Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
It’s a bit of a challenge fitting the life and works of Yorkshire architect John Carr into a phone box but I’ve got all the elements here:
To speed up constructing the models from cardboard cartons, I’ve invested in a glue gun. For think corrugated cardboard like this I find a stout pair of scissors more useful than a sharp craft knife.
Rather than go for regular architectural drawings I’ve used the exercise of drawing without lifting the pen from the paper for this facade of Harewood’s Grand Lodge for next month’s John Carr anniversary show in Horbury’s Redbox Gallery.
The split complementary colour scheme comes from my experiments with Procreate.
I’m going to experiment with 3D versions, building up the facade in card.
We’re going on a bear hunt . . .
On a moonlit night on Thursday 7th November 1867, sixty villagers from Newmillerdam joined a hue and cry to track down a bear that had gone missing from its den after a small travelling menagerie, which had set up on the banks of the lake, closed down for the day.
Tracking it with the aid of a naphtha lamp, the hunters gave chase as the bear made its way across the road and reached the mill race. It backtracked across the road and followed the muddy shore of the lake which was low at the time.
It appeared to consider plunging in but surprised its hunters by changing its mind and suddenly turning back towards them. In the rush to escape it most of the hunting party ended up falling into the mud and, according to the report in the Leeds Mercury, ‘got well soused’.
Back across the road again the bear found the archway leading to the waterfall at the outlet from the lake and again turned the tables on its pursuers by suddenly turning back towards them.
It was almost cornered in a pear tree in the garden of a Mr Woodhouse but made its way out across open country.
Finally, back in Mr Woodhouse’s garden his pursuers got the chance to ‘push him down and catch him in a tub’ and return him to his den.
I wanted to share my colourised Victorian photographs with my cousins in Sheffield so I’ve put together a ‘story-so-far’ booklet based on my recent blog posts.
Reading through the text again I’ve spotted one misnamed character, so it’s been worth doing it from that point of view but also seeing it in print helps me in considering the story that I’m hoping to tell.
In booklet form information isn’t just floating about in blog posts or stuffed into files, envelopes and albums distributed around my studio and the attic.
The Target House at Brodsworth Hall, built 1866 and originally thatched.
My grandad Robert Bell’s family: the Bells of Blaco Hill, Mattersey. That’s grandad, back row on the right.
According to my diary (above) Grandma gave me the photograph 50 years ago today when we called at Sutton-cum-Lound on Christmas Day 1972. My dad’s elder brother, Uncle Fred, was also there.
Grandad and Grandma had such large families that my father claimed that he could never sort out who all his aunties and uncles were. Somewhere I’ve got a key to the photograph but until I put my hands on it I’m as clueless as my dad was.
At least I know that this is my great grandfather, John Bell, born 1842, an agricultural labourer, later working as a groom at Blaco Hill.
And this is great grandma Helena Bell, born in 1845.
Look forward to finding out more about the Bells and my grandma’s family the Bagshaws as I’ve been so involved with the other side of the family, the Swifts and the Trueloves of Sheffield.
Blaco Hill Cottages – looks like the perfect location for a Bell Family reunion!
I’m currently catching up with a free FutureLearn course Genealogy: Researching Your Family Tree from the University of Strathclyde and thought that this oak in the Capability Brown parkland (drastically remodelled by the National Coal Board Opencast Executive in 1975!) at Temple Newsam this morning was perfect for a basic family tree.
On the course we’ve been warned about the dangers of getting sidetracked – in my case that would be my Truelove great uncles – especially one particular Great Uncle Joe who had a rather colourful life. Coming back to this basic tree with aunties and uncles excluded makes me realise where I need to put in a bit more research into the basic structure. I’ve probably got most of those missing great grandparents covered in my folders of research but this is all that I remember without riffling through the various census forms and birth, baptism, marriage and death certificates that I’ve accumulated.
But I do look forward to getting back to my ‘bad’ Great Uncle Joe and the wife, Mary Tinker who attempted to murder him . . .
Pickering, a great town for a celebration . . . particularly a rather special one.
Happy birthday to Paul (last weekend).
This afternoon on the Baines centenary walk, from his birthplace in a terraced house on Shepstye Road to his grave in Horbury Cemetery, we called at the Stan Barstow Memorial Garden on Queen Street. Just over the wire fence at the far end there’s this little patch of overgrown garden, behind Mr Pimm’s dress shop at number 17.
Gordon Pullin, who had performed William’s songs at the recital, read a letter that William had written to his pianist friend Frederick Dawson from this garden.
17 Queen Street,
Horbury,
Nr. Wakefield.
8.8.21
Dear Mr. Dawson,
I like writing this in a gently swinging hammock – underneath a fruit burdened apple tree – a lurid hot blue sky above.
I almost wish that it was apple blossom time . . . . I would love this tree that I am under to shed its snow on me. but, I must be careful not to get a wallop from a frisky apple on my head . . . . the trees are loaded.
I am delightfully lazy! I can smell the ripening raspberries . . . . and the delicate scent in the shade is wonderful . . . .
I might add that a hammock is certainly no the most comfortable place to write in. There is a certain amount of adventure about it . . . . . I might roll over the side before I have finished . . . If I make a blot you will know what has happened.
There is a stolid Yorkshire fly . . . . that will persist in alighting on my nose. ’Tis a bother!
You will notice by the address given on the other side . . . . that I am at my birthplace.
I am staying with an aunt just on the fringe of the village – and everything is quite primitive. No gas – and only well water . . . I almost feel like growing a beard here!! I am the returned native . . . .
As a boy I used to think that the tower of Horbury Church must almost touch the sky. There it stood with its huge finger pointing upwards . . . .
On Shrove Tues:- pancake day as we called it . . . . we were told that at 12 o’clock pancakes were thrown over the steeple. I never saw it happen . . . . . but I thought what a wonderful thing it was to be able to perform such a feat.
But I am wandering from what I intend writing about. Augers have returned my pieces – they inform me that they must wait and see the results of my “4 Poems” . . . . .
These publishers put years on to me.
I have sent them to Elkins – he wants to know my terms? (I have also written to Elikins to see if there is “anything in” its £75 a year royalty story) – If not – what would you say. A royalty on every copy or sell them outright? I must have them out.
Re. “Glancing Sunshine” – my friend Wood has written a verse on it:-
Lying in an emerald glade
Lying in the scented shade –
(Lying, dreaming, as one must)
Glancing through the Fairy Dust –
Seeing a rill floating down,
Dancing in his airy gown:
Singing silver music there
Through the dreamy, dusty air.
Do you like it?
Or does this appeal to you more:-
“In the glancing beams that streamed through the trees the dust danced and was golden”.
This is a piece of Oscar Wilde-Baines.
Last Friday afternoon I journeyed to Harrogate, to see Dan Godfrey . . . . In the train I read a most entertaining book “Set down in Malice” by Gerald Cumberland. I was particularly entertained with one chapter called “Music in Berlin” -!
I can hear someone calling me to tea . . . . tea in this boiling sun! I must away – and get off my perch.
Yours,
P.S. Shall be here until the middle of next week.
The old Gaskell School next to the gates of Carr Lodge Park, Horbury, was standing empty when William Baines made this drawing. I’m guessing that he’d be 8 or 9 years old, so this would have been 1907 or 1908.
The dedication stone is now built into the wall on New Street.
The initials of Daniel and Mary Gaskell are embedded in the apex of a double garage. Daniel was a Liberal MP for Wakefield, first elected in 1832.
William was a pupil at the Wesleyan Day School on School Lane, off Horbury High Street.
The boys’ and girls’ entrances have been blocked up and converted into windows, but you can still see the old stone step on the girls’ side, worn by years of use.
