July 2010

Your letters

Spooked at Scotch Corner

I recently read Madeleine Bunting’s excellent book, The Plot, featured in April’s Dalesman.

We are often in the area of Scotch Corner as this is a favourite walk of ours. Can you imagine how I felt when I read that there is one place where locals find that their horses are reluctant to pass and often shy?

My great grandfather, Christopher Bosomworth, farmed at Cold Kirby for many years. In 1910 one of his sons (Donald, I believe) was farming at Oldstead. On 27 May Christopher rode across to Oldstead, via Scotch Corner, to visit his son.

He set off home, but never arrived. His horse turned up on its own and a search party was organised. Christopher’s body was found near Scotch Corner. It is believed he died of a heart attack, but whether he had the attack and fell from his horse or the horse threw him, causing the attack, will never be known.

Could the place refered to in The Plot be the place where Christopher died and is this the reason that horses fear the spot, or did some tragedy occur here prior to 1910 causing his horse to shy?

Christopher is buried with his wife Mary at Cold Kirby where their gravestone carries the words ‘We cannot Lord they purpose see’ – I bet the stone mason was cross at his mistake but I wonder if the family got it at cut price? Being good Yorkshire folk I bet they drove a hard bargain.

Jackie Anderson, Wrelton, Pickering

Take care of the chapel

With reference to the chapel at Scotch Corner built by John Bunting in the 1950s, dedicated to three people from Kilburn killed during the Second World War.

John Bunting was evacuated to Ampleforth from Kent during the war and fell in love with the area.

The chapel is a lovely little building and after speaking to John’s son, Bernard, he pointed out that despite it being way off track, it has not been immune to vandals.

Bernard is hoping that walkers passing by will keep a vigil for the chapel and I understand there are plans to develop the grounds for a picnic area for walkers. He also said there could be a scheme of placing a deposit at the Black Swan pub at Oldstead, and you can take a key to the chapel to have a look inside.

Bernard Bunting has okayed it for me to give his telephone number and email address out if anyone would like further information: 07836264468 or bernard@perryuniform.co.uk.

Mark S Bradshaw, Billingham

Not such a 'good life'

I was appalled to read in the May issue just how fast the growth of ‘Good Life’ farming is in the Dales.

We will end up like South Africa with people not producing any food. A friend of my brother in South Africa is having his farm taken off him and split into tiny units so that families can keep six hens and a goat.

He grew acres of corn, barley, wheat and maize to feed a nation.

People in the Dales are spoiling what were hay meadows where a hay crop fed animals through the winter.

Most of them have a decent income so they don’t need to produce any food. The land goes back to bent, thistles, dockins and moles – not a pretty sight in the Dales.

Debbie Conway, Leyburn

Good times at the Maypole

The article about Long Preston (May) brought back many happy memories for me.

Just after the war an aunt and uncle of my office colleague were the licensees at the Maypole and I used to go and spend most bank holiday weekends there. The local people were very friendly folk and we soon got to know quite a number of them personally.

In the evenings we would sit with them in the snug, chatting away. I remember one such occasion brought forth a tale from an ex-RAF officer, talking of high jinks he and his fellow officers got up to.

They had got together and put a trail of black footprints across the ceiling in their Mess.
Needless to say this idea went down very well with the assembled at the Maypole and it was not long before one of the local lads was having the soles of his bare feet blackened, I think with boot black. He was hoisted shoulder high and was soon doing his ceiling walk.

Some time later I was listening to a radio programme where they tried to find solutions to unexplained curiosities, one of which was the trail of black footprints on the ceiling in the Maypole at Long Preston.

I felt quite smug sitting at home knowing the answer to their problem. Thanks for a very interesting magazine.

Edith M F Charlston, Leeds

Don't keep 'em guessing

I have lived in Canada for thirty-five years but still visit my home town of Skipton every year.

Your photo of Veronica Trueman and Dickie Bird in front of the inspirational Fred Trueman statue in the May issue recalled a recent visit.

While viewing the statue I was asked twice by out of town visitors as to who it was.

This made me wonder why there was no plaque or inscription. This could be fairly simple and refer to Fred and the fact that he was the first bowler to take 300 wickets in Test cricket.

Has any consideration been given to this? As time goes by and new generations emerge, the number of people having memories of Fred will decrease.

Jim Walker, by email

CAN YOU HELP?

I have recently acquired some back copies of Dalesman in which artist Alec Wright was mentioned.

Last year my daughter and I visited the Craft Tent at Stokesley Show where we found for sale many of Alec’s line drawings and watercolours (unframed).

We bought four, one of Sheriff Hutton Church, a room interior (house unknown) and two watercolours of a family of children all named and handwritten in pencil beneath each child.

The children were dressed in pinafores and boots in the style of the beginning of the twentieth century.

Their names were Emily, Alice, Maude, Annie, Jane and one boy Jemmie; all of the Smith family.

Do any readers know anything about this family, who were possibly from the Cleveland area?

The watercolours are delightful and I would love to know more about them.

Nancy Megginson, Sheriff Hutton, York

Does anyone have any material on James O Hansom, born in York but taken to London where he trained as an architect?

I am writing an essay on his life, but have some gaps. He planned Birmingham Town Hall. There’s a Hansom pub in York and one in the Knightsbridge area of London but I can’t find any information about them.

I’m hopeful for details, say, from old books.

Joy Crawshaw, by email

I have two four-by-nine inch watercolour paintings signed W Wray.

He was an amateur and they were painted between 1900-1910.

This much I was told by one of the art experts at the BBC Antiques Roadshow which visited Saltaire recently.

It would be nice to establish if W Wray was from Yorkshire. Can any reader help?

David Oyston, Bingley

Can anyone help us find good quality parkin?

For many years we have bought it from the Leeds based Ainsley’s shops. They made a fair product but they have now gone.

Most parkins tend to be too clarty and cake-like to eat with Wensleydale cheese. It should be a bit dry and not soft.

Before the Second World War, when we lived in the South, we received a food parcel from Lancashire with perfect parkin and crumbly cheese.

Although my wife is a very good cook she has never managed to bake a satisfactory parkin.

It tends to be nearer a gingerbread. Good, but not the genuine article. 

Brian Kay, Thorner

My husband John has been trying to remember an old Yorkshire poem which his father used to recite at family occasions.

We can recall the first part and later bits of it, but not the whole thing. It starts...“Once in a little country town/A grocer kept a shop/And sold amongst other things prime treacle, drink and pop.”

It goes on to tell the story of a treacle cask being delivered by a horse and cart but the horse gives a “sudden chuck” and the treacle is spilt and “all t’ treacle guz in t’ muck!”.

The local children laugh but the shopkeeper bemoans the fact that he has paid for something he never got. Does anyone know the whole poem?

Jill Garforth, by email

FAMILY QUEST

I am trying to accurately trace my late grandfather Frank Tweedale’s family tree.

His 1895 Wakefield birth certificate was witnessed by his father Phillip Whitton Tweedale, and we have traced on the Whitton-Tweedale website back to a marriage of 1761.

Following the Twiddles/Tweddls/Twiddals etc., we have got back as far as 1557 when Georgius Tweddell and Margaretae Andrewe married at the Manor of Almondbury, Huddersfield on 8 Dec.

Are any readers able to confirm the accuracy of the above?

Also, is there a sideways connection from the 1761 Whitton Tweedale marriage through the Whitton line to the Wilton carpet family?

I am also keen to trace the Twiddall-Andrewe line even further back if it is indeed accurate. Who are the Andrewes? 

Steve Lawson, 3 Bridge Court, Evelyn St, Beeston, Notts NG9 2DQ. Tel 0115 8840147.

I am trying to find information regarding my grandfather who died between 1923 and 1925, aged seventy-one.

The surname was Hare and he was born, I presume, in Yorkshire. I don’t know his first name.

My grandfather Hare had a coach builders in York, with the front entrance in Davygate and back entrance in Swinegate and Little Stonegate.

He had four children; my father and three daughters. My father was Walter Henry Hare, born 1879, and his sisters were Jessie, Dora and I don’t know the other sister’s name.

Dora married Charlie Fanthorpe, who was a director of Rowntrees in York. Dora and Charlie had three daughters, Maggie, Nancy and Kathy.

Jessie’s married name was Kennedy, and they had three sons, George, Frank and one whose name I can’t remember. George was a regular in the RAF before and during the war.

My father moved to London and worked for the British Drug Houses. I was born in Wimbledon in 1929 and my sister Barbara was born in 1923.

If anyone can help it would be much appreciated.
 
George Alfred Hare, Longbrook, R.D.2. Napier, Te Pohue, New Zealand.

e-mail: hares@xtra.co.nz

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