Up beyond the old Lancashire mill towns of Nelson and Barrowford is a simple single-storey clubhouse.

It is an extraordinary survivor, the last Clarion House of its kind in Britain, part of an important social movement which swept the North of England (and particularly Lancashire and Yorkshire) at the end of the 19th century. This was a time when working people had a new opportunity to escape their densely-packed towns and cities at weekends and get out to the countryside. Bicycles were affordable, Sundays were there to be enjoyed, and the developing socialist movement was bringing hopes of better, fairer times ahead.

The pioneering journalist Robert Blatchford launched the Clarion newspaper from his base in Manchester in December 1891, on sale for a penny. Clarion was to be a socialist newspaper, one which Blatchford intended would use “the simplest and best language at our command” to work towards the goals he set out as “justice, reason and mercy”. The paper quickly built a loyal and large readership, but also acted as a catalyst for something else: a wider social movement, particularly in the North. There were Clarion walking groups and Clarion choirs. There were Clarion Players amateur dramatic groups. And, most importantly of all, there was the Clarion cycling club, established in Birmingham in 1894 in the earliest days of popular cycling. Clarion cycling groups spread rapidly across the country, often combining cycling with the opportunity to do a little socialist propaganda as well. Women and men enthusiastically joined the cause, becoming, in Blatchford’s words, “travelling prophets of a new era”.

To help provide informal meeting places for this new movement, there were Clarion clubhouses too. Manchester Clarion cyclists acquired the lease on a house near Knutsford in 1897 which they used for “refreshment, recreation and accommodation” before moving in 1903 to a second building in nearby Handforth, Cheshire. Yorkshire Clarion cyclists established their own centre on the slopes of The Chevin near Menston – the building can still be seen today in a nearby caravan park.

Nelson

On the other side of the Pennines, the central Lancashire mill town of Nelson, within sight of Pendle Hill, had grown incredibly fast in the second half of the 19th century thanks to the expansion of the cotton industry. With this growth had come a well-deserved reputation for radicalism. Nelson needed a Clarion House and the first one was opened in 1899 in a tiny cottage about two miles from Pendle. Initially, about 40 members were involved. As one of its founder members Andrew Smith put it many years later, “factory workers most of them, they sought fresh air and the green fields of the countryside during the short weekend period when the looms no longer held them captive”. As he acknowledged, the Clarion was a meeting place offering both refreshments and fellowship which “helped to unite members in a common cause, and a common purpose”.

The impetus behind Clarion House was taken up by the Nelson branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP – later one of the founding partners of the Labour Party), having been established at a national conference in Bradford in 1893. Nelson was to return one of the first Labour MPs to Parliament in 1902.

The first Nelson Clarion House turned out to be too small and so a second building was opened a few years later. In 1912, the Nelson ILP took the decision to buy a plot of land in Jinny Lane, between Newchurch-in-Pendle and Roughlee, and constructed a purpose-built Clarion clubhouse.

It has been open ever since, through good times and bad. It was a meeting place for conscientious objectors during the First World War, an organising centre during the 1926 General Strike, and a place where unemployed workers in the hard years of the 1930s could have a holiday break. During the Second World War, it provided a temporary home for refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany, and it was the venue for days out in the country for striking miners during the 1984-5 strike.

Clarion House has also continued to have strong links with the still-going national Clarion cycling club, with regular cyclists’ meets held at the clubhouse each year.

Today, Clarion House is still run by a voluntary committee who cut the lawn, touch up the paintwork, and make sure the water is boiling every Sunday afternoon for whoever drops by. The tea comes in generous pint-sized mugs, and there’s no problem in eating your own sandwiches on the premises. The grassy lawn outside is for picnics, at least when the weather plays fair. And, as of this spring, there’s a new playground to ensure that children also feel welcome.

You won’t find Clarion House in any of the conventional tourist guides to Lancashire. But, believe me, it’s worth the visit.

By Andrew Bibby

Main image by Charles Jepson

 

A video on the history of the Clarion House is available on YouTube here.