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races; but these races did not rank with those at Padiham and 
Worsthorne, which were bona-jide horse races. ‘‘Joan-o’-Mash’s ” 
regularly practised his horses on the spot where St. James’s 
Church now stands. Joan-o’-Mash’s real name was Whitaker, 
and he was a butcher by trade. Burnley at one time had its own 
horse-race ground. It was a large flat piece of ground to the 
left of Brunshaw (Halifax) Road, reaching from the street 
going up to the lime-kilns to Brunshaw Bottom. The cricket 
field now forms part of the ancient race-course. It was disused 
soon after Col. Hargreaves’s death, presumably through the 
influence of the Rev. Wm. Thursby. Later the family who reared 
Kettledrum let land for the races on Burnley Moor, but the 
locality was unhappy, and ‘the sport”’ survived the removal of 
the course from lower levels for only two years. 
The road by Sandygate was long the connecting road between 
Burnley, Padiham, and Blackburn. It passed along by the back 
of the Barracks, and along the Ridge by the Tim Bobbin. There 
was not until the early decade of this century any public roadway 
where now is Westgate and that part of Padiham Road lying 
above Westgate as far as Gannow Top. A little way in the rear 
of the toll-bar stood a fine house with a great square garden in 
front of the door, occupied by ‘‘ Old Hopwood.” It still stands 
and is known as the Plane Tree Inn. This Mr. W. Hopwood 
built Oak Mount, about the time that Mr. Thomas Holgate built 
Ashfield. ‘The new road, which had just been opened out, was 
called Blackburn New Road, and houses followed on both sides. 
On the left hand side stood for a long time a drinking trough 
fed from a spring; the latter being in convenient proximity to 
the brewery just about to be built was speedily utilised. Just 
above the canal, on the left-hand side, after crossing the ‘‘ Navvy 
Bridge,’ was a well or spring. The way to it was through a big 
thorn hedge on which ‘“ heps’’ and ‘‘ ages’? grew, down a few 
earthen steps into a meadow. The water was supposed to be of 
a medicinal character, and to have some connection with a 
spring which undoubtedly possessed those qualities, and was just 
beginning to attract patients in the valley where is now the 
Cemetery. The clough in which this mineral water was found 
soon acquired the name of Spa Clough. The water was found 
to be so attractive that a spa house was built. It appears to 
have been a substantial stone building without side windows, 
but lighted by sky-lights. It contained three rooms ; in the first 
room was a well from which the patients drank, inside were two 
rooms, one for males and the other for females, in each of which 
there was a square bath with forms around. The water was 
intensely cold, was quite clear in appearance, it had a distinct 
taste, and a still more distinct smell; its properties were 
supposed to be of avail in cases of rheumatism. The. waters 
