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Account from former resident of the cottage

I would just like to say I was born in Milldam cottage 68 years ago (1936), and my Grandmother - the lady in the photograph - also lived there when she was just 15 years of age.  She would never have understood the technology that now puts her on the internet and on the cover of a book.  My Grandfather built the fishpond that is spoke about.  He planted an orchard in Milldam that contained apple, pear and cherry trees, which young boys tried to steal on a regular basis.

My Grandmother was a Greenall and married William Rigby. After living in Crooke village and other places thereabouts they moved to Milldam. As I mentioned before, my Grandmother had lived there with her family as a young girl.  My uncle Charles Rigby bought Milldam sometime in the late 1920`s for them to live in as long as they lived. They kept pigs and chickens in what became the orchard, and was also where the toilet was which was piped in to the brook. Not very hygienic but there you are. I remember as a child sitting in the front room of milldam, and the only sound that you could here was the brook rushing down the waterfall, very loud it was. I don't understand where all that water has gone. When I was a child there was still the runners at the top of the waterfall where they dammed off the water for the mill. I assume they are still there. My Grandfather came across the mill stones when excavating his pond. He had told the then owner - Harry Crook of Standish Hall he could drain off all the fields in to the pond as it would take it, due to the fact he had piped off an overflow across the road in to the brook. We always knew there had been a mill there, but did not realise it would become of interest in the future. Milldam was condemned as being damp although it never was. Due to the height of the banking at the back of the house, if the weather was bad, soil would fall down to the back of the house. My Grandfather kept this cleared. The Turner family, who were the last legitimate occupiers of the property, wanted a council house, and the Council obliged. Chiefly because Milldam was a nuisance. They had to provide disinfect etec. free of charge. The Turner family were not the last people to live there. My Grandmother was. I remember being there when my mother broke in to the house and my Grandma took possession as a squatter. She was eventually forced to leave due to her age. My Uncle Charles Rigby actually bought Milldam twice for them. The first time he gave my grandparents the money, they spent it on a party, so he bought it again.

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