Category: Travel / Out and About (Page 2 of 18)

This day out had been planned for a couple of weeks. I’d heard from Gary about a Great British Rail sale which included a 95p ticket from Manchester to Sheffield. It seemed a good enough reason to venture back to Sheffield. Since I moved back to England I’d only been to Sheffield once – for a weekend’s uni music department reunion when I’d had a brief opportunity to see the changes in the city centre since I left uni. However when I surfaced in the morning it was pouring down. If I’d not booked the tickets in advance I wouldn’t even have considered venturing on a day’s excursion in such gloomy weather.

From Manchester Victoria we took the train to Piccadilly and crossed the road to visit Malmaison. My Hoyle ancestors who built Acre Mill in Old Town above Hebden Bridge ended up making it really, really big as textile manufacturers exporting goods worldwide. Their Manchester warehouse has since been converted into the Malmaison hotel and the bar looked welcoming for a morning coffee.

I had no idea that the facade of the ornate brick building would actually have Joshua Hoyle and Sons inscribed in stone facing Piccadilly station. I found out the cost of a night’s accommodation there. I really must stay there just to ‘feel the vibes’ of my ancestors!

Then it was onto the train for the hour’s journey to Sheffield. The train travels through the Hope Valley which I knew was very picturesque but the heavy clouds and poor light didn’t do much for the scenery. For three years I had travelled from Manchester to Sheffield but I don’t remember the train ride. I’m sure my focus wasn’t on the scenery. I don’t even recall the names of the stations and it’s possible that the trains I travelled on back then took a different route over the Woodhouse pass.

The first station of interest that we passed through was Marple. I could see posters on the platform about Agatha Christie. Wagatha Christie(!) is very much in the news at the moment. It’s the name that’s been given to the current celebrity scandal between two football wives – Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy. In fact their trial actual began today! Costs will be exceed 1 million pounds! But what of Marple’s connection to the real Agatha Christie? In July 2015, Mathew Prichard, grandson of the author and her closest living relative came to Marple and talked at the station about his family’s linkage to the area. He unveiled a blue plaque at the station that the Agatha Christie Ltd had kindly commissioned. This was done against the backdrop of artwork in the form of numerous Miss Marple book covers that had been specially produced by HarperCollins Publishers and now form a permanent addition at the station. Ah, these were the ‘posters’ I could see from the train. Agatha herself wrote the explanation of how her detective Miss Marple got her name. I expect you will be interested to learn that at the time I was writing The Thirteen Problems (starting with a series of 6 short stories for a magazine) I was staying with a sister of mine in Cheshire and we went to a sale at Marple Hall – the house alone, she said, was worth seeing, a beautiful old manor, belonging to the Bradshaws descended from Judge Bradshaw who sentenced Charles I.   It was a very good sale with fine old Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture and at it I bought 2 Jacobean oak chairs which I still have – Wanting a name for my “old maid” character I called her Jane Marple.   So now you know the answer to your question!   Yours Sincerely    Agatha Christie ​http://www.friendsofmarplestation.co.uk/agatha-christie.html

The next station to attract my attention was New Mills because almost adjacent to the station is the Torrs – a 70 ft deep gorge cutting through the sandstone. We were now in Derbyshire, close to the border with Cheshire. I could see a path running through the gorge and a bridge over the river that must have carved out its path through the sandstone. It certainly looked worth a visit.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=The+Torrs+in+New+Mills&&view=detail&mid=6CC5CD0F8929B9D607306CC5CD0F8929B9D60730&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DThe%2BTorrs%2Bin%2BNew%2BMills%26FORM%3DHDRSC3

By the time the train reached Chinley the landscape was becoming much more rugged and I truly felt as if I were now in the Peak District national park. Sheep with their lambs were sheltering from the drizzle behind stone walls and it certainly wasn’t bright enough to take photos from the train but we passed through Edale, the starting point of the Pennine way, passed through Hope station close to the Blue John caverns – which reminds me: I used to have a ring made out of Blue John stone, a semi precious stone only to be found in the depths of two caves at Castleton first hollowed out by the Romans two thousand years ago.

Then through Hathersage which I remember visiting from Sheffield to see Little John’s grave. Gary told me of a connection to Hathersage with Charlotte Bronte but I didn’t know of it. Apparently Hathersage became a familiar haunt of Charlotte’s and she often visited it in the company of her friend Ellen Nussey, since Ellen’s brother Henry had been made vicar of St. Michael’s church in Hathersage. He served in that position from 1845 until 1847, during which time Charlotte discovered the places, and people, who would be pivotal to the novel. The leading family in the Hathersage area at that time was the Eyre family. In the church, Charlotte would have seen the Eyre memorial, and in the graveyard she would have found the Eyre graves, including one for a Jane Eyre herself.

The train arrived in Sheffield on time. The station felt much bigger than what I remember and the forecourt has been completely rebuilt with fountains and a wonderful reflective steel wall – for this is Sheffield – city of steel. Looking up at the skyline I saw little of the immense changes that I see in Manchester and Leeds where lots of cranes are in evidence and much building work is in progress. The famous hole in the road has now been filled in!

As we wandered into town rather strange looking store frontage caught my eye with the signage – ‘Glory Holes – A golf club for adults only.’ The large windows opened onto a bar filled with odd figures . . . . It bills itself as ‘It is set to Sheffield’s ‘newest and raunchiest’ entertainment venue and bar. What can I say???

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By this time there was lots of blue sky showing as we headed down towards the River Don and the canal. Situated between the two is Kelham Island, one of Sheffield’s oldest manufacturing sites. This manmade island was formed in the 1100s, when a stream was diverted to power a nearby mill. However, as industrial activity has moved on, the area has undergone a significant transformation in recent years and quietly become one of the most exciting parts of the city. 

The remains of the numerous cutlery and steel works, factories and workshops is part of what gives the area its distinct charm, except nowadays these buildings house everything from indie shopping arcades to microbreweries and galleries.

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We selected the Fat Cat for lunch. As we entered I had the distinct feeling that I had stepped back in time 50 years. This felt like man’s pub and I fully expected it to be littered with elderly men sitting by themselves, ruminating over a pint or two. And yes, it was all men but I got talking to group of three on the next table simply by saying I liked the Geordie accent of one of their party. Doing my first teaching practice in Easington, just outside Durham I’d had a hard job figuring out what the children in my classes said to me. I had even more trouble holding down my conversation with this man but he knew Easington and what had happened to its community when the pits closed. The other two guys were from Sheffield and they knew each district I mentioned. What was wrong with saying I knew the Broomhill Tav?

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Then on to Kelham Island museum, housed in a former steel factory. I had recently sent Michael a link to this place after he’d bought a set of cooking knives made in Sheffield and he wanted to find out more about the Sheffield steel industry. It tells the story of what it was like to live and work in Sheffield during the Industrial Revolution. There were some wonderful sculptures made from knives too.

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Leaving the museum we wandered into the city centre where the Winter gardens, a vast greenhouse, takes pride of place in the open area close to the impressive town hall and the Crucible theatre where I enjoyed many plays a long time ago.

Back at the railway station it was feeling decidedly warm and we sat outside opposite the steel wall watching the commuters hurrying for their trains home.

The journey back was lovely. The sun was out in full and the glow of the early evening light made the hills look magical.

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U.S Route 66 was one of the original highways across America. The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in the United States, originally ran from Chicago to Santa Monica. I’ve travelled many of its desert stretches in New Mexico, Arizona and California. It was recognized in popular culture by both the hit song “Get your kicks on Route 66” and in John Steinbeck’s classic American novel, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), the road “Highway 66” symbolized escape and loss. Several of these facts were to come in to play on my hike today but I didn’t know that when I set off.

A coupe of months ago went I was walking along the towpath I’d reached yet another closed section and I chatted to a couple of guys along the trail. “Oh, you can bypass the closed section by taking a track leading from the back of Mytholmroyd train station.” I wrote this down on my ‘places to walk’ list when I got home that day. So this was the day I decided to see if their info was correct.

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In Mytholmroyd I found my ‘new’ track easily. Over the past couple of months I’d been trying to see it from the train but I only caught glimpses of it through the trees.

It turned out to be a cycle track that runs (should that be ‘pedals’ ) from Manchester to Hull – that’s virtually coast to coast. This section follows the train track very closely. I noticed that some of the retaining walls are made from railway sleepers.

Occasionally a train passed by with only one or two passengers aboard. The path was very straight and very flat which made a change from the other walks I’ve been doing all week. There were several families with baby buggies enjoying the beautiful Spring day. Suddenly I came to a rather odd plinth with ‘Williams’ engraved. The design looked quite avant garde and was around 5ft high. Quite a puzzle.

Eventually I came out of the woods and realised where I was. I was at the old school house which I’d admired from the canal and the bus for two years and always wondered how to reach it! It’s a very imposing building, now sectioned into apartments, with an attached manse, but though I can find lots of ads online for the apartments I’ve not been able to discover anything about its history. I think I’ll have to put a message on Facebook to the Mytholmroyd History page. It’s been very useful in similar instances.

Across the valley I could see Brearley Hall where Branwell Brontee rented a place to live and an ancestor of mine did the same.

Having walked 3.5 miles I decided to stop and have my picnic, choosing a sheltered spot by the river and while I ate the geese kept me entertained. I’d brought my art supplies but hadn’t found a good place to sit and draw, so I headed back.

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I noticed a stone post by the path, close to the railway bridge, which I hadn’t noticed on my outward journey. on closer observation it looked ancient, but it bore the carving of a skeleton and some words, hard to decipher but Murder was definitely one of them.

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When I got home I discovered the story behind this plinth and the one I’d seen earlier. My thanks to VisitCalderdale.com for a succinct story of the Cragg Vale Coiners. I didn’t know the story until I read The Gallows Pole by local writer Ben Myers.

The apparent tranquillity of Mytholmroyd belies a murky past involving an 18th century counterfeiting gang, the ‘Cragg Vale Coiners’. This gang’s activities were said to be so damaging that they threatened to wreck Britain’s currency.

David Hartley learnt his trade as an ironworker in Birmingham, before getting into trouble and moving back to Mytholmroyd to escape the authorities. Once returned to his home at Bell House farmhouse (which is now a bed & breakfast accommodation with educational facilities) David used ironworking as a cover to clip or file the edges from gold coins, milling the edges back so the change was all but unnoticeable, and making counterfeit coins from the shavings whilst returning the clipped coins into circulation.David’s activities soon spread to other farms, with families at nearby Hill Top Farm and Keelham Farm soon becoming involved; forming the beginnings of the gang of Cragg Vale Coiners. Local publicans also helped by placing the counterfeit coins into circulation. David Hartley seems to have been an enigmatic leader, becoming known as ‘King David’ Hartley and the gang’s numbers grew considerably until well over 30 individuals were involved.

Rumours of the gang’s activities reached the authorities, who sent an excise man named William Deighton to investigate. One of the coiners turned King’s Evidence and betrayed the gang, leading to Hartley’s arrest at an Inn in Halifax on 14th October 1769. Hartley’s brother Isaac offered £100 to anybody who would kill Deighton. It is alleged that the plotters planned Deighton’s murder at an Inn in Mytholmroyd called Barbary’s, which is now gone, but was located on the opposite side of the road to the present day Dusty Miller. On November 10th 1769 at Bull Close Lane near Halifax, Deighton was approached by two men, Matthew Normanton and Robert Thomas. Deighton was shot dead, his body also showing signs of having been stamped on. Just days later, the Government offered a reward of £100 for information leading to the arrest of the murderers and a pardon for anybody, bar the killers, who would turn King’s Evidence.Over 30 people were subsequently arrested, including ‘King David’ Hartley, who was sentenced to death on April 6th 1770 and hanged at Tyburn, near York, on April 28th. His body is buried in the graveyard of the village of Heptonstall, above Hebden Bridge. Robert Thomas was acquitted of Deighton’s murder, but was later hanged in 1774 for being a highwayman. Matthew Normanton initially fled the authorities, but was later caught and hanged in 1775. Isaac Hartley was never brought to trial due to a lack of evidence and died in 1815, aged 78.

A few days later I got some more information about the Coiners and the monument: There is a carving of the skeleton which appears in the attached 1769 document. The quote “A Full and true Account of a barbarous bloody and inhuman murder” also comes from some document or book. Below that is a carving of one of the dies used to stamp the clipped coin and is a Portuguese moidore. On another face of the stone is a pair of shears for clipping the coin and on another face I think it is a file.

As I passed Mytholmroyd station a train drew up to the deserted platform. No-one got on and no-one got off. I immediately thought of Adelstrop. As a child I was sent to elocution lessons which initially took place in a room above the Coop in the centre of Bolton. My teacher was Mrs Dora Monks. As I progressed through the Royal College exams I also progressed to my lessons being held at her home. It felt like a mansion to me. The door was opened by a maid in. a maid’s uniform and I was shown first into the cloakroom and then into the study overlooking the main road. Adelstrop was the name of a poem and on a trip to Gloucestershire I visited Adelstrop in memory of the poem. It’s about a journey Edward Thomas took on 24 June 1914, during which his train briefly stopped at the now-closed station.

“Yes. I remember Mytholmroyd—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late March.

The rails rattled. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Mytholmroyd—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley”

(with apologies to Edward Thomas)

After my 7.1 mile stroll I taught my first online lessons of the present crisis and in the evening I tuned in to ‘Meet the Richardsons’. To my surprised I found that I featured in Episode 2. Last Spring I’d attended the annual Dock Pudding world championship in Mytholmroyd and the person who presented the winner’s trophy was someone I recognised from 8 out of 10 cats – Jon Richardson. I later discovered that he lives in Mytholmroyd and the series is filmed in his home there and in Hebden Bridge. I’d noticed the big movie cameras filming the event but thought nothing of it – until now. Here I am sitting watching ‘me’ in the audience!

So, returning to my first paragraph: Route 66 was one of the original highways across America. The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in the United States, originally ran from Chicago to Santa Monica. (A postcard arrived from Chicago yesterday from Rachel). I’ve travelled many of its desert stretches in New Mexico, Arizona and California. (I travelled 7.1 miles of it today in West Yorkshire) It was recognized in popular culture by both the hit song “Get your kicks on Route 66” (I appeared in a popular culture TV series) and in John Steinbeck’s classic American novel, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), the road “Highway 66” symbolized escape and loss. (very applicable to our present situation)

Pennine Horizons has a series of online guided walks. There’s a map which tracks your progress so you can see where you are and at various points you stop and listen to a description of what’s in front of you – it’s history primarily. So off I went, bound for Jumble Hole. I’d been to this steep valley with its mill ruins once before, in 2016. This is what I’d written about that day:

“A Lazy Day in Lumb – July 6, 2016

I’m sitting in the 700 year old Hebden Bridge Mill having tea (Yorkshire tea from Harrogate, of course) and chocolate shortbread. I’ve just hiked from my mill to the tiny village of Colden through the historic Colden Valley, a place full of evidence of man’s impact on the landscape during the industrial revolution, and the use those mills buildings, waterways, cobbled packhorse trails and stone foot tracks are being put to today. I’m now getting used to hikes that claim to be flat and are ‘suitable for any reasonable fit person.’ They are, in fact, never flat and often involve going up and down hillsides that are so steep that they require steps. At times I found myself high above Colden Beck looking down on an almost vertical hillside where trees and ferns cling to life in places that the sun never ever reaches. I passed the two chimneys of Upper and Lower Lumb mill rising like giant monoliths to some long-forgotten god of the forest. I tried to conjure up the ghosts of the people whose clogs have worn grooves into the steps and stones on which I’m sitting. Above the mill I passed over the dam which once held in the mill pond but now it only holds reeds. The clapper bridge was unusual in it being 2 stones wide, and lucky for me an iron rail has been added 🙂 I wasn’t too keen on the gap between the stones through which I could see the raging torrent.

“Brave dreams and their mortgaged walls are let rot in the rain. And the nettle venoms into place
Like a cynical old woman in the food-queue.
And the sycamore, cut through at the neck,
Grows five or six head, depraved with life.
Before these chimneys can flower again
They must fall into the only future, into earth.”
(from ‘Lumb Chimneys’ by Ted Hughes)

Coming out of the dense forest lining the valley I now found myself on ‘t tops. I’d looked up the New Delight pub, Colden’s main claim to fame, so I already knew that it was closed from 3-5 pm. I hadn’t copied down the return path directions and I didn’t much fancy the idea of trying to follow my outward direction backwards so I found a bus stop by the campsite, with a timetable, and waited 20 minutes for a zippy bus, being entertained by watching all the parents coming to pick up their children from Colden school. “

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I followed the road from Stubbings Wharf to Underbank since the canal towpath had been closed since the February flooding. For 200 years Stubbings Wharf has catered to traffic on both sides, the turnpike road to Todmorden on one side and the canal bargemen on the otherI once went to a meeting of the Ted Hughes society in the upper room but I had no idea until I listened to the audio guide today that ’40 years before Hughes was born his grandfather was pulled drunk from the canal and proceeded to spend the rest of the even ing wrapped in a sheet singing contentedly to anyone who would care to listen.’ It’s a place I always take family and friends when they come to visit. Above Jumble Hole is the tiny community of Winters (which most people I’d spoken to in Hebden Bridge hadn’t heard of, it’s so small) which I’d explored for the first time in November. Once of my ancestors once kept a beer house there – see Winters blog post.

I elected not to take this steep cobbled path that this person was walking down with a cup of tea in hand! He lives at the house on the left.

I’d taken my painting supplies with me for the first time today and I soon found a large fallen gatepost to perch on and happily sat for 45 minutes painting with the watercolour pens Anna had sent me for Christmas, and having a lovely picnic of Wesleydale cheese with cranberries and with apricots. I was surrounded by ruins of mills and houses and the background music was the rushing of the river which powered the mill. I listened to the audio commentary.
In the early 19th century Jumble hole was an industrial centre with four large mills and several houses. I’m a little confused as to which mill I was sitting in – Jumble or Staups, but I thin it was Jumble.

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As I was sitting a couple of vans went up the road and so after my picnic I set off to see where the road led. After a very steep section with loose gravel I realised I wasn’t going to be able to come down this same path. Just at that moment a lady was coming down the path and I verified that this path led to Winters. She told me that the really slippery section was only for a short time and that soon I’d find myself on a cobbled track that had be recently cleared of debris, and this led to Winters. once I knew that I was fine.

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Erringden Grange, on Kilnshaw Lane above Hebden Bridge, is an early 19th century listed farmhouse and barn. (Erringden thought to be of Norse origin “The valley of the high ridge”). It also has numerous adjacent fields with rectangular field patterns, as well as an old Hawthorn hedge now in need of some care and new saplings for continuity.
But what makes the fields unique in the Calder Valley are the small diamond shaped enclosures at all the wall intersections. 
There are (or were) about 50 of these enclosures shown on the OS map of 1849 and each contains planted trees of mainly Beech and Sycamore. These trees are possibly over 180 years old.

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6.2 miles

My usual modus operandi on my hikes from my front door is to catch a bus on t’ th’ tops and hike from there. But these are not normal times and so, after several days of 6-7 mile hikes I decided to go ‘up first.’ A couple of days ago I’d walked down from Jack bridge so today I started from my front door and walked up to Jack bridge. The only time I’d done the walk this way round was the first time I ever did it, in 2017, when I was in England for the summer, and I’d followed a footpath pamphlet which had little indication of the climb involved. And I have to say I was actually surprised that it took me about the same time to walk up as it does to walk down. You get a different view and I saw things that I’d not noticed before.

Eventually after about an hour I came out of the woods, passed Hudson Mill where my ancestor Sunderland had lived (see a former blog) and found myself opposite the New Delight pub, which, of course, is closed. A couple of weeks ago I used its name in a new song I wrote for the Hebden Bridge Little Theatre choir.

The rest of my hike would be along paved roads. The little zippy bus was parked on Smithy Lane at the turnaround and for a few moments I considered getting on it to go back down the hill but I was in no hurry to get home so I continued walking. In front of my was Edge Lane where I’d explored for the first time a couple of days ago. Now I could see exactly where my route had taken me, passed Spinks House. A little further along I passed an old building, The Smithy, now a private dwelling. i’d never thought of Smithy Lane as being where the blacksmith’s was once located. Up until now it had simply been a bus destination.

I passed Edge Hey Green where a row of cottage was once divided from the outdoor toilet by the road. Last year I’d made a textile panel of one of the toilet outbuildings for my ‘doors’ project.

Wooden huts for the workers were built at Whitehill Nook, just below Draper Lane in Heptonstall/Slack and it became quickly known as Dawson City, after the Klondike city. I’ve been fascinated by this story since first seeing photos of the shanty town in the White Swan in Heptonstall on my summer visits to the area. By the time of the 1901 census, when Willie Wrigley was staying at the Pack Horse, Widdop, ten of the workers’ huts were occupied. Wives and children moved here with their husbands and soon the impact was felt in the local community. The Board School, built by my ancestors, of course, could not accommodate the extra children and so a spare room in the school master’s house was brought into service for the additional thirty children that came from Dawson City. Sanitation in the new city was obviously going to be a major problem and even as early as February 1901 two cases of typhoid had been removed from the shanty town to the Fielden hospital in Todmorden. In 1903 smallpox broke out. The navies were required to keep their children off school. Smallpox victims were taken to the isolation hospital at Sourhall close to Todmorden and vaccinations were given and a field hospital was built at Dawson city being constructed rom a tent and capable of caring for 14 patients. But in October 1903 it blew down in a gale. In all there were 60 cases of smallpox in the Hebden Bridge and Todmorden area, but only one patient died. In 1909 a woman, Mrs Edgar Harwood, fell from the bridge after going ‘for a stroll to admire the view.’ She was well known in Hebden Bridge and ran a dressmaking a millinery business under the name Townsend (her maiden name I think) and Milnes.

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This area is set back from the main road and was one of the earliest major settlements in the town, dating back to the early 19th century. It was known as High street because of its elevation, not for its commercial prominence. Even on a totally dry day I find the steep cobbles between the steps very difficult to negotiate. The former mill itself is a three storey building on the main road, which I’d never noticed until today.

I posted the photo of Cuckoo Mill steps on the Hebden Bridge photo page and I was very surprised how many interesting comments it generated:

Ran up and down those steps many times as a child, remember when they filmed the movie 39 steps?

Hauled myself up those steps all through my pregnancy in 1980, kept me very fit 

I had actually forgotten them til I saw this pic

I used to hate having to walk up them steps. 😂

I wish I had a pound for every time I have run up there!

Cuckoo Steps – Update, April17

A couple of weeks ago I took the short cut from Heptonstall road to Market Street. An old street. High Street runs parallel to Market Street and the area, known as Bridge Lanes, was a high density housing area, demolished in the 1960’s. I have many ancestors who lived in Bridge Lanes. The old High Street now terminates in some step stone steps, flanked on both sides by high walls. The sun never penetrates this place. It’s dank, dark, and for most of the year too slippery for me to tackle. To the right is the remains of a mill chimney, now only half its original height and covered in ivy. It’s quite picturesque and in the late afternoon sunshine it made a pretty photo. I posted it onto a Hebden Bridge photos Facebook page and I was very surprised by the number of comments it generated: people reminiscing about their use of the steps many years ago. It dawned on me later that if those were Cuckoo Mill steps and presumably its chimney where was Cuckoo Mill. I took on all the local history sites but could find no reference to Cuckoo Mill. So finally I emailed the Hebden Bridge Historical Society, of which I am a member, to see if I could find an answer to my questions. As always, the answer came back swiftly:

There is not a mill called Cuckoo Steps. The area was part of Breck Mill Estate and the chimney has a flue that goes under the road and the mill buildings were on what is now the Coop  car park. Now I’d read about Breck Mill since one of my ancestor James Moss had started off his working life there first  as a bookkeeper and later as a journeyman. His obituary shows that he became an important man in the town: Death and funeral of Mr James Moss

… head of the welll-known firm of Moss Brothers, fustian manufacturers, Hebden Bridge ….

pneumonia… Ewood Court … 55 … active members of Hebden Bridge Urban District Council … leaves widow and five daughters … chairman of the English Fustian Manufacturing Company … As a boy Mr Moss attended his relative’s seminary familiarily known as “Moss’s School” at Salem and Slater Bank. His first occupation on leaving school was that of a book-keeper at Breck Corn Mill, then in the ownership of Mr James Bairstow. There he remained for several years and became the rider-out or traveller, for the firm. The time came when through declining health Mr Bairstow wished to retire from the business. Mr James Moss had won the confidence of his employer, who entrusted him with responsible posts while still comparatively young; and he was still in the twenties when the Bairstow family made him an offer in conjunction with another employee to handover the business to them and find the necessary capital  wherewith to work it. For some reason or other Mr Moss declined  the offer, and decided to join his brothers who had commenced business as fustian cutters and manufacturers at Hebble-end.

The flood of 1891 caused the problems for the flour mill, but it looks as if it survived at least until 1902 but it was all over by 1 July 1916 and a search on the papers just after this date might provide an overview of its history.

HEBDEN BRIDGE PAROCHIAL MAGAZINE March. l892  THE FLOOD OF 1891 “But by far the greatest excitement was in Stubbing Holme, which since 1866 has been covered with long rows of houses and a large Co-operative Cotton Mill. The Calder, whose channel was wholly insufficient for the volume of water, bore so furiously on the part of the Breck Mill which is built over the stream, that it may be said to have demolished it. The debris so blocked the current that great part of the water had no escape, and, turned backward, converted the Holme into one turbulant lake. Strange were the stories told by the inhabitants of the houses, about the carrying off of large stores of provisions and the like. In two instances the floor of the cottages sank some inches, producing the sensations of an earthquake and turning one woman sick. Here, as elsewhere, horses up to the middle in water,were taken off with great difficulty to higher ground. Terrible havoc was made in the Cotton Mill, the looms on the ground floor being submerged. The goods were removed with all possible activity, damage was done to an extent which, at the lowest compution we have seen £1,000 will not cover. At the Breck Flour Mill the boilers had to be removed, and iron girders will be substituted for the broken arches, damage has been sustained to the amount of £2,000. The moon being nearly at full , the whole scene was plainly visible, and is described as solemnly grand.”

By 1919 it was a clothing mill owned by Fenton Greenwood.

Find: Hebden Bridge Times 22 April 1927 OLD HEBDEN BRIDGE BY D. EASTWOOD Cuckoo lane Bairstows mill. Bridge Lanes.

Somewhere, yesterday April 16, 2020,  I read that they raised the walls at cuckoo steps to stop the boys peering over at the slaughter house. This must have been the slaughterhouse at the back of The Bull in where Joshua Gibson killed himself.

Cuckoo steps, Salem Sunday school demolished in 1962. Photo taken around 1960

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Every time I take the 901 towards Huddersfield I think to myself as the bus climbs up a very steep valley through Cragg Vale ‘wouldn’t it be interesting to walk down this road? I’d see more.’ So today i set out to do just that. Actually to be honest, I didn’t. When I put my coat on to set off my goal was to take the bus to the very top of Cragg Vale and walk from Sykes Gate to Sowerby, a hike a took a few weeks ago for the first time. But on entry into the street there was a bitingly cold wind and the blister on my toe was making itself felt, so an 8 mile hike along th’ tops didn’t seem such a good idea. I was unsure if the bus would show up but it did and it w whisked me up the road  proudly claims to be the longest continual ascent in England. 968 feet of climbing in 5.5 miles.

I knew from riding the bus that some of the roadway has no sidewalk but I did find these two happy people showing me where I should walk!

The view down the valley is superb and in this time of uncertainty I thanked my lucky stars that I live in such a beautiful place. I followed the Elphin brook for a little while and then came to a holiday let which Sarah told me about recently. I went onto the drive to take a photo of the view and a lady came out of the fairly new cottage. She is the owner and invited me in to show me one of the three adjoining cottages – very nicely appointed.

I decided on a whim to take a little detour down to the river where St John’s church and the Hinchcliffe Arms pub are located. The church has a rather odd name – St John’s in the Wilderness. I noticed a recent notice taped to the door about the current emergency, so St John’s isn’t so much in the wilderness as it would like to be.

Jimmy Saville had associations with this church and raised thousands of pound for its upkeep and he was an honourary church warden. More about his association with Cragg Vale: https://bitsofbooksblog.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/savile-and-st-johns-in-the-wilderness/

There are several documentary films about Saville, whom my mum believed she met on a cycling holiday when she was in the 20’s. Just across from the church is the Hinchcliffe Arms, obviously now closed but I used the picnic tables outside for a good place to have my picnic and consult my map. Apparently Saville used to park his camper van in the pub car park.

I decided to take a wander up a narrow lane and I soon found myself facing Cragg Hall, which I remembered visiting on a drive around the area a few months ago. Again, I was struck by the thought of what an area for me to live in where I can see these beautiful buildings and can walk back to my home.

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I’d passed the ruins of a mill on the main road and now, in the trees, I could see an old mill chimney. I’d never associated Cragg Vale with industry. I’d just though of it as an old handloom weaver’s community suspended in time.

I saw a sign pointing to the Coiners’ Barn, but it wasn’t an official sign and there was no indication of distance but I was enjoying myself so I followed the sign. Last year I’d read The Gallows Pole by Ben Myers, who lives in Hebden Bridge. It’s the story of the Cragg Vale coiners, a band of counterfeiters who produced fake gold coins in the late 18th century to supplement small incomes from weaving. It was a very very vivid book given to graphic violence in places but even more than the storyline I was fascinated by the historical references, especially about the new enclosure laws that were appearing around the same time. I immediately read all his other books!

The road I was following had been paved but obviously from the recent flooding there were a lot of dangerous potholes, even sink holes. I realised that this was the way Sarah and I had approached Stoodley Pike on our vacation here in 2017, wanting to find the shortest path up to the tower. Today the car park at the reservoir was packed and cars were parked along the lane but people were far and few between, there being so many paths and open ground.

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At the end of the dam is the imposing building of Pasture, the only farm building remaining of the 15 that once were scattered along Withins Clough. It looked inviting to walk around the reservoir. A sign showed that it’s only 2.5 Km around but:

‘I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep’

Pasture Top

Photos of things I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been walking

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