Tuesday, April 4, 1837

1837

April

Tuesday 4

8 10/..

12 5/..

No kiss quarter hour, no, ten minutes washing – Breakfast at 9 10/.., at which hour, Fahrenheit 55° in the sun – Ann read aloud octavo 2 pages of French –

Out at 10 – In the stable – Charles Howarth came – to come tomorrow to do up, repair the back stable stall- partitions – Had him in about letting the upper bed water off – Yes! Charles begged me to consider about it – If let off as Joseph Mann proposed, I should loose 3/4 of Dovehouse farms upper bed coal – Thanked Charles – said he might mention it or not as he liked, but if it was known, he would get many an ill word for telling me –

Then in the cowhouse – the cow calved about before 10 last night – Thomas Pearson would like to buy the calf (a quey) to keep at a few days old – Asked what he should give – John said Aquilla Green had lately sold one for 7/6 (John guessed 15/. and was told, for 1/2 that).  I said that would not do – If fit for the butcher, what should be the price? A good calf would weigh 20 pounds per quarter – 5 or 6 weeks old or more – Customary to sink the offal and then pay for the weight of the quarters – I said the calf ought to be worth £2.  Oh! Yes! And if sold in 5 weeks, this would pay me better than 7/6 in a few days –

A little while with Ingham +2 – No mason here –

Went to Robert Mann +3 at 12 just as they going to dinner – Walked him (from the new drain in Sour Ing, got stone to wall it with by pulling up the low part of the main drain made by Pickles in Godley Ing).  Walked with him to beyond  the Lodge – likes putting the Engine at the top of the Bank – Sure we can get water – Thinks there will be enough in the rag – Plenty in the rag in the new bank and plenty at Bird cage –

Sauntered till Robert was out of sight, then walked forward to Northgate – Looked about there – The top court-yard will be large enough if I reserve part from about 3yards above the gateway fronting St. Anne’s Street to the end of my property = 14 yards X by 15 yards, reserving the little rectangle at the top –

Then to Whitley’s – Ordered Beckmann and Hints on Buying a Horse, and bought flannel and riband at Fosters for cousin.  Went to Farrers but, nobody coming immediately, walked out again. 

Returned up the old bank about 2 – A little while with Ann, then with Bligh till Ann off about 2 1/4 – Then twenty minutes washing.

Out again about 2 3/4 – With Robert +3 – (Frank carting stone for Ingham from Hipperholme quarry – His son, John, with 2 one-horse carts bringing stone from the Pickles drain for Robert Mann and carting to fill up the hollow (ancient road) between the 2 brook Ings down to the meer –

Then along the walk by Tilley holme to Listerwick cabin and about there – With Joseph Mann till near 6 –

Then with John Oates – Stood talking in his cowhouse till 6 25/.. – How to get water for the Engine at the top of the bank – John Oates said if I could get it in Godley lane I could get it at the top of the bank – The same water – From the same measures – Might get rag water – or the same as got for John Bottomley – but if I had all the Sour Milk Hall Godley lane water, it would not be enough for a condensing Engine – 

John Oates for a high pressure engine, which would use the water hot and might be supplied – I could not get the water cooled for a condenser – How, said I, does Mr. Haigh do for a 60 horse power engine – Answer, He has a great deal of water from the coal works, upper and lower bed – Then cannot I have the same ? Yes! I suppose, said I, the low bed water would be about 65 yards to lift – Yes! I could do that well enough.  John Oates agreed – He said 2 horse power would lift as much as I wanted – but he would have a high pressure – Why, said I, has Holt a condenser – Oh! Because he had a great quantity of water – John Oates knew many of the condensing engines in Halifax in difficulty in summer to get the water sufficiently cooled –

2 very nice high pressure engines pulling coal up inclined planes at Little Borough – He said if I had set my coal engine in the low corner of Pearson’s field where they 1st met with the upper bed coal in Long goit 3rd ultimo I should have had my colliery going now – that long goit would not then have been wanted – A good job and a bad one – He always thought I should repent it – What a feeder of water it took from Mytholm mill; and, by setting my Engine pit where I did , I did not loose 3 acres more coal –

He said he wished to see the water in the meer – Sure I should draw 5 feet if the banks would hold it – I said they were so ordered as to leave 2 feet to sink on – Were ordered 2 feet higher than the water level – Well, said John Oates, they may hold it – But the by-wash is too low – I said that could easily be altered – Yes! He agreed it could – Who is right, and who wrong? Nous verrons –

Home at 6 1/2 – Dressed – Dinner at 6 3/4 – Coffee – Read the newspaper – Came upstairs at 9 40/.. and till 10 40/.., wrote the whole of today –

Fahrenheit 30° at 10 3/4 p.m.  Fine, frosty morning (hard frost out of the sun till towards noon) and fine day till about 1 p.m., then a slight shower and several snow showers in the course of the afternoon, one or 2 heavyish ones –

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/20/0043