Villages And Towns | Yorkshire

January 11, 2010

Hebden Bridge a Weekend or 500 Years

Filed under: Our Yorkshire, Villages and Towns — Tags: canals, trips — brian @ 2:53 pm

Happy 500th Birthday to Hebden Bridge.

The packhorse bridge over Hebden Water originated in 1510 and if you needed an excuse to visit this quirkly town in Calderdale the year long birthday celebrations may be what you were waiting for.

When the Industrial Revolution descended on Hebden Bridge the hill sides were too steep for the area to loose its identity. The domestic activity of cloth manufacture and early ready made clothing thrived. This can still be seen in a row of houses called Machpelah, named after the Baptist minister, with special small windows for fustian cutting.
Fustian is a thick, twilled, short napped, cotton cloth used mainly for men’s wear. The active historical society at Hebden Bridge has an interesting article about a Fustian factory strike at the turn of the 20th century.

Weekend Visit

There is a lot to see in the town but do not miss a trip up Hardcastle Crags a National Trust Property which they claim is a ‘Beautiful wooded valley with 19th-century Gibson Mill at its heart, an exemplar of sustainable energy’.

Heptonstall is linked to Hebden Bridge by the Buttress, a narrow pack-horse track paved with setts and as precipitous as any East cost village like Staithes, Robin Hood’s or Runswick Bays.

Midgehole is the start of several enjoyable walks and with a name like that who can resist.

In an evening there are many pubs including the White Lion dating from 1657 or the more modern art deco 1920’s Picture House.

Take a walk or evening stroll along the canal or alongside the river Calder.

When you are tired of walking there are mountain bike trails and some great hill climbs for the avid cyclist. perhaps your bbike was bought or hired from this cycle shop.

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November 16, 2009

Otley Museum and Industrial Heritage

Filed under: Our Yorkshire, Villages and Towns, Yorkshire History and Heritage — brian @ 10:15 am

Otley museum is a Yorkshire treasure that charts the industry and life of folk in Otley though the exhibits and informative volunteers. There are currently good research facilities where you can access the principal Museum Archive or the Urban Development Archive and conduct family or historical research. Current exhibits include details of locally discovered Neolithic bodies 5,000 years old that are thought to have suffered from Spina Bifida type health problems through new Rag Rugs from local children to Victorian coat hangers from gents outfitters and photographs of old farming families.

Local industries provided many of the commercial exhibits with a lot of detail from the heart of the printing machinery industry and the birth of the Wharfedale Printing machine. Notwithstanding the industrial connection the heart of the collection is an accumulation of all things that have gone to make up the life of a great market town in the West Riding.

Currently the museum is open Monday, Tuesday and Friday 10.00-12.30 and staffed exclusively by volunteers. Visit the Museum soon as the Mechanics Institute or Civic Hall where it is located is due for refurbishment. All the exhibits will have to be put into storage and it not certain that the self-funding charity will be able to afford the rent due to the council when the premises are reopened. Local communities need connections to the past and the museum deserves to be given every chance to entertain and educate future generations. Otley also needs all the attractions it can muster to encourage day trippers and visitors to the market and the surrounding countryside.

One special collection is of ‘Concealed Shoes’ which are individuals shoes discovered in old buildings. Since the 13th century buildings have had shoes concealed in the fabric, in walls, chinneys, roofs or under floorboards. Probably placed there to ward of witches and evil spirits they were meant to bring good luck or avoid bad luck. if you find such a shoe it is worth reporting to the museum for deatiled record keeping but leave it in place in case evil spirits do exist.

Biblography on Concealed Shoes.
Otley Museum concealed Shoes found around Otley Research File by appointment.
Edwardd J C Swaysland Boot & Shoe Design & Manufacture 1905 Museaum copy
Swann, J.M. web story and , ‘Shoes Concealed in Buildings’, Northampton Museum Journal 6 (December 1969) pp.8-21.
Ralph Merrifield, ‘Folklore in London Archaeology’, The London Archaeologist (Winter 1969) vol.1, no.5.
Ralph Merrifield, The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic (London, Batsford, 1987).
Denise Dixon-Smith, ‘Concealed Shoes’, Archaeological Leather Group Newsletter no.6 (Spring 1990).
Olaf Goubitz, ‘Verborgen Schoeisel’ in Westerheem VIII no.5 (1989) pp.233-39.
Margaret Baker, The Realms of Gold (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1975; Penguin 1977) p.357.
J.L. Nevinson, Letter to The Times 5 February 1934, asking for reasons for concealments.
Col. Pen Lloyd, The History of the Mysterious Papillon Hall (Leicester 1977).

The Architecture of Otley is featured in the Otley Museum but there are many places for visitors to discover. The above photograph is a detail from the memorial to the Navvies who built and died during the construction of the Bramhope Railway Tunnel.

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October 31, 2009

Parking In Haworth

Filed under: Our Yorkshire, Villages and Towns, Yorkshire Trips and Places — Tags: bronte, brontes, daytrip, tea, walking — brian @ 11:39 am

My simple advice would be don’t do it, parking in Haworth that is, unless you are prepared for the clampers. I had heard many apocryphal tales about the private car park at the top of main street in Haworth where they obsessively look for cars not parked straight or ones that over stay be one minute. Even Christa Ackroyd has commented on the parsimonious way the owner treats visitors to Haworth.
Having just ‘parked myself for a cuppa and butty’ in the excellent Apothecary Tea Rooms I saw the sign warning tea drinkers to drink up and check their car or risk a £75 clamp or worse. Knowing I had parked at the bottom of the Cobbles in a council car park I was less worried except I had been unable to pay in either of the broken and vandalised parking machine. The signs told me numerous time to pay on entry but I would look like these former parkers if I had waited to get a ticket.

It was Halloween weekend and the whole of Haworth had made an effort to join in the spirit with spirit. Eight foot dragons roamed the cobbled street and the wicca influence was wicked. The town is ideal for this sort of festivity and a walk around the church grave yard crammed with Gothic grave stones was spooky.

That Betty Boo is really frightening

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October 27, 2009

Stocksbridge Steeltown and Hillclimb Venue

Filed under: Our Yorkshire, Villages and Towns, Yorkshire Arts & Music, Yorkshire Sport and Pastimes — brian @ 4:48 am

Stocksbridge is a sporting community 12 miles north of Sheffield that last weekend hosted the British National Cycling Hill Climb Championship. The ride up Pea Royd Lane tested all the entrants who were too shattered at the top to take in the splending valley views. The winners received awards from Town and City mayors at The Venue.

It is great walking country and the local town council offer free printable maps on this site.
The workers for Sammy Fox who opened the first Steelworks in the town in 1842 would have had little time to appreciate the hills around. As Steel manufacturing grew to dominate jobs in the town workers traveled miles by bus,foot and rail to work in the plants. During world War ll the town was subject to bombing raids yet continued to produce the quality steel the country needed. More on Sam Fox
Now all I can find is a is Chorus for Corus written by Tom Russel -listen below

Other things are happening for the community such as the new development of 443 houses to be built at Station road Deepcar and planning approval has been given for a development of the Outo Kumpo site.
The Switch On of the Christmas Illuminations will take place on Friday, 4th December 2009 at the shopping precinct at 7.00 p.m where Deepcar Brass Band will be playing Christmas carols from 6.30 p.m.
Stocksbridge Park Steels Football Club, Tennis, Golf, Rugby, even photography clubs all seem to thrive. Stocksbridge Brass Band are still entering competitions 110 years after first forming.

For a video of the hill climb see Cycling Info

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October 12, 2009

Night Out in Halifax

Filed under: Villages and Towns, Yorkshire Arts & Music — brian @ 6:38 am

The Victoria Theater in Halifax usually has some event or show that suits me or the family but not always both. Still a good night out can be arranged irrespective of the programme if it is combined with a meal and drink. The bus is the way to get into town but a taxi or sober chauffeur is needed to get home.
In 1956 Joe Brown formed The Spacemen skiffle group and was on TV over 50 years ago but he will be performing at the Victoria on 16th October 2009. The next evening there will be Paul Jones (the former singer with Manfred Mann) and other members of The Blues Band Dave Kelly Tom McGuiness, Rob Townsend and Gary Fletcher will be on stage from 7.30pm. According to the Theater ‘you will not leave with the blues!’

The following four Saturdays have the Festival of Dance XIII, then the ‘chuckle therapy’ of Barry Cryer, the stage version of Skellig ‘ sophisticated theater with real emotional pull and Oliver by the Halifax Light Opera Society. To save space here why not get on the mailing list for future information or buy tickets by calling 01422 351156.
The Unthanks are at the Parish Church on 24th with a new line up to support the Geordie Folk Rachel & Becky Unthank.
Halifax has a rich and diverse choice of entertainment and a pre-evening Pizza at a local ‘Italian’ makes for a good evening.

If you are still ‘up for it’ after your trip to the theater try some Liquid refreshment and a bit of lively clubbing. ‘Liquid presents an unrivaled clubbing experience with state of the art sound & lighting systems’. Mind you if like me you remember Joe Brown and Paul Jones in their hey days you will probably not be up for a 3.00 am stint at the club.

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October 7, 2009

Drink Ingleton Dry

Filed under: Our Yorkshire, Villages and Towns, Yorkshire Arts & Music — brian @ 1:35 pm

Ingleton is a lively place to visit for a weekend or short holiday. We chose the folk festival time when the fields were full of campers and the streets full of crows. There are some very good pubs in the heart of the village, plus the Marton Arms at Thornton in Lonsdale or the Old Hill Inn a couple of miles out on the road towards Ribblehead. From what I remember consuming they all serve good home cooked food and a sparkling selection of beers. All the pubs and a couple of clubs were full to overflowing when the singing started and harmonising is thirsty work.

The view from our guest house bedroom window on Main Street showed the most recognisable of the Three Peaks – Ingleborough. The back garden was at the confluence of the two fast flowing rivers the Twiss and the Doe where they become the river Greta. The rivers had already been inspected at closer quarters as we took the Waterfall Trail through Peca and Swilla Glens to Thornton Force and back via Beezley Falls and the aptly named Snow Falls.

Ingleton has a summer walking weekend at the end of May each year but every weekend should be a walking or caving weekend.
2009’s highlight event was probably Operation Home Guard a 1940’s memorial event with performances from the Ovaltiney’s, Gracie lands, a George Formby impersonator, Dancing with the Starlight swing Orchestra and 40’s disco. They take over the town centre, the street is closed to traffic, and is full of military personnel, civilians, cars, trucks and jeeps, from the war time period. Sunday military parade on 5th July 2009 with the NWW11 association 51st Highland division Black watch pipes and drums. Afternoon tea dance, military road run, military vehicles and classic cars, re-enactors, remote controlled battle tanks, trade stalls and spirited fun.

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September 22, 2009

Marie Hartley’s Gayle

Filed under: Our Yorkshire, Villages and Towns, Yorkshire Folk — brian @ 11:30 am

Gayle 2

Gayle and Duerley Beck by Marie Hartley

Marie Hartley MBE would have been 104 this week had she not died in Askrigg at the age of 100. Fortunately there is a significant legacy of 33 books chronicling the Dales, numerous paintings and wood cuts and The Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes. Marie, born in Morley, went to the Leeds College of Art and the Slade School London where she specialised in wood engraving. She worked with two other redoubtable women Ella Pontefract and then Joan Ingilby.

With fellow Dales affectionado Ella Pontefract they published ‘Wensleydale’ in 1936 and many of the insights remain true today. For example they noted that may villages were built like little clumps up both sides of the valleys but ‘often two of them come together like sisters, as Hawes and Gayle, Bainbridge and Askrigg, Redmire and Castle Bolton.’ In 1936 not unlike now milk and cheese were the most important products of the local farms. Via the Milk Train, over 2 million gallons of milk a year were sent to London as part of the Milk marketing board’s sales campaign, using the Wensleydale Railway.

‘The Old Hand-knitters of the Dales’ was a 1951 book with Joan Ingilby that chronicled the development of knitting throughout the dales. Sold at Richmond Market, stockings and knitware were made in the homes of Gayle long after it declined in other parts of Yorkshire. Knitting started in the mid 16th century and it continued to be a successful activity, employing 400 knitters in Hawes homes, until the advent of machinery towards the end of the 19th century.

Gayle Mill started life in 1784 as a cotton-spinning mill, powered by a 22′ diameter overshot waterwheel, and over the next century, as economic conditions in the Dales changed, was also used for spinning flax and then wool for the local knitting cottage industry in the valley. Marie would be pleased to see the story continue into the 21st century as the latest sustainable technologies enable Gayle Mill to be create all its own carbon-neutral energy for heating and power from it’s reopened water powered generation system. Visit Gayle Mill and see how it has benefited from the BBC restoration programme.

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September 19, 2009

Todmorden Edge of the World

Filed under: Our Yorkshire, Villages and Towns — brian @ 3:36 am

Todmorden is a bustling town on the edge or more correctly the border with that other county. Situated at the meeting point of three steep valleys, Todmorden is an ideal base for walking, mountain biking, bird watching and horse riding. I visited the local tourist information office after leaving the railway station and left with all the information and route maps I could cope with.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day is celebrated on 19th September 2009 in aid of Marie Currie Cancer Care. Look out around Todmorden for swashbuckling parrots, plank-walkers and pirates all after your pieces of eight in a good cause. According to Todmorden List of what’s on ‘If you just want a quick fix, a surface gloss, a “pirate patina,” if you will, here are the five basic words that you cannot live without. Master them, and you can face Talk Like a Pirate Day with a smile on your face and a parrot on your shoulder, if that’s your thing.
• Ahoy! – “Hello!”
• Avast! – Stop and give attention. It can be used in a sense of surprise, “Whoa! Get a load of that!” which today makes it more of a “Check it out” or “No way!” or “Get off!”
• Aye! – “Why yes, I agree most heartily with everything you just said or did.”
• Aye aye! – “I’ll get right on that sir, as soon as my break is over.”
• Arrr! – This one is often confused with arrrgh, which is of course the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin. “Arrr!” can mean, variously, “yes,” “I agree,” “I’m happy,” “I’m enjoying this beer,” “My team is going to win it all,” “I saw that television show, it sucked!” and “That was a clever remark you or I just made.” And those are just a few of the myriad possibilities of Arrr!’

I will be shivering my timbers with a pint or two of local grog and will probably end up with patches over both eyes. Meanwhile the young ‘Pirates of The Calder’ will be canoeing along the canal towards Hebden Bridge.
Update – Otley Folk Festival featured the Duncan McFarlane Band and they sang a couple of pirate songs with the Skull and Crossbones waving and the audience singing Yohoho or similar as a chorus.

1875 Mill Explosion.
A well researched and presented story of a boiler explosion at Lord Brothers Mill Canal Street can be found on Ancestry community site for ‘Todmorden and Walsden’ presented by Dorothy Hargreaves and Linda Briggs. The Halifax Guardian newspaper headlined in January 1875 ‘Dreadful Boiler Explosion at Todmorden’. ‘Six Persons Killed and Many Seriously Injured – Great Destruction of Property’. What I learned from the various reports was the prevailing conditions of small pox and other health problems in a town only a little over 100 years ago. Despite our gripes about the Health and Safety industry and our current NHS I know what era I would prefer to be living in.

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September 11, 2009

Passing By Burneston

Filed under: Villages and Towns — brian @ 12:48 am

How often have you driven through a village without pausing to look at what is happening or consider its history? I was tempted to stop at the church in Burneston by the archway over the gate. I am glad I did stop and look around this village of about 250 people which serves a wider area in many different ways.
The Woodman Inn at Burneston dates back to the late 1600’s and is a traditional country inn with cask beers and excellent food which is locally sourced. Every Wednesday night Burneston Folk Club meet here at 8.30pm. It’s a lively club with a mix of traditional, acoustic and contemporary music. Everyone is welcome, whether it is to play, sing or just listen. they do not book guests, charge an entrance fee or hold a raffle they just enjoy the music.

The church of ST. Lambert consists of a chancel with a north vestry and a square west tower. The nave probably contains the stones of the 13th century or earlier but much of the internal masonry is of early 14th-15th century. In 1086 Burneston belonged to Count Alan. At the Dissolution in 1591 Queen Elizabeth granted this manor to Sir Richard Theakston. Theakston village is less than one mile away (although the family breweries are in Masham 5 miles or so distant).

To the north-west of the church are the Robinson Almshouses, founded in 1680 by Matthew Robinson, vicar of Burneston. They form a picturesque block two stories in height, and are built of red brick. The windows are stone mullioned and of two lights

The last Yorkshireman to win the men’s singles at Wimbledon may have been John Hartley from Burneston, near Bedale in 1879. Did he live here?

Sources

History and far more detail at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=64767

A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 1 Author William Page

Parish Church home page http://kirklington.2day.ws/

Burneston Folk Club http://www.myspace.com/burnestonfolkclub

The Northern Echo library.

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August 13, 2009

Pickering Day Out with Murals

Filed under: Villages and Towns, Yorkshire Trips and Places — brian @ 4:59 am

Pickering takes its name from ‘the settlement of Picer and his people’ or Piceringas. Arriving in Pickering by the old North Yorkshire Steam train or by road, you will see the church spire of St Peter and St Paul atop a small hill in the town centre. (There is reasonable parking by Pickering Beck.)

Famous Church Murals
The main body of the church is hidden by a cluster of cottages, shops and the Liberal club below. You can access the church grounds by one of three flights of stone steps that cut through the surrounding buildings. The 15th century wall paintings, some of ‘the most extensive and valuable examples not only in Yorkshire but England’, were hidden by limewash and over the centuries forgotten. In 1852, when work on the interior revealed these treasures many visitors came, only for the murals to be rewhite washed by Vicar Ponsonby three days later and so it remained until 1937. Entering the church from the south door the huge figure of St Christopher is the mural you see on the north wall a favourite position for this painting. It is thought that to look at St Christopher gave protection for the day from sudden death (fast drivers may not benefit). There are many other murals including St George, St John the Baptist, St Catherine of Alexandria and the Decent in to Hades. These murals were originally intended for education as well as devotion and may have been based on wood-cuts from travelling artists.

If you are interested in murals there are other fine examples at St Agatha’s, Easby near Easby Abbey close to Richmond.

Pickering Castle like so many other castles is now a ruin. In the 16th century large quantites of stone were taken to improve Sir Richard Cholmeley’s own home (the duck house of that political era). The earthworks are a good example of early Norman with a large motte and around this are two baileys. King Henry II began the process of rebuilding the former wooden castle in stone, with a wall around the inner bailey in 1180.

For retail therapy the main street has a fair complement of local shops, pubs, charity shops and clubs. There is a quirky secondhand book shop with an even quirkier owner opposite the railway station. Pickering is a good base for visiting the North Yorkshire Moors and the Hambledon Hills.

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