Tag: Horbury

Trouble at t’Mill

angry Victorian
Victorian fist fight

The rebuilding of Coxley Mill in 1886 wasn’t without its problems. Contractor Edward Mercer and clerk of works Alfred Tate came to blows over the quality of mortar used and it seems that Tate threatened to ‘stop the engine’ – the mill had a steam-powered beam engine – which presumably would have brought work at the mill to a standstill.

Mr Tate ended up with head injuries including two black eyes and lost a tooth.

Assault at Coxley Mill, 8 October 1886, British Newspaper Archive, ©THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD

The Building News

Goings on at Horbury Junction

The online British Newspaper Archive, available through Find my Past, has just added The Building News to its collection. It reported Victorian progress in Horbury, such as road widening, commissioning pipework and building chapels but in 1855 it seems that an ‘incendiary’ – an arsonist – struck at Horbury Junction Station.

1 May 1855, The Building News, British Newspaper Archive, ©THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD

Better news from the Junction came 32 years later when work was started on a new Wesleyan chapel, right next to the station opposite St Mary’s Church on the other side of the bridge across the railway.

Junction chape; article
29 July 1887, The Building News, British Newspaper Archive, ©THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD

Pen and Ink

Sketches from Newmillerdam, Harrogate and Queen Street, Horbury, in my pocket-sized A6 landscape Seawhite Travel Journal. Lamy and TWSBI EcoT pens, De Atramentis ink (a mix of brown and black as both were running out).

High Street, Horbury

Chimney

Chimney of Victoria Hair Salon, High Street, Horbury. They still have the brick fireplace with a stone lintel on the ground floor. Drawn over a latte and a toasted panettonne with honey at the Caffe Capri.

Puggle

puggle
puggle

Teddy is a puggle – a cross between a pug and a beagle – which, according to his minder (his owners are away on holiday), means that he always looks slightly bad tempered. On the contrary, he keeps his cool when a passing border collie challenges him with a barrage of barking, looking the over excited passer by as he was thinking just what is the matter with you.

Teddy the puggle
Former council buildings, Horbury
Former stables behind Horbury Library.

William Baines Centenary Recital

Robin Walker tells me that we’ve now got a date for a recital to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Yorkshire composer William Baines. After the recital I’ll be leading a walk to some of the Bainesian corners of Horbury.

Thanks to Horbury Civic Society and Horbury Methodist Church for their support.

Four Lane Ends

Lee and Briggs lino cut

Once known as Four Lane Ends, this is the view as it was in 1967 from Tithe Barn Street looking across Westfield Road to Jenkin Road, with Arnold Tattersfield’s newsagents on the left, Lee & Briggs ironmongers on the right. The fourth ‘lane’ on the near right is Manor Road.

I drew the little sketch that it’s based on while sitting at the Tithe Barn Street back entrance to the old Congregational Chapel (extreme left) while working as a teller when my dad was standing for Horbury Urban District Council. I had to politely ask every voter as they walked in for their number on the electoral roll. Towards the end of the day the local ‘independents’ (really Conservatives) would go around rounding up anyone who had promised to support them but hadn’t yet turned up.

The original of linocut was black on white but I like this reversed version, made by going for the wrong keyboard shortcut in Photoshop (Control+I instead of Control+Alt+I. After all these years I still get that wrong when I’m resizing an image). I’m currently re-scanning drawings of Horbury for a reprint of my local guide to the historic buildings of the town.

I was influenced by Daily Mail cartoonist Trog’s bold pen and ink drawings in the paper’s long-running cartoon strip Flook.

The Vigil

British Newspaper Archive

John Haller (1909-1983) once told me that humorist Patrick Campbell (1913-1980) had produced a play The Vigil for our local drama group, the Horbury Pageant Players.

Patrick Campbell is probably best remembered today as Frank Muir’s opponent on BBC’s Call my Bluff but he was also well known as a journalist and drama producer.

In October 1955 John Haller succeeded Campbell, former head of B.B.C. northern drama programmes, as Chairman of the West Riding branch of the British Drama League, when Campbell accepted a post with the I.T.A., the Independent Television Authority, which had been created in the previous year.

The Vigil is a courtroom drama by Ladislas Fodor in which the gardener from the Garden of Gethsemane is accused by the Romans of stealing the body of Jesus.

It seems that the Pageants were disappointed that they hadn’t had more support from Horbury’s churches and chapels.

The Lone Wreck

The Lone Wreck

I am working for my Pianoforte recital at Horbury (Nr. Wakefield) which is on the 16th of this month — how I look forward to these occasions. Oh! music — what a delight you are to me — it is one thread between man — & spirit.

For “bread money” — I play as “relief pianist” at the Electric Theatre (Picture House) (York) — hours 4.30 to 7 o’clock.

It does not take up too much of my time — what a blessing! !”

William Baines, 1899-1922, in his diary for Wednesday, 2 January, 1918
Baines

Baines biographer Roger Carpenter thought that William Baines’ 16 January 1918 recital would have been only the second public recital that the 18-year old composer gave. I’ve met people who remembered William playing at the Primitive Methodists’ Ebenezer Hall, so probably that was the venue.

Goodnight to Flamboro'

Tomorrow lunchtime at a recital in Ripon Cathedral Robin Walker performs William’s Tides, two sea pieces for piano, The Lone Wreck and Goodnight to Flamboro’ in a program that also includes performances of William’s Five Songs.

birds in flight sketch

Fifty years ago, for my ‘major project’ at Leeds School of Art I was organising a Baines exhibition and a biographical leaflet. Looking back through my file today I like the inky roughs that I produced on layout paper. Unfortunately the finished publication was in two colours only, so I didn’t take those any further.

Flamborough cliffs
My drawing, from an old postcard, of the cliffs at Flamborough, for Roger Carpenter’s 1977 biography of Baines, Goodnight to Flamboro’.
The sea stack known as Adam, since eroded away, at Flamborough. Drawn from an old postcard for Goodnight to Flamboro’.

High Street

Auckland’s the opticians on Horbury High Street this morning, shoes and a section of Blue John, a purple-banded fluorite mineral from an inlaid table top at the Rose Cottage Tea Rooms, Castleton, on Sunday. Blue John was, and still is, mined just a mile further up the Hope Valley, from the caverns around Mam Tor.

Corinthian Capitals

Corinthian capital

John Carr’s Corinthian columns give Horbury’s parish church of St Peter & St Leonard’s an air of grandeur, in contrast to the old parish church, demolished in 1791, which, in his talk today, Keith Lister suggests may originally have been a timber building, like some surviving thousand-year old Scandinavian churches.

Father Christopher and Keith Lister

Keith’s talk as part of Horbury Heritage Weekend is ‘Horbury in the time of Baring-Gould, 1864-7’.