Life in Old Goole

 It has been a long hot summer and we have been busy moving lots of old local photos and newspaper files into their new home in my now restored old building.  Some are in very poor condition and will need careful handling if they are not to fall to bits but others are quite sound and make fascinating reading.

It is salutary however to realise how the years have passed as events of maybe 25 years ago seem quite fresh in my memory when I read about them.

I have come across some fascinating articles about the history of the Goole, Howden and Selby areas.  I  particularly enjoy the letters where readers reminisce.

Here is an extract from one which takes us back to the building of the 'new' Dutch River bridge in Goole, now itself replaced. It comes from  the Goole Times of 1966 and was written by an anonymous contributor who was then over 90. That means they were born around 1876!!


I was born in Old Goole opposite the bridge. I can remember the old wooden bridge, which used to open in the middle to allow ships to move through with their masts up. I also remember seeing the farmers' wagons, filled with hay and other produce, crossing the bridge. There was no other way for farmers and carriers' carts to bring farmers' wives to sell butter, eggs, and other produce from what we used to call the "low towns," as far away as Garthorpe, to Goole.

It was considered a long way in those days, with bad roads and an uncomfortable ride, which was not too kind on the ladies' dresses.

Many a time I have seen a load of hay stuck in the middle of the bridge, so that the hay had to be unloaded before the horses could pull the wagon through.

Then, I remember, there was a temporary bridge built which must have been used at !east until the present one was built. I also remember, many years afterwards, when I was married, watching Barnum and Baileys' circus crossing the bridge. It really was an anxious  moment, for we actually saw the bridge bend under the weight of the elephants

The circus was held in what used to be Corner's Field. It was wonderful for for we "Old Goolites," for we were almost cut off from the town. Mariners Street was a cul-de-sac and we had to go down  St John's Street, passing by the old Free Church, to the station. 

Old Goole used to be a tidy, even pretty, spot. It was delightful to look down on the moonlit river in the evenings, or take a walk on the river bank.

At our side of the bridge was Blyth's horse-shoe shop, where there was always a delightful fire. The children used to gather round to get warmth from the fire in winter, and watch the Blyth brothers make horse-shoes. 

I also remember Old Goole School- just one big room with boys and girls mixed, plus a small infant school, where Miss Morley was headmistress. Cottingham Street was a cul-de-sac, with no buildings except the entrance to Thorpes' farm. Mr. Thorpe used to drive into Goole every day and whoever opened the gate for him received a penny or a halfpenny, but we youngsters hadn't a chance
with the big lads. We had great times playing on the sand heaps while the builders were enlarging the school and building the schoolhouse, in which I was to spend so many years of my married life.
But it is fatal for someone over 90 years old to look back.

I would love to know who the writer was. Below is a picture of the bridge which explains why carts sometimes got stuck.

The old Dutch River bridge, Goole

We have now updated our Howdenshirehistory.co.uk old photo pages with some new content and an easier way to order. More new photos will be added on a regular basis.

Dog days

Suddenly it is early August and the garden is beginning to look autumnal. I have just been cutting the grass in the part of the garden where I hang out washing. Every so often my foot went into a soft patch of soil and the lawnmower balked. It is the moles which have returned. I do not really mind them but would prefer them to be elsewhere!

It is still very dry - the duckweed in the pond is brown and clinging to the damp part at the very bottom and when we were digging potatoes yesterday  they were much smaller than normal. Perhaps they would have benefitted from more water - and perhaps some old fashioned 'muck'.

But the apple trees are covered in fruit and the self sown brambles near the shed are soon going to  be ripe enough to be made into pies. I know that strictly speaking the bush is the bramble and the fruit  is the blackberry but as a child we always called them bramble pies and so I continue to do so.

Friends have been helping us convert an old brick workshop into somewhere to store historical objects and pictures. It has been hard work - although my contribution has largely been tea-making and enthusiasm as clutter has been removed, a floor laid and wiring put in to reveal a lovely building which has been long neglected.

Below is a picture of Molly who first appeared on this blog as a small puppy. Now two years old she is a good-natured and fairly obedient companion who likes nothing better than mooching around with us outside and trying to creep onto the settee in the house.

Airmyn and Hook churches visit

Last week,  members of my WEA history groups and also members of the Holme on Spalding Moor history group, visited two local churches.

We began by visiting Airmyn church where local expert David Galloway explained the history of the church to us.  The church is dedicated to St David, an unusual dedication in Yorkshire and is believed to be the second church on the site.

We then visited Hook church, St Mary's, where, before the opening of Goole parish church in 1848, the many inhabitants of the new town of Goole came to be 'hatched, matched and despatched'. A small and simple building Hook is today once again a village church.

The churchwardens here were very welcoming and we all enjoyed the tea and delicious cakes. Inside the church is a plaque recording its restoration in 1844.

This was reported in the Leeds Intelligencer of May 1844 as follows:


The small church at Hook, near Goole. has undergone considerable repairs and restorations both internally and externally, which have been executed in a simple effective, but characteristic manner under the direction of Messrs Hurst and Moffatt, architects of Leeds and Doncaster.

 Much care and attention has been paid to having every part correctly restored, an aim in which they have been ably seconded by the Rev. J. Paley, the Incumbent; and aa a whole this little edifice may be pronouneed a model of what a parish church ought to be in a rural district.

 The necessary funds have been obtained partly by rate and partly by contributions but chiefly from the liberality of T. H. S. Sotheron. Esq., M.P. for Wiltshire and one of the landed proprietors of Hook.

An old postcard view of Hook church

Percy Jeeves of Goole - new book

In an earlier post I mentioned meeting the biographer of Percy Jeeves, professional cricketer whose name was used by P G Wodehouse for his famous butler.

Percy Jeeves was brought up in Goole and learned his cricket there. I read and enjoyed an early draft chapter of the book which describes Jeeves' life in Goole and the matches he played locally.

The book by Brian Halford is now published and I am including here a link to a review  from the Birmingham Post

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/dennis-amiss-brian-halford-tell-5119219

Next year in particular when we all remember those from Goole and area who lost their lives in the First World War Percy Jeeves will be in our thoughts.

The Birks family and Goole Fields mill

I have recently been finding out more about the Birks family who were millers in Goole throughout most of the nineteenth century.

Thomas Birks, son of John was a farmer until 1815 when he became a miller at Goole. I think that he may have taken over what was formerly known as Broadbents' mil, a smock mill which stood on the riverbank where Goole docks is today.

He had to move in the 1820s when the Aire and Calder Co. began building their new canal and docks exactly where his mill stood. So he moved to the other side of the Dutch River and built a new windmill near what we now know as Old Goole, on Goole Fields. It is still there.

Sadly Thomas died in 1828 leaving his widow Hannah, nee Colbridge to run the mill.  She eventually married William Greenfield, also a miller but he was killed when he took hold of the moving sail and was carried up in the air before falling to the ground.

But by then Hannah's son, Thomas Gilderdale Birks was old enough to take over running the mill. He continued milling until in his turn his son, another Thomas Gilderdale Birks took over. This third Thomas was particularly interested in the natural history of Goole Moors.

He was an enthusiastic member of the Goole Scientific Society and its recorder of botany. He studied the algae of Goole and Thorne moors and was a founder member of the British Mycological Society, and the Yorkshire Naturalists Union.

In 1883 he was offering 'Andromeda, the three Droseras, pllujarla, and many other rare flowering plants, characeae, algae, diatoms, desmids, micro- fungi, plants for freshwater aquaria and well-mounted slides in exchange for books on natural history, cabinets, slide boxes,
or apparatus.'
Anyone interested was invited to reply to Thomas Birks, jun., Old Goole Mill, Goole.

By 1899 he had moved from Goole to become the manager of the Cleveland Flour mills but still returned to Goole to study the moors. In 1911 he was living in New Southgate, Middlesex, a corn dealer and shopkeeper.

In 1911 both William Gawtry, a waterman and William Phillipson , a jobbing gardener gave their address as the Mill House, Goole Fields.

If anyone can add any more to the history of either the Birks family or the mill I should be pleased.

Saltmarshe Hall visit

Since my last blog post I have been on holiday and returned to a garden which looked more like a field.  The grass had grown amazingly and the grasscutter would only chug through it very slowly. As for the vegetables they are temporarily lost in a sea of sow thistle, chickweed and goosegrass. But when I look carefully I think they are growing well.

Molly has been in kennels for the first time and did not like it.  It took her three days to wag her tail properly and accept that she was safely home with her friend Poppy the cat.

Last week I took a group of students and friends to Saltmarshe Hall for a visit. The new owners, the Whyte family, have been there around a year now and were very welcoming.

We were able to look around the formal rooms, dining room, drawing room and library, all accessed off the magnificent hallway with its cantilevered staircase. We then were able to explore part of the former servants' wing and the cellars and the beautiful gardens.

If I am honest I think that the most popular part of the visit was when we looked at the servants' bedrooms, left as they had been probably 60 years ago with the original wallpaper and bedsteads. Maybe it was because most of us felt that our ancestors would have been servants rather than part of the much richer family who lived 'upstairs'.  Shades of Gosford Park perhaps?

Tonight I have tried to deal with two wasps' nests, one in the roof of  the part of the house where I am sitting now typing and one a only few feet away from  the house and near our picnic table. I have sprayed them with a foam bought from our local diy store and await the morning to see whether it has worked.

This bedstead is in the former servants' wing at Saltmarshe Hall

This view shows one of the several cellars on which the hall is built.

Eastrington show 2013

Today has been Eastrington show - and apart from one light shower it did not rain.  The show has had several bad weather years and for a small village show this is disastrous. The crowds don't come, the gate money is down but still the tents etc need to be paid for.

I hope that financially today was a success. Events were perhaps on a smaller scale than some years - in my childhood I remember all the big name show jumpers - Andrew Fielder, Malcolm Pyrah- used to come for what was a qualifier for the bigger show in London.

But the handicraft classes were well supported with eggs, jam, flower arrangements and children's writing all looking good. There were rows of cakes, bread loaves, bownies and buns and, after the judges had done their work, the prize cards were closely scrutinised. And I have to confess that, as ever, there were a few moans from those who thought the judges had not go it quite right.

Elsewhere on the field a man made owls with his chain saw, dogs wagged tails and looked shiny and the fair was there for the children.  Quite a lot of beer was drunk and the Trinity Steel Band, made up of young people from Hull played an excellent selection throughout the day.


I had a display of old Eastrington pictures and objects in the craft tent and thoroughly enjoyed meeting old friends and new visitors. There is nothing like old school photos in particular to revive memories.

 I also had, as well as my Eastrington history book, some mounted prints of the village streets for sale.  I was surprised by the number of people who did not quite recognise where they were as I had not thought the village had changed very much - but looking at these old views with new eyes I realise it has.

Here is a picture from my collection of old photos - they are all available to buy as prints. It is a small version of a picture which dates I think from Edwardian times. I have added a bit of colour to it by the wonder of Photoshop and I think it evokes well  the centre of the village in the days before motor cars. Click on the picture to see it bigger - and then you can see how the road then had even more potholes than our roads today!

Goforth family of Knedlington

At last it is warm and sunny and the garden is growing. Today we ate our first few strawberries from the greenhouse and this week we have several times heard a cuckoo.

On Thursday we met a lovely couple from USA who were following in the footsteps of their seventeenth century Quaker ancestors. I have written before about them -  William Goforth from Knedlington who emigrated with his wife Anne Skipwith  from Hull in 1677.

We were able to show our American visitors Skipwith church and the moated site opposite which was where the Skipwith ancestral home once stood, Quaker farm at Sandholme where local meetings took place and of course Knedlington where the Goforths lived.

Although it is not possible to say exactly where they lived I was able to point out the field which was the Knedlington  Quaker burial ground although it is now cultivated.

We then toured Howden and visited the church. I think those of us who live locally sometimes take the church for granted. Our visitors were surprised at the size and splendour of this magnificent building in such a comparatively small market town.

It is always enjoyable meeting in real life those  people that previously I have only met through the medium of the internet.

Shops of Goole

It is sometime since I wrote a post and so there are several local matters I would like to mention.

The first is the death, at the age of 99, of Ken Powls. He was a native of Howden and a keen student of the town's history. He and I wrote a history of Howden - Howden an East Riding market town - in the 1990s and I treasure the memory of sitting with him in the Powls family shop and signing copies of the book.

He went on to write three more smaller books about Howden - including his autobiography Many Lives. He will be sadly missed in Howden  and the wider area.

Last weekend I attended the Family history day at Goole's Waterways Museum and thoroughly enjoyed it. More people came than in previous years and I met visitors from many areas of Yorkshire whose families had roots in Goole and had come to see if we could help them with their family history. One of the commonest queries is about whereabouts in Goole their ancestors lived. In earlier times much of present day Goole was in the parishes of Hook and Airmyn and this causes considerable confusion.

I have also been busy preparing and giving two talks. The first was to Goole Civic Society at their meeting in The Lowther.  The society was having a re-launch but unfortunately due to a mix up with the publicity no one knew! So I talked to a small but enthusiastic audience about the early days of Goole in the very appropriate setting of The Lowther hotel, the first building of New Goole.

The second talk was to members of the Marshland History group who meet at Swinefleet. This was a talk about memories of Goole shops and was, I think, well received. Goole had several locally owned shops and in the audience were workers and relatives from some of them.

Do you remember Foster and Tetlley's outfitters, Anthony White's ice-cream, Hackforth's cafe and Branson Bowles outfitters and toy displays? I would be delighted to receive any memories and pictures as I hope to write a series of articles in the Goole Times.

Below is a picture of Boothferry Road as I remember it, before it was pedestrianised - and when Goole had both Woolworth's and Marks and Spencer.

Family history at the Waterways Museum 2013

It has been a lovely sunny day for the May bank holiday and we went to Helmsley for the afternoon. The rest of the world was there too and it was difficult to park. But we managed, ate an icecream and I bought a secondhand book about the Maister family of Hull.

The garden is very dry and various seeds have yet to appear but the courgettes and tomatoes in the greenhouse are growing. Molly loves being outside but disgraced herself this morning by rolling in something indescribably smelly. She had to be shampooed and hosed down but at least we could wash her outside.

On Sunday we are going to have a stall at the family history day at the Waterways Museum in Goole. Last year was very quiet but we are hoping to see more people this year. We are taking lots of old photos to display and some CDs we have made of old pictures of Goole and area.