🧵Early November is a season of remembrance. It begins with All Souls, when thoughts turn towards those who have gone before us, and moves through fading autumn light towards Armistice, when those lost to war are commemorated. Lumb Falls, near Hebden Bridge, inspired Ted Hughes’s 1956 poem Six Young

🧵All Hallows Church in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, is home to one of the most significant surviving Anglo-Saxon structures in England. The lower part of the church's Anglo Saxon tower along with the central nave walls, date from the 9th century. The upper parts of the tower are slightly later.

An evening photograph of the west front including the superb door of the Church of St Mary the Virgin and St Germain better known as Selby Abbey. It was one of the oldest and most important Benedictine houses in the north of England pre-dating both York and Durham. It

Last Halloween One. 🧵Nut-Crack Night" was a traditional northern and Scottish nickname for Halloween during the Regency and Victorian eras, named for the customs surrounding the autumn hazelnut harvest. On this night, communities gathered around fires to practice romantic divination using nuts as

🧵Cakin Neet (or to give it its posh name, Caking Night is these days, a rare autumn custom unique to Sheffield and the Dark Peak. It blends ancient pagan roots with medieval Christian traditions. The ritual stems from Samhain, the Celtic festival where the boundary between worlds blurred. To

Strangely it was two years ago tomorrow that my short piece "British Colonial History: When Sorry seems to be the Hardest Word" was published. Having scanned the headlines this morning, it still appears to be so, or as a country are we inching closer to uttering it?

🧵The "Doomstone" at York Minster is a remarkable, if disturbing survival from the 12th century. It is a fragment of the earlier Norman cathedral carved with a chilling vision of the Last Judgement. In the scene, demons drag sinners toward the gaping mouth of Hell, while a cauldron bubbles with the

On a misty October morning, the past seems a little closer. No costumes. No theatrics. Just stone, silence and memory. Beneath every name carved into stone was once a person with a life, a voice, a family and a story. The mist will eventually lift. The names remain.

🧵The City Varieties Music Hall originated in Leeds in 1762 as a singing room above the Swan Inn. The venue evolved under publican Charles Thornton. In 1865, he commissioned architect George Henry Smith to construct a music hall, which officially opened in June. Known early on as

Amazing that this 1850s image of the village of Bolton Abbey (Into the Woods at Bolton Abbey) by Roger Fenton (1819-1864) is some one hundred and seventy years old. The Rochdale born photographer is considered one of the first war photographers with his groundbreaking images of the Crimean War.

🧵What's in a Name? Wakefield Cathedral provides an interesting insight into changing times and language. The cathedral stands on the site of an Anglo-Saxon church, with documentary evidence dating to the Domesday Book of 1086. Until the 16th century, the later Norman church was known by the

🧵Imagine a monk at Byland Abbey in the early 15th century compiling what is considered 'one of the most important collections of ghost stories to survive from medieval Europe.' The twelve stories were written on empty pages of a theological manuscript. They are not just stories though. The

🧵The Wakefield Court Rolls are one of the country's most important historical records. Beginning in 1274, they record everyday life, land ownership, inheritance, trade and local laws across many centuries within the huge Manor of Wakefield. For example, in 1274 Richard de Rodes paid a fine after

Sad to hear that Sir Patrick Stewart has died aged 86. Born in Mirfield and raised in West Yorkshire, he became a global icon as Captain Picard in Star Trek but was also a fine stage actor. From Shakespeare to Hollywood, his extraordinary career spanned six decades. A proud son of Yorkshire

🧵My short e-book, The Journey: Poems of Landscape, Life and Memory will be available at the beginning of November. It is completely free for anyone who would like a copy and will be available to download. It’s only a small collection, but each poem is personal. Together, they explore the landscapes

🧵The Illingworth Mausoleum in Undercliffe Cemetery, Bradford, the final resting place of Victorian Liberal MP and textile manufacturer Alfred Illingworth is said to be one of the best Egyptian inspired buildings in the country. It was prefabricated in a Scottish quarry, transported

🧵St George's Hall was built between 1851-53 to a design by Lockwood and Mawson who went on to design many of Bradford's fine buildings. It was their first major public commission. The large hall was used for concerts and meetings. Over its history it has hosted performances from such notables as

Discovered in Burton Pidsea in Holderness, the Holderness Cross is a very early example of an Anglo-Saxon (650-700) pectoral cross pendant. It is made from gold cloisonné work inlaid with garnets of which fifty eight remain. The cross is now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum.

The best preserved of all of York’s medieval entrances into the City, Walmgate Bar dates to the 12th century but the majority is of 14th and 15th century construction with later rebuilding after the siege of York. Amazingly the barbican, portcullis and inner oak doors have

The Cliffs of Flamborough Head, Yorkshire, Charles Kuwasseg (1838–1904). Although born in France, the son of Austrian painter Karl Josef Kuwasseg, and specialising in coastal landscapes of Brittany and Normandy, he did live in the Netherlands for a period. (Private Collection)

Nature gives us more than beauty; it gives us power. The tides that shape our shores, the wind that moves across them, and the sun that lights our skies hold energy waiting to be harnessed. We can capture that power without silencing its beauty, working with nature, not against it, to create a

The Bessemer Converter at Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield, one of only a handful remaining worldwide, was utilised by the British Steel Corporation in Workington until 1975. It arrived at the Museum in 1978, serving as an example of the ground-breaking steelmaking process

The Folkton Drums are a set of three decorated chalk objects in the shape of drums dating from the Neolithic period. It was once suggested to me though that they were prehistoric cheese. They were found in a barrow at Folkton, in the Vale of Pickering which was first excavated in

🧵It really is worth expanding the image and viewing the figures in more detail. One of Ripon Cathedral's finest features. The stone pulpitum screen (below) dates from around 1470. The carvings include kings, archbishops, a saint and angels together with over one hundred faces of ordinary

Where ancient trees their branches weave, And twilight rests on vale and stream, The carved stone keeps the tales of old, Of earth and kin, of fire and gold. By Ouse and field, through time it stands, A quiet ward of Yorkshire lands. Image: Celtic Sunset, Naburn Jonathan Brennan CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

🧵Originally part of the High Street, by the end of the 13th century this area of Beverly was known as Fishmarketgate. By Georgian times however the street had changed its name to Butcher Row. Although the dilapidated buildings in the photograph was demolished around 1912 to

Possibly a marriage stone, decorative tablet over a doorway in Heptonstall. It is inscribed F " 1 7 H E 3 6 " (Henry and Elizabeth Foster). It features a man and woman wearing contemporary dress. Marriage stones were still popular until Victorian times. Image Tim Green CC BY 2.0

🧵May Sybil Leslie, born in 1887 in Woodlesford, overcame significant barriers as a woman in science. From a working-class background, she won scholarships to study at the University of Leeds, graduating with first-class honours in chemistry. She later worked with Marie Curie in

🧵Ellerton Priory was a small, poor Cistercian nunnery in Swaledale, founded around 1200 and housing only about 13 nuns at its peak (and as few as five by 1381). Following the priory's surrender to the Crown in August 1536 and its formal dissolution in 1537. the site underwent a dramatic shift in

🧵Another Halloween tale. In the eerie world of 17th-century Yorkshire, few stories are stranger than the alleged “Fewston Witches.” Between 1621 and 1623, poet Edward Fairfax accused six local women of forming a witches’ coven after his daughters suffered terrifying fits and trances, and his infant