Hodder View artefacts will still be in many families

Adjacent to the Hodder Bridge Hotel is a large house known as Hodder View. This house was owned by relatives of mine named Faulkner, who also owned (or managed, I am not certain which) the Hodder Bridge Hotel.

The Faulkners were cousins of my grandmother, Mrs Maud Ireland, who used to live in Wellgate. In 1937 following the death of J.E.Faulkner a sale took place of the contents of Hodder View, with refreshments at the auction available at the Hodder Bridge Hotel.

I have a catalogue of sale handed down to me by my mother who, in turn, received it from her mother (Mrs Ireland), who attended the sale. The catalogue runs to 47 pages and the auction sale took five days to sell the contents, which ranged from Hepplewhite, Chippendale, Sheraton and Jacobean furniture to the contents of the garden buildings and garden ornaments.

My grandmother attended all five days of the auction and, in the margins of each page of the catalogue, marked the prices obtained for each item. Clearly this was a very important sale in the district and was conducted by the well-established local auctioneers Salisbury and Hamer.

Interestingly, the catalogue contains a list of train times from Clitheroe with connections to Preston, Blackburn, Burnley and Accrington. It goes on to say: “A conveyance will leave Hodder View for Clitheroe station at 4-45 pm in conjunction with the Clitheroe to Blackburn train leaving Clitheroe 5-18”.

Probably the “conveyance” referred to would have been the square vintage -ooking vehicle pictured in the previous article and parked in front of the Hodder Bridge Hotel where refreshments were served.

Bearing in mind that this was a local sale and advertised locally, it is likely many items sold were bought by local families and, in the course of time, have been passed down the line and are still today owned by those families.

The last of the Faulkner family known to me was Mr Frank Faulkner, who lived with his wife Ann at Steps Cottage at the top of Waddington Road and who died some years ago. I would guess there will be Clitheronians alive today who would know Frank and possibly other memories of the Faulkner family and would be interested to read if this episode at Hodder View and the Hodder Bridge Hotel and who have in their possession items purchased by their forebears at the auction in 1937.

H.K. Patefield,

Southport Road, Chorley