Marsden: Canals, Comedy, Packhorses and Revolutionaries

Marsden, situated at the top of the Colne Valley, nestles into the millstone grit of the Pennine hills.  It is the gateway to open spaces and beautiful moor land scenery, home to curlews and rare twites.  It is also the last town in the West Riding before crossing into Lancashire.

The Romans passed this way building a road between York and Chester in AD 79. From medieval times onwards, Marsden was the natural crossing point for travellers, merchants and goods as they travelled from east to west.  It became the home for mill masters and revolutionaries.   Just eight miles from Huddersfield along the A62, Marsden boasts ancient tracks and pathways, turnpike roads, the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and it lies at the heart of Last of the Summer Wine Country.

The canal arrived at Tunnel End in 1804 but then the navvies faced the task of crossing the Pennines.  The canal tunnel took seventeen years to complete.  Engineered by Thomas Telford, it is the highest, longest at 3.2 miles and deepest in the country. 

Since 2001, the Huddersfield Canal Society have lovingly restored the waterway and turned it into a haven for wildlife, anglers and for visitors.  On the first Saturday of each month, this stretch of water is alive with people daring to take the thirty-minute glass topped boat ride inside the heart of the tunnel to find out more about its history and the men who dug it.  Volunteers make sure that everything runs smoothly including the five-minute ride on the little blue canal taxi that chugs up and down between Standedge and Lock 42.  

Marsden boasts not one but two packhorse bridges built specifically to allow winding caravans of merchandise and supplies across the river.  Mellor Bridge straddles the river opposite Marsden's church.

Packhorses and weary folk trudged along centuries old trails that radiated out from Marsden until 1759 when Blind Jack Metcalfe of Knaresburgh built a turnpike road that followed a more direct route. Bundles of heather were laid on the boggy ground. The road was built on top of this. The turnpike was the name for a gate lowered across the road to ensure that travellers using it paid their toll. Part of Blind Jack’s road survives today as Old Mount Road.  Unsurprisingly, given its strategic location, Marsden had not one but three turnpikes.  Each one was designed to improve on the one that came before.  The A62 follows the line of the last turnpike road. Travelling across the Pennines in times past sounds rather a hazardous, not to mention gruelling business.  Even today, during bad winter weather, the road may be closed.

There is a soot and lichen darkened memorial on the village green, the site of the original church, not far from the packhorse bridge, that links Marsden with revolution, riot and murder.  The tomb belongs Enoch and James Taylor.  The Taylor brothers are closely associated with the story of the Luddites.  These days ‘Luddite’ is a term to describe a technophobe.  At the turn of the nineteenth century when the Napoleonic Wars were at their height, the Luddites were regarded as dangerous revolutionaries who wanted to topple English society. The story is much more complicated than that though.  The industrial revolution was coming to the cloth industry, food prices were spiralling and wages diminishing. 

In the past skilled workers called croppers worked finished woollen cloth using enormous hand-held shears.  By 1812, croppers were being replaced by a new technology- the cropping frame. It did the work more quickly and did not require the same numbers of men to operate it.  The workers, fearing for their jobs, their homes and the lives of their families petitioned the government of the time for help.  Finally, seeing no alternative croppers banded together and smashed the machines that were destroying their livelihoods.  They worked under the leadership of the mysterious General Ludd.  

And the Taylors? The Taylor brothers were blacksmiths.  Their forges made both the machines and the huge iron hammers that the Luddites used to break them.  A popular joke at the time was ‘Enoch made them, Enoch breaks them’.  Strangely, the Luddites never targeted the Taylor brothers- possibly because they were republican sympathisers.  Instead, they focused their anger on the masters who put them out of work and left their children to starve. 

William Horsfall of Marsden owned Ottiwells Mill employing some four hundred men, women and children.  He had no sympathy for the Luddites or for the plight of his workers.  He was deeply unpopular because of his outspoken desire to put down the Luddite unrest with whatever force necessary.  Perhaps it is not surprising that the authorities stationed both infantry and cavalry in Marsden to deal with any trouble.  It did not save Horsfall.  He was killed on his way home from Huddersfield one market day in April 1812.  Today his mill is gone as are the forges where the Taylor brothers made the machines that did the work of five men. 

This picturesque town is often alive with wonderful entertainment.  There's a jazz festival each October attracting musicians and visitors a plenty.  Imbolc, a winter festival of swirling fire and colour held to celebrate the Green Man (spring) triumphing over Jack Frost, occurs in the New Year. It’s guaranteed to chase the winter blues on their way.  Then there’s Marsden Cuckoo Day in April with its clog dancing, music and cuckoo walk. 

Now, there’s an event that sounds as if it came straight out of a script for a situation comedy. The people of Marsden, so the story goes, noticed that when the cuckoo arrived so did spring.  Spring brings with it better weather. After a long Pennine winter people were keen for the sun to linger a while longer.  They concluded that since the cuckoo appeared to be responsible for bringing spring that the best course of action was to build a wall around the cuckoo to prevent it from leaving.  The cuckoo, as most birds are wont to do, flew away but not before the wall was virtually complete.   

  

Hartshead Church, Luddites, Patrick Bronte and Robin Hood

A wet day in October - autumn has well and truly arrived.  Hartshead lies between Brighouse and Mirfield.  The map was unhelpful, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  Either that or all roads lead to Robert Town.

Hartshead Church is best known these days as one of Patrick Bronte's curacies.  He lived in the farm across the way from the church during his time here and it was during his stay that the Luddites' protest about the loss of their jobs to mechanisation became violent. 

Their attack on Rawfolds Mill in April 1812 led to the deaths of some of the protesters.  The funerals for the men who were left at Rawfolds or who died after capture were highly publicised but it is also believed that some badly injured men escaped from the mill and died elsewhere.  These men were buried quietly in Hartshead Churchyard according to legend and according to Patrick Bronte. 

They aren't the only mysterious burials in the churchyard.  There is a medieval slab near the door that allegedly belongs to Robin Hood, though this is clearly a matter of some argument.   More real is the trunk of the ancient yew tree in the middle of the church yard, the stocks across the road and the twelfth century tower.  Much of the church was rebuilt in 1881 but the South door is also Norman in origin

The Dumb Steeple and the Luddites

The busy roundabout where the A62 and A644 meet just outside Huddersfield is an unusual stoppoing spot - and actually you can't.  The nearest car park belongs to The Three Nuns Pub just up the road, so we had an ideal excuse to stop for lunch.  There's been a pub on the site of the Three Nuns since the fifteenth century.  The current building has been there since the nineteenth century.  The name comes from the fact that it stands inside the grounds of Kirklees Priory where Robin Hood is said to have been buried.  There's more to find out about Kirklees Priory in nearby Mirfield.  It's on my list of places to explore.

But back to the Dumb Steeple.  Its easy to miss it if you don't know that its there and no one is really clear as to what its doing where it is.  One theory says that it marks the spot where wanted men could claim sanctuary from the law for forty days and forty nights.  If that is the case then Dumb Steeple is a corruption of Doom Steeple.  History suggests that this isn't the case. Another theory says that it was a marker to show the way to a nearby ford; yet another theory declares that it replaced an ancient megalith.

The dumb steeple's real history dates from  April1812 when the Luddites, disgruntled croppers who were losing their livelihoods to the new cropping machines, met in the fields behind the dumb steeple. Croppers were important workers in the manufacture of finished cloth.  Once the weavers had created the cloth, the croppers used enormous shears to finish it and to raise the nap.  Their trade was a highly skilled one which commanded good wages until the advent of a machine that could do the work of many men. 

In a bid to prevent the loss of their jobs they began to destroy the machines.  On the 11th April 1812 a group of Luddites met at the dumb steeple before marching on Rawfolds Mill near Cleckheaton.  The owner of Rawfolds was prepared and there was a pitched battle.  For a while the authorities feared that Huddersfield and Halifax were fermenting rebellion.  There were more soldiers in the north than Wellington had in the Peninsula Campaign. 

Cars thunder by, their occupants look slightly bewildered at the sight of me with my camera.  Clearly they have no idea of the momentous events that took place here two hundred years ago.

Wakefield

It's been a while but hopefully I'm back on track now- the plan to walk more suffered during the rather damp summer. 

Wakefield, the administrative centre for the West Riding, became a city in 1888 which meant that its parish church became a cathedral.   It's a small but perfectly formed building filled with angels .  It also has the tallest spire in Yorkshire.  It's 247 ft (49m) high. It's a useful tool to help pedestrians find their bearings if they get lost. I enjoyed finding the medieval carvings of animals and green men.  The striking rood screen with its crouching hare carving dates from the seventeenth century.  The cathedral was an excellent reason for revisiting Wakefield but although its shopping centre is being redeveloped it currently isn't a shopper's paradise. 

I paused for a while to enjoy the modern fountain outside the tourist information office then set off to find the Hepworth Art Gallery.  The building wasn't quite what I was expecting -  but then what do I know about modern architecture?  The interior more than lived up to expectations.  There's over 1,600 square metres of exhibition space making it the largest purpose built art space outside London - and its in Wakefield!  The reason, well, Dame Barbara Hepworth was born in Wakefield.

Rotherham, town of foundries and peanuts.

I've been going to Rotherham every week for the past year- for work rather than pleasure I should add.  Its not really the kind of place that you take a camera even though one of the roundabouts on the ring road proclaims that Rotherham is the home of a well known peanut packager.  Most of Rotherham town centre with the exception of the church, parts of the F.E college and a tiny fifteenth century chantry is modern.  At the moment the church is hidden by scaffolding and the chantry is lost in a sea of concrete.  In fact it took me a while to find it even though I'd walked straight by it often enough without really ever noticing it.  I find myself wondering how much air raids of World War Two are to blame and how much modern town planners are responsible for Rotherham's current look.  Having said that it takes on a totally different character on a sunny Tuesday in the summer when the street market fills the middle of Rotherham with yellow and green awnings and tempting smells.

Arthur Mee describing the town in 1941 said that 'it is busy with collieries, a huge electric power station, and great iron, steel and brass foundries.'  Times have changed for Rotherham with many of its high street buildings closed down or occupied by charity shops - the victims of out of town shopping centres.  These days Rotherham is better known for Jamie Oliver's series about teaching people to cook. 

I'll miss the factory shops with their bargain prices and some of the charity shops sell wonderful books at even better prices.  Its certainly a place to bag a bargain on occasion. I'll miss the people that I worked with for so long too but I won't miss the journey, the town centre or the cost of parking.

York- Stonegate

There's something about York that makes it one of my most favourite cities in the UK- along with Carlisle.  Breakfast in York is something to look forward to as well.  If you're pushing the boat out then there's always Betty's Tearoom with its Art Deco refinement, tinkling ivories and old fashioned service.  And that's before I get as far as actually tucking in to my full Yorkshire breakfast.  Of course, there's history here.  Go down stairs to the basement and you'll find a mirror covered with signatures and emblems.  This is a memorial to the flying crews based around York who came here while they were off duty.  It's easy to loose track of time as you study the names and yourself- it is a mirror after all.

Then its on for a spot of shopping.  St Helen's Square is the lynch pin between old York and the modern shopping centre.  Before the Eighteenth Century it used to be a grave yard but when the new Lord Mayor's mansion was built it was decided that perhaps a mansion with a view of a graveyard wasn't really what the mayor needed.  Recent additions to the grave yard were relocated down Davygate and the graveyard was paved over.  This knowledge has rather ruined my reading of a murder mystery series set in York.  The opening paragraph of the first book has the hero walking across the square.  The only problem is that he's about five centuries too early - or the square is about five centuries too late.  Either way I have difficulty suspending reality after that.  Does anybody else have those kind of problems when they read historical fiction?

Head up Stonegate towards the Minster.  Today its full of designer boutiques, galleries and antique shops.  By mid morning you can hardly move for shoppers and tourists but if you arrive early enough you can enjoy a spot of window shopping and take in the history as well.  Stonegate was the Via Principalis- the main road to the Roman army headquarters- buried beneath the Minster these days.  Its shop fronts echo the Viking shop fronts from Jorvik and if you follow the little alleyways and snickleways you'll find yourself travelling back in time to Medieval York and Eighteenth Century coffee houses.  But if you haven't got time there's always York's little Red Devil chained to his post- a reminder of the printers devil's who used to run with hot print to the presses that filled theses shops.  Lawrence Sterne's Tristam Shandy was published here.  There's a ship's figurehead- slightly dented but a reminder of the tea trade, a medieval Bishop's palace masquerading as a china shop and a royal coat of arms as well as one of York's oldest inns named after Charles I.  He made York his capital for a while.  Though fortunately for York he went to Nottingham before raising his standard and kicking off the English Civil War.  Nottingham paid a heavy price.  York was fortunate in other ways as well.  Thomas, Lord Fairfax, a Parliamentarian who laid siege to this city was a Yorkshireman and ensured no harm came to the city or its wonderful collection of medieval stained glass.

Towton and The Crooked Billet

The weather forecast promised rain but we took a chance on the  battleship grey clouds that plunged across threatening skies.  True to form the skies opened as we joined the motorway and we found ourselves wondering whether we’d made a mistake.  We had a seven mile walk around the site of the Battle of Towton planned after all.

According to some accounts the Lancastrians mustered 30,000 men for this battle although there is now some dispute about the figures.  One thing is certain the Yorkist army was significantly smaller than the Lancastrians drawn up on the ridge above Towton, their right flank protected by the River Cock.  And it was the Lancastrians who chose the battle ground. 

The previous day, the Battle of Ferrybridge had enabled Edward of York to cross the River Aire.  It had also seen the death of Lord Clifford, the man who had killed his twelve year old brother some three months previously. The Yorkist army had to march north before making camp for the night.

It was blustery but not raining when  we arrived in the village of Saxton where we were to start our walk. At least it wasn't snowing like it was in 1461- not ideal conditions for a battle.  In fact it was the snow that probably gave the Yorkists their victory in the end. 

We found Saxton Church and parked.  Then we set off along a country lane lined with hawthorn, in the direction of Towton.  It's odd too how much more noticeable the hills are when you have to walk up them rather than sitting in the comfort of a car.   I wouldn't have fancied a forced march from Ferrybridge- the powerstation dominated the skyline behind me- followed by a night in the cold, finished off by a savage battle that lasted through the hours of daylight.  To be honest I wasn't sure about the seven miles I was just setting off on.

Much to our delight as we joined the road to Towton we spotted a noticeboard and discovered a path.  Further investigation revealed a newly created battlefield walk set up in conjunction with the Royal Armories at Leeds.  Thankfully this walk takes visitors around the battlefield rather than walking along the roadside. Before long we had spotted Lord Dacre's Cross set up in 1928 as a memorial to the battle.  He wasn’t killed at this spot though.  The unfortunate Lancastrian was shot by a boy near an elder tree on the other side of the road. 

According to local folklore, the roses that grow in the hedgerows hereabouts take their colour from a mingling of the red and white rose blood  that was shed that cold Palm Sunday in March.  In fact one of the fields is still known as the ‘Field of the Red and the White Roses.’

The battle started in a blizzard. Yorkist archers sent their arrows deep into the Lancastrian ranks. The wind was against the Lancastrians. Their arrows failed to reach the massed ranks of the Yorkists and in the driving snow they couldn’t even see their enemy.  The Lancastrians had no choice. They advanced down the hill.  For a while it looked as though they would win.  They had superior numbers after all.  

Bloody Meadow

The meadow above the River Cock is still known as 'Bloody Meadow' due to the savage hand to hand fighting that stained the snow red.  When the Lancastrians finally withdrew they found themselves trapped on the wrong side of the River Cock.  The gentle stream of today was a raging torrent  at the time of the battle, carrying winter rains and melted snow. It was impossible for exhausted men or those weighed down in armour to cross the water.  Their woes were compounded by the arrival of Yorkist reinforcements led by the Duke of Norfolk.

Fleeing Lancastrians were finally able to get across the river over the piled up bodies of their comrades. 

The bitterness behind this battle saw the Yorkists summarily execute foot soldiers and nobles alike.  There was no question of being magnanimous in victory.  Despite the killing that continued virtually up to the gates of York itself, Henry VI and his family were able to escape to Scotland.  The civil war was not yet over. Edward of York, now styling himself King Edward IV, was not safe on his throne. The peasants who owed their loyalty to the warring lords were not free from the fear of being called to do battle whether they wanted to or not.

We continued around a field filled with sighing wheat into Towton and then back to Saxton.  There are grave pits on the north side of the church there for some of the 28,000 men said to have been killed that day.  We didn't stop as it was starting to rain again but we did catch a glimpse of Lord Dacre of Gilsland's tomb.  According to the very informative guide published by the Towton Battlefield Society, Lord Dacre was buried upright on his horse and this was apparently confirmed during the nineteenth century. There is also a modern memorial to the men who perished in this chilly part of Yorkshire all those years ago.

Then it was back to The Crooked Billet for a very enjoyable late lunch.  The guidebooks  say that this pub may well be on the site of an earlier inn, which served as the Yorkist headquarters.

It didn't seem to take so long going home as it did to arrive.  May be its the anticipation or not knowing your destination that makes the outwards journey seem longer.  Or perhaps its the anonanymity of the motorway network.  Whatever the reason, next time you’re on the M62 and pass junction 43 give a thought to one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on English soil.

Ferrybridge- battles, henges and flyovers



Ferrybridge



Ferrybridge isn’t everyone’s idea of a day out.  In fact most people don’t notice the village at all.  They’re too busy looking at the power station as they hurtle along the A1. Today the place is an island surrounded by fast flowing traffic and a spider’s web of flyovers and tarmac. 

There is, apparently, a Neolithic henge here.  Unfortunately, due to our poor navigation skills we found ourselves wandering around a housing estate and then heading briskly towards the A1.  We gave up in the end. It clearly isn’t on the same scale as Stonehenge.

The real reason for visiting Ferrybridge was due to the battle that took place here in 1461 on the 28^th of March- the day before the more famous Battle of Towton- rather than a desire to walk amidst the sound of roaring traffic or to enjoy a close up view of a powerstation that can be seen for miles around. 

Take yourself back in time.  It’s three months since the Battle of Wakefield.  The Duke of York’s head and that of his twelve year old son, Edmund, are on display in York.  Despite this, the Lancastrians have been kept out of London and have had to come north once more.  They are being pursued by Edward of York – he wants revenge for the death of his father and brother.  It is not a good time to be living in this part of Yorkshire.

Lord Fitzwalter is sent by Edward to find a way across the River Aire.  There is a bridge at Ferrybridge.  Fitzwalter arrives; it all looks very peaceful- birds singing that sort of thing- and orders camp to be made.  Crucially, he fails to set adequate guards before taking himself off to his tent to catch up on his beauty sleep.  The following morning he gets a very nasty surprise in the form of Lord Clifford and his cavalry- a bunch of Lancastrians.  It doesn’t look good for the Yorkists.  It definitely isn’t good for Lord Fitzwalter who pays for his carelessness with his life. 

Lord Clifford very sensibly destroyed the bridge that was here all those centuries ago and made sure that his archers were lined up to prevent the Yorkists from setting up the medieval equivalent of a bailey bridge but despite his efforts the Yorkists crossed the river three miles further up led by Lord Fauconberg.  Clifford, the man who killed twelve year old Edmund of York in revenge for the death of his own father at the Battle of St Albans attempted to retreat but was killed before reaching the Lancastrian camp.  The Yorkists were able to head north.  The scene is set for the 29^th March and one of the bloodiest battles that has ever happened on English soil.

The bridge that we crossed no longer takes traffic.  Its claim to fame is that its part of the old Great North Road. 

You’d have to be keen on battlefields to visit though.

Pontefract Castle - murder and seige.

Another castle, another ruin – or ‘pile of rubble’ as my step-son, accurately and probably quite feelingly, describes similar sites. There’s something reassuringly northern about Pontefract.  It means 'broken bridge' which doesn’t have quite the same ring though.  Shakespeare and others called the place Pomfret, a name which resonates through the Medieval and Tudor periods.

Pontefract Castle

Before visiting, the only thing I knew about Pontefract was cakes, horse racing and that it was close to the M62.  Pontefract cakes are slightly smaller than a two pence piece and are made from liquorice.  Liquorice grows well up here, so does rhubarb.  We are, after all, on the outer edge of the rhubarb triangle where all the best rhubarb in Yorkshire comes from.  I only know about the races because I remember it being mentioned on the radio when I was a child. I liked the sound of the name even then.  As for the M62, well, most places in Yorkshire seem to be within striking distance of either the M1, the M62 or the A1 but that's probably my imagination.

Back to business.  William the Conqueror granted the lands around here to Ilbert de Lacy and he promptly built a castle.  Over the centuries the castle saw more than its fair share of bloodshed.  Edward II ordered the execution of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster after he came second at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322.  Edward II wasn’t the most savoury of monarchs and his treatment of Lancaster was a reminder; a) not to revolt against the king and b) in the event of ignoring (a)  to not lose battles.

Seventy eight years later, Richard II was murdered in Pontefract Castle.  He was the son of the Black Prince and became king at the age of ten.  The Middle Ages were not a good time to be a monarch who was a minor nor was it good for the aforementioned brat's personality to believe that he was in charge by Divine Right- or put another way, he was king because God said so. 

He showed great bravery during the Peasants Revolt when he faced down an army of rebels, bided his time and then took his opportunity to get his own back against anyone who had tried to curtail his power with numerous executions.  Henry of Bolingbroke recognising that Richard was none too popular seized the throne for himself - I'm not going into his family tree, needless to say it was convoluted and links directly to the Wars of the Roses. Richard found himself hustled north to Pontefract where he died in mysterious circumstances.  Early theories suggested that he had a nasty accident with an axe.  More recent hypothesis, based on an examination of his skeleton, suggests that he was starved to death.

Another Richard, the III, took note of the way in which Pontefract Castle seemed to provide solutions to unpalatable problems and arranged for Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Grey to pay a terminal visit when he seized the throne from his own young nephew. 

In 1536, during the Pilgrimage of Grace,  Lord Darcy handed the castle over to Robert Aske and the revolting northerners who wanted a return to the old ways.  He claimed that he had insufficient provisions for a siege.  Henry VIII was not amused and had Darcy executed.  He was even less amused when it was alleged that Katherine Howard (wife number five) began a fling here with one of her many suitors during a state visit.

It is perhaps not surprising that Divine Right, a king and a rebellion have much to do with the state that Pontefract finds itself in today.  In 1648 the first English Civil War was over.  Parliament was in charge.  Theatres were closed and Christmas was banned.  

Groups of Royalists rose up against the new order and the Second English Civil War began.   John Morris decided to capture the castle at Pontefract.  Bearing in mind this was one of the great castles of the north and supposedly impregnable he was obviously a man of vision and considerable cunning.  His first attempt involved bribing a sentry and some very long ladders.  Unfortunately the sentry got drunk and his replacement wasn’t quite so amenable to the idea of Morris and his men taking the castle in the name of the king.

Not deterred Morris went off for a think and returned with several carts of household goods on the pretext of getting the castle ready for extra troops.  The guards went to buy ale in town- who’d try to gain control of a castle with a few mattresses? No one would believe it if they saw this in a movie.  The Parliamentarian governor was ushered into the dungeons and Morris took over the castle which had just become the last Royalist stronghold in the country.  He soon found himself under siege.  He made good use of the provisions thoughtfully gathered by the Parliamentarians.

Then in January 1649 Charles I was executed at Whitehall.  Morris made the best of it.  Pontefract saw the first coins minted in the name of Charles II but time wasn’t on Morris’s side. Provisions were running low and there were lots of angry Parliamentarians outside its walls.  The Parliamentarians offered honourable conditions for surrender with a couple of exceptions which they weren’t prepared to name until the surrender was a done deal. 

Morris was one of the exceptions which seems a shame to me and not in the least bit gallant of the Roundheads who clearly didn’t have much of a sense of humour.  Another victim was Pontefract Castle.  Cromwell told the town council to apply to have it demolished.  From being one of the greatest castles in the kingdom it really did become rubble all except for the gatehouse which served as the town's prison.   And so Pomfret Castle like Thomas of Lancaster became a footnote in history.

View of motte and bailey today

Oakwell Hall, Charlotte Bronte and the Battle of Adwalton Moor

The blue skies of the weekend had disappeared by the time we arrived at Oakwell and I was rather rueing the fact that I’d forgotten the cardinal rule of a good walker in the UK – always bring a waterproof with you.  Sure enough the odd spot of rain turned into rain driven by a north easterly wind.  Still at least I wasn’t being pursued by a bunch of Cavaliers (the Royalists) unlike the Parliamentarian (or Roundhead if you want) Lord Fairfax and his men on the 30^th of June 1643.

Oakwell Hall appears in Charlotte Bronte’s novel disguised as Fieldhead.  She describes it like this:

If Fieldhead had few other merits as a building, it might at least be termed picturesque: its irregular architecture, and the grey and mossy colouring communicated by time, gave it a just claim to this epithet. The old latticed windows, the stone porch, the walls, the roof, the chimney-stacks, were rich in crayon touches and sepia lights and shades. The trees behind were fine, bold, and spreading; the cedar on the lawn in front was grand, and the granite urns on the garden wall, the fretted arch of the gateway, were, for an artist, as the very desire of the eye.

Charlotte Bronte (2009) Shirley. London: Wordsworth Editions

Oakwell Hall

Its appearance hasn’t changed much since 1849 when Charlotte described it.  There's been a building here since the medieval period. Indeed it looks much as it must have done in the seventeenth century when fleeing Roundheads and pursuing Cavaliers hurtled down

Warren Lane

or

Bloody Lane

 as it was known after the battle.

The walk taken from Battlefield Walks in Yorkshire led us away from Oakwell towards Adwalton.  The directions indicated that we would have to walk along the side of the A650 but I hadn’t realised just how busy the road was going to be or that there was no path.  Oddly a broad green verge offers a less secure sense of safety than a nice narrow tarmac pavement.  Don't ask me why.

Most of the nobility in Yorkshire turned out for King Charles I during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century.  York was a Royalist stronghold.  The king even came to York when life in London became too difficult for him.  Two notable exceptions to the king’s cause was Lord Ferdinando Fairfax and his son Thomas.

The Royalist target was Bradford – a town without a wall.  So it wasn’t a good place to hole up for a long siege.  The Earl of Newcastle had an army of 10,000 men and he was determined that Bradford would fall.

Lord Fairfax set out to meet the Royalist army with 4,000 men.  For some reason they were delayed on their journey and by the time they met with the Royalists, Newcastle had his men drawn up on a ridge above Adwalton Moor in their battle lines.

View of Adwalton Moor from Marker Four

Once we achieved the ridge where the Earl of Newcastle lined his army up for battle I relaxed.  There were no hurtling lorries to distract me from discovering more about Yorkshire and its history.  Cavalry and infantry are now replaced by 1950s bungalows and red brick terraces. The moor itself is surrounded by roads and buildings but in 1643 the landscape was much more rural despite the open cast mining that took place nearby. 

The Royalists, despite their advantages in positioning, men and guns very nearly lost the battle. Lord Fairfax made good use of his experienced musketeers who were able to make good use of hedges for cover.  These days the only hand to hand combat takes place on Adwalton’s rugby pitch. 

For a while it looked as though the Parliamentarians were going to win despite the heavy odds against them. However an attack by Royalist pikemen led by the intriguingly named Sir Posthumus Kirton resulted in a collapse of the centre of the Parliamentarian lines.  In a short time the Roundheads were in full flight.  Sir Thomas Fairfax  (Lord Fairfax’s son) and his men were unable to retreat towards Bradford with the rest of his father’s army and fled down

Warren Lane

in the direction of Oakwell Hall.

Warren Lane where Thomas Fairfax and his men fled from Newcastle's Royalists.

There are still warrens and plenty of rabbits lining

Warren Lane

today.  There’s also an underpass going beneath the M62.  Somehow or other I’d overlooked the sound of traffic during our walk and exploration of the stone markers outlining the events of 30th June 1643. There are four stone markers but we never did locate one of them- we found dog walkers, two piebald ponies and a pond though.

The Battle of Adwalton meant that the whole of Yorkshire was ripe for the taking.  All that the Royalists had to do was to secure Hull from the Parliamentarian forces holding it.  Somehow or other it all went terribly wrong for them.  Perhaps it was the fact that the Earl of Newcastle- claiming 500 dead Roundheads ( a suspiciously round number) to his own 22 casualties eventually found himself fighting the Scots not to mention the role of Sir Thomas Fairfax in forming Parliament’s New Model Army that meant that the Royalists won this particular battle but eventually lost the war.

The Batts who lived at Oakwell Hall were Royalist sympathisers but it didn’t stop Newcastle’s men from bursting into the house to search for fleeing Parliamentarians.   Having strode down

Warren Lane

, its line slightly shifted with the advent of the railways we made our way to Oakwell Hall’s café for a well deserved sandwich followed by a stroll around the herb garden.

Temple Newsam - treachery, hens and rhododendrons

Arriving at Temple Newsam

Temple Newsam is approximately four miles north-west of Leeds.  It can be glimpsed from the M62 if you know where to look.  Like so much else in Yorkshire as well as offering a great day out for the whole family it has hidden layers of history that are well worth exploring. 

It belonged originally to the Knights Templar, a religious order who managed to irritate King Philip IV of France in part because of their power and in part because of their wealth.  He had prominent members of the order arrested, tortured and executed.  In fact, the superstition about Friday 13^th springs from these events. The knights were never vilified in England the way they were in France but the order was eventually dissolved.  Philip’s accusations rather stained their reputation.

The property moved into the Darcy family at the beginning of the sixteenth century, hence the typical Tudor brickwork.  Unfortunately, Thomas, Lord Darcy, a devout Catholic, objected to Henry VIII’s move to Protestantism along with the suppression of all the monasteries so became involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536.  He held Pontefract Castle for the king but gave it up to the rebels, claiming lack of provisions for a siege.  Actually he sympathised with the political, social and economic aims of the rebels led by Robert Aske- as did many other northern nobles.  Despite his many years of loyal service to both Henry VII and Henry VIII he was executed for his part in the rebellion. 

Henry VIII, always generous with other people’s property, handed the estate over to his niece Margaret Countess of Lennox.  And it was here, that her son Lord Darnley, the rather unpleasant syphilitic second husband of Mary Queen of Scots was born.  Once he’d weaselled his way into Mary’s affections, their cousin Queen Elizabeth I  (Henry's daughter) seized the property once more.  Lord Darnley’s violent death in 1567 helped to seal Mary Queen of Scots’ fate.  It was never satisfactorily explained how the gunpowder that caused an explosion at Kirk o’ Field where he was staying came to be there or how his body was found in the garden along with that of his groom both of them clearly killed by some other means.

After that brush with history things settled down for Temple Newsam, in so far as English history is ever settled.  Temple Newsam was purchased by the Ingram family who remodelled the house so that by 1628 it looked much as you see it now.  One generation lost money in the South Sea Bubble.  Another generation summoned Capability Brown to landscape the grounds. 

In time it was purchased by Leeds Corporation, hence its ownership by Leeds City Council today.  During World War Two, Leeds City Art Gallery sent its paintings here and by 1948 with the return of more than a 100 family pictures to the house it was well on the way to being a museum of fine and decorative art.

Today there are 1500 acres to explore as well as the farm which is home to some chunky and rather endearing pigs, sheep, goats, ducks, hens and turkeys as well as three donkeys.  There are swings, slides and seesaws, there are oceans of green rolling space. In spring the rhododendrons are spectacular and there’s always something to admire in the kitchen gardens and green houses – there’s not much in the way of treachery though!



An inhabitant of The Home Farm courtyard.



The Wars of the Roses even involves that much loved Yorkshire emblem – the white rose.  Wakefield seems as good a place to start as any.  Besides, I was curious about Sandal Castle.  

Sandal Castle

The signpost led us into a residential area.  Had we taken the wrong turning?  Apparently not.  There it was, a sudden expanse of green between two detached houses.

The back ground to the Battle of Wakefield which took place on the 30^th December 1460, is convoluted and revolves around who should be king. Henry V, the king who won the Battle of Agincourt, married Catherine of France.  They had a baby boy who they called Henry.  The following year King Henry V died leaving the baby Henry VI.   

English nobles, especially the ones closely related to Henry VI, began vying for position and power.  It didn’t help that as Henry VI grew up it became clear that he was unsuited for kingship in that he was a quiet and pious man.  He had also inherited his French grandfather’s poor mental health.  Nor did it help that the House of York had a stronger claim to the throne than the House of Lancaster.  Government was faction ridden and often ramshackle, the English were driven out of France (not great for PR) and Margaret of Anjou behaved with unbecoming determination.  In 1454 Richard Duke of York was made Protector of England during one of Henry VI’s bouts of illness. He was dismissed the following year by Margaret. This dismissal ultimately resulted in the First Battle of St Albans. 

It is safe to say that Henry VI and his wife Queen Margaret of Anjou did not get on with their relations, the Yorks.  Equally Richard, Duke of York, wasn’t wild about them.  There had already been many years worth of family feuding, name calling and violent death by the time the Battle of Wakefield took place.

Richard managed in October 1460 by the Act of Accord to have himself named Henry VI’s heir.  This did not go down terribly well with Queen Margaret who, quite understandably, wanted her son -Prince Edward of Lancaster to be king.

Queen Margaret gathered her army at Pontefract. People could discuss and agree things as much as they wanted but in those days having a strong army and good military tactics were more important than anything else.

Richard of York hurried north to his castle at Sandal near Wakefield.  The two sides, about nine miles apart, agreed an armistice over Christmas.  At some point during the celebrations Richard discovered that he was short of food and there wasn’t enough space for his army (we’ve all had that feeling at some point over the festivities).  Despite this he knew that his son Edward, Earl of March was coming from Shrewsbury with an army and help was being sent by Lord Neville.  Logic said that despite the lack of food and cramped quarters Richard should have remained on the top of his hill behind his castle walls. 

A variety of sources tell tales of treachery though.  One version has it that a Lancastrian and his men insinuated themselves into Sandal Castle and then lured Richard out.  The English Chronicle places the blame firmly on the shoulders of the treacherous Lord Neville, who it has to be said did rather well out of his swift change of sides.  There are also suggestions that the Yorkists- actually a bunch of southerners- were ill-disciplined and rowdy. The Lancastrians – the Northerners- united as a consequence.

Whatever the truth, the Lancastrians realised that if help arrived for the Yorkists that they would be outnumbered and outflanked, so set about drawing Richard away from Sandal.  They were careful to hide the size of their army from Richard so that he thought that his was the stronger force.  When a foraging party returned to the castle empty handed after a fight with the Lancastrians, Richard decided to attack. Or at least that's the story.

He came down from his hill towards Wakefield Green, a pleasant walk through suburbia these days, where he discovered that the Lancastrians had far more men than he supposed.  Things went from bad to worse when Lord Neville arrived with a force of 8,000 and promptly betrayed Richard by joining up with the Lancastrians.  The odds were overwhelming.  Men began to flee.

Memorial to Richard, Duke of York

Richard died with his back to a willow tree and another of Richard’s sons, the Earl of Rutland, was slaughtered on Wakefield Bridge while trying to escape.  He pleaded unsuccessfully for his life and was hacked to death by Lord Clifford.  Clifford’s father had been killed at the first battle of St Albans so Rutland’s death was almost certainly part of a blood feud. It was an act of revenge but the death of a twelve year old boy illustrates the bitterness that existed between the two sides. To crown matters, quite literally, Margaret had Richard’s head stuck on Micklegate Bar at York, facing into the city and wearing a paper crown.

The ruins of Sandal Castle, knocked about a bit by the Parliamentarians at the end of another civil war, are now sandwiched behind a row of well-appointed houses with neatly manicured gardens but there’s no disguising its strategic advantages.  On a clear day you can see for miles. The thought that I had as I climbed back up the hill from the path by the tranquil River Calder- and I’m pleased to say that I wasn’t wearing chain mail or fighting a battle at the time- was why didn’t Richard wait?

There’s a monument to Richard where he’s said to have been killed.  It’s supposed to be haunted but the only apparitions I saw were a group of girls in fluorescent pink rehearsing baton twirling in a nearby village hall.  Threading through housing, a semi-derilict industrial landscape and by the main road its hard to imagine the chaos and slaughter of retreat despite the name Fall Ings which refers to the heavy losses sustained by the Yorkists at this point on the battle field. 

There’s not much left of the castle apart from the earthworks for the motte and bailey and some fragments of masonry but it’s a grand place for an afternoon stroll.  There's even a little visitor centre that tells the full story of Sandal Castle. I wonder what the neighbours think.

View from Sandal Castle motte towards Emley Moor

 Our walk followed the route described in:

 Clark, David. (2003). Battlefield Walks in Yorkshire. Wilmslow: Sigma Press  (Walk 9)

The history of York is the history of England.

There’s so much history in Yorkshire that it’s difficult to know where to start.  King George VI said “The history of York is the history of England.” It’s true of the whole county. 

Yorkshire is the largest county in England.  In the past it was divided into ridings- North, East and West.  The word riding derives from a Viking word meaning ‘third parts’  Even today, after the 1974 boundary shifts North Yorkshire retains the title with 3212 square miles. 

There’s plenty to explore, it's on my doorstep and I want to find out more about the history of the county I now call home.