HORSFORTH MUSEUM

We are going to Leeds today to the Horsforth Museum. This is the City of Leeds greeting us as we get off the motorway. There is the Peace Garden just down the road from the Horsforth Museum. The large gritstone shown here has six hole caved into it by the people of Horsforth some where between 2800 to 500 BC. They maybe a sacred design or even boundary markers. 

Inside the museum are displays from the Great War (WWI). This man Richard Lobley Thompson is a distant cousin of mine. I was able to connect him to my tree and record his information. His parents are buried in St. James Woodside Chapel.

Across the street from the Horsforth Museum is the foundation for where the Bell Chapel use to stand. This is where many of my family might have been baptized, married and perhaps services for their funeral.

This is all that remains from the clock that was on the Bell Chapel.

Elder Allen going along with me, maybe wishing we were doing something else. He is a good sport. 

I had to buy some books about Horsforth. One book was called "The Inns, Taverns and Public Houses for Horsforth". Good book for a Mormon girl like me to buy. It had great insight into what it was like back in the day. Inns is an old Saxon word used by traveller's. The dictornary defines it was 'a house for the lodging and entertainment of travellers'. The inn's heyday was during the coaching era and along the great coaching roads of Britain. Along with churches and market squares, the village pubs were the centre for local gossip and business transactions.

Two of my ancestors were Licensees and Landlords of The Woodside Tavern, John William Lobley and his brother Albert Lobley. The Tavern no longer stands. 

Footnote: a story from an old Horsforthian:

     The original Woodside Tavern was commonly referred to as 'Hell's Kitchen'. Apparently, customers had to walk down two steps to enter the smoky atmosphere of the tap room. It would be an exaggeration to say that the room housed a gang of thieves, but nevertheless it was always good advice to keep a watchful eye on one's money, particularly when playing dominoes. 

My day would not be complete with out a plate from Horsforth. I had bought a few plates at charity shops up the road a few months ago. These plates were numbers and I got number 20 out of 200. I wonder how many people like me would buy a plate like this? You can't put a price on this. 

This is a photo of the Bell Chapel. It was known as the Bell Chapel because of its bell tower at the front of the building and also on the front of the Chapel was a clock an invaluable asset to the villagers to get to there employment on time. The Chapel has been demolished and reads Green Yard.

The church my ancestors attended. I learned today the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery. Graveyards are near churches where cemetery are not. These small churches like St. James and The Bell Chapel were all of the parish of Guisley. It helps to know a little history and the way things were put together in the parishes. 

This is St Margaret's church in Horsforth. Some of my ancestors attended here also. I can't believe how tall the tower is. We walked all around it but did not find a graveyard. 

We went to the Horsforth Cemetery to look for some family names. I came across James Dockray and his wife Sophia Annie. I spent a lot of time trying to find a connection but could not. I put gravestone on findagrave.com . Someone down the road will be happy I did.