Pikes and Towers of the South Pennines

• Darwen Tower , Darwen – Built in 1898 to commemorate both the jubilee of Queen Victoria and the victory of the local people to win access to the moor. This octagonal tower with its two viewing platforms looks at a distance like a space rocket. In later years the structure became dilapidated, but in the early 1970s it was restored.
• Hartshead Pike, Mossley – The present Pike was built in 1863, probably built by mill workers to give them some work during the cotton famine. The tall circular tower with a conical roof overlooks the plain of Manchester. In January 1928 it was damaged by storm, after which funds were raised to repair it to its present state.
• Lund Tower, Above Cowling – It is believed it was built by James Lund of Malsis Hall, but why or when he built is a mystery. A viewing platform at the top is freely accessible by a winding staircase.
• Nab End Tower, Longwood (Overlooking Colne Valley) – This tower was erected by local working folk, as a novelty for the Longwood "Thump" (Feast) of 1861. No architects were employed or plans made. The young men of the neighbourhood, simply purloined stones from disused delfs nearby. Neighbours provided them with money for drinks. The work was supervised by a local mason George Hellawell, who was deaf and dumb. His initials and the date are carved on a stone set into the tower.
• Peels Monument, Ramsbottom – The tower, first opened 9 September 1852, was built to commemorate Sir Robert Peel, famous as the founder of the police force. He was born in nearby Bury in 1788. During the 1939-45 war the tower was used as a look out post. It was closed to the public in 1947, but restored and re-opened in 1985.
• Rivington Pike, near Horwich – The oldest Tower in the South Pennines, this was built for John Andrews in 1733. The tower is 5m square and 6m high and stands about 360m above sea level. It once had a wooden roof, windows and fireplace. In 1902 Liverpool corporation proposed to demolish it. The tower is now protected as a listed building.
• Standsfield Tower, Above Blacko – This circular rough stone tower was built by a local grocer, Jonathan Stansfield. It is said he hoped to see into Ribbledale, but it was never built high enough. One night in 1964 it was mysteriously whitewashed by person / persons unknown.
• Stoodley Pike Monument, Mankinholes (near Hebden Bridge) – Situated where it can be seen throughout the upper Calder Valley, the original pike was built to commemorate the surrender of Paris, March 1814. It fell when it was struck by lightening on the very moment war was declared on Russia in 1854. The Pike was rebuilt in 1856. A dark internal winding staircase, gives access to the viewing platform.
• Victoria Tower (Jubilee Tower), Huddersfield -Situated on the site of a Norman keep, which in turn was built on a Brigantian hill fort. The tower was built in 1898 to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria. When the foundations were dug out in 1897, the dungeons of the old keep were found. Unfortunately they were filled in with rubble and now lie lost under several tons of heavy masonry. The tower standing almost 100 feet high, was built by public conscription, and is now open on bank holidays and summer weekends.
• Wainwrights Tower, Halifax – Built by John Edwards Wainwright in 1898. Built allegedly to overlook a neighbours estate, The tower is in fact a dye works chimney, which was given a staircase and viewing turrets.

The Cragg Coiners

(Heptonstall)
Early coins were made of precious metals, such as gold. They were roughly made especially the foreign coins, such as the Portuguese Moidores, which were in wide circulation in the eighteenth century. They could easily be clipped and the gold produced used to make counterfeit coins.

In the middle of the eighteenth century there were several gangs of coiners operating in this area. One of the more notorious of these gangs were the Cragg Vale Coiners, led by ‘King’ David Hartley. Their homes and hiding places, Keelham SD997244 and Bell House SD996246, can still be seen in a remote corner of the vale. Some of the equipment they used can be seen at the Hinchcliffe Arms Cragg Vale.

Some key members of the gang including ‘King’ David Hartley were captured and Hartley was hung in York in 1770. His grave can be seen in at Heptonstall SD997280 churchyard and in the Heptonstall museum is more of the equipment used by the coiners The gang foolishly murdered William Deighton, the official who investigated Dave Hartley, and most of them were subsequently caught, tried and hung their bodies displayed in chains on Beacon Hill in Halifax as a gruesome warning to other coiners.

The Brontës

Brontë, The family name of three important literary sisters; Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), Emily (Jane) Brontë (1818-1848), and Anne Brontë (1820-1849) who were born in Thornton, Yorkshire. Their father, Patrick Brontë, who had been born in Ireland, was appointed rector of Haworth, a village on the South Pennine Moors. In 1824, when their mother died, Charlotte and Emily were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School in Cowan Bridge; this was the original on which was modelled the infamous Lowood School of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. Charlotte and Emily were later taken away from the school due to the grim conditions and the sisters’ illness.

The Brontë children wrote about the imaginary kingdom of Angria-the property of Charlotte and brother Branwell-and the kingdom of Gondal-which belonged to Emily and Anne. A hundred tiny hand-written volumes (started in 1829) of the chronicles of Angria survive, but nothing of the Gondal saga (started in 1834), except some of Emily’s poems.

Charlotte went away to school again, in Roe Head, in 1831, returning home a year later to continue her education and teach her sisters. She returned to Roe Head in 1835 as a teacher, taking Emily with her. In 1842, conceiving the idea of opening a small private school of their own, and to improve their French, Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels, to a private boarding school. The death of their aunt, who had kept house for the family, compelled their return, however. Emily stayed at Haworth as housekeeper. Anne became governess in a family near York. Charlotte went back to Brussels, her experiences there forming the basis of the rendering, in Villette (1853), of Lucy Snow’s loneliness, longing and isolation.

Charlotte’s discovery of Emily’s poems led to the decision to have the sisters’ verses published; these appeared, at their own expense, as Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (1846), each sister using her own initials in these pseudonyms. Two copies were sold.

Each sister then embarked on a novel. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was published first, in 1847; Anne’s Agnes Grey and Emily’s Wuthering Heights appeared a little later that year. Speculation about the authors’ identities was rife until they visited London and met their publishers.

On their return to Haworth Emily caught cold and died December 19, 1848. Anne too died, on May 28, 1849. Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, had been published the year before; the account of a drunkard’s degeneration, it was as deeply rooted in personal observation as Agnes Grey, the study of a governess’ life.

Alone now with her father at Haworth, Charlotte resumed work on the novel Shirley (1849). This was the least successful of her novels, although its depiction of the struggle between masters and workers in the Yorkshire weaving industry a generation earlier precluded Charlotte’s relying solely on intense subjectivity. This strain of realism was the source of her power, as can be seen earlier in Jane Eyre and later in Villette and The Professor (1857). In 1852, Charlotte married her father’s curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. Pregnant in 1855, she became ill and died March 31 of that year of tuberculosis.

Since their deaths, new generations of readers have been fascinated by the circumstances of the Brontës” lives, their untimely deaths, and their astonishing achievements. Jane Eyre’s popularity has never waned; it is a passionate expression of female issues and concerns. The Brontës’ transcendent masterpiece, however, is almost certainly Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights, a story of passionate love, in which irreconcilable principles of energy and calm are ultimately harmonised.

Winter Hill Mass Trespass 1896

Winter Hill is the highest point on the moors between the towns of Bolton, Preston and Blackburn. Most of the moors are part of the Smithills Estate, owned by the Ainsworths, an old Bolton family who profited from the slave trade in the 18th Century. In the summer of 1896, Colonel Richard Henry Ainsworth erected gates across access roads, fixed "Trespassers will be prosecuted" signs and hired men to warn people off the property. The public outcry led to a small advertisement appearing in the Bolton paper, paid for by the Social Democratic Federation. It invited the public to join a demonstration on Sunday morning, 6 September 1896, to test the right of way over Winter Hill.

A crowd of 1000 met in Bolton to listen to some speeches. Numbers increased tenfold as they marched up Halliwell road towards the edge of the moor. At the gate they were confronted by a small contingency of police. According to the Bolton Chronicle, "Amid the lusty shouting of the crowd the gate was attacked by powerful hands…… short work was made of the barrier, and with a ring of triumph the demonstrators rushed through onto the disputed territory."

Plans were soon in place to repeat the procession. A song was commissioned.
"Will you come on Sunday morning’,
For a walk o’er Winter Hill.
Ten thousand went last Sunday,
But there’s room for thousands still!"

"O the moors are rare and bonny,
And the heather’s sweet and fine,
And the road across this hill top,
Is the public’s – Yours and mine!"

Despite some rain the following Sunday, 2000 people came and listened to speeches. Again the crowd grew as it set off for the moor, completely blocking Halliwell Road.

This spontaneous movement of 1896 did not quite achieve what it set out to do. For years the right of access to Winter Hill was embroiled in the British Legal System. However less than 40 years later, better organised and more capable men set in train the events of Kinder Scout, which proved momentous to those who enjoy the freedom to roam our hills and moors.

Kinder Mass Trespass 1932

Access to the large area of moorland, between the Manchester and Sheffield conurbations, was severely restricted. Its only use being for grouse shooting and water collection. Repeated attempts to introduce an Access to Mountains Bill, were rejected. The sportsmen claimed "You can’t have ramblers and grouse!" The water engineers believed that ramblers on their water gathering ground so close to the cities might cause a typhoid epidemic.

In 1932 more than 400 people met at Hayfield for a much publicised mass trespass on Kinder Scout. This act of public defiance contributed to the development of the Peak District National Park and the Pennine Way.
(See Forbidden Land by Tom Stephenson)

Walkleys Clogs (Mytholmroyd)

The wooden soled footwear known as clogs were once worn by everyone but the wealthy in these parts and its history stretches back to the romans. On the road between Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd is Maude Walkleys Clogs. The only surviving clog making factory in the world. It is part factory, part museum, part shop and part restaurant. It offers visitors a first hand view of one of the oldest crafts and traditions which characterise the north of England. It is open daily and is well worth a visit.

Dock Pudding (Mythemroyd)

The passion dock (Bistort), which grows in the area, are used to make a real Yorkshire delicacy. The leaves are boiled with nettles and oats, and then cooked in a frying pan