glaisdale – The Countryman's Daughter

Homing in on Hamer

**The 1989 Malton Gazette and Herald article about Hamer House sent to me by Howard Campion. Do you know who wrote it?**

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that reader Howard Campion was sending me a copy of a 1989 article that talked about Hamer Inn that once stood on the road between Glaisdale and Rosedale Abbey on the North York Moors. Also known as the Lettered Board, all that now remains is a pile of stones on an expanse of smooth grass surrounded by heather. It used to be a thriving inn providing rest and sustenance for weary travellers and workers from the coal mines operating nearby.

Howard wondered if the article had been written by my dad (there was no writer’s name attached to it) and now that I have had a chance to read it, I think not. The writing style is a little different and because my dad was not an employed ‘reporter’ as such, he rarely conducted interviews like those that are featured. Unless the writer recognises his work and gets in touch, we might never know! I have attached a picture of said article, so that you can see it for yourself. It is a fascinating piece!

The article features first-hand accounts from those who remember it before it became derelict, which is highly useful when putting together a historical record. What I found really interesting is that this inn of many names had yet another, according to writer Joseph Ford, who was born there while his father, also called Joseph, was licensee in the mid to late 1800s. Joseph Ford junior, who died in 1944, was the great great uncle of David Ford, the reader who first contacted me, setting off this whole chain of Hamer-related columns.

The article states: ‘Ford, who said Hamer was then called the Wayside Inn, described how wagoners leading lime from Cropton would rest their tired horses at Hamer and feed them bags of clover while they partook of beer and egg-and-bacon pie.’

A lady called Annie Turnbull was born at Hamer in 1906, after the Ford family had left. ‘The pub was run by her father and mother, James and Elizabeth Eddon, and Mrs Turnbull was the second youngest of 11 children. They supplemented their income by farming a few acres adjoining the inn, and when last there, Mrs Turnbull could still trace the paddocks.’

Annie remembered: “On the Glaisdale side of the house is a beck (Bluewath) and I can remember going down to the beck with my mother to wash clothes. We took a big cauldron and lit a fire under it to boil the water and clothes.

“We had a pump in the pub yard but in summer it ran dry and we had to carry water from the beck. For reasons I can’t remember, one of the paddocks was called Pig’s Lug. One of the outbuildings was used by my father for making besoms from heather, and on Mondays, Mother would ride a pony to Pickering market to try to sell them.”

Annie’s sister, Lily Boddy, took over from her father in 1914, and it remained an inn for some time thereafter. Wilf Turnbull, Annie’s husband, recalled visiting Hamer in 1943: “All the outbuildings had been pulled down. Only the old pub was still standing and it was being used as a shooting house.”

Terry Ashby has also contacted me about Hamer: “At school in the early 1960s I discovered the delights of the one-inch OS maps and having moved to the North York Moors, I bought ‘Sheet 86 Redcar & Whitby’. There was Hamer House clearly marked. I wondered what it was and I probably pestered my dad to drive there to have a look. There wasn’t much left of it even then. I found out later that it had been an inn and later still I found it mentioned in an historical novel. I can’t remember the title or the author. I find these old ruins fascinating and quite poignant as they always pose questions about who lived there and when and why they were abandoned.”

Does anyone know the novel Terry refers to? And don’t forget, David Ford is still searching for a photo of the inn before it became derelict. Do any of you have one lurking at the back of a drawer somewhere? Maybe it’s time to have a clear out. You never know what you might find!

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 13th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 11th Feb 2026

Hamer Home a family story

A 1955 photo of the ruins of Hamer Inn, previously known as the Lettered Board. David Ford’s ancestors lived there. Do you have a photo of the inn before it became derelict? Photo: P.W.Hanstock

I received an interesting message from reader David Ford: “I’ve just spotted a picture of the ruins of Hamer House on Facebook…My great grandfather Robert Ford was born there, along with several of his siblings. He emigrated to the USA as a young man seeking a better life, and tried gold mining. However he did not find it any easier over there and returned to Glaisdale. His brother Joseph wrote a book about life and times in Danby Dale…I would like a photo of Hamer when it was open as an inn.”

Although I’d heard of Hamer House, I didn’t know much about it. The first article that came up on Google was a piece written 15 years ago by none other than my dad. It jogged a memory of seeing it in one of his books and sure enough, on my very own bookshelf was a copy of Dad’s ‘Murders & Mysteries From The North York Moors’ with a whole section on Hamer.

Dad wrote: “It is believed the licence of this old inn continued until 1929, although it did survive as a private house into the 1930s. The last family living there was called Boddy, and I recall the old house still standing when I cycled past as a child.”

The building had a colourful past, and no doubt makes David’s family history research intriguing. The reason the inn was featured in the ‘Murders’ book is because there are three separate tales of deaths associated with it.

The inn stood at one of the highest parts of the moors, on the road between Glaisdale and Rosedale Abbey at the point where an old monk’s trod, or path, crossed it (where the Lyke Wake Walk traverses that road now). All that remains is a pile of stones, and yet the inn’s ghostly silhouette can be detected in the form of a wide expanse of smooth grass amongst the rough heather, hinting at what was once there – a busy, thriving coaching inn providing rest, warmth and succour for weary travellers. There were active coal mines nearby which drew men to the moors for work, and Eskdale farmers would send wagons of coal to supply places like Cropton, Hutton-le-Hole and Kirkbymoorside.

Although known by many as Hamer Inn, its previous name was the Lettered Board, and my dad believes it had been there for around three centuries. He talks about David’s ancestors in his book:

‘Hamer’s role as an inn declined after 1870, the year a local writer called Joseph Ford was born at the remote house. His father was landlord and I have a copy of a licensing application dated 1858 in which the liquor licence of the Lettered Board was transferred to Joseph Senior.

‘The younger Joseph Ford, who died in 1944, has left behind some stories of Hamer and they provide a vivid picture of the windswept and snowbound inn. He relates how elderly travelling salesmen would trek onto these moors, even in the height of winter, to sell trinkets.’

One sad story concerns a cork-seller who supplied local inn keepers and farmers, and Joseph Ford’s mother knew him well. He succumbed to the ferocious winter weather, and his skeleton was found much later not far from the Lettered Board Inn, his basket of corks lying nearby enabling his body to be identified.

The three cases of deaths at the inn include that of two apparently healthy guests retiring to bed, only to be found dead the next day with no apparent wounds or obvious cause. They may have been poisoned by noxious fumes resulting from recent replastering of the room, but no-one was ever sure.

The second case was a licensee who killed his wife, and quickly moved elsewhere in the dale. He was never prosecuted or imprisoned. The third story tells of a fight breaking out in the bar, and a man being bludgeoned to death with a poker.

Dad writes: “The only remnant of that tale was a heavy iron poker that was chained to the hearth to ensure this sort of thing never happened again. That poker was still there within the memory of my grandparents, but I never saw it.”

Can any of you reading this help David Ford track down a picture of Hamer Inn before it became derelict?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 16th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 14th Jan 2026

Building family foundations

One of the buildings on the Hanging Stones Walk in Rosedale that Nick Harland helped to construct (that’s my friend Dave in the window, looking down at his confused dog Frank).

Andrew Goldsworthy gave Nick Harland this signed book with a hand-drawn picture of the Hanging Stones

I’ve been contacted by readers Ian and Catherine Wilson who had a great titbit about middle names. They wrote: “We would like to add an important advantage to ancestors having maiden names as middle names. When doing family history research the inclusion of a maiden name has often helped to confirm a link.”

I had never thought about that aspect before. They add: “McLaren is an ancestral name that is extremely common in Perthshire not helped by William passing through the generations. Thankfully one generation included Sorley as a middle name and it unlocked our research.”

It makes me think of all the hard work put in by my dad’s brother, Charles Walker, who spent huge amounts of time compiling our family tree. His side of the family had the common name of Walker, and my mum’s side had the even more common Smith. Trying to trace the correct members to create an accurate family tree was extremely tricky, especially when there were first names that were very popular among families of the North York Moors with the same surname. There were dozens of Johns, Henrys and Williams, and Mary’s, Hannahs and Helens too. Uncle Charles’ job was made slightly easier because some of the descendants were given maternal maiden names for middle names. My mum’s eldest brother, was Henry Harland Smith after his paternal grandmother, and her second brother was John Lacy Smith, from his mum’s maiden name. The name Lacy was passed down the next two generations to Henry’s son Richard, and on to his son Charles.

I don’t think this tradition was followed on my dad’s side of the family though, and tracing the Walker line did prove tricky as Uncle Charles wrote back in 2004: “I have a number of possible Walkers living around Lingdale/Skinningrove/Hinderwell. Can Peter remember any names of brothers/sisters of our Grandfather Walker?” He then lists a number of names of possible ancestors. Clearly, trying to sort out who was who was quite the task.

Funnily enough, I was contacted not long ago by Nick Harland, and we discussed whether we might be related through my mum’s side. As mentioned above, her paternal grandmother was a Harland – Edith Richardson Harland. Edith’s parents were William and Ann Harland, and as you might have guessed from Edith’s middle name, Ann’s maiden name was Richardson. Are you keeping up? This is just one tiny segment of our family tree, and I can imagine how mind-boggling it must be when you go down the rabbit hole of trying to piece it all together.

Nick and I didn’t know off the top of our heads if we were related, but that was not the reason he was getting in touch. He wrote: “My father Dennis Harland has often spoken about your dad over the years and I when I first started work, Mary Walker (my dad’s mother) often got me to do little jobs for her as she lived opposite the Glaisdale Institute…my dad’s parents used to live in Brinkburn, the house above where Mary used to live, opposite the institute.”

Nick has a link to the Andrew Goldsworthy ‘Hanging Stones Walk’ in Rosedale about which I wrote a couple of years ago. “All the ten Andy Goldsworthy projects which have been put together have been done with the help of our building firm,” he said.

The Hanging Stones Walk is an amazing feat of creativity, engineering and construction so I am hoping some time to chat more to Nick so he can explain how they did what they did. It is really an art project, rather than simply a walk, and is sponsored by the Ross Foundation (an organisation that supports initiatives related to art, community, sport, music and education) which commissioned sculptor Andrew Goldsworthy, famous for his spectacular pieces of land art. He transformed tumbling down agricultural buildings into amazing pieces that blend seamlessly into their moorland surroundings.

Nick finished by saying: “Another thing you touched on a while ago was about making stone troughs. I make a lot of stone troughs, up to five foot long. There is an easy way and a hard way but it is good fun seeing one completed.”

I think if Nick and I meet, we will have an awful lot to talk about!

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 19th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 17th Dec 2025

Writing and rewards

My nana aged about three (seated) with her family outside the Thee Blast Furnaces pub, Glaisdale, in about 1919. Her mum, Sarah Jane Williamson, was the sister of reader Jeremy Williamson’s great-grandfather George Williamson.

One of the things I most enjoy about writing a weekly column is that fact that you lovely readers get in touch with comments, observations, recollections and feedback. Firstly, it gives me enormous satisfaction to know that my efforts to entertain are not in vain, and secondly, your messages often result in new opportunities to research topics which provide material for future columns.

This week I was showered with an embarrassment of riches on the ‘readers getting in touch’ front. No less than five people contacted me, all talking about different subjects.

Gillian Hunt (who was featured last week) furnished me with more fascinating details relating to aspects of sampler embroidery, which I may come back to at a later date, while Jeremy Williamson wrote to me revealing that we are related. My great-grandfather Thomas Rhea, who was licensee of the Three Blast Furnaces Inn (later the Anglers’ Rest) in Glaisdale, was married to Sarah Jane Williamson, Jeremy’s great aunt. Sarah Jane was sister to his grandfather George Henry Williamson, and George was landlord of the Robin Hood and Little John pub in Castleton from 1939 until the 1960s. Sadly, that pub went a similar way to the Angler’s Rest, and has been converted into a house. Jeremy has only recently found out that George Henry was one of nine children, and went on to father ten children. We have a wonderful picture of my nana’s family outside the Three Blast Furnaces when she was around three alongside her parents and five siblings (she did have two more, an elder brother who died when he was just two, and another younger brother yet to be born). Imagine buying Christmas presents for that lot. It makes me think my family of three children barely qualifies me to call myself a parent.

Terry Ashby got in touch after reading my column about pathways a few weeks back. Terry is a staunch advocate for the protection of historical footpaths, bridleways and boundaries and has written extensively on the subject. He laments the fact that many routes either disappear, or their original use becomes lost when not protected, observing: “There are many instances of, for example, bridleways which reach boundaries or other dividing obstacles and become footpaths on the other side. Some tracks or paths end for no apparent reason.” I wonder if any of you have encountered that problem? I imagine it must be very annoying if you’re out enjoying a leisurely hack when the bridleway you’re following suddenly disappears.

Peter Allen emailed me following my article about poltergeists, correcting me about ‘Lady Nunnington’. In fact there never was a Lady Nunnington – the ghost was actually known as ‘The Proud Lady of Nunnington’.

And lastly, Linda Chambers, in an old-school 20^th century manner, wrote me an actual letter. She used to live in my home village, and recalled (as do many long-term residents), the sight of my dad climbing the local hill every day in his trademark white, cable-knit sweater. She came up with a question that I couldn’t answer, asking if I had heard of ‘King Henry’s Night’.

“I was told about this some years back by an elderly gentleman (now dead) who lived at Thorgill,” she says. “It apparently centred around young people going out on a particular night and meeting up with likely suitors. Not sure what their parents thought but no doubt it was eagerly anticipated.”

Naturally, I was straight into my dad’s vast collection of cuttings, files and books gathered over the sixty years of his writing career, but came up empty-handed. I also tried a few searches online, but they were pretty fruitless. So this is where you come in. Have you heard of it, and if so what can you tell us? Recent requests for help on all sorts of subjects have come up trumps, so I am hopeful that at least one of you reading this will either know, or has the means to find out.

Then I can write about it and take all the glory.

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

This column appeared in the Darlington and Stockton Times on 28th and Ryedale Gazette and Herald on 26th April 2023

A sad Winter’s tale

BD615127-C25E-4DA4-893F-BB4ADD4ED9D0 — Glaisdale Graveyard where the tragic Winter family are buried

F67D5C27-53F3-4016-8ABA-455D2C0346C9 — The news story from 1889 telling us what happened to the Winter family

Since I started investigating the embroidered samplers owned by my mum, I’ve developed a fascination with graveyards and headstones, especially those in the moorland villages where my ancestors are buried. You might recall a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was contacted by Carol McLee, Chairman of the Cleveland, North Yorkshire and South Durham Family History Society. Her team have transcribed the headstones of hundreds of graves, including those at the Church of St Thomas in Glaisdale where Hannah Hall (nee Raw) is buried.

I got hold of a list of the transcriptions of some of the older graves, and started to read them. While some were quite straightforward, with little information other than names, dates and a good old god-fearing exclamation, others gave hints as to how the deceased had met their maker.

One inscription noted that William Abbot, a master mariner, died aged 62 in December 1879. On the same grave, it is noted that his youngest son, also called William, ‘drowned at Wvburg, Finland, 26 July 1880, aged 20 years.’ The writer in me knows there is a story to tell there. Did Mr Abbot senior die at sea? After all, the 19^th century was a perilous time to be a sailor. But maybe he didn’t, as the inscription states he died ‘in Glaisdale’ which is away from the coast. I don’t think it is unreasonable to surmise that his young son followed in his father’s footsteps with a career at sea, and met his misfortune on the ocean waves. It also means that poor Mrs Abbot, who is buried in the same plot and died eight years later, lost both her son and husband within a few months.

One inscription that particularly moved me was the following (you might need tissues for this): ‘In remembrance of Sarah, wife of William Winter of Lealholme, who died 6 May 1889 aged 34 years. Same year three of their children, Edith Ellen, 5 May aged 6 years. Hannah Mary, 6 May aged 11 years. Joseph William, 9 May aged 4 years.’

It means William Winter lost his wife and three of this children in less than a week. How could this be, and why was William not buried in the same plot with his family, even if he died later? My appetite – some might call it an addiction – for true crime was awakened and I began to wonder if there was a sinister explanation. Was William a killer? Was that why he wasn’t laid to rest with his family? I discussed the possibility with my mum and she, less sensationally but more rationally, suggested it was likely to be a crime-free case of scarlet fever, which was prevalent back in the 19^th century.

I had to find out though. If William had murdered his family then it would a news story, wouldn’t it? So off I went to my trusty resource, the British Newspaper Archive, and sure enough, after a few searches, I found exactly what I was looking for. I could recount the story, but the North-Eastern Daily Gazette from 10^th August 1889 does the best job of telling us what happened:

‘Scarlet fever has broken out at Lealholm…and in one poor family has played havoc. Within the week a child of William Winter, a labourer, was seized with the fever and died. The mother, who nursed the child, then took the fever and succumbed. A second daughter, aged eleven years also died, so that there were three persons lying dead in the cottage at one time. They were all – mother and two daughters – buried on the same evening in Glaisdale Churchyard. There are two other children in the same house who are stricken down with the fever, and they are not expected to recover.’

What an awful tragedy, and sadly I found the third child Joseph’s death notice in the paper a couple of days later. However, I could find no mention of the fourth, and they are not mentioned on the grave inscription either, so I am hoping, for poor William Winter’s sake, that they survived. William escaped the disease and lived for another 40 years, passing away in 1929 at the age of 76. He is buried in a separate plot elsewhere in the graveyard.

So absolutely no sinister explanation whatsoever. Is it true that your mother is always right?

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

This column appeared in the Darlington and Stockton Times on 31st and Ryedale Gazette and Herald on 29th March 2023

Flowers for Hannah

6DB04A9C-A0BA-4894-AD8C-CA853AD5CDD5 — I had a quiet moment of reflection after placing my tulips on Hannah’s grave in Glaisdale.

5506F44B-683E-4744-80DB-E35BA3FC6E7A — The inscription on Hannah Raw/Hall’s grave, where she is buried. She died in 1890 at the age of 64. Readers’ detective work helped me track the grave down.

The quest to find out more about Hannah Raw has produced some excellent information, thanks in a large part to reader Marion Atkinson’s endeavours. Best of all, Marion told me where she was buried.

If you remember, nine-year-old Hannah’s 19^th century sampler is on my mum’s kitchen wall alongside two by my ancestors Mary Atkinson and Jane Lacy. We didn’t know anything about Hannah or how we came to have her sampler, but for many years it was kept rolled up with Jane Lacy’s at my Nana’s home. I wanted to find out who Hannah was, and why we had possession of her pretty piece of sewing. Thanks to Marion, and to sampler and family history enthusiast Gillian Hunt, we had started to build a picture of Hannah’s life (we also discovered that, remarkably, Marion and I are distant relatives!).

We found out that sadly Hannah’s parents had died when she was young, her mum Ellis in the same year that Hannah created her sampler (1835) and her father Matthew when she was just 13. By the time of the 1841 census, 15-year-old orphan Hannah was in service living with the Adamson family. Initially we thought that there was no trace of her after the 1841 census. But we were wrong!

Thanks to Marion’s detective work, we can now flesh out much of the rest of Hannah’s story.

On 23^rd December 1850 when she was 24, Hannah married John Hall, 34, a grocer and draper born in Castleton and they set up home in Lealholm. By the time of the next census ten years later, the couple had had two children, Sarah, aged nine, and six-year-old Ellis, named after Hannah’s late mother. Husband John was now listed as a joiner and wheelwright. Not much of note changed for the next ten years, but by the 1881 census, when Hannah was 55 and John 65, 26-year-old Ellis had left home, while 29-year-old Sarah, listed as a dressmaker, was still living with her parents.

In fact Sarah never married, and lived with Hannah and John all their lives. Sadly, Hannah died in 1890 at Lealholm aged 64 (and not in the Whitby district a year later, as we had wondered in my last piece about her). Marion also told me that John died in 1903 at Lealholm when he was aged 87 and that both were buried in the graveyard of the Church of St Thomas, Glaisdale.

Now I don’t need much of an excuse to go for a spin across the North York Moors, especially to the village where my dad was born, so last Sunday, a friend and I jumped in the car and set off on the hunt for Hannah’s grave. I was determined to lay some flowers and pay my respects to this child/woman whose nearly 200-year-old piece of embroidery on our kitchen wall sparked such curiosity, and whose start in life had been so difficult.

The grave wasn’t hard to find, as I was armed with a picture of it that was already available online. Finally I was as close as I was ever going to get to meeting Hannah Raw. I lay down my tulips, and read the inscription:

‘In Affectionate Remembrance OF HANNAH, BELOVED WIFE OF JOHN HALL, OF LEALHOLM BRIDGE, WHOE DIED JUNE 30, 1890, AGED 64 YEARS.

ALSO THE ABOVE, JOHN HALL, WHO DIED MAY 5^TH 1903, AGED 87 YEARS.’

I spent a quiet moment thinking of Hannah, of how difficult her childhood must have been and hoping that, against the odds, she had found some happiness in life.

And it seems she did. Her youngest daughter Ellis married Glaisdale joiner William Hodgson in 1878, and thanks to them, Hannah became a grandmother to eight children, four boys and four girls.

Therefore, we can conclude that there must be some living descendants of Hannah Hall (nee Raw), and wouldn’t it be wonderful if one of them is reading this piece? If you think that is you, then please get in touch by either contacting this paper, or through my contact page at countrymansdaughter.com.

One of my goals was to find a picture of Hannah, but as photography was in still its infancy when she was alive, it’s unlikely one exists. There is a tiny glimmer of hope though. Famous Moors photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (1853-1941) was active during Hannah’s lifetime, so who knows? Maybe he snapped our long lost lady!

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

This column appeared in the Darlington and Stockton Times on 24th and Ryedale Gazette and Herald on 22nd February 2023

Still hunting for Hannah

Mary Atkinson, left, my mum’s grandmother, standing outside her home in Lealholm on the North York Moors with my mum’s mum, also called Mary.

Mary Atkinson, my mum’s grandmother, whose sampler we have on our kitchen wall, made when she was 12.

My recent quest to find out more about a little 19^th century girl from the North York Moors called Hannah Raw has borne fruit.

If you recall I wrote about some 19^th century samplers on the wall of my mum’s kitchen. Two were done by ancestors, one called Mary Atkinson, who was 12 when she created hers in 1876 and was my mum’s maternal grandmother, and Jane Lacy, who was 10 in 1837 when she created her sampler, and was Mum’s great great aunt on her mother’s side. The third sampler was by Hannah Raw, who was nine in 1835, but about whom I knew nothing. We don’t know how we came to have her sampler, but for many years it was kept rolled up with Jane Lacy’s at my Nana’s home.

One reader contacted me to say his neighbour had the surname Raw and hailed from the Glaisdale/Lealholm area. I’m trying to get in touch with him to see if he can help. I was also contacted by Marion Atkinson who originates from Lealholm and she believed we were distant relatives on my mother’s side. She wrote: “My father was Dick Atkinson of Lealholm, and I knew your dad and your gran. My 4x great grandfather was John Raw of Fryup.”

She added: “Mary (Polly) Atkinson, b.1864, married Jack Lacy, a blacksmith at Lealholm. She was sister to my great grandfather, Thomas William Atkinson, b.1871.”

This Mary Atkinson that Marion mentioned is the same one whose sampler adorns our wall, and is indeed my mum’s maternal grandmother. So Marion is related (albeit at a distance) to my mum’s side of the family. But could she also be a distant relative of Hannah, via her 4x great grandfather?

She tried to find out a bit more about Hannah, and believes that her parents died when she was still young. If that is the case, in the days when social care did not exist, it is possible, that she was taken in by other nearby families to be looked after, and maybe by the Lacy family, which could explain why we have the sampler she made when she was just nine years old. By the time she was 15, according to the 1841 National Census (which anyone can view online), a Hannah Raw was living in the Whitby area in the household of James and Catharine Adamson, a couple in their 40s, alongside Ann Backer and Sarah Backer, who were 25 and 20 respectively, as well as a boy called Isaac Cacomb, aged 15. We think it is the right Hannah, but what was she doing there?

The fascinating thing about the census is that it lists the occupations alongside the names. James Adamson was a farmer and, as there is nothing listed against Catharine’s name, I am assuming she is his wife (rather than than a brother or sister). Next to the two Backer women is listed ‘Ind’, which I have discovered is the abbreviation for ‘independent’, in other words, living by their own means. This meant they did not have a profession and was applied to men, single women and widows. Young Isaac was listed as a farm labourer, presumably employed by Mr Adamson, and our Hannah had ‘F.S.’ written beside her name, which means ‘Female Servant’, and so it appears that she was employed by the Adamsons as a live-in servant.

Marion has kindly offended to try to find out more, but if you do know anything more about Hannah, please get in touch with me via this paper or on my contact page at www.countrymansdaughter.com.

I mentioned our connection to Marion to my mum, who remembered a little about Mary Atkinson, particularly the fact that people called her Polly. She didn’t get to meet her, though, as Mary died on 21^st August, 1935, almost two years before my mum was born. Mum said she recalled seeing a picture of Mary, but wasn’t sure where it was. Of course, that set me off digging into the family archives, pulling out all the old photo albums hidden in various cupboards upstairs. After a good old rummage, I found said picture, and it gave me such a thrill to be able to put a face to the 200-year-old name that has hung on our wall for so many years.

I wonder if the day will come when I can do the same for Hannah?

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

This column appeared in the Darlington and Stockton Times on 30th and Ryedale Gazette and Herald on 28th December 2022

A story that’s dead in the water?

EC43802D-DFA7-4720-B41A-3467E449B14E — The Lewis Creighton painting of Dead Man’s Pool near Beggar’s Bridge in Glaisdale, North Yorkshire

6475E295-8B5C-4B66-B933-C60A94E19418 — A salmon leaps out of the water in the corner above Creighton’s signature

816A5C49-7596-4AC1-BC85-C560472D0CE8 — Another of Creighton’s paintings on my aunt’s wall, this one of Beggar’s Bridge near Glaisdale, North Yorkshire

I was visiting my aunt in Pickering recently and remarked upon the several Lewis Creighton pictures on her wall. He was known as The Moorland Painter, thanks to his wonderful depictions of the North York Moors.

Creighton was a familiar feature of my childhood, in as much as my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, all had his paintings. My dad’s maternal grandparents ran the Anglers’ Rest pub in Glaisdale, and the family story goes that Creighton used to frequent the pub and would sometimes settle his tab with paintings. I have no idea if that is true, but we do seem to have accumulated a fair few of them.

You will still find pieces of his work for sale today and they fetch a few hundred pounds. I don’t understand why they are not more expensive, as some that are in our hands are very well done. He had a particular gift for mood, colour, light and shade.

One of the four on my aunt’s wall caught my eye, as it had a slightly different feel to the others. Instead of rugged moorland scenery, it illustrated the calm and serene waters of a river. My aunt explained that it was a spot called Dead Man’s Pool, which lies on the River Esk, not far from Beggar’s Bridge in Glaisdale.

From what I can gather, Dead Man’s Pool is a particularly deep section, and over the years has had a reputation for being a favourite place to catch salmon and brown trout. In fact, my ancestors, the Rheas, were instrumental in re-introducing salmon to the Esk, I think in the 1920s or 30s, after they had died out about a decade earlier. As I mentioned, my great grandfather, Thomas Rhea, ran a public house which was originally called Three Blast Furnaces after the local iron works. The works had closed down in 1875, yet fishing in the area was very popular, with people travelling from all over try their luck in the Esk. So in the 1930s, Thomas Rhea changed the name of the pub to Anglers’ Rest.

I asked my aunt if she knew how that part of the river got such a tragic name, and she said something along the lines of “People used to go up there to finish themselves off”! Of course, I then needed to find out more, and to discover whether what she was saying was true.

It turns out there is not a vast amount written about Dead Man’s Pool, but I did find an article in the Whitby Gazette from 30th October 1903 which described it as ‘the only salmon-anglers’ paradise in Yorkshire’.

The same piece goes on to say, ‘It is a piece of dead-looking water where three years ago an angler fished up a good boot from the bottom, the very boot, so ‘tis said, which was lost by the unfortunate person after whom this pool was named.’ But the writer does not elaborate further on the story.

I also came across a sad tale that happened a few years later, in 1906. Appearing in the Leeds and Yorkshire Mercury on June 1st of that year, it explained: ‘The unaccountable absence of Mr Wm Middleton, residing at the Anglers’ Quarters, Glaisdale, occasioned much anxiety to his relatives throughout Wednesday, and during the latter portion of the day, a search for him was instituted. This resulted in his body being found in Dead Man’s Pool, Arncliffe Woods, about eight o’clock in the evening.’

A report from the same day in the Whitby Gazette stated that Mr Middleton was a businessman from Stratford, London, who’d been staying with his brother-in-law, Edward Caygill, in Glaisdale for some weeks. At the inquest, Mr Caygill testified that something had been troubling Mr Middleton, but he could not say what, although on the night before his disappearance, he had been ‘as full of life as could be’. He had never threatened to take his own life. However, the jury returned a verdict of suicide by drowning while in an unsound state of mind. Records show that the pool was named many years before this event though.

Incidentally, during my search, I found that an oil painting of Dead Man’s Pool by a Mr & Mrs Lester Sutcliffe, sold for £7.7s in October 1897.

Anyone know how much that would be worth in today’s money?

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

This column appeared in the Darlington and Stockton Times on 29th April and Ryedale Gazette and Herald on 27th April 2022.

On the March for a myth

D36BB138-6B21-429E-87AE-4BFE68B60985 — Me & Dad on the Greek island of Mykonos, which is in the Cyclades, in 1986

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 2nd March 2018, & the Gazette & Herald on 28th February 2018.

In my dad’s column from 4th March 1978 he mentions an old Greek myth relating to ‘angry’ March, so described because of the wind which tends to blow in from all directions throughout the month.

The myth stated that March was angry because an old woman from the island of Kythnos mistook him for a summer month, so he borrowed a day from his brother, February, and froze the old woman to death, along with her flock of sheep. It seems a rather extreme punishment for such a crime (I hope March isn’t reading this or he might come for me!).

My university degree covered the myths of Ancient Greece, and I spent a year in the country after leaving school at 18, and Mum & Dad came to visit me while I was out there. But I had never come across this tale and so set about researching it on the Internet. For ages I could find absolutely nothing and went through countless variations of search terms relating to the myth until I finally came across a brief reference on a site called The Internet Archive (archive.org). This amazing resource is a bit like an international version of the National Archives. Started in 1996, just as the Internet was beginning to take off, its grand mission is to provide ‘Universal Access to All Knowledge’ and now claims to have an almost unbelievable 279 billion web pages, 11 million books and texts, four million audio recordings and three million videos in its archive, all of which is free to access.

I found the bit I wanted in a substantial 19th century volume called ‘Weather Lore; A Collection of Proverbs, Sayings and Rules Concerning the Weather’ by a man called Richard Inwards. There were a couple of lines about the myth, which he attributed to a ‘T.Bent’. Nothing else.

In past columns, I’ve talked about my habit of wandering off topic so, of course, once again I set off meandering through the Internet to discover who this mystery ‘T.Bent’ was. I felt like a detective tying to get to the bottom of a rather obscure clue, having to think laterally and persist in search after search. I even went as far as page three on one set of Google results. I know, hard core.

But I’m glad I did, as it turns out ‘T.Bent’ had a very interesting story, and better than that, he was a Yorkshireman! Mr James Theodore Bent was brought up in the West Riding village of Baildon, and came from a well-to-do family. He developed a keen interest in history and grew up to become a distinguished archaeologist and adventurer. What is wonderful about this story, especially in a year when we are marking the achievements of the suffragette movement, is that his wife Mabel was as well known and as adventurous as he was. Together they toured the world to discover everything they could about foreign cultures and civilisations, and their findings contributed greatly to society’s knowledge about those unfamiliar worlds. Their resulting books were very popular and well-respected, presumably because, being fearless and intrepid explorers who often put themselves in considerable danger, their work must have been incredibly exciting to their less adventurous readers back home.

One of Theodore’s most well-known works was ‘The Cyclades, or Life Among The Insular Greeks’, published in 1885, which recounts his and Mabel’s adventures living among the rural inhabitants of these remote islands, and this is where he mentions the myth about March (and it is literally, just a mention, so I have no more to report on that!). He is not very complimentary about the island of Kythnos, declaring, ‘We thought we had never visited a more dreary, inhospitable shore.’

Sadly, it was on one of their adventures that Theodore contracted malaria and died prematurely at the age of 45 in 1897. Mabel was distraught, but found the strength to finish the book about ‘Southern Arabia’ that her husband had been writing at the time. But her deep grief was reflected in her words: “It has been very sad to me, but I have been helped by knowing that, however imperfect this book may be, what is written here will surely be a help to those who, by following in our footsteps, will be able to get beyond them.”

Mabel never remarried and died at the age of 83 in 1929. She was buried, as she requested, with her husband at her ancestral home in Essex. (Source: tambent.com)

Don’t bleat about the bush

The Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland

AE2B99EF-35AE-407B-8531-9211282E4712 — The famous Sycamore Gap tree

5851A311-83E0-476D-9CF8-F4D5E45BFD25 — The mulberry tree at Wakefield prison (copyright Yorkshire Post).

74858ECE-5B69-4B8E-BA5F-CCAF0B749F4D — The Mulberry logo

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 9th February 2018, & the Gazette & Herald on 7th February 2018.

One of the things I battle with when researching these columns is my habit of going slightly ‘off-piste’ when looking for interesting topics to talk about. I get easily distracted by something that I am unlikely to use, but is nevertheless less quite fascinating. In fact, when I was looking for a new notepad, I found one that boldly declared on the front ‘I am 100% NOT procrastinating…HONEST!’. I had to buy it.

This week, having read my dad’s column from 11th February 1978, I was on the hunt for interesting facts about mulberries, as he talked about the origins of the words to the famous nursery song ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’.

Of course, when I googled it, one of the first things that came up was a link to the website of the famous leather goods brand. Over the past few years, a Mulberry bag has become one of the most sought-after accessories for women of a certain age, so of course, I got distracted by all the images of gorgeous bags, purses and shoes. What also caught my eye (apart from the eye-watering prices) was the ‘Our Story’ tab.

I discovered that Mulberry was founded in 1971 by Roger Saul who set up the business from his kitchen with a £500 loan from his mum. He called his new brand Mulberry after some trees he passed on his way to school, and his sister designed the now famous Mulberry tree logo.

What was odd though, was that apart from a brief mention at the beginning, Mr Saul did not feature further on the ‘Our Story’ tab. After a bit more research, I found a twisted plot so dastardly that it outdid the Machiavellian exploits of the Ewings in the 1980s TV hit ‘Dallas’. And now I’ve said that, you’ll want to know what happened, won’t you? So you see how easy it is to get distracted? I promise to come back to the mulberry bush…

In the early 2000s, Mulberry needed an injection of cash which came from a Singaporean billionaire called Christina Ong, who bought 41.5p.c. of the company’s shares. Mrs Ong, who had huge ambitions for the business, then engineered a boardroom coup to oust its founder and chairman. To remain at the helm, Saul, who owned just 38p.c. of the shares, needed the support of his long-term friend and deputy chairman Godfrey Davis. Davis controlled 4.5p.c of the shares, which would have given Saul the majority he needed. But to Saul’s horror, Davis sided with Ong, and his fate was sealed. He was left to watch from the sidelines as his former friend replaced him as chairman, and the business he founded in his kitchen went on to become a global fashion powerhouse.

So, distraction over, it’s back to the mulberry bush song. According to a book published in 1994 by former Wakefield Prison governor Robert Stephen Duncan, female inmates came up with the song to keep their children entertained as they walked around a mulberry tree in the exercise yard. Some killjoys cast doubt that it is its true origin, but why let the facts get in the way of a lovely story? As far as I am aware, the mulberry tree still stands, and in 2016 was nominated for the tree equivalent of the Oscars, the Woodland Trust’s ‘Tree of the Year’ awards. Sadly, it didn’t win and was beaten by that woody upstart, the Sycamore Gap Tree in Northumberland. To be fair, that is a spectacular tree, far more pleasing to the eye than Wakefield’s wizened mulberry. It nestles in a dramatic dip, with Hadrian’s Wall rising either side, and is said to be one of the most photographed spots within the Northumbrian National Park. It gained its own piece of Hollywood fame when it was featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film, ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’, and so is also known as ‘The Robin Hood Tree’ (but I bet there isn’t a song about it!).

I would like to express my thanks to the many people who have sent their condolences, prayers and good wishes following the death of my sister, Tricia Walker, on 8th January. The past few months have been a very difficult time for our family, as Tricia’s cancer progressed so quickly and came so soon after Dad passed away. Your good wishes are helping to keep us strong. Thank you.