Kemp Delph
 

Does the name Kemp Delph mean anything to any members who live in Ossy ? for some reason I think it was somewhere near to Cocker Chemicals ( my Grandad used to look after the lodges during the early 50s ) I seem to remember it was somewhere in the middle of some fields between Cockers and Stanhill ? , my mother who was raised at West End used to say it was a popular swimming spot for the local lads .
I tried finding it on Google earth , not sure if I am looking in the right place
Thanks

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Yes it's still there. Westender and myself had a chat about it, I'll see if I can find it.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Lol, not very indepth, but here it is.

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/s...ght=kemp+delph

Re: Kemp Delph
 

thanks , I didn't know if I had the name right or not , or if I was having a 'senior' moment and getting two places mixed up into one

Re: Kemp Delph
 

People were still swimming there this long hot summer, though the last time I walked past you could see a dead cow.:eek:

Re: Kemp Delph
 

it's funny what memories this site has triggered in my memories , places and events I haven't thought about for 30/40 yrs

Re: Kemp Delph
 

To get to Kemp Delph you take the footpath down from Stanhill Lane, opposite the last houses. After a hundred yards Kemp Delph is on your right. The path takes you down to the three lodges which are still there, but much cleaner now Cockers has cleaned up it's act. It used to be bright orange water, and was sometimes so thick you could walk on it.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

in the days when my Grandad was there the lodges were used by locals for fishing , but those were the days before the word 'enviroment' had been invented, What kind of chemicals did Cockers get involved with ?
I know Billy Blythes did lots of stuff with sulpher , seem to remember a lot of exiled Poles worked there during the 50/60s and they had a yellowish tinge to their skin

Re: Kemp Delph
 

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/a...1&d=1160040151

I always used to have trouble saying 'Cocker Chemical Company' :D

Re: Kemp Delph
 

hey up my dad was just talking about that the other day, how funny!!

Re: Kemp Delph
 

It is a weird place really. I suppose it must at sometime have been a quarry. The thing is though that it isn't very big in area. It just goes vertically down, and doesn't really spread out much. We were told as children that we must never go in it because it is bottomless, not a true fact, but it is very deep.

It can't have been much of a commercial quarry. I wonder if it was the place where the stone was quarried for nearby Knuzden Hall, as it is the same type of sandstone?

Re: Kemp Delph
 

re, the water in it , is it fed by a spring or just rainwater run off from the surounding fields ?

Re: Kemp Delph
 

I've asked Santa for a digital camera, so soon I will be able to do an illustrated report for you as well, if he thinks I've been a good boy this year.:D

It's in total isolation. It must be spring fed. There are no streams on the surface that feed it. Even in hot summers, like this and that of '76, the water level drops dramatically, and you see shelves of cut stone that are usually cvovered, but it is always full of water.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

steeljack PM me your email address and I will send you a placemark for kemp delph on google earth.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Weird place, makes you wonder how many human bodies are in there as well.
Wonder if the police thought of this place when they was looking for that man who was murdered.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

I remember a man committed suicide there in the early seventies by jumping off the cliff. Only a short time after a man was killed climbing on the nearby electricity pylon.:(

Re: Kemp Delph
 

rindy cn you find a link to that..? its just i rem a.. someone drowning in kemp delph and also someone dieing from the pylon thing but cant rem names...

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Can't find any info about those sad incidents.

Google just throws up this thread.:D

I think it was '73/'74.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

no one died on the pylon,he was just electracuted and burnt to a crisp,he was called snowden i think my brothers mate tried to catch him!

Re: Kemp Delph
 

'Electrocuted and burnt to a crisp' but he didn't die???:eek:

Re: Kemp Delph
 

I actually saw the guy about a year after the accident,he was scarred from head to foot!some people have all the luck.
I know you rindy by the way(i think),we were friends for a while,your parents had a swimming pool outside,am i correct?

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Yup that's me.

Will pm you.:)

By the way, talk about that guy being lucky!

Re: Kemp Delph
 

i live so close to kemp delph yet ive never ever been up there

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Re: Kemp Delph
 

I used to go up when I was younger. You were great if you had the nerve to jump off "top rock". We heard all sorts of stories about it. Like it was bottomless and that there was a bus under the water, and cars, motorbikes even people that they'd never found. All silly when I think about it now though. Lol!

Re: Kemp Delph
 

I know, that's when we were underprivileged as children.:mad: :D

When we moved my Dad had an indoor one built.:) :D

There's actually quite a few pools in Ossy. Well three I know of, and all safer than jumpin' in Kemp Delph.:D

Re: Kemp Delph
 

2 of my neighbours have built pools in there gardens with patio's and a house type thing around them, they look pretty smart

Re: Kemp Delph
 

does anyone remember sand delph,which was near cockers lodges?

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Never heard of that.:confused:

Behind the Cocker's lodges, towards Duckworth Hall, there was a bright orange lodge, which looked like sandy sludge, and that was thick enough to run across if you were quick, and before you sank.:D

Was that it?

Re: Kemp Delph
 

that was called the lime pit,cockers effluent i think

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Maybe the place we called the "sand pits".. we thought it looked like the moon surface.. my mum got me a brand new pair of jeans and we went up there.. we were walking on the moon when I sank.. came out and washed my new jeans in the brook and they came out almost white!.. I'll never know if it was the cheap dye in the jeans or the chemicals in the pits that made em white. (probably the cheap jeans) :D
No problem!.. in one swoop I had some great faded jeans without having to wash em 50 times!

Re: Kemp Delph
 

i went fishing on the bottom lodge at cockers on sunday and caught 32 tench i was always told as a kid there was nothin in that one

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Kemp Delph is up Stanhill on the left hand side out of Stanhill Village.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

kemp delph used to be a sandstone quarry years ago . Also anyone remember little delph back of aspen lane behind all saints church ?? that used to be a quarry for a brickworks that stood on the site before the stanhill mill was built.I used to live in the houses that were built on top of the mill. If you look in a few books that are about lancashire you can find references to it.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

I remember that little delph very well, I used to swim in it. Sadly, a little boy from a family who lived near me drowned in that place. He was only 7.

Where is All Saints church? When I left West End (1962) Stanhill Ring Spinning Mill was very much a working mill and they had only just started building houses on Aspen Lane, round the school. The only church was St Thomas', on Blackburn Rd., almost opposite our house

Re: Kemp Delph
 

The church is next door to the school, as you're going up the lane.

It is quite modern by design, and has a large triangular copper roof, which has gone green with age.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

At the risk of a good old fashioned cliché I'll have to say it was all fields round there when I was young. But, it was. :D

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Only just found this site, but obviously not many of the past visitors knew Kemp Delph.
To get there you had to go through Stanhill (on the road to Knusden) and not far after the Stanhill House (on the left) it was on your right hidden by a slight 'hill'. We used to go there in summer to swim but it was always considered as a dangerous place as the depth of the water had never been established and we were told that it was full of 'all kinds of strange things from animals to abandoned cars.
I'm going back to the late 50's.
Susan from Sicily

Re: Kemp Delph
 

You must have been going there when I was. I swam in there many, many times, when I was in my teens, but the water was always damned cold even on the hottest days.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

We used to go up there in the summer and like yu said West Ender it was really cold, we would get to it from Brookside Lane, up through the fields past Vine Mill, all the older kids used to jump in of the "Top Rock" as we used to call it, ain't been near for years now

Re: Kemp Delph
 

remember it well, used to fish there when a young lad, it was later used as a landfill, think it was smething to do with magnols farm.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Never remember there being fish in yon, plenty of aud rusty objects an odd motor bike and a car or two:D

Re: Kemp Delph
 

Was that the one just off Brookside Lane, at the bottom of the path up the fields to Kemp Delph?

That one, behind the ruined farm house, with the little pier thing you could walk in, certainly had fish in, and two swans who lived there. Who used to chase after you when they had cygnets. They nested on the grass verge that went across the middle of the lodge.

The two lodges behind this one didn't have fish. Just weird orange sinking sand type mud.

Re: Kemp Delph
 

I was thinking of Kemp Delph, never so many fish in yon