The photo comes from a collection of views of old Burnley, every page of which is of interest to the local historian. Whoever put the photos together did a wonderful job of preserving these images of the past.
The collection includes pictures, all of which must have been taken before 1905, many of them in the 1880s and 1890s, together with very brief notes of where each photo was taken and sometimes details of relevant dates.

As the scene shown today has changed considerably it will be as well to say where we are. We are in Gannow Lane in 1896. On the extreme right, and in the foreground, you can see the start of the wall of the bridge which carried Gannow Lane over the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

The cottages to the left of the bridge, as shown in the picture, are examples of the older type of dwellings intended for what would have been called, in those days, the artisan class. They date from the first half of the 19th Century and, as you can see, they were built piecemeal.

On the OS map of 1912 it appears there were three dwellings close to the bridge but, on the photo, I can only count two doors. It could have been that there was a narrow single storey building on the right of the first cottage and, in the picture, you may be able to make out a stone-built structure with a flag roof roughly in this position.

After the first two houses there are clearly four more and this accords with the maps I have of the area. Then, built at a slight angle to the four cottages, there were another four.

At this point there was a narrow access to one of those long forgotten streets "Peek Into The Past" keeps coming across. The street was Smith's Yard which, in 1913/4, contained four small businesses three of which were producers of traditional Lancashire fare.

The first was James William Middleton who was described as a baker and a broker in the directory though I think the mention of being a broker is a mistake. He lived at 120 Gannow Lane, only a few houses away in the more modern terrace you can see on the left of the picture. Then there were the premises of Alexander Holland who was a tripe dresser and neatsfoot oil manufacturer. Holland's had shops in Gannow Lane (number 164) and at 3 Yorkshire Street and 19a Oxford Road.

Mr Holland lived at 35 Adamson Street, which is close to his works at Smith's Yard and I have often wondered if there was any connection with the famous Baxenden company of pie-makers which shares his surname.

The third of the small businesses of Smith's Yard was that of Shaw and Fielding who were oatcake bakers. John Thomas Shaw lived at 160 Gannow Lane and his business partner was Edmund Fielding who lived at 13 Carter Street. Both lived only a short distance from where they worked.
Oatcake bakers were very common in the Burnley area at one time. Of course, you can still buy oatcakes in the Market Hall but, in the past, the oatcake was one of the staples of our part of the world.

The reason for this goes back a long way into our history and to the fact it was not easy to grow wheat in the Pennine uplands.

Wheat requires a longer growing season than oats and although wheat was grown here the oat was the more important crop for the small farmers.
Of course, from the oat we get, among other things, porridge but it was also used, in our area, to make the hard, thin cakes which accompanied a meat stew and was known as "stew and hard".

In days gone by, many of the local inns would have served "stew and hard" and I would be surprised if the Cross Guns, the Bridge and the White Bull, the pubs of this part of town, did not sell their ration of "stew and hard". It might interest you to know the regiment named after the Duke of Wellington, and raised in the valley of the Yorkshire Calder, was known as the "Havercake Regiment". The havercake was an oatcake which was widely eaten in the Pennine areas.

The fourth of the businesses in Smith's Yard was Howarth, Elliot & Co. who were heating engineers about whom I can say nothing.

However, I think there is a point to make, though we cannot see Smith's Yard in today's pictures, and that is, that when today's picture was taken there were numerous local firms of all sizes serving the people of our town.

If you look at the photo you will see two large mill chimneys above the cottages. I think they were attached to Gannow Shed and Yatefield Mill, two of Burnley's most famous mills.

The mills were actually in Cross Gun Alley (what a name to conjure with!) though the latter was also in Cog Lane and its site was, at one time, shared with the West End Picture House and the Reform Club for the Gannow area.

I think I ought to finish off by pointing out that the Bridge Inn, now the Gannow Wharf, which I mention above, still stands.

It occupies the piece of land immediately to the right of the cottages in the picture.