Hugh Pannell – The Countryman's Daughter

Time to make decisions

Horacio Romeo’s beloved antique mirror has to stay in Buenos Aires, Argentina, because it is too big to bring to his current home in Brazil.

Following my column about the Hugh Pannell clock owned by Arkansas-resident Sandra Parkerson, David Severs has been in touch. David is a descendant of the 18th century Northallerton clockmaker and was able to provide some useful historical context about it. If you recall, the grandfather clock has been in Sandra’s family for more than 200 years, but she is looking to find it a home because it will be too big to take to a new apartment.

David is compiling a record of Pannell’s work and explains that it is unusual to find ‘CLOCK & WATCH-MAKER’ engraved on the name boss. “This is very rare indeed and to find yet another Pannell example is exciting,” he says.

He explains that Sandra’s walnut case is not original: “I have found well over a hundred Hugh Pannell clocks and not one is in a walnut case.” Most of Pannell’s clocks were in cases of mahogany, oak or pine. David has found only one pine example due to the wood not being durable, and mahogany is also quite rare because he would have had to transport it by cart from west coast ports such as Liverpool, which was far more costly than a readily available oak case. Mahogany cases were the preserve of the wealthy, and housed Pannell’s finest pieces. They became more common once the rail network reached Northallerton in 1841, well after Hugh Pannell’s time. Oak cases with mahogany veneer were known as ‘typical Yorkshire cases’ in 1774 when Pannell was working.

David says about Sandra’s clock: “The decoration on the pediment is not something I have seen over here and the split trunk door is also new to me. It is possible that the clock mechanism alone was sent to the USA and then placed into Sandra’s mahogany case upon arrival.”

David adds: “I have found that some 30% of Hugh’s surviving clocks are now marriages which is perhaps not surprising given that it is 236 years and more since he was making clocks…I am aware of his clocks in California, Florida, New Orleans and San Francisco as well as this one in Arkansas. Clocks by his son Joshua…have found their way to Iowa and California and one of his watches to Florida.”

This brings me on to the subject of what to do with meaningful objects you have collected in your lifetime.

Regular reader Clare Powell says: “I inherited my dad’s grandfather clock…and decided to sell it later on. You get nothing for them at auction, nobody wants or has the room for them, even old ones. But I discovered it was handmade by a company in Somerset and he had paid £3,500 for it. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it for £150, so I am still stuck with it!”

In a previous column I mentioned a small wooden box my grandad gave me which I hope one of my sons will keep. Clare explains that the thought of what to do with all her family heirlooms keeps her awake at night: “I am not sure we should burden the next generation with all our ‘stuff’. If you tell them why everything means so much to you, will they feel ridden with guilt if they are not able to keep it all? Then again, if you don’t tell them, then they may wish they did know the story of certain items, like you and your box.”

Horacio Romeo from Brazil, who contacted me through my web page (countrymansdaughter.com), has a similar problem to Sandra in that he has a beautiful mirror that is too big for his current abode: “I love it and enjoy looking at it when I go to Buenos Aires (Argentina) but bringing it here is out of the question.”

Leni Ella says: “My nana used to say, ‘If you want it, put your Monica on it’, the only way you could bagsy something in her house.” (I am assuming Nana meant ‘moniker’ and ‘Monica’ is a family joke!).

My aunt, Liz Davidson, revealed that she has a family heirloom: “I have a crocheted white bedspread that came from my dad and one of his aunties I think. It’s very heavy when you put it on the bed.”

There is only so much the following generation will want to keep so what, I wonder, will happen to grandad’s bedspread?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me via the ‘Contact’ tab at the top right of this page.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 17th Jan and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 15th Jan 2025

Stop all the clocks

The hand-carved wooden box given to me by my grandad. It is very precious to me.

Sandra’s 18th century long-case clock made by Northallerton’s Hugh Pannell. Will it find a new home?

Back in August I wrote about 18th-century Northallerton clockmaker Hugh Pannell after being contacted by one of his descendants, David Severs. I’d been talking about the herringbone pattern that was commonly seen on the stones used to build moorland homes. David informed me that Pannell had used the same herringbone pattern to decorate his clocks and watches.

Following that, reader Sandra Parkerson has been in touch all the way from Arkansas, USA, because she has one of Pannell’s long-case clocks which needs to find a new home. She writes: “I have a grandfather clock that was made by Hugh Pannell. It has been in my family for way over two hundred years. It is in a beautiful walnut case. I am 80 now and want to move into a condominium so probably won’t have room for it…I do hate to part with it.”

She adds: “It is a brass dial with the herringbone pattern…It was running all my life, but when I got it we had carpet and never could get it levelled correctly. So, I assume with a good cleaning, it will work fine.”

I would not normally use this column as an antiques’ marketplace, but with the connection to Hugh Pannell and the herringbone pattern, and the fact that somehow my column has been read by someone all the way over in Arkansas, USA, I thought it appropriate to mention it. It would be lovely to pair up this noble clock with someone who would appreciate it as much as Sandra (Please note: I do not plan to advertise items for sale in future columns and suggest you try Christie’s (for valuable antiques) or eBay (for general tat)).

It does raise the question of what to do with precious family items that the following generation have no inclination to take on. About 25 years ago, my aunt was moving from a large home in North Yorkshire to a smaller one in Ireland. She could not take all her furniture with her and so offered me her beautiful antique mahogany dining table with six upholstered chairs. I willingly accepted it but then found that once it was installed in my pokey dining room, it took up all the space and was really too posh for the likes of us, a working family with young boisterous boys. It was impractical and unappreciated, and I ended up reluctantly selling it for a song when we moved house again. I was told by the auctioneer that large pieces of dark wood furniture had fallen out of favour and they’d struggle to get rid of it. It was heartbreaking to see such a beautifully crafted piece of fine furniture go for so little money.

One thing I treasure greatly is a small oval wooden box that my grandad gave me. He was a skilled wood worker, and I have a number of his beautiful hand-turned bowls. This box is what an antiques expert might call ‘naïve’, in that it is clearly handmade and hand-carved, with a series of little flowers and garlands etched into its surface. Nothing is straight or symmetrical, which is precisely why I love it so much. Someone has taken a lot of time and effort to chisel out all the tiny decorative elements which makes it so unique and personal. They have also coaxed the wood into this oval shape, with tiny little dowel joints holding the base in place. I have no idea of its age, whether my grandad himself made it, or whether it was passed down to him from his own ancestors. I do know he kept bits and bobs for fishing inside it, like hooks and flies, and when I was little I spotted it on a bench in his workshop and said how much I liked it. And so my kind grandad gave it to me. Unfortunately, my youth meant I didn’t ask any pertinent questions about its origin and therefore its history is lost in the mists of time.

Because this is just a small thing, I am fairly confident that one of my boys will happily hang on to it when I take my final leap into the great unknown, but the question is, which one?

If you have more than one child to inherit your precious stuff, how do you decide who gets what?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me via the ‘Contact’ tab at the top right of this page.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 27th Dec and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 18th Dec 2024

The legacy of lost things

1-100_0612 — A clock face made by reader David Severs’ ancestor Hugh Pannell with the herringbone pattern around the outer edge of the dial and around the name boss, along with the rare ‘Clock & Watchmaker’ inscription.

I’ve had some more feedback from readers following the column I wrote about the stones marked with the herringbone pattern typically used in the construction of traditional North Yorkshire moorland homes. Reader John Severs had referred me to a book entitled ‘Life in the Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire’ written in 1972 by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. There was a section on this specific type of masonry along with some photographs featuring a well-known local family, the Weatherills.

Another reader, John Buckworth, has emailed to say: “Good to read your article re. Mr G. Weatherill. We were a customer of his some years ago and a great admirer of his craftsmanship. I pass his stone yard at Ainthorpe quite frequently and still see the antiquated home-made crane to lift the headstones. Also there’s a piece of carved stone on his wall depicting a fox’s mask, brush and hunting horn. Most country people followed the hunt and I find this a great tribute to the past way of life. Being now in my 80s I am a great admirer of country life and your father’s writings.”

He added: “I think the old crane was built by his grandfather…There are some very fancy and OTT headstones. However when my wife’s father died, he was a man of the soil and we walked into the stone yard at Ainthorpe and there was a piece of rough Yorkshire sandstone which fitted the man admirably.”

My editor at the Darlington and Stockton Times, Hannah Chapman, spotted something relevant on a weekend walk: “I was walking on the Cleveland Way yesterday (north from Lordstones café) and I’m sure I spotted a stone in the path with the grooved diagonal pattern you wrote about in the Chop Gate area. Could the old stones from houses in the area have been used to build paths?”

I think Hannah probably has a point – why not reuse stones from the tumbled down moorland buildings in the construction and repairs of our public walkways?

I also received a couple more stories about ‘lost things’ and how difficult it is to discard a lone earring. Monica Ganz contacted me all the way from America about a bracelet her mother had given her: “It had a daisy as a charm. I loved it, because the daisy was painted yellow and white…I was delivering newspapers on my bike and somehow the Daisy fell off, never to be found again. When I was older in my 20s, I was water skiing. I wore these cute little gold huggy earrings that had small diamond on them. Of course…the earring popped off…I still have the bracelet and the one earring…Why do we lose treasured items? Hard to know why, right? And it’s hard to part with them.”

I wonder if it is more the memories and feelings that are held within the precious item that makes it hard to let go?

David Severs from Northallerton had his own fascinating story too: “You might be interested to know that in Saywell’s ‘History and Annals of Northallerton’ he recounts how a gardener’s newlywed wife had lost her wedding ring in their garden and 14 years later, in 1796, it was found when a customer cut into a turnip and found the ring inside.”

David also mentioned how the herringbone pattern was used in the decoration of clocks and watches: “Herringbone engraving was used on the brass dials of long-case clocks in the early years of the 18th-century in London … said to be a sign of quality. Some clockmakers used it until about 1740. My ancestor Hugh Pannell, the Northallerton clockmaker, was in business until he died in 1788. I have traced well over 100 of the clocks he made and many of them have herringbone engraving. Most clockmakers decorated the spandrels on their brass dials (the corners) with cast-brass decoration; a few engraved the spandrels; and even fewer left them undecorated: Hugh did all three…Most of his dials have herringbone engraving somewhere. Incidentally on the photograph (seen here) he described himself as ‘Clock & Watchmaker’ and this is very rare indeed. In very many years I have found only one example by one other clockmaker whereas I have found five examples by Hugh Pannell, three of these dials now being in the USA.”

I’d love to hear from you about your stories, memories, opinions and ideas for columns. Use the ‘Contact’ button on the top right of this page to get in touch.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 9th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 7th August 2024.