Mary Ann Rawson’s legacy

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Upper Wincobank Chapel and Old School House, Sheffield

Photo: © Penny Rae

Mary Ann Rawson (1801-1887) was a celebrated campaigner for the anti-slavery movement, who corresponded with such luminaries as Frederick Douglass, Lord Shaftesbury and William Wilberforce and promoted social reforms of all kinds throughout her long life.

The daughter of a prosperous Sheffield refiner of precious metals and the widow of a Nottingham businessman who died young, she was in an extraordinary position, as a woman in early nineteenth-century England, to work to benefit humanity.

She bought back the family home, Wincobank Hall, which had been sold to cover her father’s business difficulties, and lived there with her sister Emily to the end of her life.

Her philanthropy ranged widely and her views were lifelong and determined.  James Montgomery, who had been editor of Sheffield’s radical newspaper, the Sheffield Iris, considered she held “such extreme notions – such extreme views” about total abstinence and the abolition of the death penalty.  She was one of the first, in 1839, to sign the teetotal Pledge.

Though she campaigned nationally and internationally, she also did good on her own doorstep, in particular by selling her silverware to found a school for local children in 1841, and she afterwards financed a school house that “would attract a good School Master”.  In 1880 she established a Charitable Trust to ensure that the building would continue to benefit the community beyond her lifetime.  Her Trust Deed specified that it could be used as a place of worship but must remain undenominational and totally in the control of the congregation.

When the school was superseded by a board school in 1905 the congregation extended it as a chapel, and Mary Ann Rawson’s legacy remains active in making Wincobank a better place.  The Grade II-listed Upper Wincobank Undenominational Chapel has services each Sunday and hosts social activities during the week:  What’s going on at Upper Wincobank Chapel – Upper Wincobank Undenominational Chapel.

The Chapel trustees, together with members of the Friends of Zion Graveyard, the Friends of Wincobank Hill and local residents are refurbishing the Old School House to provide a community hub and heritage centre, thanks to support from the Veolia Environmental Trust, Sheffield City Council, Sheffield Town Trust, the J G Graves Charitable Trust, the Clothmakers Foundation and South Yorkshire Community Foundation.

Rising costs and increasingly urgent needs, including a warm hub this winter, mean that the working group needs additional funds to complete the scheme. 

If you’d like to contribute, please go to https://www.justgiving.com/cmar-wincobank.

The Friends of Zion Graveyard Annual General Meeting takes place at the Upper Wincobank Chapel, Wincobank Avenue, Sheffield, S5 6BB on Monday December 12th 2022 at 7.00pm.  It’s open to anyone who has connections with the Wincobank community or is interested in the Chapel, the Graveyard.

Benevolent despots

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Darley Abbey, Derbyshire

Of the late-eighteenth century company settlements that distinguish the Derbyshire Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, Cromford, Belper and Milford are well-known, but visitors tend to pass by Darley Abbey.

Thomas Evans, who had lead-mining interests in Bonsall and iron-slitting mills at The Holmes in Derby, founded a bank in Derby in 1771, the same year that Richard Arkwright, Jedediah Strutt and Samuel Need began their cotton-spinning enterprise at Cromford. 

Arkwright banked with Evans, and in 1783 they began a partnership using Arkwright’s patent to run the Boar’s Head Mill – named after the Evans family crest – at Darley Abbey, where there had been a paper mill in 1700. 

Before his death in 1814 Thomas Evans had bought out all the partners who were not members of his immediate family.

The Boar’s Head Mill stood on the east bank of the Derwent, drawing its head of water from a magnificent six-foot-high weir stretching 360 feet across the river.  The original mill was burnt literally to the ground in 1788, but its replacement was back in production within a year. 

Apart from an abundant head of water, the site was near enough to Derby to provide connection with the Derby Canal and a supply of available labour, just as Cromford drew on the workers of the declining lead industry and Belper had an existing community of nailers and knitters. 

However, like Arkwright and Strutt, Evans saw the need to provide housing and community facilities to promote a stable workforce. 

On the opposite bank to the mills, connected by a bridge, grew a community of three-storey cottages,– Brick Row, Flat Square, Lavender Row, Mile Ash Lane, North Row and West Row,– until by 1830 over five hundred employees worked at the mills, the majority of them living in nearly two hundred cottages in the factory village.

The Evans family had a high reputation as enlightened employers and landlords.  Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840) praised their “unwearied philanthropy” and remarked that their “kindness and rewards are constantly bestowed in promoting cleanliness and neatness, and in stimulating industry and good conduct”.

Of course, Evans’ mill and its adjuncts provided almost the only available employment in the village, and the housing belonged to the company, so workers’ discipline was firm.

Like the Arkwrights and the Strutts, the Evans family provided a full range of community facilities at Darley Abbey, largely financed by the disciplinary fines – a playing field, the parish church of St Matthew (1819) and the village school, hot dinners for the aged and infirm, medical treatment, convalescent opportunities, and when all else failed, burial and a free gravestone.

Brian Cooper in his book Transformation of a Valley:  the Derbyshire Derwent (1983;  Scarthin Books 1991) tells of the lock-up at the entrance to the village, where “a watchman was stationed…every night, whose task…was to arrest and imprison any boisterous revellers and enter in a book the names of all women returning from Derby later than ten o’clock.  According to legend, the girls were more successful at evasion than the men.  On seeing the watchman, they pulled their skirts high above their faces and ran for the village…”

Darley Abbey Mills remained in the hands of the Evans family until 1903, and continued as textile mills until 1970.

Since then diverse uses have kept the buildings intact and recognisable.

The mills and the village are connected by a bridge across the river, and are easily accessible from the A61/A6 intersection at Allestree, north of Derby city centre.

The 80-page, A4 handbook for the 2016 The Derbyshire Derwent Valley tour, with text, photographs, maps and a reading list, is available for purchase, price £10.00 including postage and packing.  To order a copy, please click here or, if you prefer, send a cheque, payable to Mike Higginbottom, to 63 Vivian Road, Sheffield, S5 6WJ.

Mi Amigo

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Mi Amigo memorial, Endcliffe Park, Sheffield

I’ve been aware for a long time that there was a memorial to the ten airmen who died when their USAAF B-17G Flying Fortress crashed in Sheffield’s western suburbs in 1944, but I mistakenly thought it was located somewhere in the depths of Ecclesall Woods.

Returning from a bombing mission over Denmark, the plane Mi Amigo was crippled by enemy gunfire and inexorably losing height as it limped towards the city.

David Harvey has extensively researched the story of Mi Amigo and its crew, which he wrote up and published in Mi Amigo’:  the story of Sheffield’s Flying Fortress (ALD Design & Print 1997).

Eye-witness accounts agree that the plane approached Endcliffe Park from the south-east, over Gleadless and Heeley, and circled looking for a place to land.  Eventually an engine died and the plane spun three times and plunged to the earth among the trees.

In 1969, when ten scarlet oak trees were planted to replace those that were destroyed or had to be felled after the wreckage was cleared, two memorial plaques were fixed to a large boulder, listing the ten airmen and dedicated to their memory:

Erected by

Sheffield RAF Association

in memory of

the ten crew of USAAF bomber

which crashed in this park

22-2-1944

Per Ardua Ad Astra

Lt John Kriegshauser (pilot, from Missouri)

Lt Lyle Curtis (co-pilot, from Idaho)

Lt John Whicker Humphrey (navigator, from Illinois)

Lt Melchor Hernandez (bomb-aimer, from California)

Sgt Robert Mayfield (radio operator/log-keeper/photographer, from Illinois)

Sgt Harry Estabrooks (flight engineer/top-turret gunner, from Kansas)

Sgt Charles Tuttle (lower turret gunner, from Kentucky)

Sgt Maurice Robbins (rear-gunner, from Texas)

Sgt Vito Ambrosio (waist-gunner and assistant radio operator, from New York)

Sgt George Malcolm Williams (waist-gunner and assistant flight engineer, from Oklahoma)

An annual commemoration, supported by the Hallamshire Branch of the Royal British Legion, takes place on the Sunday nearest to the anniversary.

A group of schoolboys who saw the plane come down never forgot it, and one of them, Tony Faulds, aided by the BBC journalist Dan Walker, campaigned for a flypast to mark the 75th anniversary of the incident.

On the morning of February 22nd 2019 ten RAF and USAAF aircraft flew over Endcliffe Park, watched by a crowd of thousands and broadcast live on BBC Breakfast.

Nuanced analyses in response to the 2019 commemoration suggest that the commonly accepted account has been repeatedly embellished:  Did Tony Foulds Lie About Mi Amigo? • The Sheffield Guide.

History is complicated.  Multiple witnesses see a sudden event from different viewpoints.  Seventy-five years is a long time to recollect facts accurately.  Journalists prioritise an eye-catching story over a forensic examination of facts.

What matters, surely, is that the supreme sacrifice of ten airmen is remembered and recognised by those of us who have lived after them.

Update: The eightieth anniversary of the Mi Amigo crash was marked by a further fly-past: Flypast to mark 80th anniversary of Mi Amigo US bomber crash (thestar.co.uk).

Further update: Tony Fauld’s continuing mission to keep faith with the memory of the Mi Amigo crew is detailed in this July 2024 news article: Sheffield war memorial caretaker hails ‘marvellous’ response after tools stolen | Sheffield | The Guardian, which led to an astute report by Victoria Munro (with a range of interesting comments) in the Sheffield Tribune: Who owns the Mi Amigo memorial? – by Victoria Munro (sheffieldtribune.co.uk).

Papplewick underground

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Papplewick Pumping Station, Nottinghamshire: Reservoir

Visitors to the celebrated Papplewick Pumping Station in Nottinghamshire are always impressed by the elaborate engine house and the mighty engines in motion.

They tend not to notice that the site is oddly asymmetrical.

The ornate fountain in the centre of the cooling pond is aligned with the 120-foot-high chimney, but the engine house stands to one side.

This is because the original plan for the layout envisaged a second engine house which proved to be unnecessary because the two Boulton & Watt engines and six boilers could meet the maximum demand, lifting water from the Bunter Sandstone 202 feet below ground.  A second pair of engines would have depleted the source and simply wasted energy.

Pumping water to ground level was not all the engines did, however.

To understand the full power of Papplewick Pumping Station it’s necessary to book a visit to the Papplewick Reservoir, half a mile away. 

The reservoir was built by the engineer Thomas Hawksley in 1880, an impressive vaulted space that could hold 1,500,000 gallons – the amount that the engines could lift from the well each day.

The pumped water was pushed 137 feet higher than the pumping station to a covered brick tank.

When cracks appeared in the brickwork in 1906, probably caused by mining subsidence, the reservoir was emptied and abandoned, and water was sent directly to other reservoirs nearer Nottingham.  A replacement reservoir was eventually built in 1957 and serves the modern electric pumps that replaced steam in 1969.

Visiting the Papplewick Reservoir requires forethought.  It’s open to the public on steaming days, and access is by a bumpy trailer-ride up the unmade road which follows the line of the water main.  To secure a place it’s necessary to arrive soon after opening time:  Papplewick pumping station: Industrial museum and unique wedding venue in Nottinghamshire – Visit us.

Exploring this impressive space and admiring the craftsmanship of the brickwork is a memorable experience.  It has the sort of echo that might enable you to sing the Pearl Fishers’ Duet as a solo.

Outside, looking over the 1957 reservoir to the chimney of the Victorian pumping station in the distance indicates exactly how far the engines pushed the water that they had already lifted from the well. This is Victorian engineering at its most robust and ingenious, and its construction gave health and longer life to the people of Nottingham.

Edward Pugin’s masterpiece

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All Saints’ Church, Barton-upon-Irwell, Manchester

Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875) was the eldest son of the better-known Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852), and after his father’s early death at the age of forty-one continued the practice until his own early death at the same age.

Augustus Pugin was inevitably a hard act to follow, and though his son’s designs are less intense Edward was prolific and his work is impressive.  He designed over a hundred churches and a few secular buildings, and at the height of his powers he completed seventeen projects in the years 1865-68.

Nikolaus Pevsner identified E W Pugin’s “masterpiece” as All Saints’ Church, Barton-upon-Irwell (actually in Urmston, west Manchester).  Paid for by the local landowner Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 2nd Bt (1808-1866) and his wife Lady Annette at a cost of £25,000, it was built in 1867-68 alongside the de Trafford family’s mortuary chapel (1863).

Edward Pugin had previously built another church for the de Traffords, St Ann, Chester Road, Stretford (1862-7), and within the same few years designed his Monastery of St Francis, Gorton (1866-72), larger in scale but coarser in detail because it lacked the generous funds provided by the de Traffords. 

The exterior of All Saints’ echoes some of his other churches in the North West and elsewhere, with a nave and apsidal chancel and an elaborate bell-turret in the form of a flèche, set diagonally above the west front.

The interior is richly decorated and narrows towards the sanctuary, emphasising the height of the building.  The nave columns are alternately banded with Runcorn red sandstone and buff Painswick stone, and the roof is made of English oak and Savannah pitch-pine.

To embellish the interior as the de Traffords required – “a grand church…erected to the glory of God” – Edward Pugin brought together craftsmen from his father’s favourite ecclesiastical artists, Hardman & Co of Birmingham, including J Alphege Pippett (1841-1903), whose ‘The Adoration of the Lamb’ on the south side of the chancel depicts the de Traffords accompanied by Edward Pugin in medieval dress holding a plan of the church.

The walls of the sanctuary are of Caen stone and the columns of Painswick stone;  the floor is crimson marble and encaustic tile;  the altar itself is built of Caen stone, finished with Carrara, Siena and Devonshire marble, with flights of angels standing on the alabaster tabernacle, its doors marked by a bejewelled cross. 

The surviving nineteenth-century stained glass, disarranged as a result of Blitz damage, is by Powell & Hardman of Birmingham.  The late-twentieth-century glass in the west rose window is unfortunate.

Sir Humphrey’s son and heir sold most of Trafford Park for £360,000 to Ernest Terah Hooley (1859-1947) who became known as “The Splendid Bankrupt”, but retained the western portion, including Barton, until 1924. 

The canal bisected the parish, and the unpredictable closing of the Barton swing-bridge meant that parishioners were frequently delayed to the extent that it became impossible to fix Mass times precisely.  The population gradually moved away:  by the 1950s Catholic churches were opening on the new housing estates, and All Saints’ remained open only out of deference to an ageing congregation who had worshipped there all their lives.

All Saints’ finally closed as a parish church in 1961, and in September 1962 it was handed over to the Franciscan Friars Minor Conventual, who had provided priests for the parish since 1928.  They renamed it the Church of the City of Mary Immaculate, but it is still commonly known by its original dedication.  The church was listed Grade I on May 9th 1978.

All Saints’ isn’t easy to visit because the site is an operational friary.  It’s open on an occasional basis, and it would be prudent to enquire about arrangements before visiting:  https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/all-saints-friary-barton-upon-irwell. Though not as heavily atmospheric as Augustus Pugin’s masterpiece, St Giles’ Roman Catholic Church, Cheadle, Staffordshire, it’s a very beautiful building by a first-rate architect whose career stands in the shadow of his father’s work.

Street transport nostalgia

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Stagecoach Supertram no 120 (February 2013)
First South Yorkshire bus no: 37528
First South Yorkshire bus no: 37229

In 2010, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of Sheffield’s first-generation tram system, Stagecoach Supertram, its light-rail successor, repainted one of their units in a near-approximation of the distinctive Sheffield Corporation azure-blue-and-cream livery.

I sense that the blue isn’t exactly authentic, but it’s a close match and it suits the lines of the 1994 Siemens-Deuwag unit.

The livery on this tram is still a familiar sight on Sheffield’s streets over ten years later, and when the unit, no: 120, was involved in a collision with another, no: 118, in 2015, the undamaged sections of 120 were attached to the undamaged end of 118 which was repainted to match. 

Correspondingly, the two damaged ends were united and sent for repair.

The insistent nostalgia for old liveries extended to Sheffield’s buses when First South Yorkshire commemorated the centenary of bus operation in Sheffield in 2013.  Two double-deckers appeared in approximations of traditional Sheffield liveries.

One of them, no: 37229, looks well in the 1935 azure-blue-and-cream Sheffield livery, re-registered from YN08 LCJ to a more authentic plate 3910 WE belonging to a long-retired double-decker, and the visible fleet-number was truncated to 229.

The other repaint, no: 37528 (YN58 ETX), is less successful, because the contemporary Prussian-blue-and-cream tram livery was adapted for modestly-proportioned 1913 buses and it simply doesn’t fit the bulky lines of a modern double-decker.  The vehicle carries an appropriate fake fleet number 1.

The most endearing aspect of the livery on 37528 is that it carries the name of the long-serving and highly respected general manager of Sheffield Corporation Tramways, Arthur R Fearnley, who is credited with building Sheffield’s public transport system into a source of great pride in the city.  His grandson, Giles Fearnley, was Managing Director of First Bus from 2011 to 2020.

I’m intrigued that modern bus operators are making an effort to perpetuate the liveries of their predecessors.

First South Yorkshire has vehicles running around in the liveries of Rotherham Corporation [First South Yorkshire 37231, YN08LCL. | EYBusman | Flickr] and South Yorkshire Transport [First South Yorkshire 37524, YN58ETR. | EYBusman | Flickr], and Stagecoach has a single-decker in Chesterfield Corporation livery:  [Stagecoach 34720 YN05XNZ at Chesterfield | driffbus | Flickr].  A quick glance at a bus-enthusiast forum suggests this fashion is prevalent across the British Isles.

Nostalgia apart, it’s apparent that modern vehicles actually look better in heritage liveries, not simply because of the choice of colours and typography, but because up to the 1970s it never occurred to anyone to ignore the natural proportions of the bodywork. The garish colours and the swoops and swirls of some modern liveries are what Cecil Beaton, referring to the Duchess of Devonshire’s flower beds, described as a “retina irritant”.

Alstonefield Hall

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Alstonefield Hall, Staffordshire: Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust Visit, September 25th 2022

If you drive west into deepest Derbyshire, past Matlock and Brassington, you eventually end up in even deeper Staffordshire, passing from one to the other when you cross the River Dove.

Between the valleys of the Dove and the Manifold lies Alstonefield, an ancient settlement dating back to Saxon times with a Norman church dedicated to St Peter and a cluster of fine houses, mostly dating from the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

It was the birthplace of Charles Cotton (1630-1687), the probable author of The Compleat Gamester (1674) and contributor to Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler (1653 onwards). 

Within sight of the parish church stands Alstonefield Hall, a small but grand residence with a 1587 datestone, though there is evidence within of a structure dating back 150 years earlier.

It’s evident that the Elizabethan building work was intended to front a functional farm complex with a façade that indicated the status of its owner, John Harpur.  Within the projecting entrance porch the visitor enters a spacious chamber with a screen masking a service wing and a staircase leading to the upper floor.

John Harpur was the son of a wealthy judge and, through family connections with the Harpurs of Swarkestone Hall, Derbyshire, he is associated with the Harpur-Crewe family of Calke Abbey.

Alstonefield Hall never developed further grandeur, and over the centuries it declined in status until it was simply a farmhouse, Hall Farm, which the Harpur-Crewes sold in 1951.

The building was partly occupied until the beginning of this century and once abandoned it quickly deteriorated.

Its historic importance had been recognised as far back as 1967, when it was listed Grade II*, and at long last its restoration is about to begin.

The Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust, working off-piste in Staffordshire, provided a rare opportunity to see this fascinating building, in a group led by the historian and archaeologist Tom Addyman, who explained the detailed investigations that are piecing together its complex history.

At present it’s a hard-hat area, uneven underfoot, and it’s unlikely to be accessible until years of restoration are accomplished.

However long the work takes, the end result promises to be outstanding.

Cuthbert Brodrick in Leeds 2

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Leeds Corn Exchange

Cuthbert Brodrick’s design for the Leeds Corn Exchange (1860-2) responded to a brief to provide facilities for merchants to sell their corn both by sack and by sample, which required considerable floor space and an abundance of natural light.

By his design for Leeds Town Hall (1853-58) he had already proved his ability to provide pomp and circumstance in his public buildings.  In his Corn Exchange design he displayed virtuosity and an outstanding talent for engineering innovation and precision.

The site was awkward, lying between the White Cloth Hall and the Assembly Rooms.  Brodrick’s design is unusual, a heavily-rusticated ellipse with two semi-circular entrance porches and a shallow dome overall, but it’s not original.  It harks back to the circular Parisian Halle aux Blés (1763-67) which was given a dome in 1811, and which to some extent inspired the Prince Regent’s stables in Brighton (1803) and the London Coal Exchange (1846-49).

The elliptical, domed exterior is utterly different from any other building in Leeds, its heavy masonry emphasised by diamond rustication derived from the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara (1493-1503).

Within, the walls provide offices on two levels, with a central space top-lit by an oculus and a balcony at first-floor level.  The additional roof-light on the north-east side was added in 1915.  

The basement was designed to be accessible to carts to facilitate sack deliveries, but at first it was used as the headquarters of the borough fire brigade.

The dome with its complex geometry is an exceptional piece of engineering, necessary to provide an uninterrupted space for trading and indirect sunlight for merchants to judge the quality of grain accurately. The roof-ribs are riveted wrought iron, overlaid with timber and slate, springing from opposite sides of the ellipse.

Because of its excellent connections by waterways and railways, Leeds became an important centre for dealing in grain and flour, and in 1901 the Corn Exchange had 160 regular traders, including thirty from Hull and nine from Liverpool.  The area around the Exchange became crowded with warehouses and flour mills, and across the city there were larger roller mills and manufacturers of milling machinery.

Tuesday was the regular day for corn trading, and a leather market began in 1903.  The building was at various times used for farmers’ markets, and for dog, cat, mouse and bird shows.  In 1969 two hundred traders met weekly to do business on Tuesdays between 10.00am and 2.00pm.

If Colin Buchanan’s 1973 road-building proposals had been fully implemented the Corn Exchange would have been demolished.  In the same year the Leeds Civic Trust proposed converting it to a concert hall, but the tenants objected strongly and the idea was dropped.  Instead, the building was left to deteriorate in increasingly shabby surroundings for the following fifteen years.

Eventually, in 1988, Leeds City Council awarded a 999-year lease to Speciality Shops PLC with permission to convert the Corn Exchange to a high-end shopping centre, respecting the integrity of Cuthbert Brodrick’s design and continuing to accommodate the twenty-five remaining corn-traders.  It reopened to the public in 1990. 

The ground floor trading area was opened up so that the basement became integral to the domed space above, connected by staircases with bannisters that exactly reproduced the original railings.

A small number of corn traders continued to meet, using their original stalls, until around 1994.

The lease was transferred in 2005 to Zurich Assurance, which embarked on a £1.5 million refurbishment which required the eviction of the existing tenants for work to take place.  The Corn Exchange reopened in 2007, as “a boutique shopping centre for independent retailers”, now under the auspices of the property company Rushbond, which acquired the lease in 2017.

Cuthbert Brodrick in Leeds 1

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Leeds Town Hall

One of the remarkable features of British architecture in the early Victorian period is the optimism with which sponsors allowed talented young men in their twenties to take on huge projects that have since stood the test of time.

The best-known example is Harvey Lonsdale Elmes (1814-1847), who was awarded the commission for Liverpool’s St George’s Hall, after winning not one but two successive architectural competitions at the ages of twenty-five and twenty-seven.

The Hull-based architect Cuthbert Brodrick (1821-1905) was propelled to fame after he won the competition to design Leeds Town Hall in 1852 when he was barely thirty.

Despite some opposition within the Leeds borough council, the drivers of the Town Hall project aimed to outclass two public halls, both called St George’s Hall, in other major towns:  Bradford’s (1849-53) was simply a concert hall;  Liverpool’s building (1841-54) linked assize courts with a magnificent concert hall.  The Leeds scheme was intended to provide a public hall and courts combined with police headquarters and municipal offices and a mayoral residence – at a cost less than housing these functions in smaller separate buildings.

Indeed, Brodrick was initially kept on a tight leash by a contractual condition that he would not be paid if the cost exceeded £39,000, except in unforeseen circumstances or unless the council required additional facilities – which they almost immediately did.

Once the council was committed to the project there were repeated additions to the specification, including a huge pipe organ and an unforeseen tower.  The eventual cost of the completed Town Hall reached £122,000, and it seems to have been considered money well spent.

Cuthbert Brodrick made no apologies about aiming for quality.  There were furious arguments between him and the contractor, Samuel Atack, who went bankrupt in 1857.  Brodrick was heard on one occasion to urge “never mind if the quantity should exceed the contract”.

When Queen Victoria opened the Town Hall in 1858 she and Prince Albert were greeted on Woodhouse Moor by 26,809 Sunday School pupils with 5,301 of their teachers (controlled by signalmen brandishing boards), four companies of the 22nd Regiment of Foot and the 18th Hussars commanded by the Assistant Adjutant-General and 21,150 members of local Friendly Societies each wearing white gloves and a laurel-leaf buttonhole. 

Mr Trant, a chemist of Park Lane, went so far as to perfume the air outside his shop.

Prince Albert accompanied Brodrick to the top of the partly-completed tower and “entered freely into conversation on the subject of the building”:  “When I first saw the building, Mr Brodrick, I said to the Queen, ‘Magnificent! magnificent! beautiful proportions!’”

Leeds has never looked back.

Neither did Brodrick.  He seems only to have built big and almost entirely within Yorkshire.  He gave Leeds the Corn Exchange (1860-62) and the Leeds Institute of Science, Art & Literature (now the Civic Theatre, 1865-68).  In Scarborough he built the Grand Hotel (1863-67) which dominates the South Bay, and in Ilkley he designed the Wells Hydro (1854-56).

Yet he failed to win competitions or secure commissions for Preston Town Hall, the Queen’s Hotel, Leeds, the Liverpool Exchange, the remodelling of the National Gallery in London, the Manchester Royal Exchange, Manchester Town Hall and Bolton Town Hall. 

Nevertheless, he seems to have made enough to retire in his late forties.  He gave up architectural practice in 1869, and lived in Paris and later Jersey until his death, aged 83, in 1905.

Swanwick Hall

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Swanwick Hall, Derbyshire

I had the life-changing good fortune to pass my eleven-plus exam, which was my free ticket to a grammar-school and university education.

I attended Swanwick Hall Grammar School, Derbyshire, from 1959 to 1966 – a pivotal period in the history of the school.

When I arrived it had recently lost its headmaster, Herbert Scarborough, who resigned during a public controversy over the County Council’s plan to turn the school into a comprehensive – a transition that eventually began some years after I left.

I enjoyed history consistently through school (though I read English at university), and in the sixth form my circle of friends took an interest in the history of the building – a brick-built Georgian villa with Victorian extensions – and the family that lived there.

We were actually in search of the Grey Lady who glides – as the big kids always told the little kids (and do to this day) – down the main staircase at dead of night.

In the absence of any kind of digital technology, we pieced together what information we could from local churchyards, books in the local branch library and then visits to the Local History Library in Derby.

In Derby Art Gallery we found Joseph Wright’s portrait The Wood Children (1789), which had hung in the Hall, and eventually found a real live member of the Wood family, who had been a girl when the house was sold to become the School in 1920.  She put us in contact with another family member who had other portraits, none of them attributed to Wright.

Decades later, we discovered from the writings of the Derby historian Maxwell Craven that the Hall was designed by a prolific local architect, Joseph Pickford (c1734-1782), for Hugh Wood (1736-1814).

The family had owned coal-bearing land locally for centuries, and their social status rose gradually from yeomen to gentry.

At the end of the eighteenth century Hugh Wood’s older brother, Rev John Wood, was chaplain to the Duke of Devonshire, which helped Hugh’s eldest son, another Rev John, to two livings, Kingsley in Staffordshire and Pentrich in Derbyshire, a mile or so away from Swanwick.  It can’t be accidental that the Bachelor Duke appointed Rev John Wood to be Vicar of Pentrich in 1818, the year after the abortive Pentrich Rising.

One of the younger Rev John’s sons, Edward, was a lieutenant in the army of the East India Company and was killed at the Battle of Miani in 1843.  His memorial is in the chancel of Pentrich Church.

His youngest brother, William, emigrated to Canada, settling at Nanticoke on the shores of Lake Erie.  Members of subsequent generations of the family went to join their Canadian cousins.

Terry Thacker and I wrote up our researches which the School published as The Story of Swanwick Hall (1972).

We have a possible candidate for the identity of the Grey Lady, but we see no reason to provoke a new generation of Swanwick Hall students to embark on extracurricular ghost hunts – as we did in the late 1960s.