Saturday, September 26, 1835

1835

September

Saturday 26

8

12 1/4

No kiss.

Rain last night from between 11 and 12 to after one – Rainy morning, but not heavy rain till near 9, then fair and F 55° – Breakfast at 9 1/4 –

Ann getting off her speech for the first stone laying and I writing out mine.  Put on my new pelisse and had my hair done –

Marian was to have gone to the 1st stone laying, but got nervous and staid at home – Ann and I off at 10 3/4 in my own carriage with our 2 men behind, to Northgate hotel – Not quite ready for us – Began looking over the drawings of Northgate, and, by mistake, kept the people waiting and did not begin the ceremony till about 11 3/4, which lasted about 1/4 hour –

Ann did her part very well – the coins of the king’s reign (William iv) i.e. a sovereign 1/2 ditto, 1/2 crown, shilling, and sixpence (Could not get a 7/. piece; very scarce – Swanns, the bankers in York, had only seen two of William iv 7/. pieces) were put into a large mouthed green glass bottle as also an inscription engraved on sheet-lead and rolled up tight –

The cork was dipped in tar, then put into the neck of the bottle and covered over with coarse red wax – Should have been hermetically sealed, but Messers Harper and Husband could not get it done – Had no blowpipe – I said I could have got it done at old Charles Howarth’s – No! Because it was not plate glass – The green glass too difficult to fuse ! 

The stone in which the hole was made that put the bottle into was a large square piece of rough stone from one of Stocks’s quarries, whence comes the rest of the stone wanted, and formed the footing of the front corner (nearest Halifax) of the Casino – Over this footing was put a very large mass of gritstone quarried at Northgate in digging for the cellar, and which they called the foundation stone –

There must have been a hundred people collected round the spot – 2 neatly dressed young ladies?, some respectable looking men, and the rest rabble – There was a little crowd to push through to get into the wall-race –

Mr. Nelson junior and his men were in working costume – The bottle was held in hand by Ann while she addressed Mr. Nelson as follows 

‘Mr. Nelson, I have been requested  by my friend Miss Lister, to lay the 1st stone of a casino, which will form a spacious and commodious saloon to be annexed to the Northgate hotel – I will only add that we hope and trust that the undertaking will prove an accommodation to the Inhabitants of this town and neighborhood, in whose prosperity we feel interested; that it will be an accommodation to the public at large, and that it will do credit to all the individuals concerned in its erection’ –

This said, Ann deposited the bottle – 8 or 10 men lowered down and properly placed over it the foundation stone to which Ann then gave 3 right earnest strokes with her mallet, and I spoke as follows looking now at Mr. Nelson and now at the people assembled round – 

‘Mr. Nelson – My friend Miss Walker has done us great honour; and I trust her good wishes will not be in vain – I am very anxious that this Casino with its annexed Hotel should be an accommodation to the public at large, but most especially to this my native town, in whose prosperity I ever have felt, and ever shall feel, deeply interested – I earnestly hope that the work we are now beginning, will do credit to us all – May the voice of Discord be never heard within its walls; may persons of every shade of varying opinion meet together here in amity and in charity, and may none ever go away dissatisfied but such, if such there be, whom good cheer and good humour cannot please!’ – 

I heard some one of the crowd say, ‘Very well’ –

Ann and I hurried back into the carriage – 3 cheers were given – Mr. Harper gave us back the silver trowel, and we drove off to call on Mr. and Mrs. Musgrave at the vicarage –

The inscription on the sheet-lead put into the bottle (written by Mr. Gray on Tuesday) was as follows –    

The first stone

of a spacious casino,

which will be annexed to

a handsome public hotel

to be erected at Halifax,

was laid on the 26th day of September

A.D. 1835,

in the sixth year of the reign of King

William iv,

by Miss Ann Walker the younger,

of Cliff Hill, Yorkshire,

in the name and at the request of

her particular friend,

Miss Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Yorkshire,

owner of the property.

Sat 3/4 hour from 12 5/.. to 12 50/.. at the vicarage with Mr. and Mrs. Musgrave – I mentioned Ann’s having been laying the1st stone of the Casino – They, or rather Mrs. Musgrave, let out their belief that the thing would not answer – Said it was reported Mr. Carr of the White Swan had taken it – of which I said I knew nothing – I see most people think the thing will be a losing concern, and laugh at me for so throwing away my money -- Nous verrons –

Called at Mr. Parker’s office (he came to the carriage door) to say the Sutherlands were to be in Halifax, we supposed at Mr. Parker’s at 2 1/2 -- I ordered handbills to be put up against holly stealers and wood and young tree damagers, offering 10/. reward for each one taken, on conviction –

Home about 1 1/2 – Some while with my aunt – Repeated our speeches and amused her – Found Ann’s quondam Highlander servant, James, come to see her –

Mr. Harper came at 2 – In and out with him till left him at the tail goit at 4 1/2, I to go to meet Ann at Cliff hill, and he to go to Mawson’s Stump Cross Inn to see that the dinner at 5 for the Northgate workmen was all right – Mawson much obliged – Thought it would have been at Carr’s – Asked 1/3 a head for eating and 2/6 a head for drink – Mr. Harper gave him 1/6 a head for eating and his price for drink = 4/. a head – I thought to have given 5/. a head –

With Mr. Harper at the Cascade bridge and at Adney bridge, and in the new farmyard – They had got wrong this morning with the buttresses – the 2nd ramp above the wall instead of being a foot or 2 below it – Approved Mr. Harper’s consequent manner of finishing them – Carrying them above the wall and capped chevron-wise –

Gave him Washington’s plan of the engine wheel dam goit – He is to calculate the proper dimensions of the wheel – Found that the Manns were driving the tail goit dead level instead of giving it 2 feet of fall from the mouth to the wheel as Mr. Harper had advised and I thought I had fully explained to Holt – Mr. Harper told them to give 18 inches of fall (supposing about 1/4 of the length of goit to be done) from where they left off to the wheel – The fall of 4 inches at the last 3 or 4 yards towards the mouth – Foolish –

Asked Mr. Harper why he gave back the trowel, I supposing Nelson ought to have had  it –He said, when the owner of the property laid the 1st stone, sometimes the architect got the trowel, and sometimes those kept it who could get hold of it – But when a stranger (not the owner) laid the 1st stone, he thought it customary to give the trowel to the stranger as a memorial of the building, and he thought therefore Miss Walker should have it – Thanked him for the hint – But, said I, there ought to be an inscription – Talked it over a little – Said I would send him the trowel tonight with a copy of the inscription and an impression of my arms – He said Cattle and Barber would engrave it well, but were so dear – Said in this case, not to be minded – Would perhaps charge 2 guineas for the engraving – Asked 5 for the trowel, but he found  them down to price per oz. ounce and got the trowel (well made and good) for 3 guineas –

At Cliffhill at 5 5/.. – There about 1/2 hour – Mrs. Ann Walker in her best sorts – The Sutherlands gone to Mr. Parker’s in Washington’s gig –

Ann and I walked back by Lower brea and the walk, and came in at 6 35/.. –

Ann wrote a handsome letter to Mr. Gray, speaking handsomely of Mr. Watson – Persuaded Mr. Gray could not have sent any one more likely to satisfy all parties – Had great pleasure Mr. Washington had proved right, and the deeds were quite correct –

I wrote out the following inscription for the trowel –

To Miss Ann Walker the younger,

of Cliff Hill, Yorkshire,

For laying the first stone of the Casino,

to be annexed to the Northgate Hotel,

at Halifax.

xxvi. viibr [September] A.D. MDCCCXXXV.

Had just done as Ann came to say the Sutherlands, who had come a few minutes before, had inquired about my block tin deed-box – Told her to shew them upstairs into to the kitchen chamber, where it has stood since Ann came – Very civil to the Sutherlands – Opened the box for them and advised about it – then shewed the inscription – Mrs. Sutherland seemed pleased – in short, we are capital friends –

They stood talking upstairs and down in the drawing room – Captain Sutherland wrote a note for George to take to Mr. Parker (to countermand places in the coach for Tuesday morning to Manchester – and say they would stay till Friday.  Ann had persuaded them to stay – They were easily persuaded ) and Mrs. Sutherland took a glass of wine and a biscuit –

In the midst, about 7 1/2, Mr. Gray was announced – We all started, but Ann remembered it must be Mr. S. Gray – Had him in the drawing room, for the Sutherlands escaped into the little north parlour on the 1st sound of his name and went away – Apologized to Mr. S. Gray, saying his room was not quite ready – He would be dull tomorrow and I thought he had better go to the Inn (Carr’s) till Monday morning – Sent him in the hot roll of beef Ann and I were to have had and potatoes etc. etc., and said the servant was going to the post in about an hour and would take his (Mr. S. Gray’s) traveling bag –

Came upstairs – Ann added a P.S. to her letter to Mr. Gray to say the Sutherlands had just been here and Captain Sutherland said there were some errors in the deeds, but which she did not pretend to understand –

I did up the trowel and inscription and sent them by George (at 8 3/4) to Mr. Harper at the White Swan (Carr’s) – and Ann sent her letter, and Mr. S. Gray went back to the Inn –

Dinner at 8 3/4 – coffee – My father going to bed as we sat down to dinner –

It seems Captain Sutherland makes a great merit (as great as he can) of having found out errors in the deeds – Humbug – Washington was right – Pointed the required plantation (1 acre.0 rood.14 perches at Windy End Golcar) in an instant.  Was at Crow Nest all the while and would have been at Cliff hill in 2 or 3 minutes – Was not the real fact, that Captain Sutherland wanted an excuse for covering over the deeds at his at his leisure, again and with Mr. Parker ? – What must Messers Gray and Watson think of him? –

With my aunt from 10 to 10 25/.. – Then wrote the last 14 lines of yesterday and the first 7 of today –

Very fine day –F 57 1/2° now at 11 35/.. p.m. –

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/18/0103 and SH:7/ML/E/18/0104