My goodness what a day! I left at 9, deciding to risk not wearing my raincoat. The half hour bus ride to Halifax was quite eventful. Me to bus driver, ” I’d like a weekly Rover’s ticket, please.” Driver, incredulous, ” What??” Me – repeat the question. Driver, “Oh, bloody hell. Just ger on and sit yerself down.” I did. Halfway to Halifax the bus was stopped at a bus stop when we were side swiped by a lorry. No-one hurt. Everyone just got off quietly and waited for the next bus. I, of course, didn’t have a ticket. Ah, what fun. And so on to Halifax bus station, where I boarded another bus to Pellon Lane. I’d been told to ask for Pellon social club. I did and asked the driver the price of the ticket, $1.90 I was told. I handed over a $10 note. What’s that? asked the driver. My fare, I suggested. Well I don’t have any change – just ger on. This is an excellent way to travel. I should try it again 🙂
Arriving at Christ Church Mt Pellon I was welcomed by the parishioners enjoying their coffee, tea, biscuits and cakes. I discovered that only the area directly around the church is called Mt Pellon. Pellon Lane is a long road, primarily an industrial mess now sprinkled between stone terraces housing primarily Muslims, with great food and clothing stores. I stayed for the service which was accompanied by an amazingly out of tune organ. I chatted to the organist and while she went off for tea I was able to play. I even found a copy of my favorite Bach Preludes and Fugues! I then wandered into the graveyard to find 
my great grandfather, Ishmael Nutton (1835-1876) and his wife Elizabeth Ann Leeming. I found his gravestone easily, though it was well covered with moss. He had died at aged 40from alpaca poisoning. Was it of any significance that his was the only grave sporting an empty beer can? I wondered.
As we all left one of the gentlemen offered to show me round the area. I thought that meant a short stroll around the village but he ended up taking me on a car tour of the area taking me anywhere I wanted to go and stopping at any place I thought would be a good photo opportunity. He was a wealth of information, and took me to see the reconstructed gibbet in Halifax that I had read about last night. Halifax was the last place in England to use this form of execution. The practice was retained to protect the cloth trade. The first person to be executed here was John of Dalton in 1286 and the last execution took place on April 30, 1650. I asked to go to Warley town so I could find The
The Halifax gibbett
Grange where Patrick Brontë had lived before he moved to Haworth, and then we leisurely drove to Southowram so I could see the house which was where Emily Brontë was governess for 6 months. 
I offered to buy him lunch at the Maypole in Warley Town – very posh. His nephew is a prominent makeup artist and regularly does make-up shoots for David Beckham and Barbara Windsor. He’d worked in construction and had worked on building Haley Court, the high rise flats built in 1966 that my great Aunt Lil had lived in. I had a black pudding salad and passion fruit cider from New Zealand – which turned out to be the only black pudding I had on the trip.
He dropped me off at St John’s, Warley, where coffee and conversation was in full swing. There I met someone who was brought up in Entwistle, at Wayoh Farm. She been married at Turton church in 1954. Another lady had visited to Soquel, a village just outside Santa Cruz. Neal, the vicar, had
Neal, the vicar at St John’s, Warley
motorbiked across the U.S. a few years ago with his wife. He mentioned he was from Wakefield so I asked if there was any way I could get into Wakefield Prison. It turned out that he’d been the chaplain there before becoming vicar at St John’s and St Hilda’s. Since it’s a top security prison now he doubted I could gain access but he did tell me where I could get the best views of the prison from – the platform of the railway station. He also explained which buildings would have been there when George Gledhill ( my great, great, great, great grandfather) was imprisoned there. Margaret offered to drive me back to Hebden Bridge.
For a few moment in the evening the sun came out for the first time. I dashed out to take these two photos from outside my mill.
A few random notes for the day.
- The woman who won the Great British Bake Off made the Queen’s 90th birthday cake.
- Underdwellings are a peculiarity of housing found only (?) in Hebden Bridge. It’s when one house is built above another, the hillside being so steep that the top house faces one street and the bottom house faces a different street. The only other place I’ve seen this is in Virginia City, Nevada.
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