Friday 1st February – Denby Dale – A mill village in the Upper Dearne Valley, stands on the Barnsley-Huddersfield line, next stop from Penistone. The approach from Penistone is via a towering viaduct which dominates the village. The first viaduct constucted in wood between 1846 and 1850. Built of timber, the complete viaduct was 112 feet high and 400 yards 
long with 40 perpendiculars. A porter kept a line of half filled water buckets (half filled because the vibration of the trains spilled the other half) along its length to use in case of fire. The present stone viaduct was started in October 1877 and was built by Naylor Brothers at a cost of £27,650. It was opened on Whit Sunday, May 16th 1880 and has 21 arches. From the main road, the Wakefield road, the village rises up to fields to the north and is a solid mass of housing to the south. Much infilling between the old mill cottages has taken place throughout the 20th century and continues to this day. Unfortunately, very few of the modern houses have any architectural merit or character. I have lost my OS map for the area and am navigating using a bit of the 1851 map. The viaduct seems to have an extra section added at the north end, although it is not clear why. It is bright sunshine but a gale is blowing. A Great Tit is calling his “rusty bicycle” song nearby. Down past Wood Nook and Pecketts Row (although there is no reference to the latter on the ground). A road leads down to Springfield Mill, now commercial units. The River Dearne is gurgling down between old stone walls and disappears under the road and under the mill. Along Dearneside Road, where a slope leads down beside an old cottage with stone steps leading down from further along the road, although the way is blocked from the top. The river has re-emerged and is meandering around the backs of yards and cottages. 
The landscape here has changed over the years and it is now complex and difficult to resolve the original layout. The road twists and drops down into Revel Bottom. It now joins Miller Hill and crosses Miller Bridge and leads back up to the main road. Just before the bridge is a long building called Lowfield House. It looks like an old mill and there is a reference on the map to a corn mill around this area, but it is not clear it was this building. Just before the main road is the old Salvation Army hall (or citadel), with stones set into the walls dating from 1926, but the building has been converted to domestic use. The sky has been getting darker and as I reach the main road a torrent of hailstones falls. I shelter by a building with a useful alcove. The hailstones slowly turn to sleet and eventually it peters out. Opposite is the Victorian school, sadly disfigured by a prefab attached to the front. It is now a nursery.
By the old school, Leak Hall Lane leads up the hill northwards through modern dwellings. At the top is a group 
of buildings, once a large farm now all converted to domestic dwellings. I had assumed this is Leak Hall as the main house looks like a mixture of typical farmhouse with a rather more imposing section to the rear, but it appears this was simply the farm as I had first supposed and Leak Hall is no longer standing. A footpath leads across Cliff Hill where there is a small trough of water under a large Hawthorn – either the old well or a drain, there were both in the area according to the map. The path comes out into Cumberworth Lane. Just down the hill is the imposing Methodist chapel, built in 1799 and enlarged in 1859. This was the Wesleyan chapel, the Primitive chapel being on the hill opposite. Down the hill to the main road where stands the White Hart Inn, present in the early part of the 19th century and probably far older. I detour round Wood Nook which is a little loop of probably the original road, passing Wood Nook Farm with a splendid old barn whose roof is sagging conspicuously. A muddy track (too muddy for me) leads off, once it was Wood Lane. Then back down to Springfield Mill and up the other side of the valley to Holy Trinity church, constructed in 1938. It is a traditional shape but obviously 
relatively modern and its date is a testament to the strength of the non-conformist movement here. Back down to the mill and then follow the Dearne up to the viaduct. A worn stone footbridge crosses the river, which is only a couple of yards across, by a weir that feeds into a small circular basin. Steps lead back up to the main road. There is little sign of what Denby Dale is famous for – its giant pies. The first Denby Dale Pie was made in 1788 and was said to celebrate the recovery of King George III from a bout of “madness”. The second was baked in 1815 celebrated the end of the war with France and the defeat of Napoleon. The pie, by today’s standards was relatively small and was said to contain “two sheep, twenty fowls and a half a peck of flour for the crust.” The third on August 19th 1846 celebrated the repeal of the Corn Laws. On August 27th 1887 a pie was baked to celebrate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. However the pie was left for some days in hot weather and went rotten and had to be buried in a pit of quick lime. A second pie known as the “Resurrection Pie” was baked on September 3rd. A pie on August 1st 1896 celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Repeal of the Corn Laws, the next on on August 26th 1928 as a belated Victory pie and to raise money for the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. On September 5th 1964 the eighth pie celebrated four Royal births, Prince Edward, Lady Helen Windsor, Lady Sarah Armstrong Jones and James Ogilvy. The next pie was baked on September 3rd 1988 celebrated the bi-centenary of the first pie. 2000 saw the making of the tenth record breaking Denby Dale Pie, weighing 12 tons and measuring 40 feet long. As well as obviously celebrating the new Millennium, The Millennium Pie coincided with the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the Penistone Railway Line.
which being impervious to water results in springs providing a good water supply. Igneous rocks have pushed through and into the limestone carrying ores, especially lead and fluorspar which is still mined locally. We start at the the Bull’s Head, built in 1606 and in the ownership of the Talbot family for centuries but is now, sadly flats. Past the Town Hall and opposite is the Plague Cottage where the plague started. Like the rest of Eyam it is a pretty building. It has a plaque outside recording the four persons who perished. A number of dwellings have these plaques but the beauty and tranquillity of the place refuses to convey the sheer horror of the days of the plague. It is not until later I begin to comprehend, maybe only slightly, how people must have felt watching their loved ones die, one after another, not knowing if they would be next.
winds round lined by a delightful mixture of cottages and houses, one with a faint badge high on the side wall inscribed 1799. Hawk Hill leads off with another set of troughs and leads up to the site of now demolished Bradshaw Hall. The museum is sited here with surmounted by a weather vane bearing the image of a rat. Back up the main street is the only remaining part of Bradshaw Hall. The hall was built by Francis Bradshaw in the Tudor Period but was sited on a building from the reign of King John in the late 12th century. The Bradshaws left the village in 1660. On up the road and a fine house is identified as originally being an inn called “Heart of Oak”, a reference to British seamen. It was built in 1587 and rebuilt in 1660 and called the “Royal Oak” in tribute to restoration of the monarchy. The building was extensively rebuilt in 1907 and is now a private residence. A carving of an Oak tree adorns the portico over the front entrance. Next is the herbalist’s cottage, Humphrey Merrill. He died in September 1666, but his wife Anne survived as did Andrew Merrill who left the village and built a rough shelter on the edge of Eyam Moor where he lived with his pet cockerel until the plague had passed. We come to the house of Richard Furness, the poet, who was born here on 2nd August 1791 and died in Dore on 13th December 1857. West End Cottage was built in 1553 and nine members of the Willson family died there in the plague. 
Townhead Factory was built in 1735 to weave silk. Ralph Wain discovered how to weave a pattern on both sides of silk. In the apex is a pigeon loft used for carrier pigeons to take messages to the mills in Macclesfield. Town Head Inn opposite was built in the 17th century and lodged drovers who carried the mill’s silk to Macclesfield. Like most the other inns in the village it is now a private dwelling place.
This was taken to be a depiction of the martyrdom of St Lawrence, however, the dedication of the church to him is only about 100 years old, before which the church was dedicated to St Helen. It is thus likely this is The Grim Reaper. There is also a fragment of a painting of a portion of the Creed. Near where there was originally a chapel of St Helen, used as a private pew for the Stafford and later the Bradshaw families, is a wall carving of a cross dedicated to St Helen. Here is also a fine Saxon font, which came from the garden of Brookfield Manor in Hathersage and was donated to the church by Sir Charles Cammell in 1888. The current font, by the church entrance is Norman. There are a number of good stained glass windows. Back outside in the graveyard are a number of interesting graves, including that of Catherine Mompesson, wife of the rector, who died of the plague. Down in the rear graveyard is the gravestone of Henry Bagshaw who played cricket for Derbyshire and the M.C.C. The stone depicts a ball sending stumps and bails flying with, at the top, the finger pointing upwards, indicating the player is out and has come the the end of his innings. The scripts records:
chief tenant. The manor passed family of Vescy, one of whom, in the reign of Edward I gave it to Rufford Abbey, in Nottinghamshire. After the Dissolution, it was granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury and then passed down to the Effingham family. The town developed around the Rotherham Bridge where the Chapel of Our Lady was erected in 1483. Only four such chapels remain, many having been destroyed in the Dissolution. It is said that the Rotherham chapel survived because it is such an integral part of what was then the only bridge across the Rother here. The whole town around the centre has been 
destroyed by mid to late 20th century development of the poorest type. In the centre, above an open space now dominated by a huge television screen, stands the Minster of All Saints. The church is considered one of the finest examples of mediaeval perpendicular architecture in the country. The spire stands at 180 feet having been erected in the early 15th century. A Saxon church was recorded in the Domesday Book and a Norman church was built on the site in the late 11th century. In the nave, above the altar is the line of the roof of the Norman church, much lower than today. The ceiling is of oak with 77 carved bosses coloured gold. At the top of the nave pillars are carvings of the “Green Man”. The church was restored in 1873 by Sir Gilbert Scott who treated many of the original features sympathetically. The chancel has a fine painted ceiling and stone sedilla (seats for the clergy) and a squint beside them 
allowing people in the Jesus Chapel (created by Thomas Rotherham) to see the high altar. The organ dates from 1777 and was built and installed by Johann Snetzler, one of the best organ builders. A records chest from 1540 sits behind the organ. Nearby is a beautiful funerary brass dedicated to Robert and Ann Swyft dating from 1561. The Swyfts were ancestors of Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels. Outside the walls are local sandstone, Rotherham Red, with limestone from Roche used for details. Gargoyles stare out high on the tower and the windows have heads at their edges, one holding a large key. From the Minster I head up the hill to The Crofts. Here once stood the main market, one of the largest in South Yorkshire. In 1861, 3000 fat sheep and 200 fat cattle were sold a week. However, the market was closed for two years from 1865 because of the bovine disease, rinderpest. By the time the market reopened it had been superseded by Sheffield market. From here, a path drops down to Wellgate and then Doncaster Gate leads up to Clifton Park. Here stands Clifton House, built between 1783-4 for Joshua Walker, second son of Samuel Walker, founder of Rotherham Ironworks. The house was designed in the Palladian style by John Carr of York, who built Keppel’s Tower. It now houses the town museum.
sliced off. Standing by the motorway bridge, the songs of a Song Thrush, Dunnock, Robins and Blue and Great Tits are constant despite the noise of traffic. The church was founded by a member of the de Laci family in the 12th century, but the present church is the result of rebuildings between 1480 and 1520. In 1484 King Richard III gave the living of Darton to Monk Bretton Priory in exchange for Holcombe Forest in Westmoreland. When King Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor all his acts were revoked, and David Hunter, the first vicar of Darton, was replaced in 1486 but later re-instated. After the dissolution of Monk Bretton Priory, the advowson passed back to the crown, thence to the Marsh family at the end of the 16th century to their relative George Carr, and after the civil war to the Wentworth family of Woolley. At the end of the 18th century the patronage passed to the Beaumont family of Bretton Hall with whom it remained until 1959 when Viscount Allendale’s trustees gave the Right of Patronage to the Bishop of Wakefield. (This information was extracted from “A Short History of All Saints Church Darton” in Barnsley Central Library.) The church is closed, indeed 
there is a notice stating that it cannot remain open because of “repeated theft and vandalism”. The large graveyard has litter strewn about it. Strange how a nation that can get hysterical about the death of a princess who had very little bearing on their lives can be so uncaring about the remains of their own people. One gravestone appears to have a cut around the month of death. I wonder if the stone mason made an error and cut out it out and inserted a piece of stone with the correct month inscribed upon it. Another, one of the oldest, records the passing of Anthony Dury of Shires Moor 1723; I have been unable to locate Shires Moor. Snowdrops are in bloom. On into the village past a fine building that was once the vicarage. The village has little interest apart from the old Sunday School. There are signs of the recent flooding – the Post Office remains closed and sandbags litter the pavement. The road passes under the railway and then turns sharp right and heads for Mapplewell. The road rises past the old school, still in use and then past the wide open space where there were brickworks and the North Gawber Colliery Railway. As the road rises and turns a house stands with a black plaque high on the wall reading: “Mrs Fountain’s Nurse’s House 1908”. A park stands just further up. Starlings are chattering noisily at the top of a tree, whilst a small charm of Goldfinches twitters on a lower tree. From Mapplewell I turn down Spark Lane past Methodist Chapels, one still in use, and on down to Lower Barugh to The Millers where I partake of a pint before wandering back up the Huddersfield Road.
Moor where the sails of the wind-farm are stationary except for a single windmill revolving slowly. Skylarks are rising into the air singing their little hearts out. The views from the lookout point are limited as there is quite a haze across the middle distance. Down through Millhouse Green, past the Flouch and up across the moors. I am able to stop at Saltersbrook bridge and look down the steep ravine to where the old Salt Road packhorse bridge crosses the stream. It is further down the hillside than I had thought. Next to it are the low walls of the ruined Miller’s Arms inn, which must have been a vision of heaven after the long haul up Longdendale.
across the moors and the Calder valley towards Stoodley Pike Monument. Into the village past modern stone built council housing. The main street up through the village is narrow and cobbled. The cottages that line the street and lead off in small terraces from it all have the large windows associated with weavers’ cottages, and indeed this village was an early centre of the woollen trade. There had been a battle here in 1643 during the Civil War, resulting in much of the village being burnt. The Cloth Hall remained, situated on the main street and a ginnel leading towards the church and old Grammar School, now a museum and being re-roofed currently, built in 1642 from money left in the will of the Reverend Charles Greenwood. The Cloth Hall was the trading centre for the woollen cloth produced in the cottages. It was built by the Lords of the Manor, the Greenwoods around the mid 16th century and originally named “Blackwell Hall” after the great cloth exchange in London. It is the oldest cloth hall in Yorkshire. The church comes as a surprise because there are two churches here. The original church was founded around 1172 and building continued until 1250. The church was dedicated to St Thomas à Beckett, who was canonised in the founding year. The church was closed as a result of “an effusion of blood” in 1482 - the precise historical details of the incident are unknown, but a local legend, ironically in a church dedicated to St Thomas à Becket, tells of a priest slain in the church for performing an illicit marriage. In 1530, 14 armed men entered the church and destroyed the seat 
used by the Wadworth family, (why, I know not). The building was enlarged in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1765 it is recorded that, “The vestry of ye church of Heptonstall was broken open and out of ye chest there the communion plate was stolen on ye night between ye 15th and 16th December”. In 1779, John Wesley preached there and again in 1780 and 1786, when he remarked, “I preached at 10 in Heptonstall Church (the ugliest I know)”. In 1847, a great storm destroyed the roof and part of the walls. It was decided not to repair the church but build a new one in the Victorian Gothic style. The new church of St Thomas was finished in 1854 at a cost of £6666. In the 1960s the interior of the new church was modernised, causing considerable dissent in the village (and not without reason as it may look modern but has little character). An old painted panel of the Royal coat of arms hangs over the entrance. There are some pleasant stained glass windows, one with an unusual amount of green glass. Outside the majority of the churchyard between the two church buildings is covered by laid down gravestones. The site is said to contain over 100,000 corpses. Beyond the church wall is the new graveyard. Apart from a number of graves of Farrar’s, there is the grave of Sylvia Plath, the poet. She was married to the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes but committed suicide in 1963. On her headstone (which is regularly vandalised to remove “Hughes” from it) are the lines, “Even amidst fierce flames, The golden lotus can be planted”, which Hughes credited to the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita but 
in fact comes from the 16th century book “Monkey” by Wu Ch’Eng-En, in which Monkey is taught the way of longevity. It is a peaceful in the brilliant sunshine. Starlings are chattering in the trees and keening of a Curlew floats from over the surrounding moorland. The Old Vicarage has a sign indicating that a cock-pit existed here in the times of the Napoleonic Wars. Back up the main street, where it is called “Top o’ th’ Town”, is a side lane that leads past a rough stone arch inscribed “IB 1778”. This leads to Whitehall Farm, which was previously called “Bentley’s” after the family who were copyholders until 1722. Several of the Bentleys were literary figures, especially Dr Richard Bentley, (1662-1742) who was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. A little on, down on the steep hillside is the Methodist chapel, the oldest still in use in the world. The foundation stone was laid by John Wesley in 1764. Up the main street further is a pump and well, the Smith Well, one assumes as the street is now called that. At the Lane Top the road heads off into the moors.
rather than an open space. Mellor Bridge is an old packhorse bridge which crosses the river to St Bartholomew’s church. The first chapel was built in 1453 and held 311 people. It had fallen into decay by 1480 as the locals were unable to afford its upkeep, so Edward IV gave an endowment of 4 Marks, which enabled the church to continue. In 1697, Isaac Walton, (not the Walton who wrote “The Complete Angler”) aged 24, was ordained and came to live in Clough Lea. 15 years later he was ordained a priest, and served for the next 32 years until his death in 1728, at the age of 56. He was a scholar who became known for his sermons, which were so long they were delivered in instalments. A new chapel was built on the same site in 1758, at a cost of £1,145. In 1779, the Reverend Lancelot Bellas became the minister – a preacher from Saddleworth who was the popular choice of the village. He was in Marsden for 36 years, 1779-1815, gaining a reputation for eloquence and his drinking habits. He left such an impression that Marsden was nicknamed, Bellas Town. In 1798, Black Fever killed 15% of the population. There was not enough room in the churchyard for the bodies, so its level was raised three feet by carting soil from Clough Lea. The church now standing was built in 1895, mainly through the efforts of Reverend Buller. It has a large graveyard with a number of wonderfully pretentious Victorian headstones and monuments. Jackdaws are calling around the tops of the trees and the church tower. Marsden also has a strong tradition of non-conformism. John Wesley visited in 1746 and again in 1757, when he “road over the mountains to Huddersfield”. In Marsden he met, “A wilder people I have never saw in all England”. However, Methodism flourished.
Institute, built in 1861 “to improve the intellect of the working classes”. Street names are displayed on small stone tablets. The high street leads up to the main A62 across which is a pleasant park with its bandstand. A road runs west past a new development of houses, which whilst built in the same pale stone as the rest of the town, still looks crowded and unpleasant. The local pub rejoices in the name of “The Old New Inn”. Up the road is a large mill. A temporary bridge has been placed over the road, from one side of which a rushing stream issues and runs under another large industrial building. A road leads back to the church passing under the A62. I head back up Station Road to the canal and follow it westwards. The canal is called the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, as opposed to the Broad Canal which runs east out of Huddersfield. It is clear why it is so named when one looks at 
some of the locks. They are truly the most narrow I have seen. The canal winds westward. Pairs of Mallard swim along, nearly always the female leading with the male following attentively – spring is coming! The canal used to end where the hills of Standedge rise and goods were then taken to and fro from Lancashire in the original way, by packhorse. In 1794 a 3¼ mile long tunnel was built under Standedge. It is the longest, deepest and highest canal tunnel in Britain. It is 5,500 yards long, 638 feet underground at the deepest point and 645 feet above sea level. It was never a great success, the lack of tow-path meant men had to lie on their backs and “leg” the boats through, whilst the horse was taken over the tops by Boat Lane. In 1849 the first railway tunnel was constructed, a second in 1870 and the present double track tunnel in 1894. The canal tunnel was closed in 1943 but reopened in 2001 and a large visitors’ centre opened. Up the hill is a reservoir feeding the canal via a water course that crosses the railway via a bridge which then curves round and down back under the railway and into the canal. Houses are scattered across the hillsides, one far above seems to have been built across a clough, or stream valley. High above, stands Pule Hill, site of both Mesolithic and Bronze Age sites. A mound and a cross stare out down the valley.
and disappear into the whiteness of the fog. A junction appears at Lane Head. The road to Oughtibridge rises and then drops suddenly down to a sharp corner. The hill is called “Jawbone Hill”. One story states that whale jaw bones formed an arch on the hill top, whilst others think it was simply the bend in the road that resembles a jaw bone. Just off the road stands the Birley Stone, a standing stone, the base of which may be original although the shaft is later. The stone was first recorded in 1161 as the Burleistan, as a boundary marker between the lands of Richard de Louvetot, Lord of the Manor of Hallamshire and the monks of the Abbey of St Wandrille in Normandy, who founded the priory at Ecclesfield in 1273. By the stone is a “toposcope”, a plaque that points the direction of various landmarks from this point – none of which can be seen in the dense fog. It was erected by the Parish Council of Wortley to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951. I head back towards Grenoside, back past Lane Head and into Stephen Lane. It is a strange and quite exhilarating experience following the route with the 1855 map and all the landmarks lost in the fog. The cottages in the village are mainly 18th and 19th century with much 20th century infill. Off of Stephen Lane runs Middle Lane where a delightful old barn stands with its upper door having a double bow shaped hole for a window. Middle Lane forms a junction with Bower Lane, Top Lane and Rough Lane, the latter leading past a farm and new build onto a farm track. An old stone stile, well worn lies by the gate and a bright ginger hen scratches around it.
singing, but they are subdued and the songs are short snatches. A crack of wings above and looking up to see the ghosts of Wood Pigeons disappearing into the mist. A ginnel leads down to Main Street and across is Grenogate. This leads down to a fine house, Greno Lodge, which looks like it is being renovated. A footpath leads to Lump Lane. The leads around an area called The Lump. From here Well Lane is a path to Norfolk Hill. The well is now under the car park of the new school opposite. The old Victorian school is boarded up and, sadly will be demolished for more housing. Down the hill is the Methodist Chapel. The original was built in 1807 but this building was built in 1919, designed according to a stone plaque, by LH Ward, Architect. Further down is a small row of cottages not in Woodside Lane, but were named Pitthroat Row on the 1855 map. The pit would have been once of the numerous sandstone quarries and mines around the area. Sandstone blocks were used for buildings both locally and in Sheffield and the mined sandstone was called ganister, a fine powdered stone used to make refactory bricks for lining furnaces. School Lane turns off Norfolk Hill. The school house has a sign dating it to 1737. School Lane turns left and travels to the Halifax Road, the A61, at the bottom, but this road was once called Riders Lane. Back up at the junction of Norfolk Hill and Main Street is the centre of the old village with The Angel and Old Harrow inns (the “old” being a modern addition to the name). Outside the Harrow on Boxing Day there is the 
down Blacksmith Lane past St Mark’s Church built in 1884.
dead brown bracken. The road continues past a large hole, an old quarry. It then becomes Wentworth Road and reaches the junction with Station Road. The old railways are only discerned by the sides of a demolished bridge or a muddy track through thick woodland. Down Station Road to the Trans-Pennine Trail, which is on the old LNER line to Penistone. I wander along the trail and then up Edmund Road. There is a pub here, The Boat, that stood beside the Dove canal and one I have never visited. However, the presence of a funeral director’s car and a lot of people in black indicates that a wake is in progress and I decide to give it a miss. Through Worsbrough Dale and up the Sheffield Road. At the junction with Kingwell and Bank End Roads is an old milepost stating “Barnsley 2 miles, Sheffield 12 miles, London 175 miles”. One forgets the importance of this road before the M1 motorway was built. Whilst the main route out of London was The Great North Road, the A1, the A61, running from Derby to Thirsk, linked the major industrial centres of Leeds and Sheffield with the south and north. On the opposite corner is an old stone shelter with an ancient plank of wood for a seat. After a rest, I plod on up into Barnsley, pausing at the new refurbished Dove Inn, now an Old Mill Brewery house.
are numerous old coaching inns – Wetherby is more or less half way along its length from London to Edinburgh. The Angel had stabling for 100 horses, 40 of which were kept here for posting purposes. It had its own smithy and shoeing shop. In 1837 it serviced two mail coaches daily, between London and Edinburgh and Hull and Manchester. The Swan and Talbot, first licensed in 1678 had a soldiers’ room under the eaves and a malt kiln to brew beer. It had stabling for horses for the Leeds coach. Gas House Lane once was the site of gas works built in 1845.
and gargoyles. Most are modern but there are some genuine mediaeval monsters costing nearly £2000. The main shopping street leads back towards the bridge. The market place contains the town hall, built in 1845 on the site of the old chapel of ease. It has a plaque with the market charter on the wall along with a memorial to Squadron Leader J.H. (Ginger) Lacey DFM and Bar, Croix de Guerre who was one of the most successful fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain, shooting down the Heinkel that bombed Buckingham Palace. Off of the market place is the Shambles, built in 
1811 by the Duke of Devonshire as ten butcher shops, only to open on market day. In 1888 they were converted to a covered market. Although there has been some modernisation and infilling with modern buildings, overall the town centre has retained its charm. Back down by the river, a splendid walk and viewing spot has been created. The steps lead down to the the Weir Garth where there was a mill since before 1221. A cog wheel from the mill stands beside the wide weir. Passing under the bridge, the arches of earlier bridges can be seen. The arched, hump-backed bridge was built in 1233 when Walter de Gray, Archbishop of York, forgave the sins of those who contributed towards its cost. The bridge was only 12 feet wide and in need of frequent repair. It was widened in 1773 and again to its present width in 1826.
The Holmes, an area beside the Cod Beck, which was once said to be “the finest Willowgarth in the county”. The willows would be pollarded or coppiced to form growths of straight withies for basket making, a local industry. The church of St Mary Magdalene has been described as “the Cathedral of the Yale”. It stands on the site of a Norman church and building was started in 1430 and completed during the 16th Century. It is an excellent example of the perpendicular or florid style, the tower is 80 feet high finished with an embrasured and pierced battlement. Next to it is Thirsk Hall, home to the Lords of the Manor, the Bells and then the Franklands. It was built in 1723 and extended by John Carr of York in 1773. Kirk Gate (Church Lane) runs into town past the veterinary surgery where Alf Wight, who wrote as James Herriot, worked. It is now a museum. Also here stands the birthplace of Thomas Lord (1755-1832) who founded Lord’s Cricket Ground. The street enters the main square, still cobbled. The old Post Office is now tea rooms, well worth visiting. In the far corner stands one of the most imposing hotels of Thirsk, the Georgian Three Tuns Hotel was built in 1698, when it was a home to the Lords of the Manor. In 1740 the house was adapted to a coaching inn, being on the Leeds-Edinburgh coach run. The London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds and Darlington coaches all used the Three Tuns Hotel for bed and breakfast. A clock tower stands in the square. Finkle Street leads off across the beck. I have recorded before that Finkle is supposed to come from the Danish for a dogleg in a street, however recently I have seen the suggestion that it comes from the Flemish, vincle, meaning a covered wagon used as a stall for selling goods at a market. Over the river and off the main road beside a splendid crescent of houses, named unsurprisingly, The Crescent. Beyond is The Little Green, where a huge Elm tree stood under which election results were declared and the stocks stood. It was burned down in 1818 by some local boys but enough timber remained to make the Lord of the Manor, John Bell, two chairs. Six inns used to stand on The Green, today only The Lord Nelson survives. A path along the river takes us back to The Holmes.
has here 1 plough; and 2 villagers and 2 smallholders with 1 plough. Woodland pasture, 1½ leagues long and as wide. Value before 1066 £3; now 10s. The land was seized from the six Saxon lords mentioned above and granted to Earl Waltheolf, but he was executed in 1086 after taking part in a rebellion against William and the lands went to Countess Judith. They were held on her behalf by Roger de Busli. It is worth noting the considerable drop in value of the land recorded in the Domesday Book. This would have been because of William’s “harrying of the north” wherein many manors were razed and the people killed and dispossessed. By the end of the 11th century the lands were passed to William de Lovetot, who held manors in the district. I start in Mill Road, formerly called Dog Leg Lane. The mill, a corn mill, stood at the bottom of the road on the junction with the main Sheffield-Chapeltown route. Here in Mill Road is a small estate of prefabs, single story box-like dwellings erected just after to the Second World War to alleviate the housing shortage due to bombing. Very few 
remain now. Mill Road joins Church Lane and up the hill where the church, St Mary’s, occupies a fine position on the crest. Dodsworth, the historian visited Ecclesfield in 1620 and said “The church is called (and that deservedly) by the vulgar The Mynster of the Moores, being the fairest church for stone, wood and glase and neat keeping, that I ever came in of country church”. Behind the church is The Hall, a fine house which incorporates part of the Ecclesfield Priory. Countess Judith endowed the monks of the Benedictine Monastery of St Wandrille, in Normandy, with lands in Northamptonshire and a satellite house was set up in the late 11th century here in Ecclesfield. In 1141, it is recorded that amongst the English possessions of the abbey of St Wandrille are “Aiglesfeld, a church with chapels, and tithes, and one mill.” De Lovetot bequested money for the founding of a church for the monks. This church may well have been built on the site of a far older one, indeed the church that gave Ecclesfield its name. In 1324 the total of the valuation of the priory was £30 17s 1d, which 
had grown to £46 1s 4d by 1337, when King Edward III seized the site as it was an “alien” establishment, administered from the parent abbey in Normandy and England was at war, again, with France. The King let out all the seized priories until in 1361, hostilities having ceased, he restored them to their former owners. In 1386 the priory was seized by the Crown for a final time, before being given to the Carthusian Monastery of St Anne, Coventry. It is believed that no Carthusian monks were ever in residence at Ecclesfield, but the estate was farmed out to someone in the neighbourhood who converted the monastic buildings into what became Ecclesfield Hall.
a reclining figure, looking not unlike alleged likenesses of William Shakespeare. In the south aisle is the shaft of a Celtic cross which could have been used as a preaching point for wandering priests before the church was built. The glass is mainly Victorian, with just one window consisting of fragments of mediaeval glass from windows destroyed by the Puritans. A marble tablet is a memorial to the Revd Dr Alfred Gatty, Vicar of the Parish from 1839-1903. He was a very influential figure in the community, but it was his wife, Margaret who is more well known as a writer of children’s books and her fame is eclipsed by her daughter, Juliana Ewing, whose books are even more well known. The Brownie movement took its name from one of her stories. The old stocks sit in the churchyard. At the Dissolution the church passed into the patronage of the Earls of Shrewsbury.