Who Do You Think You Are?
There can be no real reason to venture into Leeds. I have been there once, that is sufficient. Leeds has the worst buskers in the whole of the British Isles and I include the young man I saw playing the spoons in Bury St Edmunds in that.
There are some places that I find interesting on the outskirts of Leeds, though. For instance, Horsforth Hall Park which, you will not be astonished to learn, is a park in Horsforth but, here’s the surprising bit, there is no hall. There did used to be, it was built for the Stanhope family in 1707. Photographs from the early twentieth century show a beautifully proportioned two-storey country house. Long sash windows must have let light flood into the rooms. A triangular tympanum at the attic level has three small windows, the central one with an arch above. Most of the front is covered by ivy. It looks like a delightful place to live. In 1932, the owner, William Mathieson gave the hall and its grounds to the people of Horsforth. They were so grateful that they knocked the hall down. They still call it Horsforth Hall Park, though, just to rub it in.
A little further on, down Abbey Road (no, not that one) are the remains of Kirkstall Abbey. It is a monumentally massive place which somehow gives the impression not of having partly fallen down but, instead, of having risen up from the ground. It’s less well known than the other ruined Cistercian abbeys at Fountains, Rievaulx and Tintern but is no less grand or imposing. To say that it is immense and used to be even more vast still doesn’t begin to explain its size. The abbey was founded by Henry de Lacy, Lord of Bowland who had, on feeling a little unwell, promised to build an abbey dedicated to the Virgin Mary if he recovered, which was the twelfth century equivalent of joining BUPA. His private healthcare paid off and he gave some of his land in Barnoldswick to Abbot Alexander of Fountains Abbey.
Abbot Alexander and twelve of his monks headed for Barnoldswick, knocked down the church and tried to build an abbey on land which was completely unsuitable. Being monks and therefore possessed of great patience and not a little stupidity, they kept trying for six years before they gave up. They had, however, been looking around for some more suitable land and found some by the River Aire, a good thirty miles from Barnoldswick and the Forest of Bowland. The only people occupying it were said to be a group of hermits. As a hermit is defined as a person living in solitude as a religious discipline, Abbot Alexander pointed out that a group of hermits made little sense and told them to sling their hook. Here he built Kirkstall Abbey. It lasted until the Dissolution in 1539 when the land was sold to the Stanhope family who would later build Horsforth Hall. Today it looks like a Hammer House of Horror ruined abbey.
Just a couple of miles further down the road, and now in the district of Armley, is His Majesty’s Prison Leeds, locally still referred to as Armley Gaol. Mr Basford and several of my other teachers would not be surprised to know that I had an ancestor who spent some time here.
What may have astounded them was the fact that he was a warder and not an inmate. On the night of the 2nd April 1871, the census of the United Kingdom was carried out and, at number ten Arkwright Street, the most Yorkshire street name in existence, in the Leeds suburb of Wortley, lived thirty-seven-year-old Elizabeth Pickering. With her were eight of her children: Oswald, who was the oldest, was fourteen and an engine fitter apprentice; Annie was thirteen; George was eight; Beatrice was seven; Alfred was six; Bessie was five; Arthur was three; Edward was one; and Elizabeth was knackered. Three of her children: Amelia, Harriet and Mary weren’t listed. I’ve not been able to track down Mary, who was just six, if she was still alive. Harriet, who was ten, was staying with her Uncle Frederick and Auntie Mary in Cheltenham. Amelia, who was eleven, was staying nearby at the house of John and Sarah Dalton. John worked in Armley Gaol but wasn’t on duty that night. Amelia’s father was, though.
Oswald Oscar Pickering was on duty as a warder at Leeds Borough Gaol, as it was then described. The prison had been completed in 1847, it had four wings of three landings, all radiating off a central point. The entrance was built in the style of a castle and is still there today. Here we have another Hammer House of Horror set, this time a haunted castle. I suppose it would have good reason to be haunted, for over a hundred years prisoners could be executed here. The last prisoner to be hanged was nineteen-year-old Walter Sharpe in 1950. The infamous Charles Bronson, Peter Sutcliffe and Roy “Chubby” Brown have all done time here more recently. Oswald Oscar had had a chequered career up until this point and had been a soldier in the Crimea; drillmaster at St. Michaels, Cambridge; a police officer in Lincolnshire and Derbyshire; and Station Master on the Great Western Railway at Malvern Wells before he washed up here. He seemed to like a uniform, it seems Elizabeth did, too, as they had fourteen children in all. One of their sons was George Henry Pickering.
In the 1911 census George Henry is living at 472 Liverpool Street, Salford and is a pensioned Brass Finisher. His family are living at number 279, on the corner of Kirk Braddon Street, which we visited earlier. They may not have been living with him because he was a less than loving husband and father. In the summer of 1886, he had married Susan Rigby, who was a midwife. Each morning before anyone set foot on the street he insisted that the brass plaque detailing his wife’s job be polished, and the step scrubbed. In the evening he would go out on the streets to scatter a handful of buttons, which upon waking each and every morning, the children had to go out and gather up. This was done for them to gain fresh air before breakfast, every button had to be found. If Susan was not in the house by seven-thirty for breakfast, the cloth was snatched from the table and she went without, even if she had been out all night.
It is said that before he died on 13th March 1927, he buried his money on a beach in Kent. It has been speculated that his behaviour might be due to his upbringing as part of a large family, apparently living for some time in a cellar. I speculate that he behaved that way because he was a bit of a twat. Mind you, if anyone digs up his money, then he was a lovely old boy was my great-grandad.
Your Newsletters always make me laugh and a re packed full of interesting detail.