Songs and Poems About Carrbrook

Please send any song or poem you would like to publish on this site to carrbrookvillage@btopenworld.com

Buckton Moor - Grahame Whitehead - Song

Buckton Moor in your valleys you did store

Fresh water so the cotton mills would roar

Bringing workers to your banks

Though they never gave you thanks

For your beauty could in no way feed the poor

Carrbrook Village in your majesty now stands

Providing shelter in your harsh and barren land

Small cottages of stone

Carved from your own backbone

On stage in your suffering for man

For the quarrymen your beauty they did scar

Like a blot on the landscape from afar

The monuments so grand

Are right out of the land

Where you feel as though the world had staged a war

Now moor land castle once you had

Over looking your green and pleasant fells

Now your castles they are small

Just a semi circle wall

Where the huntsman to the wild grouse tour the fells

Private moorland notices all read

And upon your ground the walker must not tread

The naturalist must wait

Outside your boundary gates

But the killer he can come up here instead

Though battle scarred and weary you may be

There's still a lot of beauty there to see

You've suffered at the hands of man

Lets hope that natures plan

Ensures that you remain wild and free

So get down in your hide Mr Hyde

Keep your rifle by your side Mr Hyde

For you've had a lovely ride into the countryside

Now bag yourself some pride Mr Hyde

Grahame wrote a number of songs about local places and events. You may also enjoy his Canal Boating Song, Sir Ro of Staley Hall and the Ballad of Gorse Hall. They can all be found on his CD "Songs Ancient and Modern Revised".

Buckton Vale Mill - Si Kahn - Song

Chorus: And the only tune I hear,

Is the sigh of the wind,

As it blows through Carrbrook,

Dye and Print, Dye and Print

In the east of the village, at the foot of the hill

Stands a chimney so tall called "Buckton Vale Mill."

But there's no smoke at all coming out of the stack.

The mill has shut down and its never coming back.

Well, I'm too old to work, and I'm too young to die.

Tell me, what shall we do, my family and I?

There's no children at all in the narrow cobbled street.

The mill has closed down; it's so quiet I can't sleep.

Yes, the mill has shut down; it's the only life I know

Tell me, where will I go, tell me, where will I go?

And the only tune I hear, is the sound of the wind

As it blows through the town,

Dye and Print, Dye and Print.

Aragon Mill by Si Kahn, Copyright Joe Hill Music @mill @work @age @industry recorded by Bok Trickett and Muir on Water over Stone.

Si Kahn was a union organiser for the textile industry in the Southern States.

Belfast Mill was recorded by Whisky In The Jar.

The two stone chimneys belonging to Buckton Vale Works were pulled down in 1972.

Carrbrook Village - Rita Eden - 2001

In village near me

I can see hills an many a tree

An all way home from town

I can see purple heather in bloom

There's a duck pond yer know

Where sometimes I go

T'feed little uns

An watch em swim round

We've a nice bowling green

Where there's lots of bumps to be seen

But it's nice an quiet

An there I've spent many an hour

On Whit Friday we've visitors galore

When brass bands come an give us a blow

They come from far an wide

An compete fer a money prize

So if yer travlin about

Just give us a shout

Come an have a look

An spend time in village of Carrbrook

This poem was written in 10 minutes as an entry in the Lancashire Dialect Verse Writing Competition, held during the Fylde 2001 Folk Festival. The author was awarded the Presidents Trophy, for the Traditional Regional Poem, from the Lancashire Dialect Society. The trophy has the following inscription upon it : "Don't condemn eawr dialect. Its poems, prose and rhyme. For they who speak it daily, speak gradely everytime. Bill O'Bow's."

Harridge Pike - Rita Eden - 2001

Climb to top of Harridge Pike

View from top, thats what I like

From top - look t'South

Nowt but mills an their chimney spouts

Underfoot all in feather

Are grouse, nestin in t'heather

Down in valley, have a look

Listen fer babble of the Carr brook

Buckton Castle at a 1000 feet

There the Dark Age mound you'll meet

An 200 years ago yer know

Canal opened up, its there below

The reser's filled up ter brim

An look, there a fishin is owd Jim

Print an Dye, works now gone

A new estate, its a goin a be - son

Over yonder Buckton Quarry can be seen

Dynamite blasts stone ter smithereens

Explosion asunder an chemical works were gone

Cowbury Green, now they call it - son

One last look afore we go

Look at school where I used to go

Look up high when the planes go by

Look at how blue is that sky

We'll come back another day

Then all the tales to me you can say

The 70th Anniversary of the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass was on 27th April 2002. Ewan MacColl who took part in the 1932 Trespass wrote the imortal "The Manchester Rambler". Much of Stalybridge Country Park borders on moorlands which are in private ownership and are sensitively managed. There is no open access to these moors and members of the public are asked to keep to statutory and permissive footpaths when crossing moorland and farmland.

Longing - Scarlett Joyce Witman - 2003

Melancholy sadness

Reaches out

To embrace the future

Is God's hand in this?

Will sorrow be avenged?

Faith calls to the lonely

Grieve no more

Believe your time has come

Ireland, lovely home of the ancients

Poets, mystics, souls burned with pain

Cry out! Thy God will deliver

Rise up, for the least of you

Will become a mighty fortress

Pain comes before glory

Tears pave the way for joy

No more the exile

Contentment is home

Scarlett Joyce says "I enjoyed your site very much. I live in the USA but feel like my soul belongs in Ireland. Here is a poem that I wrote for submission. Thank you."

Please send any song or poem
you would like to publish on this site to
carrbrookvillage@btopenworld.com