Barlow’s of Long Lane 1867 - 2000.

By Roy Barlow

The Barlow family have lived in the area for over 300 years.

It was in 1867 that Walter Barlow (Hurdle maker) from Hampstead Norris married Martha Jeffrey and took The lamb pub at Long Lane. Walter died at the age of 52 leaving Martha, four sons and six daughters. The eldest son William was aged 22. In order to keep a roof over their heads Martha put the family to work. The business of Publican, Farmer, Carpenters, began to grow.

In those days all timber and carpentry work was carried out by hand next to The Lamb. The trees were purchased from local estates, felled with axes and cross-cut saws, extracted from the woods with horses, loaded onto wagons and brought home. The trees were hewn into shape for reworking on pit saws. (One man in a pit, the log over the pit and the second man on top of the log. A long saw blade with a handle each end held by each man and away we go !) After sawing into planks, timbers were again sawn and cleaved into shape.

In the early part of the 20th century as the business progressed, steam engines were used to drive large circular saws which were employed to break down the logs. In the early days this equipment was hired. William took charge of the timber side of the business assisted by his brothers Archer, Ted and Alfred. They all however had to turn their hands to any of the other sides of the business as required. The business prospered.

William married Alice in 1897 and had a son George and a daughter May.

By the 30’s George had taken over the timber side of the business assisted by Ted, Archer, and Alfred, leaving father William to run the pub. May married Reg. Wernham and they joined William in the Lamb.

By this time some of the timber work was being carried out on a site at Red Shute Hill. A new steam engine had been purchased and a new sawmill was up and running. The business continued making gates, mending carts, wagons, fencing etc until war broke out.

George married Dorothy Attfield in 1933 they had two sons and two daughters.

Through the war much of the business was controlled by ministry of works requirements.

After the war the business continued with requirements for, fences, building timber, furniture materials, coffins, bobbins, coach building, sports equipment, church repairs and of course the growing market for the motor industry.

After the war a demand for housing in the area lead to a requirement for building sand. George obtained permission to extract sand from land at Red Shute Hill. Installed a screening plant, purchased some lorries and supplied sand for the housing in the area.

Georges eldest son William (Bill) joined the business in the 50’s and his youngest son Roy in the early 60’s. Bill died in 1964, George died in 1968 and Roy continued to run the business. The sawmill had been destroyed by fire in the late 50’s and a new mill had been constructed. This mill was powered by electricity and was equipped with all the modern machinery. Trees were now felled with power chain saws, extracted with tractors, loaded with winches and rollers, transported all over the country. New markets were mainly found in the furniture and joinery industry, which combined with existing markets in fencing , gate manufacture, and the supply to railways, motor car industry, coach building, and mining industry.

Roy Married Jane Wilde in 1965 they have four sons Peter , John, George, David.

Roy also ran the farm producing beef until 1987 when he closed down the beef enterprise and leased the farm to a local dairy farmer. This gave him more time to attend to other business.

Supplies of raw materials were from local estates and at this time the government required farmers to produce more food. To this end grants were paid to farmers towards the cost of clearing woodland and returning the land to agriculture. Barlows roll in this was the felling, clearing the land and marketing the timber. The trees being up-rooted with large power forks and carried to the roadside, where they would be sorted, graded, loaded onto wagons for transport to wherever. The tree tops would either be sold for firewood, charcoal or burned on site along with the roots. The whole wood clearance produced a very wide variety of timber in considerable quantities. Oak ,Ash, Beech, Poplar, Cherry, Sycamore, Lime, Birch, Elm, Yew and others. A very busy time and markets were found for every stick.

Grants were eventually stopped and a new replanting scheme was introduced. Barlows then continued with marketing and saw milling.

In th 70’s Elm trees started to show signs of disease which gave cause for concern. It was clearly Dutch Elm Disease with which we were familiar, but this was not the same. The problem was notified to the authorities but sadly by the time action was taken the beetle had bolted. This new Elm Disease was out of control. We now found that we had vast quantities of elm, far in excess of any demand. Sadly much was too far gone to be of any commercial use and had to be burned. The remainder had to be used as it would not keep. New markets were found but at prices that did not cover production costs. This in turn meant that a landowner who had elm trees that were worth thousands of pounds one year had trees that were to cost him money to have removed. Diseased elm had taken up much of the saw milling and transport capacity and also caused estates and landowners to leave their other woodlands alone in order to clear the elms. This had caused a shortage of other hardwoods on the market.

By the 80’s most of the elm had gone and with greater controls on the felling of other hardwoods, where do we go now?

It had to be softwoods. Between 1918 and 1939 some areas of the country, in particular Wales and Scotland, had planted trees in woodland that had been felled for the first world war. Similarly areas in England, Wales and Scotland had been planted after the 39/45 war. Some of these areas were now coming to commercial size timber ready for harvest. We decided to continue with saw milling of special products of non- standard hardwood sizes and investigate requirements for a new softwood mill. All of our machines were designed for large diameter trees and totally unsuitable for small diameter softwood production.

After tours of a number of modern mills around the country, mainly in Wales and Scotland where the trees were, we came to the conclusion that we were in the wrong area for a softwood mill. We would continue as we were with our hardwood production and arrange for our softwood supplies to come form the other mills.

Operating a reduced production meant that we had a surplus of land at Red Shute Hill.

We obtained planning permission for and constructed industrial units on part of the site which we now lease to other users.

The sandpit had been in disuse for some years so permission was obtained and the pit was filled and returned to agriculture.

Our manufacturing continued and our saw milling continued until 1991 when a fire totally destroyed our sawmill and workshops.

We had to start again. This time no saw milling of trees. We built new workshops and manufacture our gates and other products with timber brought in from other sources. The family timber business is now being run by Peter and John, assisted by Roy and Jane and is expanding steadily. The market has changed again and today we find that the private householder is keen to improve their gardens with, gates, fences, pergolas, decking and many other items. We still supply the local builders, farmers and estates with products not too dissimilar to those provided by Barlows 130 years ago. Meanwhile George is pursuing a career in Law and David is currently working in the Agri-food industry.