Tag: Primitive Methodist

Primitive Methodist Sunday School, Horbury, 1906

Sunday School
Tower of the Ebenezer Hall (Horbury Methodist Church Hall) Primitive Methodist Sunday School, 2022

We’re hoping for a good turn out for the William Baines Centenary concert on Sunday at the Methodist Church Hall in Horbury, but we probably won’t have the numbers who attended the stone-laying ceremony on Saturday, 23rd June, 1906, which included a procession starting from the Primitive Methodist Chapel at 2.30 p.m., tea at 4.30 p.m. (capitalised as ‘TEA’ in the advertisement in the Leeds Mercury, indicating this was one of the main attractions), followed by a ‘Great PUBLIC MEETING’ in the Chapel.

Who was there? Mr Jonas Eastwood laid a stone on behalf of the Sunday School.

We’re lucky to still have the building and that it has been so successfully restored recently in connection with the rebuilding of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. The Primitive Methodist Chapel is long gone, but I’m not complaining as a Chinese Takeway and Bistro 42 now occupy the site. Bistro 42 the one place that you can still get a coffee between Horbury’s cafes closing and the pubs opening.

Entrance to the Ebenezer Hall at it is today, with the new Wesleyan Chapel on the left and the 1906 Sunday School on the right.

William Baines’ father, George William Baines, opened a music shop at what is now 37 High Street, Horbury, and the family lived here for a while. As you can see it’s just across the road from the grounds of the Wesleyan Chapel (I took this from the chapel car park) and what is now the 42 Bistro Bar, the former site of the Primitive Methodist Chapel, where George William was the organist.

I’ve been colourising old black and white photographs so I’ve gone the opposite way with these photographs taken on my iPhone on Monday. Perspective straightened up in Adobe Lightroom.

William Baines in Colour

Baines family
Mr and Mrs Baines with William and Teddy.

I’ve been experimenting with photo restoration and colourisation using the neural filters in Adobe Photoshop.

old photographs

I like the patina of old photographs but the sepia-toned world that they evoke can put a bit of a barrier between us and them.

Baines familyh

Besides, working on the images on the 27 inch screen of my iMac brings out details that I might miss in the original. The ‘neural filter’ seems to favour blue as the main colour for clothes. My guess is that there was more colour about.

Mr and Mrs Baines and friends

It’s freshens up the scratchy surface of this photograph of Mr and Mrs Baines with friends. Are the two women sisters? No names on the back, just a pencilled ’33’. It’s possible that they are relatives of the Radley or Naylor families of Horbury. The family portrait and – as far as I remember – this walking group, were given to me by Mrs Nora Naylor, nee Radley, of Cooperative Street, Horbury.

Mr and Mrs Baines
The North's shop

For a while, the Baines family ran this shop, demolished in the early 1960s, next to St Peter’s Church. Ann North lent me the much-blemished photograph and I’ve colourised this version from my print of it.

Primitive Methodist School Feast, 1906

School feast

Again, the original of this postcard is black and white. William appears, aged 6 or 7, possibly the boy in the flat cap in the bottom left corner.

detail of postcard

Thanks to ridiculously high res scan of the original – 2400 dpi! – I can zoom in on a small area to reveal long-gone shops.

Another close-up of the postcard
I think this would have been a Whitsuntide feast, traditionally when people treated themselves to new clothes after the winter . . . and decorated straw hats of course.