God's Own County

Top Ten West Riding Churches

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Hortoris

To select but 10 churches for a ‘best of’ list was impossible so I tried to find 10 varying churches in each Riding and this is my effort for the West Riding of Yorkshire. I would be happy to consider for inclusion a readers top ten if you send me details.

St John Baptist Adel is one of our finest Norman churches and is a Grade 1 national treasure and an architectural gem. Internal decoration, chancel arch and carvings are of top quality. Through the church yard is York Gate a garden open for Perennial the gardeners charity
St Cuthbert Fishlake (above) is believed to have safeguarded the remains of Cuthbert from the Vikings. The priest’s doorway is Norman and the south doorway is one of the most decorative in the country.
Hatfield St Lawrence is a large cruciform church with a crossing tower externally perpendicular with some good windows and crenelations . Norman and medieval features include a fine clerstory, monuments and font.
St Mary’s Sprotborough like other churches had its tower heightened in the perpendicular period. Monuments from 13th century onward and an interesting rood screen make this an interesting church to visit.

Shipley St Paul’s (above) is the original 1826 parish church of Shipley. It has dark, soot blackened sandstone walls that befits a church from and set in the industrial West Riding.The building, an historic “Waterloo” or “Commissioners'” church also has a “listed” organ
Birkin St Mary’s is an impressive Norman church with a 14th century south aisle. Due to associations with the Templars there are items of quality in many areas of this fine church.
Halifax St John is the largest 15th century parish church in Yorkshire. Fine 17th century ceilings and communion rail, poor box and box pews are key features.
St Andrew`s Church Aldborough was partially destroyed by Scots raiders in 1318. The present building is the third church to occupy what is thought to be the site of a Roman Temple of Mercury in Roman garrison town of Isurium Brigantium. The north wall dates from around 1330, and carries a brass of William de Aldeburgh dating from around 1360.
Dewsbury All Saints or minster has been rebuilt in 18th & 19th cneturies but many sculptural pieces from the 9th century have ben reincorporated. There is also some stunning stained glass.
St. Mary Tickhill housed Austin friars and has north and south porches. There is also an important church organ from the mid 19th century

The Yorkshire Church Notes of Sir Stephen Glynne (1825-1874) Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record is available by clicking on the picture below but at a price of £28.50. You may choose to spend the money visiting or donating to the churches mentioned ABOVE.

The medieval review says this book (Editor L.A.S. Butler) has ‘effectively rescued Glynne’s Yorkshire Church Notes from merely describing a frozen moment in time into a valuable resource for those who wish to trace for themselves the 19th-century changes in church architecture’. ‘A major contribution to the study of Yorkshire church architecture at a time of change’. Leeds Civic Trust.

See also Ten Top North Riding churches and Top York churches on Gods Own County.

Posted in Books Club & Literary Work, Our Yorkshire, Yorkshire History and Heritage | Tagged churches, locations, trips | 3 Comments

Geology – Ground Zero Start of the Yorkshire Dales

Posted on February 5, 2016 by tejvan

Geology Base Camp

Most of the Yorkshire Dales gets it appeal from carboniferous formations resting on a platform of ancient hard rock called the Askrigg Block.
Some old rock formed from originally molten granite can be seen in the river glens of the Greta and the Twiss.
Great scar limestone are the formations that overlay the ancient land at Thornton force.
The cliffs at Malham Cove, Gordale Scar and Kilnsey Crag are some 400 feet thick.
At intervals there are flat partings or bedding planes marking the the old sea bed that can be seen from around Kettlewell.
Earths pressure has cracked the limestone in a cross cross pattern of near vertical fissures and the rain through the ages has developed the fretted pavements or clints.
Shade loving plants live in some of the crevices above MalhamCove and on Ingleborough a mountain stream has created and plunges down Gaping Gill to a cave larger than the the nave at York Minster.

Dales Drainage Continue reading →

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Rylstone for Local History, Walks & Calendars Girls

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Hortoris

St Peter’s church in Rylstone stands above the village made famous in recent times by the Alternative Womens Institute calendar. As the church and graveyard can testify there has been a vibrant community in the locality for many centuries. Perhaps vibrant is not the best phrase.

The duck pond was looking a bit forlorn when I visited this week but the area around the village is well kept and feels homely.

A quirky look at the village can be observed from several convex mirrors designed to help motorists.

Origins of the Alternative Women’s Institute Calendar

John Richard Baker a National Park Officer for the Yorkshire Dales, died in July 1998 at the age of 54 as a result of Leukaemia. His wife Angela Baker and her friends from Rylstone local WI, had the idea of the “Alternative WI calendar” to raise funds for Leukaemia & Lymphoma research. This idea provided much mirth and entertainment for her husband throughout the later part of his illness but regrettably he did not live to see the calendar and the great success that followed.

To donate to Leukaemia Research

Barden Moor and Fell with the twin skyline landmarks of Rylstone Cross and Cracoe Pinnacle from the church. The drystone walls were in excellent order and the late afternoon winter light made the whole area glow.
Geologically Rylstone ridge near Skipton is one of the most scenic Yorkshire grit crags, with fine views across Barden Moor, Wharfedale and the Malham hills. It is well known amongst boulderers for it’s quiet location. There are several good walks from Rylstone including one that takes you along Rylstone edge to Cracoe or along the former railway track that was closed in 1962.

To the south is Norton Tower a 16th Century square tower built by Richard Norton but damage in 1569 and now sadly just a ruin.

There are several good eating places and hostelries in the near by villages and Rylstone is worth a trip if you are feeling like a bit of exercise.

Posted in Books Club & Literary Work, Our Yorkshire, Yorkshire Trips and Places | Tagged Travelogue | Comments Off

Yorkshire Hieroglyphics!! by Thomas Rowlandson

Posted on February 4, 2016 by tejvan

The Queens Gallery at Buckingham Palace houses the Royal Collection including a large number of works by Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827). We would think of them as cartoons suitable for publication in satirical magazines like The Oldie or Private Eye.
The watercolours and prints were parodies of the rich, powerful and or famous and cut to the quick. Sold as prints they reached a wider audience than art work or individual paintings would have done.

Yorkshire Hieroglyphics!! Plate 1. 8 Mar 1809 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.©Trustees of the British Museum.

‘A hand-coloured print of a love letter from the Duke of York to his mistress Mrs Clarke written in pictograms (‘hieroglyphs’). It paraphrases The Duke of York’s 1st letter to Mrs Clarke, Weymouth Augst 4 1804 ‘ My dear little angel How can I sufficiently express to My sweetest darling Love the delight which your dear dear pretty letter gave me, or how do Justice to the emotion it excited…’

Thomas Rowlandson has a passion for Yorkshire and published pictures of Ferrybridge and ‘The Wells’ at Harrogate.The book from Amazon shows the lighter side of his work.

Continue reading →

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Adam Sedgwick of Dentdale and Cowgill

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Hortoris

Dent Village and Dentdale

‘The Dent Fault cuts across the valley close to the village of Gawthrop, marking a geological boundary between the carbonferous limestone of Deepdale and the Craven Dales to the south and the older Silurian and Ordovician rocks of the Howgill Fells to the north.’
In modern times tourists and the Dalesway pass along the valley towards Dent and onward to Sedbergh. I am not sure Adam Sedgwick, dents world famous geologist, would approve of all the changes that have come to Dentdale but he would be proud that his legacy and geological knowledge is still celebrated.
Dent is also famous since the 18th century for its knitters who used local wool to produce garments and socks during the first world war.
Get the full Dent story on a visit to Dent Heritage Centre.

Dent Railway

From Dent the valley winds its way through Cowgill, on its way to Dent station which is a surprising 4.5 miles from the village. In fact the station is much nearer Cowgill.
Dent is the highest railway station in Britain, at over 1100 feet above sea level. Dent station is a stop on the famous Carlisle to Settle Railway where you can still catch a steam train on special excursions.
The line crosses the huge viaducts at Arten Gill, Ribblehead viaduct and Dent Head.

Adam Sedgwick

Nearby is St John the Evangelist church enroute to the railway station for Dent which serves all the villages around. The church has connections to Adam Sedgwick, the father of modern geology, who came from a local family of Vicars. Cambridge University still maintains a museum in his name the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Science but the monument most people will know is the vaguely pyramidal stone on the cobble streets of Dent engraved Adam Sedgwick 1785- 1873.
Returning to the tribulations of the Cowgill Chapel there is an account by Adam Sedgwick of Orthological skulduggery (scanned in by Google) entitled ‘A Memorial by the Trustees of Cowgill Chapel By Adam Sedgwick, Cowgill Chapel (Yorkshire) 1868. The curate of the new church attempted to change the name of the local hamlet from Kirthwaite to Kirkthwaite without informing the trustees of which Adam Sedgwick was one. Since the Sedgwick family were already bemoaning the change of name of Coegill to Cowgill they put up a robust fight resulting in an ecclesiastical court battle. From the foundation stone laying in 1837 until the final protest in 1866 the story hints at empire building and parochial politics that could still be relevant today. With added appendices about Climate History and Dialects of Dent it makes a fascinating read to see what exercised the bright minds of the time.

The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences is the oldest of the University of Cambridge museums, having been established in 1728 as the Woodwardian Museum…….. it is now a major teaching and research resource and the Sedgwick Museum collections are a national treasure.

Cowgill and Around

Cowgill and particularly The Sportsmans Inn was a favourite watering hole for our family when the children were young. I was able to drink and the kids could dabble and fall in the Cowgill rivulet. The Sportsmans Inn now advertises itself as ‘a family owned chain of one’.
Cowgill was the home of the Dent Marble mill, where fossilised limestone was quarried, cut, dressed and polished, to make luxury fireplaces and memorials.

Click on the travel guide image or this link for a book from Amazon Sedbergh, Garsdale and Dent: Peeps at the Past History and Present Condition of Some Picturesque Yorkshire Dales (1910)

Posted in Yorkshire Dales, Yorkshire Facts - Interesting and Unusual | Comments Off

Norber Erratic Boulders Near Austwick

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Hortoris

‘A quick course in geology will take eons or longer.’

Is an erratic one of the ‘Rock of ages cleft for me?’

Twixt Austwick and Clapham in Crummackdale lies a group of erratic boulders called the ‘Norber Boulders’ up on Norber Brow.

Erratics are large rocks deposited by glacier or ice flows on top of the natural underlying rock strata.
Norber boulders are dark grey green Silurian slates and sandstone grits. They were originally carried up from the Silurian basement floor of the valley by glacier moving south from Ribblesdale. They were left stranded on top of the lime stone.
Unprotected limestone has eroded by rainfall and the boulders often stand on limestone pedestals polished and scratched by ice.

Some of the boulders still show markings from when they were dragged along the ground being scratched and ground beneath slow moving ice.

A great walk with accompanying photographs is available on the walking englishman
See also what to see in Clapham

Yeager Rock is a large glacial erratic on the Waterville Plateau in Washington USA. Erratic was one of many dropped by the Okanagon lobe of the last glacial period.

Erratic Rock State Natural Site by Frederick Miller et al plus ‘Big Rock Glacial Erratics’ by the same team are the geology books of choice on the subject of ‘Erratics’.

Posted in Yorkshire Dales | Tagged geology | 1 Comment

Village Shops

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Hortoris

Old fashioned, some village shops may be but they are an important part of our heritage.
Keep using village shops and speciality retailers in your area or you know what will happen.

This Hull location may have been intended as a wholesale outlet but boarded up shops are a feature in towns and cities. City shops may be re-purposed but villages close down their shops and they are gone for good.

A sign of the times with a European flavour

‘Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice; Life in a Yorkshire Village Shop’ from Hazel Weaver gives a good account of itself and life in a corner shop in the 1920’s & 30’s.
Hazel grew up in her father’s Huddersfield shop and a collection of stories recalls her memories of those times. Some tales are sad but some are truly hilarious.

‘The corner shop was not just a place to buy groceries. It was a place to meet familiar faces and help people out. People bought groceries on a daily basis and going to the corner shop provided many people with a daily routine. Yet finding the finances for groceries could be a struggle and, when times were hard, many people would have to obtain their groceries ‘on tick’.’ source amazon

Posted in Yorkshire History and Heritage | Comments Off

Train Spotting at Bolton Abbey

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Hortoris

The 12th century priory at Bolton Abbey is a great place to visit. The estate on the banks of the Wharfe has been owned for centuries by the Duke of Devonshire.

Things to Do at Bolton Abbey

Inspect the Church and the ruins of the old priory and discover a landscape full of history. The grave yard is of particular interest.

Walk across the stepping stones or have a picnic by the river.

Go to Strid woods and see the dangerous whirlpool or just inspect the local flowers.

Stroll or Yomp along a section of the Dales way.

Walk up to Simon’s Seat if you are feeling fit (about 8 miles) or look for rabbits in the Valley of Desolation.

Or do a bit of train spotting at Bolton Abbey railway station. You can ride on the refurbished Embsay to Bolton Abbey steam railway line in either or both directions.

Friday 22nd – Monday 25th April 2011 is a special weekend with Thomas The Tank Engine and friends. Suitable for lads of all ages.

In addition to the ‘All Aboard with Ivor the Engine’ there are other specials including 1940s Weekend, Harvest of Steam, Strawberry specials, Diesel Gala and Santa Trains.

Trains run every Wednesday throughout the year and on most summer days

The railway has two fully operational signalboxes and two others to include one to use as a demonstration signalbox at Bolton Abbey.

There is a full history of the line from Skipton to Ilkley of which Bolton Abbey- Embsay is the only surviving part

Embsay Station built in 1888 and the new award winning station at Bolton Abbey are only 15-20 minutes apart but the trip is a nostalgic delight.

After all the excitement I recommend ‘Buffers’ a happy cafe situated in the 17th century farm buildings, which were once part of the working dairy farm in Storiths. They have model railways galore and it is worth the walk up the hill opposite the Abbey rather than using the overcrowded Cavendish cafe on the estate.

Posted in Yorkshire Sport and Pastimes, Yorkshire Trips and Places | Comments Off

Pork Pies and other Growlers

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Hortoris

Just a 2017 reminder not to forget your ‘Christmas pie’. Stand pie, Gala pie or large pork the variety will not matter but I shall pass on a Melton Mowbray.
Yorkshire folk are not fetishists but we do love or at worst like our pork pies. Why not ask John Prescott!

In April 2010 pie fans, including superhero Pie Man, lined the cobbles outside the Old Bridge Inn, Ripponden, to sample entries in the 18th annual Master Pork Pie Maker competition. then there was the internet sensation the Burger King Pie Man. . Get along to snarf a great pie from around the country and remember last years overall winner was Simon Haigh of Hinchcliffe’s in Netherton near Wakefield.

Growlers

‘When it comes to finding a great pie, you are never going to go too far wrong if you ask a Yorkshireman.

According to the concise gentlemen of Oxford and the Yorkshire Post, a growler is a small iceberg or a four-wheeled cab. They do not know what they have missed. Anyone from these parts devoid of vegetarian tendencies would tell those who write our dictionaries that a real growler is a thing of beauty, rare personality and infinite variety. It is a pork pie’. read all the Yorkshire Post article.

Growlers are apocryphally named as they cause and or stop the belly growling. A double whammy in the noise stakes but lets not go there.

The stand pie is a bigger version and an essential part of Christmas with triangular wedges for all comers complete with home-made piccalilli.

Gala pies seem to end up with an egg cooked into the middle of the meat but no matter how you slice it I always get a bit of white and no yoke.

A good pie has a crisp fresh hot water crust, plenty of liquefied jelly and a solid clump of juicy pork and fat with a secret mix of spices.

Condiments and accompaniments should be mushy peas and mint sauce but I am happy with brown sauce, pickled egg or a couple of pickled onions. Of course if you want to get ‘Pie Eyed’ the best accompaniment is a pint or three of Best or Bitter.

I did my courting in the 1960’s at Pie Herbert’s on Carlisle Road in Bradford but sadly it hasn’t lasted as long as my marriage.

Wilson’s small traditional pork pies, known in Yorkshire as growlers, use only locally sourced meat, have won numerous national awards and range in size from2″- 9″ in diameter.

- Wear your pork pie hat this Christmas
- Skipton butcher Farmhouse Fare in High Street reigned victorious in a ‘War of the Roses’ battle to find the best pork pie in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Meat Trader December 2010 Great Northern Pork Pie Competition.
- Delia Smith reckons the most famous English pork pies come from Melton Mowbray and traditionally, a very small amount of anchovy essence was used to add subtle additional flavour. Seems a bit fishy to me!
- There’s nothing like a homemade (in Yorkshire) ‘raised pork pie’ and Rick Stein shows us how to do it properly.
- I can just about forgive Jones Pies for adding Yorkshire Blue Cheese or Yorkshire Relish to there special pork pies but not for using Bury Black Pudding! Still they are sponsoring Huddersfield Town in the Premiership and judging by the 2017 results we know ‘who ate all the pies’.
- Visit Wilson’s Butcher’s and see the Pork Pie Wedding Cake.

Telling Porkies comes from Cockney rhyming slang Pork Pie a lie but it is no lie that Yorkshire pies are great – who ate them all?
Telling Porkies Pork pie or Porkie pie, often shortened to porkie, is the Cockney rhyming slang term for lie.

The other results for 2010 from the Pork Pie Appreciation Society site were

2nd WILSON’S OF CROSSGATES, LEEDS. Continue reading →

Posted in Food and Drink & Yorkshire Products | 5 Comments

Ledsham from Fairburn Ings

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Hortoris

Fairburn Ings is a great nature reserve and RSPB sanctuary near Castleford that covers 700 acres and includes open water, marshland, wet meadows, feeding stations and small areas of reed bed.
On a grey winters day a walk around the large lake gives you opportunity to see many varieties of water fowl. Then take a walk over the hill and through the woods to Ledsham a picturesque village with one of the oldest churches in Yorkshire.

The old 8th century Saxon doorway at 4 feet high was obviously built for people of a smaller stature than we find today.

Inside the church is a memorial to Sir John Lewis Master of the Ironmongers’ Company 1657-8 and a founder of the East India company.

‘Sir John Lewis erected and endowed an Hospital here, for the maintenance of ten aged poor people, who, by his will, are required religiously to observe the Sabbath day, and to be present at Church, in the time of divine service and sermon. source genuki
Our modern day equivalent is for the local pub to have a six day license. Not opening on Sunday stops drunken villagers annoying the lady of the Ledsham Hall.

I was walking but Ledsham is about half a mile west of the A1 at the turn-off for the A63 to Selby and the Selby Fork Hotel.

The old oak paneled hostelry is now famous for the meals it serves in the separate little snugs and bar areas. I had a pint of the local Simpson and Simpson Ledsham bitter which was light hoppy and clean tasting.

Posted in Our Yorkshire, Villages, Towns and Cities | 1 Comment