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HOLLINSWOOD |
Adjoining Briar Shepherd's mounds was Hollinswood. A few houses formed one row, some stone cottages and the remains of an old Methodist Chapel. On the side of the road was a huge water-tap, the only one available for this small community. Continuing along this road, towards Dawley, was the Forge Row (late 18th century) built to house the workers at the Iron Works nearby. Also in that area (Old Park) and opposite the row of houses was a pool, known as Forge Pool. This was a place of fear for us children. Demons dwelt in the bottom of these waters.
There are still signs of this pool, i.e. a spring, but nothing now remains of the rest except the road going past the Priorslee steelworks and over the G.W.R. railway bridge and also a new bridge where the I.M.S. railway bridge used to follow the line of the original road. I often walk along this road as far as the pool but developments are still being carried out and so prevent me going any further. A merry lot of folk lived in Hollinswood, as my memories of their gatherings at the Greyhound and Stag public houses can testify.
The old L.M.S. Dodger railway line from Oakengates to Dark Lane now forms part of the ring road to the Town Centre. That railway imprinted on my memory an incident concerning one of my favourite kittens. Dark Lane was about two miles away from Forge Place, and I gave one of my kittens to my sister who lived there. Oh! how I missed him. He would climb up the wall of the house and in through the open kitchen window near to where we had the wash- basin. When he saw me in the early morning he would come in. Why did I part with him? Why? Why? I asked myself. Several days passed and in my imagination I could see him waiting to come in. One morning, the impossible happened. Pensively looking out of the window, could it be true? There he was, climbing up the wall and in through the window. He jumped straight into my welcoming open arms. Oh! the joy. I could only assume that he must have come along the railway lines and so found his way back to me. This was to be the introduction to a more poignant happening.
Among my play-mates was a little dark-haired girl. She came with her family into our district when I was about 8 years old. Whatever games we played she was always my partner. Then came the sad news. Her family were going back to South Wales after only 2 or 3 years here. Of course the news meant nothing to me at that moment and she gave me a half-penny as a keepsake. But, Oh dear! the loss of my kitten had been bad enough, but to see her little form no more with that alluring dark bobbed hair, was quite unbearable. I tried to console myself. Would she return again like my little kitten? How I hoped and prayed.
Things now have changed; little remains to identify this modern district with the past, the childhood haunts have gone, but that little dark-haired sprite and all that she stood for, lives on. Yes, in the mind of nearly everyone, symbolising the memories of childhood in a loveliness which only innocence can create.
"I have you fast in my fortress
From there you will never depart
I will put you in the dungeons
In the round tower of my heart
There you will stay forever
Forever and a day
Till the walls they crumble in ruins
And moulder in dust away"
"Longfellow"