You wouldn’t want to meet Joe Earnshaw on a dark night, but if you’d been prowling around the mill yard at Arkwright’s in Baring-Gould’s novel Through Flood and Flame, you’d find it hard to avoid him as he’s the resident night watchman.
Joe Earnshaw
Tag: Horbury
High Street
Horbury High Street drawn from Auckland Opticians this morning.
John Carr’s Birthplace
Spotted at the Øl hygge café bar, High Street, Horbury, this morning: to celebrate his 300th birthday last month, John Carr makes a brief visit to his birthplace, the cottage at the left-hand end of this Grade II-listed former farm house, which dates from 1637.
After his extended stint as architect in residence at the Redbox Gallery, Queen Street, the John Carr roadshow was moving on to its next venue . . . at the other end of Horbury, in the Carnegie Free Library.
Addingford in May
The Calder Valley at Addingford, down Addingford Steps from Horbury, is looking at its best now with hawthorn and cow parsley in flower.
I was intrigued by the old building in Fearnside’s Yard (now renamed Fearnside’s Close) off Horbury High Street. There’s no trace that it was ever half-timbered but it looks very old to me. Those rows of through-stones make me wonder if it was originally faced with stone too.
I got a chance to re-photograph the boy’s entrance to the Wesleyan Day School on School Lane, opposite Fearnside’s Yard on the south side the High Street. When I photographed it for William Baines’ centenary in November there was a skip in front of the window (previously the door for the boys’ entrance).
A new route for the footpath was recently excavated alongside the mineral railway. The embankment’s shale, sandstone and occasional lumps of coal, has been exposed. This kind of debris was once a common sight on colliery spoil heaps and there was always the chance that you might spot a fossil plant such as the bark of a giant clubmoss or horsetail, a reminder of the lush forests that grew here – when this part of the Earth’s crust was close to the equator – 300 million years ago.
Link
The Gaskell School, more about the Wesleyan Day School and William Baines
Ring o’ Bells
This house at the top end of Queen Street, Horbury, was once the ‘Ring o’ Bells’ public house, later Walker’s butchers shop.
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.
John Carr Logo
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
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.
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
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.
Library Logo
There are two vital skills that you need if you’re going to design a logo based on an architectural facade: organisation and analytical thinking. Despite my shortcomings in those departments, I have managed what I think will be a usable logo for the friends of the local library.
After struggling with Procreate I’ve constructed this, layer by layer, in the program that I’m most familiar with, Adobe Photoshop, with a bit of help from Adobe Illustrator for those carved panels and, my favourite detail, the curly ironwork on the newly restored weather vane.
Secret Garden
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.