2026

 Yet again it is a damp morning. Apparently January 2026 was one of the wettest for several years but at least we here in East Yorkshire missed the worst of the January storms. Our snowdrops are putting on a fine show and the daffodils are not far behind. The chickens too are coming into lay although they too dislike this wet weather.

This blog post will be a bit of a  local history pot pourri as it is some time since I wrote one - so here goes. 

I collect the work of Frances Hutchinson, the artist daughter of Rev Hutchinson, vicar of Howden. Her views of Howden - and other towns - appear on postcards and I have a couple of her original watercolours. Recently I found one I had never seen before which is in America. It was mis-indexed as being by G Hutchinson but clearly on the reverse is written The Vicarage Howden. Also on the back is the information that it is a view of a house at Kilpin Pike. I am not sure where it is - but wonder whether it could be Elm Tree house. Here it is.

I have also answered several queries  including one about the Howdle family of Howden. Some older residents will remember the name. Thomas Howdle was at one time landlord of the Neptune inn [now 31 Pinfold Street] and  his wife Sarah  recalled how the road was flooded upto their inn in 1871 and sightseers came to the inn to watch - times don't change!!

One of their daughters, Eliza married Joseph Hodgson and they lived for many years at Barmby. Joseph worked on the railway. Their son, William Thomas Hodgson, born 1883 was hanged in 1917 in Walton Gaol after being found guilty of murdering his wife and three year old daughter by battering them with a hatchet. Witnesses said he was known to be sometimes violent to his wife.

But much of my time recently has been spent looking at the history of Goole.  It is two hundred years since the Aire and Calder Navigation Co opened their canal linking Knottingley to Goole. As a result a new town was created where the canal met the River Ouse and the town is celebrating its 'birthday' with many events this year.

I attended a packed showing of films about Goole organised by the Civic society last Saturday and enjoyed hearing the Warblers singing a song written in 1926 called Advance Goole. The author and composer was Sydney George Metcalfe, then headmaster of Alexandra Street school. He was originally from Norwich and had not been in Goole long

In 1929 he left teaching and was ordained. After a brief time as a curate in Goole he left for Yarmouth and later became vicar of Sprowston in Norfolk where he died in 1943 aged 62.

I thought readers might like to see the song he wrote.

 

But of course there was a place called Goole long before the canal. And also long before Cornelius Vermuyden in the seventeenth century carried out his drainage work in the area, necessitating the digging of the so called Dutch River. His re-routing of the River Don  had caused flooding around Snaith and beyond and he was compelled to pay for this new channel out to the Ouse.

There are mentions of Goole from the fourteenth century and I am currently working on what was there at that time. Who were these early inhabitants? I am working on finding out