Lost houses reveal intriguing stories
Whilst I was nearing the end of Mr Blackwood’s Fabularium in early 2016, I had to take time out to write the text for Lost Houses of the South Pennines, the booklet (later a book) which accompanied my artist daughter Kate’s exhibition at Bankfield Museum in Halifax. The houses in question – there were ten of them – have disappeared, in some cases without trace, or been reduced to a few scattered stones. Had I started the project earlier, some of the stories might have found their way into Mr Blackwood.
Take, for example, the story of New Cragg Vale (picture below). Of Hinchliffe Hinchliffe’s mills near Mytholmroyd, the local rector wrote: ‘If there is one place in England that needs legislative interference it is this place; for they work 15 and 16 hours a day frequently, and sometimes all night. Oh! it is a murderous system and the mill owners are the pest and disgrace of society…!’
Workers were fined for unpunctuality, children beaten for minor misdemeanours. Small wonder, then, that the most hated name in Cragg Vale was that of Hinchliffe Hinchliffe. He died as a recluse in Southport and was survived by only one of his five children, Helen. Although she was said to have been spoiled by her father, she grew up to be very different in outlook. She was married three times. Her third husband was a 22 year old bank clerk from Harrogate named William Algernon Simpson. Helen Hinchliffe was then 48. William Algernon Simpson (or Algy Simpson-Hinchliffe, as he chose to be known) initiated a new social era in Cragg Vale. Between 1904 and 1906 he extended and re-modelled Hinchliffe Hinchliffe’s house at Cragg Vale. He and his wife spent lavishly – and not just on themselves. Newspapers of the time reported eagerly on tea parties, picnics for the workers and social events for schools and clubs: ‘Christmastide was again celebrated with no unstinted hand by Mr and Mrs Simpson-Hinchliffe. A beautiful tea was in the school for the children, after which they were invited into the upper room, and as they entered it their breath was almost taken away with the glorious sight which met their view. Standing in the middle of the room was a huge Christmas tree, from which were suspended toys of almost every imaginable character. These were given to the children along with a tin of Harrogate toffee and an orange.’
A further report tells how Algy, dressed at Father Christmas, accidentally set his beard alight and badly burned his face. How unlike the days of Hinchliffe Hinchliffe, who is said to have charged guests for the cigars he offered them! Unlike almost all the other houses in the exhibition, New Cragg Hall did not endure a lingering death by neglect and decay. In the early hours of August 11th 1921 it caught fire and within a few short hours it was nothing but a blackened ruin, its roofless gables outlined starkly against the sky.
Or take the story of Castle Carr (picture top), built between 1859 and 1867 near Luddenden Foot by Joseph Priestly Edwards, Deputy Lieutenant of the West Riding and Captain in the West Yorkshire Yeoman Cavalry.
It was intended as a country residence and shooting lodge. No expense was spared and no taste shown. Everything was conceived on a vast scale. Visitors entered through a Norman arch, which contained a portcullis and to which a keeper’s lodge (with clock tower) was attached. Having alighted from their carriages, they climbed a handsome flight of stone steps, which were flanked at the top by two life-size crusaders, and then through a carved stone screen into an Ante Hall, to be greeted by yet more stone crusaders. To the right of the Ante Hall was the Great Banqueting Room, whose walls were covered with carved panels and whose focal point was a massive stone fireplace with marble pillars, carved capitals, tessellated hearth and moulded stone fender. Opening out from the opposite side of the Ante Hall was the Picture Gallery, which contained a similar wealth of decoration and which led in turn to the Grand Staircase with its elaborately carved balustrades, each newel post being capped with a carved Talbot hound. At the head of the staircase was the Gallery, which allowed access to the Sitting Room, the Billiard Room and the Library, all of which had their share of Talbot hounds and carved hunting scenes. Captain Edwards did not, alas, live long enough to enjoy the baronial splendours he had created in the Luddenden Valley. He and his eldest son, Priestley August, were killed in the Abergele railway disaster of 1868, as they were returning from a weekend shooting party. So badly disfigured was he that his body could only be identified by his keys.
The story of many of the houses is the story of the rise and fall of the mill-owning families who built them. For anyone interested in following the two stories above in more detail, as well as the stories of all the other houses, go to my daughter’s website: www.katelycett.co.uk
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