white settlers in the area


were finally established and though Samuel was forced to continue working for others, he set about clearing trees so that ground could be cultivated and wheat could be planted for


miilinp into flour. Though survival was hard, by 1876 suf-


ficient land had been cleared to support 295 sheep and when Samuel died from pneumonia in 1892, his farmstead had grown to 1,084 acres Not that he worked alone because their marriage proved highly productive - Harriet


bore 13 children! Indeed, her place in New Zealand's history


is cemented even more firmly than her hus­ band's, having earned her very own chapter in Miriam Macgregor's book, "Petticoat Pioneers - North Island women of the colonial era". She very quickly learned a hard lesson


about living in isolation, whilst baking bread very early in their new life. Several large tattooed Maoris suddenly appeared at her door demanding the loaves and she simply threw the bread through the door and waited trembling in the darkness until her husband returned. After that she was never far from his side, until they were safely established in their own permanent homestead! She was however, a woman of some sub­


stance in terms of reputation as well as phy­ sique! Apparently her batter pudding made ■ with 12 eggs were legendary but she was recognised as a pioneer because she was the first and - for a long time - only white woman in the totally Maori region of Wakarara and she campaigned strenuously for the building of a swing bridge over the raging Waipawa river. Ironically, she finally won her battle in 1925 but died a year later aged 77, five years before the bridge was completed. In the New Zealand history of the Fletch­


ers, familiar place names abound - some of their children attended school in Blackburn and Harriet died in Brinksway but was buried in the family cemetery - but there is one that "towers above" everything, commemorated by the original Pendle Hill homestead being finally carefully removed to the picturesque village of Ongaonga, where it now operates as the Department of Conservation's field office. Therefore, how appropriate, thousands of


miles beyond the Ribble Valley, is the final verse of our own poem to the "dearest and grandest old hill in the world": "Pendle, old Pendle, by moorland and fell In glory and loveliness, ever to dwell On life's faithful journey, where e'er I may


be. I'll pause in my labours, and oft think of


thee." And whilst the location of "A Bird in the


Hand" may still remain a mystery - missed over Pendle perhaps - thanks to a curious set of coincidences, at least we now know a bit more about the true worth of the "two in the bush"!


-


advertiser.co.uk Valley p a g e 19


www.clitheroe , 1 - t i l : p M e J l


The original Fletcher home­ stead in New Zealand (s)


^ ■ J A r , — and K ' ' r


■ THIS crossword is just for fun - no prizes are given. The solution will be in next month's issue of The Valley.


ACROSS m


7. Support for a couple (5) 8. Being ashamed, a graduate goes to a


hut (7) 9. Arranged as commanded (7) 10. Put up straight (5) 12. Give way and tolerate a team (5,5) 15. It's unlikely the little devil can be


dressed (10) 18. They may, of course, be on the staff (5) 19. Disreputable service angle (7) 21. Cut wool from organ in hut (7) 22. He plays when he's at work (5)


DOWN 1. Pardon for the sailor who has the answer


(10) 2. Robust novelist (5)


3. Tackle a driving change (4) 4. Keeper of resort during hostilities? (6) 5. Low dance Americans play at (8) 6.1 re-echo a greeting (7) 11. Be comforted doubly in that place (5,5) 13. Presumably they're not put on by the


henpecked husband(8) 14. Picked out, having a rash? (7) 16. Rub off a beard (6) 17. Fund for puss (5) 20. No sparkling place to live (4)


SOLUTION TO JUNE'S CROSSWORD Across; 1 Mace; 3 Disquiet; 8 Ring; 9 In


camera: 11 Ghost-stories; 13 Gyrate; 14 Oppose; 17 Disconcerted; 20


Massacre; 21 File; 22 Trestles: 23 Lens. Down: 1 Mortgage; 2 Contour: 4 Ignite: 5


Quadruplet; 6 Irene: 7 Tray; 10 Statecraft; 12 Headless; 15 Outline; 16, Entree; 18 Issue; 19 Emit.


Fun crossword


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