I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights

dinsdag 14 januari 2014

Our clock has been keeping the time for Haworth for many years

The Yorkshire Post has great news from Haworth:
It had been a landmark that had helped mark the passing of time for more than a century.
But a health and safety ban put paid to the winding up of a Victorian clock which had been used by people in Brontë Country to set their watches since 1871.
However, worshippers at Patrick Brontë’s former church of St Michael and All Angels are celebrating after enough money has now been raised to bring the building up to the 21 century’s stringent safety regulations.
The congregation had been angered after the clock-winder was banned from the bell tower nearly a year ago. Retired police officer Jens Hislop was among the volunteers who kept the timepiece – which is older than most of the church - ticking.
The pensioner had been making the journey up the tower in Haworth in West Yorkshire two or three times a week for 23 years. But insurers ruled the step ladder the winders had used for decades was too risky for the 10ft ascent up to the winding platform.
Despite there being no accidents, Mr Hislop was ordered to down tools and left unwound, the clock hands ground to a halt at twenty past five in February last year. The parish was told £700 would have to be found from donations to make the platform safe before anyone could venture up there again.
Now a plea by the church’s congregation, who completed a £237,000 renovation of the building’s south roof in 2012, has resulted in a £700 windfall. The Haworth-based Brunswick Chapter of Freemasons obtained the cash from the First Grand Principal of Yorkshire West Riding’s Charitable Fund.
Reverend Peter Mayo-Smith, the Priest in Charge at Haworth, said: “The reason we could not wind the clock was nothing to do with the clock itself. It was wear and tear on the landing. The work has been done by a local joiner and the clock is keeping perfect time.
“We would have had to make an appeal. But because they came and very kindly gave us the donation they saved us the hassle of the fundraising. Local people are delighted it is back up and running and so am I. It is a significant landmark and it is nice to hear the chimes again.
“It is very hard to explain to visitors that this was a classic case of part of the building had become slightly unsafe. We had to bring it up to modern standards and it was money well spent. The access ladder was well beyond its sell-by date.
“The rails were broken and there was broken glass in the doors which protect the mechanism so we had to get it done. Our clock has been keeping the time for Haworth for many years and we wanted to make sure that people who volunteer to wind-up the clock are kept as safe as possible.
“Now we can look forward to seeing the historic clock tick on for many years. We thank Brunswick Chapter for coming to our aid.”
Chapter First Principal John Barnes added: “Some of our members noticed that the church clock had stopped and discovered why it was not being wound. We’ve been delighted to get a great public service re-started and that people in Haworth will always know the time again.”
Mr Hislop, 73, had branded the ban “barmy and crazy” and said things “had been going like clockwork until health and safety kicked in”.
He said: “The platform is only 10ft off the floor and the wooden step ladder was here when I started 23 years ago and is no different now to what it was then.”
The clock mechanism runs down in eight days if not kept fully wound. He was not aware there had been an accident in the tower since it was built in 1871. The winders had maintained the clock by going up the tower by a spiral staircase to the first floor where the bell chamber is.
They then placed the step ladder on the floor of the bell chamber and climbed up to the wooden winding platform with a crank handle to wind the chimes and the clock. Church officials were advised the ladder was too rickety and the worn-out platform bannisters needed replacing and extending from just over 2ft to more than 3.5ft. There were also gaps which people could slip through so a second rail was needed to avoid any mishaps.

2 opmerkingen:

  1. I'm glad they made Mr Hislop stop going up that unsafe ladder...lord... What 73 year old thinks he's changed in any way in 23 years? lol..But why wait until there was an accident? It was a bad situation ... and it was not just a matter of the ladder, but the window which protects the mechanism
    as well However I'm thrilled the clock and chimes are back.

    Haworth is a place where time stands still...but after a year +
    with a stopped clock, it was getting ridiculous lol .

    Yay Clock! Thank you Brunswick Chapter !

    BeantwoordenVerwijderen
  2. I am glad there was money for some repairs, and now the clock will be allowed to continue chiming! I love old landmark buildings like this, I hope to be able to hear it chime one day!

    BeantwoordenVerwijderen

The Parlour

The Parlour

Parsonage

Parsonage

Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte



Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.


O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!


Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,


To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.


With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.


Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.


There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.


--
Emily Bronte

Family tree

The Bronte Family

Grandparents - paternal
Hugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternal
Thomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

Parents
Father was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte Children
Patrick and Maria Bronte had six children.
The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.
The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.

Top Withens in the snow.

Top Withens in the snow.

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