Grave hunting in Kildwick

Ok, so family history research - grave hunting is difficult with 2 littlies in tow but I attempt it the other week with my 2 year old & my 7 month old. 

This is Kildwick Parish Church in West Yorkshire...

It is a very historical church dating back to 950AD (Kildwick Parish Website, accessed 6th April 2016) and the Leeds-Liverpool canal cuts through the grave yard.

My ancestors didn't live in the village of Kildwick but in other the villages lying within the parish  boundaries, ie Cononley, Cowling, Glusburn etc. I have many ancestors who were baptised & buried here in the 1700s and early 1800s.

Sadly, I did not get enough opportunity to have a good look at many graves because my 2 year old kept running off in the opposite direction and they both fought against taking naps & I forgot the double pram! But we had a nice picnic in the sunshine in the grave yard :) 

Here is the evidence with a picnic selfie with my toddler beginning to feed me the babies food when I was concentrating on taking the photo - he missed my mouth & plastered it on my face instead!

Next time, I will drag my husband along to watch the kids while I peruse some of the old graves & fathom out their old, worn inscriptions.

Some of the beautiful grave stones...

Book Review - The History & Topography of Bradford, (in the County of York)

I have been looking into a bit of this history behind the city in which I live recently and by accident through a random Google search for meaning of the street name "Ivegate" in Bradford, came across this book on Google Books...

The History & Topography of Bradford, (in the County of York) with Topographical Notices of It's Parish by John James 1841

I wanted to make some notes about the interesting facts which I read, so although this blog post is primarily for my own reference you may also find it of interest.

• Gate ie Westgate/Kirkgate/Ivegate is not a reference to a gate in a city wall but means a "street"

• There was a building at the junction of Ivegate, Kirkgate & Westgate which was the original toll booth, in which John Nelson was imprisoned in the dungeons for preaching

Bradford:

• lies in a valley which is a branch of Airedale (Aire river valley), otherwise known as Bradford Dale with the beck running from Thornton to Shipley with a considerable bend in the beck in the centre
• is the seat of four valleys
• is in a bowl with hill ridges surrounding about a 2 mile radius of the city centre, each side has a quick descent into the town
• beck or brook has diminished over time, so the once "Broad" ford is now a lesser crossing, the once wooded valley would have had more water running through it due to the woods and the coal mines have probably drained more of the water into the land which once ran through the city in the becks

The 3 main brooks are:

1. Bowling Beck which rises above Bolling Hall - in the Roughs or Parkside between Bowling & Bierley, which feeds a pond below Bolling Hall - the brook passed through Cuckoo Bridge, a single arched bridge (but now Britannia House stands on it's site - see Bradford Heritage Tour)
2. Source is at Bradford Moor, taking in a small stream at Laisterdyke and another from above the Bowling Iron Works
3. the Bradford beck - the chief stream, begins at Bell Dean or Old Allen in Allerton and is joined by Horton Beck at Shearbridge

In it's past there have been numerous floods of the town, two significant floods were:

1. 1768 when the bridge was swept away
2. 20th December 1837 which caused significant damage

• The iron manufactured at Low Moor, Bowling & Bierley is esteemed the best of the kingdom - limestone was transported from Skipton via the Leeds-Liverpool & Bradford canals to the iron works.
• Thatch was probably rarely used in Bradford due to the source of good quality stone and slate available naturally in the area.
• Agriculture was poor, all that was grown was to be eaten by the people who grew it & not to be sold, cattle was kept for milk & butter but cheese was not produced.
• Manufacturing was most common with the use of looms.

Plagues/sickness epidemics rarely hit the town, which was deemed to be due to the good westerly winds which blew over the town.  Some epidemics to note are:

• 1665/6 the black plague - from a bag of old clothes which arrived from elsewhere in the country. The stricken were sent to Cliffe Barn, near Cliffe Wood & recovered were expected to care for the sick
• 1675 the Jolly Rant - a severe cold and cough
• 1832 Asiatic Cholera
• Jan & Feb 1837 Influenza killed many

Roman Roads:

• Manchester to Ilkley - after leaving Black Stone Edge, leave Halifax on the right and Ellinworth (Illingworth?) on the left, through Dinham Park (Denholme Park?) to the west of Cullingworth and Hainsworth
• Bradford to Wakefield - via Dudley Hill, places with Street in the name often refer to places close by to a Roman Road ie Tong Street

It is interesting to note that - Bradford suffered few plagues or sickness epidemics?

Hallyng = a meadow of the manor of Bradford
Further research shows:

• Ings (OED) = meadow near watercourse, therefore possibly swampy
• Ing (Old English) = hill
• Inga = "the people of" or "family & followers" ie Birmingham - homestead (ham) of a family of a man called Beorma
• Ing = place of ie Hawkinge (Kent) - place frequented by hawks

I wonder where this meadow would have been in relation to the now street name Hall Ings and it sounds as if it was a meadow next to or nearby the hall which was near the becks and possibly slightly swampy.

Bradford had a Fulling Mill where cleansing of the wool from oils & dirts happened, but it was open to every house. There was also a water mill with access for every house.

There was a reference to a Bolleshagh which I wonder if this place has any relation to the current area of Bowling (or Bolling) & the hall their?

My ancestors lived at . . . Gill Bottom, Cowling

My great x4 grandfather, David Binns, was born in Cowling in West Yorkshire c1816.

In the 1851 census he is listed as living at Gill Bottom, Cowling, as a widower with his children, Ann, John (my great x3 grandfather), Sarah, Isabelah and Jane. I was intrigued and wanted to know where Gill Bottom was in Cowling. I decided to search for it on Google maps but accidentally clicked the search the web, so instead I got lots of images and web links. There was quite a lot of interesting stuff coming up...

I discovered that Gill Bottom was on Shop Lane in Cowling and that it is currently a Grade 2 listed building, it was listed in 1984. It was a c1800 farmhouse with 3 cottages.

There was a mill at Gill Bottom also known as the "weaving shop" which was sadly lost to a fire in November 1870.

I also found some images on the Cowling Web website, which I have included the direct links for the images below:
Beckside (Gill Bottom Cottages) 1961 - I wonder if it was one of the cottages on this photo in which my ancestor lived in 1851
Old Mill at Gill Bottom 1911
Gill Bottom, Cowling


Information from:
British Listed Buildings - Gill Bottom, Cowling
Moon-Rakers
Moon-Rakers - Gill Bottom Mill Fire

Historic discoveries on my doorstep... Tong Village & Fulneck's Moravian Settlement

I love local, social & family history...

As I was looking for walks in my local area to try and improve my fitness levels, I discovered a walk on the AA walks website called Tong & Fulneck's Moravian Settlement.

Tong is a village about 5 miles south west of Bradford. It is a beautiful little village with a church, pub sweet cottages, farms, Tong Hall (the manor house), hotel, ice cream parlour, farm shop, a cricket ground and large garden centre on the outskirts. It has always been a small place that inspires me with interest for 2 reasons:

1. My 5x great grandmother, Agnes Mitchell, was born in Tong and baptised at St James church in 1784.
2. It is a beautiful quaint little village in the countryside between two large cities (Bradford & Leeds), yet it has managed to keep it's historic feel and green fields.

In doing some recent reading about Tong Village, here are a few things I have discovered:

• "Tong" is derived from the Old English tang meaning fork, probably deriving from the fact that Tong is situated between two valleys (Pudsey Beck and Cockersdale) and the fork in the becks.
• St James chapel, is a 12th century building on the remains of an earlier chapel indicating that Tong was probably a pre-Conquest settlement.
• Tong Hall is a 17th century manor house which is also probably on the site of an earlier building.
• The Lord of the Manor discouraged new developments to prevent over population which is probably one of the vital reasons why the village is still a village with surrounding farms.

But going back to the walk, what was "Fulneck's Moravian Settlement"? I had never heard of it...

Fulneck's Moravian Church

The AA website informed me that the Moravians were "...Pre-reformation dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church..." who came to establish a community in West Yorkshire, which was initially named Lamb's Hill and later became Fulneck.

WOW...that was a something on my doorstep which I never knew about!! 

The Moravians were the first Protestant church in Europe which began at the end of the 14th century in Bohemia and Moravia - the people wanted to worship God in their native tongue & not Latin and adopted a doctrine of "justification by grace through faith alone". They started sending out missionaries in the early 18th century, one of these early Moravian mission settlements was in Fulneck. 

Fulneck Moravian Settlement

I wanted to know about this group of people and their settlement, as well as to do this walk and visit Fulneck...

In doing some more reading about Fulneck, this is what I discovered:

• The land was given by Benjamin Ingham (an evangelical Anglican clergyman) to Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendork (a Moravian Bishop) to establish a Moravian settlement in 1744.
• John and Charles Wesley (who began the Methodist church in the UK) were initially associated with the Moravian Society in London.
• The school which was built as part of the community is now a well known public school.

My husband and I decided to do the walk this weekend, which we thoroughly enjoyed despite the occasional heavy rain showers and I think the landscape and views from the Moravian settlement have not changed at all in the nearly 300 years since the Moravians first settled there.

Information from:
Wikipedia - Tong Vilage
The AA - Tong & Fulneck's Moravian Settlement
Wikipedia - Moravian Church
Wikipedia - Fulneck Moravian Church

Ancestry.co.uk West Yorkshire Tax Valuation 1910

On Facebook this afternoon I noticed Ancestry.co.uk advertising that they had put online the West Yorkshire Tax Valuation records to search...

Facebook - Ancestry.co.uk (accessed 7/2/14)

...as many of my ancestors lived in West Yorkshire in 1910, I decided to test the new record set and searched for my great, great grandfather - Frederick Slater Poole born in Bradford, West Yorkshire in 1860 but living in Horsforth nr Leeds, West Yorkshire in 1911.

I found him at 2 Rose Avenue, Horsforth nr Leeds, West Yorkshire...

West Yorkshire Tax Valuation - Ancestry.co.uk (accessed 7/2/14)

...interesting to know who owned his house and where he was living in 1910 but unsure what else these records might be able to tell me.