Haworth to Heptonstall and Hebden bridge

Interesting website:

valendale.myby/roads

Haworth to Heptonstall and Hebden bridge. This would have been a well traveled route,  Heptonstall had a Piece Hall  long before Halifax. A cloth hall was built at Heptonstall in 1545-1548 by the Waterhouse family of Shibden Hall and called Blackwell Hall after the London market of that name.  bbc.co.uk  calderdale.gov.uk  
At Marsh, Oxenhope, along Lee Lane, Bodkin Lane, Thurrish Lane, turn right onto Waste Lane, Dick Dean Lane, Baby House Hill Lane, at the staggered crossed roads where there are signs of past life, the ruin on the right looks like it was once a fine building, an 1894 map tells us it was called Nook and also known as Higher Sunny Bank, In 1853 John Greenwood (b. 1790ish Wadsworth) tenant of Savile Estate in 1853 lived here with his family. To the right we have Coppy Lane which will take you to Walshaw, or the track to the left Sunny Bank Road, taking you to Old Lane, again looking at the map we see some buildings marked called Sunny Bank, these were on the right going down Sunny Bank Road, there is a photo of what remains of Sunny Bank on Flicker, or continue straight on and drop down to Hardcastle Crags, and then on to Hebden Bridge. 

History of Cowling Hill Farm

Local legend has it that The Weavers Cottages at Cowling Hill Farm were once won in a game of cards by Patrick Branwell Bronte. It is thought that around the  time  Patrick Branwell Bronte returned from the Robinson family, won the Weavers Cottages in a game of cards.
Bancrofts from Yorkshire/hand-loom-weaving-in-yorkshire


 

Emily Brontë had a more terrific creative power than any woman we know of in literature. She was a poet, and even greater than a poet if that be possible; she was a seer of the most tremendous insight, and it was the very light of her spirit that it should be kept secret, that there could not be that free and easy relation to life which we lesser people enjoy... Rev. F. A. Bullock.

After a long struggle, justice had been done

One of the most famous incidents during Patrick's curacy at Dewsbury concerned a young man called
William Nowell of Dawgreen, Dewsbury; who had been arrested and wrongly imprisoned as a deserter of the army. Britain was at the time in the middle of the Napoleonic wars and in order to maintain a supply of soldiers, recruiting officers were sent to local fairs to offer a 'recruiting shilling' to any likely candidates.  In September 1810, a soldier named James Thackray, stated that Nowell had accepted the King's Shilling at the horse fair held at  Lee Fair, near Wakefield and had therefore been formally enlisted to the 30th Regiment.
On 25 September 1810, soldiers appeared at William Nowell's home to arrest him for failing to report at the Regimental headquarters.  Nowell pleaded that he had not attended Lee Fair and had several witnesses who could testify that he had been in Dewsbury that day.  The magistrate refused to accept the testimonies of these witnesses and committed Nowell to Wakefield Prison. The case caused an immediate outcry in Dewsbury and Patrick was one of four men who went to meet with the magistrate in Wakefield to plead for the case to be re-heard.  They were accompanied by two new witnesses who swore that they had been with the soldier James Thackray at the Lee Fair, and he had not enlisted any new recruits that day. The magistrate refused to examine the new witnesses and William Nowell remained in prison. Determined not to be beaten and to see justice being done, Patrick, together with the churchwardens and principal inhabitants of Dewsbury, wrote to the Leeds Mercury and the War Office to demand a retrial. Eventually, a hearing was arranged for 2 November 1810.  Patrick  and eminent Dewsbury men attended the hearing along with fifteen witnesses who could testify that Nowell had not been at Lee Fair on the day in question.  Following the hearing, the evidence was sent to London and five days later William Nowell was released from prison after spending ten weeks in custody. After the hearing, Patrick Brontë received the following letter from the Secretary of War,

Lord Palmerston:
WAR Office, 5th December, 1810.
Sir,
Referring to the correspondence relative to William Nowell, I am to aquaint you that I feel so strongly the injury that is likely to arise to the Service from an unfair mode of recruiting, that if by the indictment that the lad's friends are about to prefer against James Thackray they shall establish the fact of his having been guilty of perjury, I shall be ready to indemnify them for the reasonable and proper expenses which they shall bear on the occasion.                           
I am, sir, Yours, & C.,
PALMERSTON
To the Rev. P. Brontë, Dewsbury, near Leeds.

On 7 December 1811, the soldier James Thackray was found guilty of perjury at York Assizes and
sentenced to seven years transportation.  After a long struggle, justice had been done

Read on: kirklees.gov.uk/visitors/documents/patrickbronte A lot of information and pictures. 

Pining for the west

On this day in 1849

Anne Bronte died at 2 o'clock in the afternoon aged 29 at Scarborough.

 

 

A NEW plaque has been installed at Anne Bronte’s grave in Scarborough to ensure that visitors will be able to read the inscription for years to come.

Read on: scarborough evening news