The Bakewell Love Locks - by Mike Hall

THE BAKEWELL LOVELOCKS 

LOVE LOCK HISTORY….

It is said that the placing of Love locks stems from world war one in Serbia where a couple committed to each other before he left her to fight in the war. He then fell in love with a local girl when he was away and when she found out she broke off the engagement. It is said that she never recovered from this betrayal and after some time she died from a broken heart. Hearing of this, the woman started to write the names of their loved ones on padlocks and fixed them to the railings of the bridge that the heartbroken girl used to meet her love. Whether this is true or just a romantic gesture and the exact origin of this is unclear but the sentiment behind placing padlocks on bridges across the continents remains as strong as it has ever been.

What is without question is why people still do this and why I did the same. I am Mike Hall and I have been aware since being involved with the lovelocks at Bakewell that the locks are symbols of events that have left such a mark on the people’s hearts that they simply just need to show it as a private moment in a public place. It’s not for everyone and that doesn’t mean that people that don’t place a lock don’t feel just as strong, simply put, we all show our feelings in different ways, but we all have the same feelings of love, celebration and loss and we all have our own ways of showing it.

THE LOCKS KEEP COMING….

Sometime in 2012 locks started to appear on the wires of the Weir Bridge over the river Wye in Backwell and within a short time the trend started to grow. Locks were removed by the council but they were replaced at a rate that it became impractical to keep removing them. This Lovelock story starts with a young couple entered a shop owned by a local businessman Richard Young. They asked about the padlocks and where to get them engraved. Richard was moved by the amount of people showing their love and was concerned how the council simply disregarded the sentiment and feeling behind the placer of the lock. Richard stepped in to stop this happening as he believed it would help the local economy with the extra visitors to the town, as he learnt more about the locks the more he became involved in trying to save the lovelocks of Bakewell.

 AND SO THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS….

Over the coming years more locks where placed including mine in 2014 to the point that by 2016 half of the 144 wires that span both sides of the bridge had locks with messages of love, celebration and loss engraved upon them. By 2018 most of the bridge was covered with locks. In early march 2021 Richard started to campaign against the removal and created a Facebook group “Save the Love Locks at Bakewell” so people could share their stories behind their lock and gather support to stop the locks being removed and disposed of.

This is where I became involved with Richard Young, and my story starts with placing our lock on our anniversary back in September 2014. It was a small lock with MICA 2014 engraved by hand on one side and a heart on the other. The name MICA was made up from our names, MI from Mike and CA from Carol, my wife’s name. We visited Bakewell many times as it was a favourite place not only for us but our respective families. Over the years we lost sight of our lock but still looked for it on each anniversary but alas we could not find it.  Late in 2019 my wife and I walked across the bridge as we had done many a time but this time was significant. I stopped, as I usually did, and tried to find our lock my wife carried on across that bridge and with a backward glance said to me “give up, it’s been lost or fallen off” so I did and carried on over the bridge. In 2020 I suddenly lost my wife so on that cold September anniversary evening in 2019 was the last time we crossed that bridge as husband and wife.

I wrote a story about this and the significance of our little lock and published it on Richard’s Facebook page and started to become more involved in the campaign for the reason that my lock that was placed as a symbol of our love now has become a symbol of remembrance.

I approached Richard with an offer of help to try and step up the campaigns efforts as the council was now threatening to cut them all off. I shared Richards’s concerns but also had an emotional attachment to the lock, the place, the time and my loss. The stories on the Facebook group were and the messages engraved on the locks were so moving covering everything from love, engagements, marriages, births, big events as well as loss and each time. I read the messages on the locks on the bridge and I share the event deep within as I now know what it feels to have loved and lost like so many others that have paced a lock on that bridge and now it was clear to me as it was for Richard years before that the stories and memories that lay silent in that lock need to be preserved, and not just disposed of.

Now it’s understandable that to some the bridge is an eyesore, to the council it was a maintenance problem, to the town an important tourist attraction and local revenue stream but to the love lock placer it’s an important memorable place so we needed to find a way to save the locks and their messages and allow the council to maintain the bridge.

LOCKS TO BE SCRAPPED…..

By 2024 it was estimated that some 40,000 locks weighing in at around 6 ton! Richard was lobbying the various councils and raising awareness through the Facebook group as it was being muted that the locks would be removed and scrapped with the proceeds going to charity. As noble as that is what it did do was completely disregard the feelings and stories of the 40,000 Lovelockers. The council is stuck, what could they do, they have to maintain the bridge, field the concerns of safety and the feelings of people who see it as an eyesore.

LOOK, WE ARE IN THE NEWS!.....

The campaign stepped up a gear to save the locks or find an alternative home for the locks before the locks are removed however all seemed to be lost when in July 2024 a notice was posted on the bridge saying the locks would be removed on the 16th September.

The media was approached by Richard to raise awareness of the locks being removed for scrap and people’s stories reported as far and wide as the group could. Richard caught the attention of Radio 2 which covered the story and other radio stations were also approached as well as the BBC. For my part my personal story of love and loss was reported on in the Derbyshire Life magazine as we tried everything to gain support. Eventually the group caught the attention of a wider audience with both Richard and I being interviewed so we had a chance to plead the case for saving 40,000 memories. Eventually a breakthrough meeting took place with the councils and they agreed to release the locks to the Save the Love Locks group.

Whilst this was fantastic news, we still had to find a new home. Richard and I approached the councils for alternative places but there was simply no place that would be suitable despite us looking for places and pleading with them to allow the group to use waste land adjacent to the river. The problem being who owns what, who will look after it, safety risks and concerns from the locals about safety, damage,  liabilities and maintenance.

A NEW FOREVER HOME…..

There was an offer to home them on the Chesterfield canal, but as kind as that was; it was miles away from Bakewell. This offer however changed the direction from finding a place in Bakewell to local accessible country estates. Richard approached Emma Harrison of Thornbridge Hall, as they are an established tourist attraction close to Bakewell with good access and amenities. Emma Harrison came to the rescue by offering a “forever home” within the estates grounds with free access. This was the break through that group needed so negotiations and plans made both with Thornbridge Hall and the council to move the locks to Thornbridge.

Signs were put up saying that the bridge would be closed off for repairs and the lock would be removed on the 16th September 2024 and if anyone wanted to remove their lock now’s the time to get them off.  So it was time for me to get things organised with the teams from the councils and contractors and local company (Markovitz) to remove the locks and get them transported. After several trips and face to face meetings and further press releases a deal was brokered and plans put in place.

GONE FISHING…..

On one of the many trips to the lovelock bridge I noticed that some locks were being cut off and discarded into the river.  I was also told that the council had been removing locks from the second bridge, which was now being used as there was no more room on the weir bridge. So on a number of occasions I went fishing with a magnet to remove as many as I could find from the river bed with a view to reunite them with the rest of the locks at Thornbridge. In total 400 locks were fished out the river and collected from the council and shops which will be re-homed at Thornbridge. All the locks were recorded and published on the group’s page in an attempt to find their owners.

REMOVAL BY FORCE….

The day is September the 16th, a few days before what would have been our 42nd anniversary,  I find myself standing at the entrance of the bridge while the barriers are being erected and signs being placed, as I stood defiant  stopping people crossing the bridge and  I felt a sadness, nearly 10 years to the day my wife and placed a lock to celebrate our life and the love we had, now 10 years later I have taken our lock off as a widower with nothing but the memory which I was just about to destroy along with 40,000 other memories for the locks and their owners where about to lose their home for the past 12 years or so and this bridge will no longer be a place to remember or share life’s occasions, it will simply just be a bridge.

Around a week later the job of removing the locks began in earnest, I was allowed on the bridge to start the wire cutting and depositing the locks wire by wire into marked bags so that they could be rehung onto bays on the new “LOVELOCKER” at Thornbridge Hall. I had organised transport and bags to move the locks to their temporary resting place until their new home had been designed approved and built. In total around 150 bags varying in weight from 35 to 70kgs was cut off and manhandled over the bridge in readiness to be lifted and transported, approximately 6 ton was released, bagged, numbered, re-bagged and craned off that bridge over a couple of days with the last padlock being cut off at 13:45 and the last bag lifted onto the lorry at 15:15. By 15:50 all the locks had been unloaded and stored at Thornbridge Hall and the story and their wellbeing handed over to the safe hands of Emma Harrison if Thornbridge Hall.

THORNBRIDGE – THE NEW HOME…..

No sooner had the locks been delivered Emma Harrison of Thornbridge Hall went to task in planning a new structure to display the 40,000 locks. It’s surprising that despite the display being on her ground it’s not just a case of sticking a few wires up and re-hanging the locks.

Firstly the structure needs to be able to hold in excess of 6 ton of locks! And have enough capacity to allow the story to continue with future padlocks being added, so potentially 12 ton! This means the type and style of the structure needs to be robust and engineered to take the weight and last for years to come. Fortunately for the lovelock group Emma is an engineer and has many people within her portfolio of friends to call on to assist with the practicalities of building a structural display.

So designs were drawn up by Emma and sent to both Richard and I to have a look, it clearly can’t be a bridge due to the size of what would be an expanding display and the weight has to be considered. So a design that was settled on which met both the structural needs as well as emulate the crossing of the bridge which is the enclosure you see today.

But this is just the start and like the path of true love is never easy, the display at Thornbridge still had a rocky road ahead. As mentioned before, although the display is on private ground, the estate is within a national park so that has to be approved before anything else can be done. Well after several frantic twists and turns and countless lost hours of sleep approval was granted to Emma after some 8 weeks of planning consultation.

THE THORNBRIDGE LOVELOCKER…..

There is still much to do as the design moves slowly into reality, and Emma is hot on the case with the manufacturers providing the materials for the structure, building supplies being sourced, wires and locking mechanisms to allow the padlocks to be threaded on, decorations, signage, volunteers to build and put the locks back on and of course working out where the locks came from on the bridge so that they can be put back in the same place on the display, media and of course a new name. as the locks are no longer at Bakewell they have to be re-branded in a way, so the name “The Love Locker” is born and over the next weeks the Facebook group “Save the Love locks at Bakewell” has its name changed to “The Thornbridge Love Locker”.

Because of the complexities of the build it soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to be just a case of bolting poles and brackets together, the small issue of Health and Safety, Insurance and constructional responsibilities soon dictated that the area for the Love Locker would have to be declared a building site and meet with all the legal requirements required by law. So it’s a no for the volunteers and another headache for Emma as she now needs to find a team to project manage the build. Luckily Emma has contacts and soon gets a team on board to start the build early in the New Year.

CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS…..

Its early January and the call to arms goes out from Emma for volunteers to help re-thread the 40,000 padlocks onto wires in readiness to be re-hung in to the correct bay on the Love Locker, various incentives of food and drink, protective clothing and warm surroundings are given and soon the volunteers start to book slots at “Quackers” which is the café adjacent to the Love locker, to start the re-threading process.

However the weather as usual had other plans so things come to a halt for a week or so but eventually re-threading and building takes place and by mid-January many volunteers have signed up and the bags of padlocks are brought over from storage to be re-threaded and miraculously by the 19th January all the locks have been threaded on to new wires ready to be re-hung onto the now constructed Love Locker.

A PLACE OF REMBERANCE…..

Now the design of the Love Locker is based on the two sides of the bridge at Bakewell and as you approach the Love Locker you do as though you are walking from the town through the crescent with the bridge in front of you. So the left hand side of the Love locker is the left hand side of the bridge as is the right hand side the right side of the bridge and the central path way dividing the left and right hand sides through the love locker is the bridge footway itself. The area within the centre of the love locker is now the place of remembrance with donated benches made from recycled materials providing a resting place for love lockers and visitors alike to sit and reflect upon their own individual story or just to enjoy the ambience of the love locker and the not only the many stories strung around the display but the journey and all the people involved over the 12 years or so to get it all safely re-homed in the beautiful surroundings of Emma’s home.

ROSES ARE RED…..

Adorning the entrance and dotted about are hundreds of hand painted roses carefully sourced by Emma and all painted by the volunteers. They are the symbols of love and also stand as symbols of love and dedication from Emma and her team of volunteers for the hard work, loss of sleep, aching limbs and the hours of behind the scenes negotiating and organising the new Love locker display.

NEW BEGINNINGS……

For my part, the last ten years has been a traumatic experience, I have loved and been part of a very public display of affection, I have also lost and have been like so many emotionally attached to the lock and the history it has locked inside. The bridge has been my place of remembrance and I have cried tears into the river below like so many others but I am also on a journey, my life after as it were, so I will snap a new lock on the Thornbridge Love Locker and put our original lock in its hasp, the words engraved will simply say “For all those we have loved and lost” MICA 2025, and hopefully in the years to come, my lock and all the other locks will be visited, the benches will be sat upon, memories remembered and thanks be given that they are safe and on a new journey.

AND FINALLY……

As the launch date of Friday the 14th February 2025 arrives, the Thornbridge Love Locker will be un veiled and all the locks will once again be made public to the world for the live again, Pictures will never be able to tell the stories that are contained within those locks but the Bakewell Love Locks and the Thornbridge Love locker will forever be consigned to digital memory and each and every love lock will forever be remembered long after the gang of Richard, Emma and myself are forgotten. My personal thanks goto all those I have had the pleasure to be involved in, all the volunteers, suppliers, builders and helpers that have pulled off the largest love lock rescue in the world. My thanks also go to the my partners in crime, Richard for starting the campaign off and Emma for building the Love Locker and providing a home, without them my story would have been consigned to scrap with all the others from the love lock bridge, we all owe you so much.

As for the future, well that’s another story!