Monday, March 27, 1837

1837

March

Monday 27

7 1/4

11 50/..

Long but good one last night.

Breakfast at 8 25/.. – Fine morning – Civil people at the Devonshire Hotel Skipton – Well-aired rooms and beds – Comfortable –

Off from there at 9 35/..  (Ann had been out at a bookseller’s and bought the hymns sung at the church – and had asked Miss Bradley (daughter of the house) to get her the music of some of them copied by the blind organist Miss . . . . ) –

Hardly any wood, but limestone? ranges of hill closing in the good value of the Aire prettily rounded several villages seen and 2 or 3 passed through, the road pretty good. 

To Keighley. at 10 50/.. – Devonshire Arms, Morgan – Went immediately to the Mechanics’ Institute.  Mr. Horner had mentioned it to Ann as a good building done for £700 – A new building for the same purpose wanted at Halifax – Mr. Horner asked Ann to speak to me about ground for it – He would understand from her that I should ask 2 guineas a yard for it – I told her that would depend upon circumstances.  I would not inflict upon the town an ugly building – If I had my own way about it, I might give the ground – or have a small quit rent and a condition that if the building ceased to be used for its now-intended purpose, it should revert on some such condition as might be agreed on to me or my executors, administrators, and assigns –

We found the wife of the man (a journeyman druggist under his brother in the town) scrubbing the great room – seats en amphithéatre at the top end – For cleaning and fire-making, nothing allowed at 1st, but their house valued at £5 per annum – That would not do, and there is now an extra allowance of 50/. per annum –

The building looks the truth of being planned by Mr. John or William or something Bradley of Keighley, painter – Consists of a large room 14 or 15 yards X by 8 ?, raised by a flight of several steps above the street and ventilated through the false roof – Lighted at each end – Too low – Cellared as well as the 2 rooms on one side forming an entrance and reading room , and a small office and library containing the few books at present belonging to the Institution – The cellar or rather basement story, opening nearly upon a level with the natural surface of the ground in front, and on the surface at the back – 

Let off – The conservator’s or curator’s cottage £5, to others at 90/. = £9 a glaziers shop, £5 a basketmaker’s ditto (both to the front), £4 – the use of the large room one day a week let to the Savings’ bank at £10 per annum – and the use of it per day or evening let at 5/. per day + 2/. for gas (heat) when required – The new poor law commons think of engaging the room for their meetings – Not decided whether to pay by day or £12 per annum. 5 + 9 + 5 + 4 + 10 + 12 = £45 per annum.  The woman said the building cost £1000.

Does the frontage = about 13 yards and the whole area of ground = about 13 X by 19 or 20 yards = 247 or 260 yards?

Strolled into the church – a wedding – 14 couples – Did not stay to see the ceremony –

To Aked’s, the bookseller in Low Street, to get the Catalogue of the books at the Mechanics Institute – Ann bought a little book, Easy Lessons in Mechanics, and I bought the Spirit of Etiquette by Lady de S – , printed this year, London – Read it afterwards in the carriage – Evidently written by a gentlewoman and de bon ton –

Then to the Inn – Struck by 2 old oak cabinets standing on the stairs landing up and downstairs – The one upstairs particularly handsome – The daughter of the house, née Morgan, had married Hall, but the house kept on in the father’s name – a man curious about antiques, pictures, and oak cabinets – Would not sell – the daughter a nice respectable looking woman and very civil – Shewed her father’s curiosities with great pleasure – a fine old Celt (spear-head) found near Keighley – a German knife and fork in beautifully carved case – a curious old monkish picture in oils etc., and the beautiful old oak cabinet –

Found at Aked’s some of Heeley’s pens, but spoilt by the case and self-pointing pencils – Copied the address, Heeley and Sons German Silver Pens, 146 Great Charles Street, Birmingham –

Off from Keighley at 12 20/.. – Our own sandstone again – and rock, and dreary bleakness – A snow shower at Keighley while at the Mechanics Institute – and snow as we neared Ellingworth moor, and from there till near Halifax.  The road pretty good – through one excavation through the sandstone rock – Soon after leaving Keighley, stone quarry worked by mining underground – Talked of riding to Keighley – a road we ought to have known sooner and better – a wild, rough country, interesting for contrast’s sake and its nearness to our borough of Halifax, now brightening into the polish of a large, smoke-canopied, commercial town –

Home at 2 20/.. – A gentleman’s carriage just turning out of our gate (towards Hipperholme) as we drove down upon it – Mr. and Mrs. Stansfield Rawson and the Miss Rawsons – Quel dommage? Mr. Rawson has more architectural knowledge and taste than anyone hereabouts – better that he should look about amid fine weather and less disorder –

Put away my things, mes hardes, changed my dress – Back into my pelisse of cloth, and boots of cow-hide, and hat of beaver, and off with Ann to the school and Cliff hill at 2 50/60 – At the school at 3 1/2 – The whitewashers there – Looked about at Cliff hill – Ann had Kershaw the gardener removing trees and Richard Woodhead removing railing – Sat with Mrs. Ann Walker from 5 to 5 35/.. –

Began to snow before we reached the school and continued more or less – but at 5 a regular snow afternoon and evening the ground soon covered over –

Home at 6 25/.. – Dressed – dinner at 7 – Coffee at 8 to 9 1/2 – Looked into the Morning Heralds arrived on and since Thursday.  General Evans completely beaten on the 16th instante mense by the forces of Don Carlos – Surely my Lord Palmerstone, and his coadjutors, and their politics, will be beaten, too, by and by !

Fahrenheit 30° at 9 1/2 p.m.  Hard frost this morning but fine till about 11 – Afterwards wintry

 

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/20/0039