We arrive in Holmfirth and park up in the CO-OP car park (only 60p for two hours!)
We cross the River Holme and out onto Station Road.
We took a path up Daisy Lane and up to Th'owd the oldest building in Holmfirth,located behind the Holmfirth Parish Church.
Built in 1597, the Towser has played host to many roles throughout the years including a jail and a mortuary.
Located on Daisy Lane, behind the Holmfirth Parish Church the oddly named Th’owd Towser is suspected to mean “Old Jail” in local dialect and opens its doors to the public two days a year as part of the Heritage Open Day in Kirklees.
Whilst the present building is not the original, it still has a great wealth of interest to the local community. The building was originally designed as a church lock up, however the building has served as a Fire Station, a jail and a canary house!
MOST FAMOUS INMATE – REVEREND EDMUND ROBINSON
Whilst the majority of inmates were recorded for socially unacceptable crimes such as drunk and disorderly, the most famous inmate was Rev. Edmund Robinson who was the assistant to the parish priest and the curate-in-charge at the Holmfirth Parish Church.
In 1673, he was accused of marrying couples without having a licence to which he sought a pardon in the Church Court in York. In 1677, the parishioners became suspicious of the amount of money he had and living well above his station.
After further investigation he was found to have been “coin clipping” and subsequently held in his own church’s jail prior to his trial at York assizes. He was found guilty of High Treason and hanged in 1690.
According to legend, the son of the late Rev. Edmund Robinson was convicted along with his father but later pardoned due to his young age. He later became a respected member of the British Royal Mint and made a fortune… this is yet to be proven however.
In 1857, the building no longer became a lock up after a local police station opened with 3 holding cells. Around 1909, Th’owd Towser became a mortuary due to the lack of windows and currently the building is under the guardianship of the Holme Valley Civic Society.
We then come out at Sids Cafe.
Sid’s Cafe - the cafe featured in the long running BBC sitcom “Last Of The Summer Wine”. As well as being an internationally famous TV filming location, they are also a fully operational cafe.
Sid’s Cafe is the cafe made famous by ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ - the world’s longest running sitcom which began in 1973. With its distinctive white frontage, red ‘cafe’ sign and green gingham curtains it is instantly recognisable as the cafe frequented by Compo, Clegg and Foggy.
Sid’s Cafe is a real cafe and is open every day (apart from Christmas Day and when filming takes place). The cafe used to be a fish & chip shop and was being used as a paint store for the ironmongers next door when the BBC spotted it in 1973. When fans of the series began coming to Holmfirth expecting to find a genuine cafe the owner decided to turn it in to one!
We stop for a Cream Tea, very nice too. Although pieces of Tangerine on top? Is this a Yorkshire thing?
We leave Sids Cafe and head into town.
Up on 30 Huddersfield Road we reach The Wrinkled Stocking Tearoom, closed today :(
The Tearoom uses the house filmed in Last of the Summer Wine as Nora Batty's and has appropriate memorabilia.
A trip to the rear and we see the familiar doorways of Compos and Nora Battys homes. Of course we had to knock to see if they were in!
Nora Batty (née Renshaw) is a fictional character in the world's longest-running sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine. Nora became a national icon, recognised by her wrinkled stockings, pinny and distinctive style of hair curlers. She appeared in 245 of the 295 episodes.
Nora was one of five siblings: Madge, who emigrated to Australia; Billy, who also emigrated but spent all his time dying; Clara, who only comes for Christmas;and Stella (Barbara Young), who came to housesit for Nora when she went to care for Madge in Australia.
She married Wally Batty (Joe Gladwin), a railway engineer, in World War II.
Wally and Nora never had any children, and their marriage was rather a loveless one; Nora wore the trousers and frequently man-handled her husband, turning him shell-shocked very early on. The two managed to live together, but Wally did run away to stay with his mother once in 1972. Nora was a strict person on the exterior, but if you chipped further down she was a caring person who had her sensitive spots. She was a member of the ladies tea circle, which included Ivy (Jane Freeman), Pearl (Juliette Kaplan), Edie (Dame Thora Hird) and the more naïve Glenda (Sarah Thomas).
One of the perpetual annoyances in Nora's life was her neighbour of many years, Compo Simmonite (Bill Owen). Compo admired Nora from afar, and, much to her annoyance, was a great friend of Wally's. When Compo pointed out Nora's famous wrinkled stockings, forced himself on her or surprised her, she would either drag Wally out in a failed attempt to put him off or assault him with the harder end of her broomstick. However, Nora does care for Compo deep down; when he doesn't notice her, she thinks something is up.
Although initially a stern Northern "battleaxe", Nora showed on occasion, particularly as the years passed, that underneath she is actually a rather caring and kind woman — although she doesn't openly promote the fact. She even seemed to grow fond of Compo - in the 1996 Christmas special "Extra! Extra!", she was bowled over at the sight of him in military uniform. She also seemed very flattered when Compo sang about his feelings for her at a concert in the previous year's Christmas special. In the few instances where Compo didn't make a remark about her wrinkled stockings she showed concern, believing that something was wrong with him. Clegg once remarked that Nora is at the top of her field with the possible exception of Ivy. Nora didn't take to the statement too kindly because she said that if it came to a "slanging match" she would soon sort Ivy out as, according to Nora, Ivy has too much flesh on her to be really mean.
In an interview Kathy Staff revealed that there was some sort of affection that Nora felt towards Compo that she would not admit to herself let alone him. When Bill Owen died in July 1999, Staff initially announced her plans to leave the series, feeling that it would not be the same without him. With the introduction of Compo's son Tom (played by his real life son Tom Owen), however, she was persuaded to stay. Staff actually left the series in 2001, to reprise her role as cleaner Doris Luke in the revival of the ITV soap opera Crossroads, with Nora said to be emigrating to Australia.
When Crossroads was cancelled, Staff returned to the role, but no reference was made to Nora's trip to Australia or her sudden return. She continued to play the character until shortly before her death in December 2008. With Staff unable to appear in Series 30 because of ill health, Nora again left for Australia, this time to care for her elder sister, Madge.
You can stay in Nora Battys Cottage!
The Last Of The Summer Wine Exhibition was closed too :( Shame I wanted a sticker for my roofbox and buy some gifts!).
We walk on past The Elephant and Castle PH.
We walk up Upperthong Lane towards Bill Owens Resting place.
We reach St Johns Church.
Mr Joshua Charlesworth offered a site in Binns Field and Mr Edward Hugh Shellard designed a church to hold 700 people. The Church was built in 1846 costing £4451.6s.7d. A committee was formed to collect donations and subscription. The church in the Parish of Almondbury was originally to be called St Paul's but within a month it was changed to St John's. The Rev. Thomas Gleadow Fearne laid the foundation stone on 12th November 1846 and the church was consecrated on 4th May 1848 by the Rt Rev. Charles Thomas Longley, Lord Bishop of Ripon.
In 1875 the church had extensive alterations, an organ chamber was added together with ornamentation to the chancel and a new gateway. In 1912 stonework in the 80ft tower was renovated - church workers raised the funds.
The church has many points of interest, for example:
There is a memorial to the Shackleton family, husband, wife and three children of Mill Hill, all of whom were drowned when the Bilberry Reservoir burst its banks and flooded the valley in 1852.
The Lych Gate was added to commemorate the fallen of 1939 - 1945 world war. It was built by Young Caldwell, 4th May 1948.
For some years, fans of the TV sitcom Last of the Summer Wine have visited St John's to see the grave of Wm J Owen Robotham, actor and playwright, who played Compo in the series. In 2017. Peter Sallis, who, among many other roles, played Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine, was also laid to rest in the churchyard, according to his wishes, alongside Bill Owen.
Peter Sallis buried next to Bill Owen
William Simmonite, better known by his nickname of Compo, was a character in the world's longest-running sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine.
Compo was born into a poor, lower-class family in Holmfirth. He claims that his mother, a rag-and-bone woman, said that after he was born the sun began to shine and that a swallow began to sing. His family was and is a large one. He had several encounters in his schooldays, which he remembers fondly – with the exception of one with Aggie Duckett who, he claims, "used to make his nose bleed". This was due to the fact that she was always thumping him because he laughed at her dad's boots, not knowing she was wearing them at the time. His school friends included Norman Clegg (Peter Sallis), Cyril Blamire (Michael Bates), Foggy Dewhurst (Brian Wilde) and Seymour Utterthwaite (Michael Aldridge).
Compo married soon after the war, but the marriage did not last long and he does not remember her, as she "ran off with a chuffin' Pole!" in 1947. He had several flings in his youth, one of which went to the next level and resulted in the birth of his son, Tom. Tom tracked his father down and wrote to him, but he arrives in Holmfirth just after his father's funeral. Out of loneliness, he once hired a housekeeper (Liz Smith). He takes her out for a meal at Sid's Café and tries to start a relationship. However, she does a moonlight flit with all his newly-bought possessions.
Despite never actually divorcing his wife, he has an unrequited love for his neighbour of many a year, Nora Batty (Kathy Staff). He even photographs her when she is least expecting it. Despite constant reminders that it would never happen or, in earlier days, that she was married, Compo persisted in his attempts to elope with Nora. However, he may only like Nora because he knows it won't progress further. When he thought that Nora's downtrodden husband, Wally (Joe Gladwin), had left her and emigrated to New Zealand, he was originally going around in Wally's old clothes and tidying up. But when Clegg and Blamire tricked him into believing that Nora was intent on marriage, he panicked and tried his hardest to remove Nora from the dinner to which he had invited her (Wally had in fact gone to his mother's for a couple of days, and Compo knew that he was coming back after all).
Although Nora often gives Compo the hard end of her broomstick, she does often display concern or kindness towards him. When he cleans himself up during Wally's escape, she dresses up for a meal with him;[6] when he disappears off a cliff on one of Foggy's wild schemes, she shows concern; when he is caught in one of Wesley Pegden's (Gordon Wharmby) exploding vehicles, she rushes forwards and tries to comfort him with a showing of her leg.
Nora feels guilty when Compo dies in hospital with a smile on his face after suffering a heart attack when seeing her in unwrinkled stockings. She and Ivy sit up for the rest of the night, reminiscing about his various exploits.
Bill Owen said in an interview that Compo sees Nora as the Elizabeth Taylor of Holmfirth.
We head back into town and back to the car,
The Holme Valley has always been susceptible to flooding, with the earliest recorded flood dating back to 1738 in which severe rainstorms caused the River Holme to burst its banks and flood the valley. Luckily on that occasion damage was limited to farmland and no lives were lost.
But on 5th February 1852 the Holme Valley and indeed Holmfirth experienced the worst flood in its History.
The Bilberry reservoir was built in 1840 over a stream that had not been properly diverted, because of this the reservoir wall was weakened over the years. Following nearly a fortnight of storms and heavy rain, on 5th February 1852, the reservoir banks broke releasing 86 million gallons of water down the River Holme, down the Holme Valley and into Holmfirth.
The force of the water swetp away Mills, cottages, animals and people, even tearing up graves in the graveyard at Holmebridge.
In total the flood caused some 81 deaths, destroyed included four mills, ten dye houses, three drying stoves, 27 cottages, seven tradesmen’s houses, seven shops, seven bridges crossing the River Holme, ten warehouses, eight barns and stables.
An inquiry after the disaster concluded that the reservoir was “defective in its original construction” and that “the Commissioners, in permitting the Bilberry reservoir to remain in a dangerous state with the full knowledge thereof, and not lowering the waste pit, have been guilty of great and culpable negligence”
A great walk about, Shame we didnt have time to explore the outer areas!
