As part of our heritage lottery fund (HLF) grant, we have to provide a permanent digital record of our All Our Stories project.  The chosen HLF media for doing this is History Pin, and we have just finished setting up the Parkinson’s Park initial digital record.  You can find it here along with other All Our Stories projects.

When you go into the record, or channel as History Pin call it,  and scroll down you will come to tabs with map, list and tours on it.

List view – shows all the photographs we have uploaded to the record, and you can click on each to read the commentary about what we have found out – we will be adding to this as the project evolves.   You can also add your own commentary to the digital record . Continue reading →

Barbara Winfield and Jennifer Kirkby at Wakefield Deeds Archives

The purpose of the All Our Stories, HLF grant, is to tell the story of the ‘ordinary’ people, who have used the Park land down the ages.

We knew the recent history,  from when the Parkinson brothers acquiring the land in the late 1930’s for a community facility.  We  then established that Kelcliffe House used to be a tannery,  as far back as the 17th century. Then, in August, we got the geophysics report confirming that the Park evidenced many historic phases of agriculture – the earliest possibly being Early Medieval (700AD to 1,000AD); which would be fascinating, as the Guiseley area was laid waste during the Harrying of the North in 1070: which is why it doesn’t appear in the Domesday book of 1086 – there was nothing of value to record.

So, we have spent the past months filling in the intervening centuries;beavering away in various archives putting together scraps of information from tithe books, land deeds, manor court records, old newspapers and family history sources. Amongst our finds has been a lovely little map of Guiseley glebe lands from 1724, with hand drawings and the location of Celclif (now the north part of the Belway estate is) which is Continue reading →

Trying to find the site of a building above the Tan House.

Part of the success of the geophysics survey at the end of July will come from knowing what might be found – this is where the paper archive research has a vital part to play.    Barbara has therefore been to Aireborough Historical Society to study transcriptions of the Manor Court Rolls for Kelcliffe in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century:  following which,  she went to West Yorkshire Archives to check the originals, as the variable Early Modern  spelling means mistakes are easy made; Barbara did find several mistakes.

Manor Court Rolls were the recorded minutes of the regular meetings held by local people to deal with the day-to-day running of a town or village.  The Court set the local rules and bylaws, dealt with dispute and fines, organized the local infrastructure and agreed community planning and agricultural phasing eg the crop rotation on the common lands.   Manor Court Rolls are a mine of trivial detail that when pieced together can give a fascinating picture of local life.  The only issue for the ones covering Kelcliffe and the Park, is that there are large gaps, Continue reading →