THE obelisk on Smithills Moor is beginning to haunt me! Every time I think that the mystery has been solved (regular readers know that the subject has been broached a number of times in recent weeks), up comes someone else to give a different story.

For instance, on March 31, Ian Ratcliffe, who is the Bolton Countryside Ranger for the Smithills area, said that it was not an obelisk at all, but a well which had been capped over with concrete, and stood about 3ft high.

No, says Mr Albert Hornby, of Glendale Drive, Bolton, it is not a well. David Aspinall from Newcastle, who also wrote about the subject on the same day is, says Mr Hornby, "correct in identifying the reservoir above it as having been built to supply water to the Dean Mills at Barrow Bridge. But the cover lower down the slope of the moors is a concrete cap over a manhole put there to provide access to the water flowing from the reservoir in the event of a blockage occurring in the piped water supply.

"If anyone should doubt this, they should stand and listen to the loud sound of the water running at the capped manhole. You would not get such a sound from a well. And in any case, I would ask readers to ask themselves this simple question: "What practical use would a well be if placed at such an isolated spot on the moors?"

Then, comes Robin Smith, a volunteer ranger, member of Halliwell History Society, and a committee member of the Friends of Smithills Hall.

"I know exactly what the 'obelisk' is," he says. It is an air vent shaft for the now disappeared Burnt Edge colliery (the houses on Collier's Row were built for the workers there). The shaft was disused in the late 19th century, according to maps where it is marked, and it was capped in the 1950s because it was dangerous. There is conrete cap about 7ft. square, and on top of it, for no apparent reason, is a pyramid, also of concrete." And Mr Smith says that the position is about three-quarters of a mile south from where the original map reference was given by the person who first asked what the "obelisk" was.

Anyway, on to lighter things about Smithills Moor. The article on March 31 also revived memories of her mother, who lived at Green Nook on Smithills Moor, for Mrs Mary P. Brownbridge of Halliwell Road, Bolton.

"Her father was game keeper for the Smithills Estate about 1916," Mrs Brownbridge writes. "He and his family of six children lived there and all the family was expected to help in the 'keeping' of the moor.

"She told me of helping in the 'beating' when the shoots were on, and of fighting the moor fires with wet sacks on sticks. When she started work at Barlow & Jones's she had to walk down to the 'H' tram terminus and be down at Bridge Street by 6.30am. On returning home the workers were expected to take with them 'half a dozen' (i.e. six pounds) of flour to keep the family in bread.

"When my mother married my father, whom she met at work, she went to live at Park Cottages with her in-laws (this was then on Smithills Hall Estate).

"She lived there until her death. In the earlier days it was very much as part of a community, the friends of the family being the estate woodsman, the estate manager, butler at the hall, and the headmaster of the local school, Mr Middlemass."

"How lucky I am to have memories of such times - which seem ever more vivid nowadays," writes Mrs Brownbridge. "Perhaps it's my age!"

Oh, Mrs Brownbridge, we all know what you mean about that . . .

Oh dear, differences of opinion. I fear that a dawn duel in front of the Town Hall steps is the only way this subject will ever be settled to everyone's satisfaction!