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acquired considerable notoriety. On fine Sunday afternoons 
many people made pilgrimages to the place. Stalls for the sale 
of gingerbread and the like were set up near the house. One 
penny admitted each person to the house, and once in he could 
drink or bathe to his heart’s content or his body’s discomfort. 
A song was composed in honour of the spring and sung to a 
special tune. ‘The refrain seems to have been— 
We'll go to the Spa, 
We'll go to the Spa, 
Old Ambrose can cure all. 
A son of “Old Ambrose,” the keeper of the Spa, is living to-day 
in Padiham Road, as worthy a citizen as can be found. 
Immediately after crossing the ‘ Bottom of Town Brig,” a 
road to the right led to Massey’s dye-house. When the 
Margerison family came to Burnley, they built a new print 
works on the site of this dye-house, though part of the old 
building is still, I believe, preserved, I need scarcely tell my 
readers that the print works are now used as a paper making 
factory. By the side of the road there was a little house in which 
lived Bella Stott and Harriet Bamford—two ancient dames who 
wore Quaker bonnets and kept a school. All this land was 
farmed by the Masseys, The Masseys were then, with the 
Holgates and Crooks, the most influential people in Burnley. 
Mr. Joseph Massey, father of the late Mr. Alderman John 
Massey, lived at the turn of the road to the dye-works. The 
garden came to the edge of the road, and the choice strawberry 
beds made many a Burnley lass’s mouth water. Farm buildings 
were to the rear of the house. 
The mention of the Margerison name reminds us of a family, 
no bearer of whose name survives in Burnley. Mr. Thomas 
Margerison married for his second wife a Miss Currer, and my 
mother recollects seeing Mrs. Thomas Margerison and her sister 
coming to call upon Dr. Meanley, who lived in St. James’s Street, 
when that gentleman had married a second time. The two ladies 
wore lavender silk, it being the custom then to pay such calls in 
dresses worn at the wedding. Richard Charles, the well-known 
librarian of the Literary Institute, came to Burnley with the 
Margerison family. At this time Mr. Richard Clegg lived at 
Whittleficld, and Royle was tenanted by Mr. Fielding, the steward 
for the Parker estate. 
Crow Wood consisted of a cluster of cottages, and not far from 
it was what was known as Danes House Pit, though colloquially 
known as Pewter Pit. Pewter, I may remind my readers, is an 
alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, and was fomerly largely used 
in the manufacture of domestic utensils. Old Mrs. Hamerton, 
the grandmother of Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, the great art 
