2009 May | Yorkshire - God's Own County

Yorkshire’s Royal Horticultural Garden

Harlow Carr Garden Harrogate, formerly the top trials garden and base of the Northern Horticultural Society was taken over by The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in 2001. It is now a top class garden and visitor attraction with many new features. This is a result of volunteers hard work and from the capital investment by RHS, the nations top gardening charity. If you think this picture is a bit fishy for a garden then you may be surprised at the other modern sculpture that is being progressively introduced into Harlow Carr.

The gardens once were part of the Forest of Knaresborough, an ancient royal hunting ground. In 1734 sulphur springs were discovered on the site and remain beneath the present Limestone Rock Garden. The Streamside Garden, Scented Garden and Gardens through Time are worth a visit but the latest attraction is the new Alpine House with an extensive range of small but interesting Alpine plants.

Harlow Carr is moving with the times and is building a large new ‘green construction’ learning centre to support the educational remit of the RHS. This will incorporate an enlarged library but free book loans are still available from the existing library for RHS members. If you want more dynamic gardeners tips to help you in your own garden click here on the web.
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gardens, sculpture

York Footpath or Snickelway Map

The Complete Snickelways of York - Mark W Jones

If you like maps then you will like this book. If you like quirky maps and routes you will love this book. If you like York, and who dosen’t, then you may have already got this book or one of the earlier editions. Written and published like the Alfred Wainwright’s Coast to Coast book in hand written text with drawn and sketched routes this book gives an exceptional insight in our York, past and present.

For quirky who would have thought that Arthur Gemmell’s stile maps couldn’t be beaten for content or detail of presentation but they are? All these three cartographers Gemmill, Wainwright and Jones put the Frank Wilkinson walking series to shame from a cartographic perspective.

So what on earth is a ‘Snickelway’? In Mark Jones eyes it is a cross or hybrid between a Snicket, a Ginnel and an Alleyway with the odd Court, Yard or Throughway thrown in for good measure. What is more he takes us on walks through 50 of them all within a quarter of a mile of ‘The Shambles.’ That would be 51+ Snickelways if you count the top of the wall. A complete walk would be in excess of 3 miles plus the wall if you choose to tackle it all in one go. My favourite review of the book says ‘ My wife and daughter set off after breakfast with a copy of Snickelways, and I am still waiting for them to get home to make my midday meal’. Angry York resident at teatime.

Mark Jones should be an honourary memeber of the International Cartographers Society or you yourself may wish to be a member of the Map Collectors Circle. I doubt the Roadmap Collectors Association have discovered Snickelways yet.

look out for more humourous slogans on the snickleways of York.

Summer Drizzle 1930

Posted by brian in Our Yorkshire | Yorkshire History and Heritage | Yorkshire Trips and Places - (0 Comments)

weather

Imagine you were setting off for your summer holiday in Whitby on the 21st July 1930. You think our poor summer weather is bad well you aint seen nowt. Poor isn’t how you spell it ‘Pour’ is what it did for four days solid with 5.2 inches in Danby and a massive 11.9 inches in Castleton.

Imagine calling out the life boats for a flood – 2 miles inland – that is what happened in Ruswarp on 23 July 1930 as converging floods threatened Whitby and all around. The Whitby Gazzette called it ‘a thrilling rescue’ but with wind driving at gale force and the inky blackness creating another onslaught of rain in an already saturated area consternation siezed people in their houses. Rain had been general over all the area, the Esk and Barnby Beck were full, the Ruswarp and Carrs covered in 2 feet of water. At Briggswath the bridge and road were swept away and a steam tug in the bay broke from its moorings. In the words of Bill Foggit the old weather recorder, ‘ the awesome power of the flood was more than matched by the indomitable spirit of the Whitby lifeboatmen. Up the raging Esk they came to rescue marooned families…..’

So when we bemoan our bad weather spare a thought for others who have been through storm and tempest without all the modern facilities we now enjoy.

Picture ‘Floods, 23 July 1930. The car is attempting to travel through the flood at the bottom of Market Place. Many of the cars stalled in the floodwater, the only sure way of crossing was by horse and cart. Picture By: Sidney Smith.’ from Beck Isle museum Pickering who are having a ‘Wartime Weekend’ 1940′s themed event on Saturday 10th & Sunday 12th October 2009.

Near Hull docks a ship carrying red paint crashed into another ship carrying blue paint – all the sailors survived but were marooned.

Zetland – Lifeboat Race and Hotel

Posted by brian in Yorkshire History and Heritage | Yorkshire Trips and Places - (0 Comments)

Redcar Lifeboat
The Zetland is the ‘ Oldest Lifeboat in the World’ built in 1802 and still on display in Redcar. over 200 years ago Zetland was built by a Yorkshireman, Henry Greathead, from Richmond who set up as a boat builder and made the first lifeboat Original. The 11th lifeboat operated by the Teesbay Lifeboat and Shipwreck Society, she was christened Zetland in honour of the Lord of the Manor from Shetland. The Zetland remained in service until 1880 saving over 500 lives. In 1864 the RNLI took over the when a new boat Crossley was launched at Redcar. Zetland was hauled to the beach and ordered destroyed. However the townfolk so strongly resented this and it was hurriedly arranged that Redcar could keep the boat as long as she did not compete with the Crossley. For many years the work continued culminating in the rescue of the brig LUNA in 1880 when three lifeboats were required for the rescue.

Bibliography & References
Robinson, Vera, The Zetland Lifeboat Sullivan, Dick, 1978, Old Ships, Boats and Maritime Museums, pp. 18, Coracle Books
Phillipson, David, 1994, All her Glories Past: The Zetland Lifeboat, Smith Settle Ltd
Osler, A G, 2000, Mr Greathead’s Lifeboat: The creation of the first shore-to-ship rescue boat, Mariitme Life and Traditions, Vol. 5, pp. 16-29
Age of Sail Volume 2 by Chrysalis Books. Poem The Zetland
http://nationalhistoricships.org.uk/index.cfm/event/getVessel/vref/627

Old Hotels
Zetland Hotel was built after 1861 when the Stockton & Darlington Railway came to Saltburn. With a platform at the rear of the hotel it was one of the first railway hotels. There are many interesting pictures of Saltburn on the history web site.

Country Pursuits
Monday 25th May 2009 is Zetland Gold Cup Day at Redcar Racecourse.
‘The Zetland Hunt Country straddles the Durham / North Yorkshire border and covers about 400 square miles. Bounded by the River Wear in the North, The River Swale to the South, and Darlington to the East; the Western boundary is not defined as the land rises to the grouse moors which are not hunted.

Peregrine Falcons at Malham

Posted by brian in Our Yorkshire | Yorkshire Sport and Pastimes | Yorkshire Trips and Places - (1 Comments)

new-picture-2

If you want an opportunity to see the peregrine falcons along with a variety of other characteristic upland birds then Malham Cove is the place to visit. These Falcons are one of the most impressive birds of prey and they are never more impressive than when they are rearing the young on the cove at Malham. Everything has been set up for professional and amateur watchers with a special viewing position and telescopes you can use. Other birds you might spot include little owls, green woodpeckers or redstarts.
‘Volunteers from both the RSPB and Yorkshire Dales National Park ( providers of the above image) will be present at Malham Cove every day from 10 April until 30 August to show visitors some of the exciting birds that can be found in the Yorkshire Dales’.

Malham Tarn and Woodland

Being 1250 feet above sealevel there is ample moorland and grazing sheep near Malham with Tarn Woods to the north of the Tarn. Three miles further north, Fountains Fell reaches an impressive 2200 feet. In addition to the Peregrine falcons other birds of prey include sparrowhawks, kestrels and merlin breeding locally with occasional winter visits from the hen harrier or common buzzard.

Around the Tarn are Common Coots, common pochards, tufted ducks and the usual mallards. This stretch of water attracts good numbers of water fowl in autumn and winter with August to October being the best time to visit for the number of species to be seen.

Little owls and tawny owls breed in the vicinity as do flycatchers and willow warblers and large flocks of twites can be seen on the approach roads. Approach from Settle or Arncliffe and park on the road, not the soft verges they need protection, and view from the south side of the Tarn with the sun behind you. There is so much to see and do around Malham it is worth staying for the local hospitality and a look at Gordale Scar and Janets Foss other local landmarks.

Filey Butlin’s Holiday Camp

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Our True Intent is all for Your Delight: The John Hinde Butlin’s Photographs

Billy Butlin built his third Butlins Holiday camp at Filey starting just before the war in 1939. A special deal was struck when Clacton, Skegness and Filey camps were requisitioned for the war effort. Filey’s new buildings were used as RAF Hunmanby Moor a base for over 6000 military personnel until 1945 when it officially (re-)opened as a holiday camp. Filey camp at Hunmanby Gap was Billy Butlin’s pride and joy and was also the biggest with 400 acres and accommodating 11,000 campers. It was said to be the “king” amongst holiday camps, the jewel in Butlin’s crown.

The camp had its own railway station appropriately called ‘Filey Holiday Camp’ built for holiday makers. Inside the camp there was a minature railway, a chair lift and a train to take campers to their chalets. It also boasted “the longest bar in the world” and an exact replica of the bar at Westminster called the Parliament Bar. Paul McCartney was one of the many to have stayed at Filey as part of a family holiday and may have made his first ever stage appearance in a talent contest.

In 1983 after Billy Butlin’s death the camp was put on the market and has never been the same since. In it’s hey-day it had been a major economic force employing 1500 people and boosting the local economy. There is little trace left now except the memories. There is an archive at Bridlington Library and Remember Butlins Filey web site

Zeppelin Early Warning Sound Mirrors

Posted by brian in Our Yorkshire | Yorkshire Folk | Yorkshire History and Heritage - (5 Comments)

new-picture

Between a messenger with a stick in Marathon or a Beacon on top of a hill but before Radar and electronic surveillance there was a humble invention the ‘Sound Mirror’. Development of Beacons moved from one fire for danger to three fires for fear of the Spanish Armada or John Paul Jones fighting off Flamborough Head in 1780. Beacons were our core early warning system around the coast. We even learnt to pour pitch on the fires so smoke could be visible during the day and light seen at night.

Come the Zeppelins in 1915 and these visual aids gave inadequate time to take effective action. Zeppelins started to bomb our steelworks at Skinnington in August 1915 because it was a key factory producing TNT. By the time the Zeppelins were visible the Royal Flying Corp did not have time to launch any defence so the ‘Sound Mirrors’ were created at Boulby Barns, Sunderland, Redcar, Kilnsea and many other sites to listen for the Zeppelin’s Maybach engines.

The ‘Sound Mirrors’ were a ‘U’ shaped, concrete structures comprising a thick wall with an inclined face and a shallow concave bowl shaped into its centre. They have been likened to a concrete goalmouth. On either side of the wall were projecting flanking walls to protect from noise interference and support the structure. The reflected sound was detected by a microphone placed in front of the dish and then transmitted to the headphones of the listener who sat in a trench at the front. They provided an alert not only to the Royal Flying Corps but to the local residents who could take cover as over 100 bombs were aimed at Skinningrove and Boulby. I for one would not want to be so near all that explosive.
In May 1916 an attack by eight Zeppelins with incendiaries still failed to destroy the works but probably roasted a few birds on the moors as loads were dropped on Danby Moor.

The photo is © Copyright (2009) City of Sunderland Council who add the following information on this Grade II listed National Monument ‘The monument includes an early 20th century military early warning device known as a sound mirror. It is located on a gently sloping hillside 2km inland from the coast on the block of land between the Tyne and Wear estuaries. The mirror was part of a chain of similar acoustic devices located on the north east coast extending from the Tyne to the Humber. They were erected to provide early warning of potential attacks on the important industrial complexes in the north east from ships and Zeppelins during World War 1′.
There is a specialist web site for Sound Mirrors maintained by Andrew Graham.

Footnote
If you want to know more about John Paul Jones and The Battle of Flamborough Head read his own log entry

Captain John Paul Jones joined the American Navy during the American War of Independence, attacking British ships at every opportunity.
The Battle of Flamborough Head took place on 23rd September 1779. Jones, captain of the Bon Homme Richard, set out to raid Leith, a port of Edinburgh, but the winds changed and he had no alternative but to proceed southward. His next attack point was to be Newcastle, to cut off the coal supply to London. Again he was unlucky and continued south to his main quarry near Flamborough Head, a convoy of merchantmen from the Baltic, escorted by HMS Countess of Scarborough and HMS Serapis…… read more at the Bridlington Free Press

Jowett the Yorkshire Car

Posted by brian in Our Yorkshire | Yorkshire Business and Money | Yorkshire History and Heritage - (0 Comments)

jowett

The two seater soft top Jowett Jupiter was developed from the success of the Javelin in 1950. The streamlined shape implied speed and was a well engineered car with stronger brakes and new features. It had a steel tube frame and a drop-head coupe body of aluminium. For three successive years Jowett won the Le Mans 24 Grand Prix race 1950-1952.

van

The Bradford Van shown here in the old colours of the local paper the Telegraph and Argus (T&A). It had an engine size of 1005 cc and was first registered in 1953.

The oldest car club in the world is dedicated to Jowett vehicles they also have a second web site. There aim is ‘To celebrate classic British cars made in Bradford from 1906 to 1954 namely- Jupiter, Javelin, Bradford, Jason, Black Prince, Curlew, Kestrel, Weasel, Flying Fox, Falcon, Long Four, Focus, Blackbird, Kingfisher, Black Prince, Wren, Grey Knight, Silverdale, Chummy, 7cwt Van, Short Two’. I like the idea of a car called a ‘Weasel’ and it reminds me of a pub with that name in Pudsey now a bomb site.

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Speak up for Yorkshire

Posted by brian in Our Yorkshire | Yorkshire History and Heritage - (1 Comments)

Idle & Wrose Reservoir

Wikipedia’s Yorkshire

Within the borders of this great historic county of Yorkshire are areas which are widely considered to be among the greenest in England, due to both the vast stretches of unspoiled countryside in two National Parks the Yorkshire Dales plus North York Moors. Yorkshire has sometimes been nicknamed God’s Own County hence the title of our web site.
The emblem of Yorkshire is the white rose of the English royal House of York hence our logo. The most commonly used flag representative of Yorkshire is the White Rose on a dark blue background, which after years of use, was fully recognised by the Flag Institute in 2008.

Yorkshire Language

As befits such a large county Yorkshire has its own language and dialect. Who would have linked the Old Norse words like ‘ars’ in Yorkshire ‘arse’ meaning posterior, bottom, back, behind, buttocks; back of a cart or wagon; back of something as in the “arse end of…” . Or try ‘Skita’ in old Norse leading to ‘skitters’ meaning diarrhoea . There are many more examples in Old English or Old Norse on Yorkshire Dialect. I am drawn to ’bait’ to feed, to offer food; a packed meal; contents of a lunchbox from ‘Beit’ middin, midden dung heap, rubbish tip, dustbin ‘myki-dyngja’ and ‘sackless’ ineffectual, simple-minded, lacking in energy or effort; also innocent of wrong intent ‘saklauss’ but happen I’m just laikin’ around.
This Yorkshire Dialect site also links to a wealth of poetry, prose and academic Yorkshire linguistics.

Yorkshire Dialect Society

The Yorkshire Dialect Society is 112 years old and owes its existance to Joseph Wright an amazing Yorkshireman. ‘Born in 1855 in Idle, he started work at the age of six, and on reaching his teens and while working in one of the many mills in the West Riding, he taught himself to read and write, set up his own night school at home to supplement his income, and went on to become a teacher, and eventually a professor at Oxford. On 10 November 1894, Professor Wright addressed a meeting about a mammoth project to prepare and publish an English Dialect Dictionary. The committee formed as a result of this meeting, which eventually collected some 350,000 Yorkshire words and phrases, was to be the nucleus of the Yorkshire Dialect Society’.

If it is verse you are after then try Yorkshire Dialect Org who extol you to get published in the following way:-

‘If tha knows nowt, say nowt an appen nob’dy ‘ll notice.
Bur if tha’s gor a bit er verse tha’d leek purrin’ up ere then wang it dahn t’email pipe reet nah.’

So if there is a poem in you ‘Speak up for Yorkshire’ reet nah.

Yorkshire Roots of NSPCC

Posted by brian in Our Yorkshire | Yorkshire Folk - (1 Comments)

nspcc

Benjamin Waugh of Settle is credited with forming the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in 1884. With Lord Shaftesbury as president they had 32 national branches or aid committees within 5 years. Each branch raised funds from donations, subscriptions and legacies to support an inspector, who investigated reports of child abuse and neglect.
Queen Victoria became the Royal Patron of the NSPCC in 1895 when it was granted its Royal Charter. It retained the name as NSPCC was already well established and it avoided confusion with the RSPCA which had already existed for more than fifty years. Did and Do we put animals or children first?

Benjamin Waugh was born, the son of a clergyman, in Settle, North Yorkshire and attended theological college in Bradford before moving to London. As a Congregationalist minister in the slums of London, Waugh was appalled at the deprivations and cruelties suffered particularly by workhouse children. In addition to being a founding secretary for the NSPCC he wrote a book ‘The Gaol Cradle, Who Rocks It?’ and subsequently urged the creation of juvenile courts and children’s prisons as a means of diverting children from a life of crime. Waugh worked to raise awareness lobbying government and publishing detailed reports of abuse and neglect. These Victorian values still seem to be required in today’s society see ‘Horrendous Child abuse uncovered in Doncaster’ or the Daily Mirror reported around Christmas 2008 ‘ The serious case review, which Doncaster council slipped quietly on to their website, is the latest scandal to rock social services departments after the death of Baby P. The report branded social services “chaotic and dangerous….’

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