Category: History

Emley Moor Transmitter, 1964

Emley Moor transmitter

I took this photograph in 1964 when the 443 ft Emley Moor television transmitter on the left was replaced by the 1,256 ft mast on the right. Five years later, in March 1969, this new mast collapsed because of strong winds and accumulated ice.

The original transmitter had been constructed in 1956 to broadcast the new commercial ITV channel. When the new mast came online it was dismantled and reconstructed at Craigkelly, Fife, to the north of Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth. It’s still in use today.

concrete block

Unfortunately one of my photograph of one of the anchors for the supporting cables is a double exposure but you might be able to make out the shape of a concrete block.

The double exposure is unfortunate but as a bonus you get a rare photograph of our bathroom windowsill in 1964. I might have accidentally pressed the shutter button as I prepared to remove the film from the camera. I developed my own films at the time – as you might guess from the uneven development of this shot – so I might have been using the airing cupboard in the bathroom as a makeshift darkroom when loading the film into the developing tank.

Sandal Motte, 1964

Sandal Castle, 1964

More of my 127 mm black and white negatives (colour added in Photoshop) and this is the climb up the motte at Sandal Castle in 1964.

This is looking back to the south-east across the bailey with the ruins of the Great Hall on the left and the Presence Chamber on the right, with the houses along Manygates Lane, Sandal, beyond.

Milnthorpe Woods lay in that direction along the ridge and it has been suggested that this was the weak point for the castle, the route the Lancastrian force from Pontefract Castle was likely to have taken when they attacked the castle in the Battle of Wakefield, on 30 December, 1460.

Link

Sandal Castle

booklet

Sandal Castle my illustrated guide

Paperback, 32 pages,
black and white, £2.95, post free in the UK.

Thornes Park

Also available in the same format, £2.99:

Thornes Park, where there was once an unlicensed castle, perhaps a bit of rival to Sandal.

Ring o’ Bells

Ring o Bells former public house

This house at the top end of Queen Street, Horbury, was once the ‘Ring o’ Bells’ public house, later Walker’s butchers shop.

Andrew Morrison
pilaster

Just across the road at St Peter’s Church as part of the John Carr 300th anniversary celebrations this weekend, we had a talk by Andrew Morrison, CEO, York Civic Trust, on ‘The Impact of John Carr of York’, although in view of where the celebrations were taking place, he went with ‘John Carr of Horbury’ (John Carr was born and brought up here) for his opening slides.

When Carr met Adam

display panel

There’s not a lot of room for any backstory in my phone box gallery display to mark the tricentenary of John Carr but ‘Antique Architect’ Robert Adam, who he worked with at Harewood, was a big influence so he gets to make a walk on – well swagger on, this is Robert Adam! – appearance in the Redbox show.

Redbox Gallery display

John Carr Logo

John Carr display

The wreath has turned out folksy rather than streetwise Hamilton-style energetic but it reads clearly so it will do the job. The ‘300th birthday’ wouldn’t fit in, so that’s going on the plinth below the John Carr cut-out.

Laurel Wreath

John Carr show mock-up

I was going to use a design based on the south door of Horbury St Peter’s Church as a frame for my ‘John Carr, 300th anniversary’ logo for the Redbox Gallery display but, as an architectural feature, it would have competed with my model of the spire, so I’m going for a laurel wreath instead.

Towards the end of his life John Carr, who rose to be Mayor of York, was depicted in two busts as a latter-day Roman senator, so the laurel wreath is appropriate.

With his sense of humour, John Carr would probably have chosen to have a putti – a cheeky little angel – floating above him, like the one that beams down from the plasterwork by the chancel arch in his church.

cardboard leaves

Rather than design the logo on my iPad, which would have enabled me to take advantage of all its graphic features, I’m sticking with the recycled theme and making the wreath from cardboard.

John Carr Model

model church

More progress with my St Peter’s spire model the the John Carr display. I’ve done it all by eye but as I added frieze, balustrade and pilasters to the belfry I realised that even adding a slither of card to my model would change the proportions. I’ve been working from a photograph and one of my drawings made close to the church so the spire isn’t as tall and soaring as it appears when seen from a distance across the valley.

Spire

spire model

My first day – my first ever day – with a very faint positive test for Covid-19 and I’m taking the chance of being grounded to catch up with my cardboard model of St Peter’s Church, Horbury, spire for my John Carr tricentenary exhibit in the Redbox Gallery.

Barbara’s brother John unfortunately caught covid at the hospice but, as of this morning when we made a video call to him, he wasn’t showing any covid symptoms.