One Hundred And One Things

On the 4th, I returned from a somewhat frustrating morning's walk around Harrogate to continue my search for significant sites in family history in Leeds.

10 St Mary's Road was the house my great-grandparents lived in when they were first married. ('After the Wreck of the Empress,' says my father - they crossed the Channel on the first night of their honeymoon, in a paddle steamer which damaged both paddle boxes on the twin piers at the French end of the voyage. When I was a little girl, I used to create working models of this event with sardines and chunks of cucumber; despite this visual aid, I can remember very few of the details.) I'm not sure whether they were the first people to live in the house, but going by the picture above it seems likely.

Anyhow, it has a proper address, and therefore was very easy to find - though a long walk from Headingley station. No matter; while it was very grey, it didn't actually rain, and I got some decent pictures. Leaving aside the deterioration in my guide picture, it's very obviously the same house:











I did start out towards Harehills, but it was looking greyer and greyer, and my feet hurt, and anyway, I thought that, with three sites visited and two photographed, I'd done more than enough to call this goal -

- complete

I write this looking out over Leeds - well, looking out over parts of Wade Lane if I peer over my right shoulder. I have some complimentary hotel tea and biscuits, and my legs have just about recovered from all the walking I did yesterday.

I'd intended to save the write-up for when I got home and had uploaded all my photos, but since I have net access and illustration here, and the next few days are likely to be as busy as the last few, I thought I might as well update you on at least part of my Yorkshire expedition.

"Melcombe", St James' Park, Harrogate, was my great-grandparents' second married home (more on their first married home later). They moved there in 1906, continuing on a path of upward social mobility that took them out of Leeds and eventually down south and out of the scope of this journey. (My great-grandmother grew up in Dorset, and I don't think she ever really felt at home in Yorkshire.) But Harrogate is quite posh enough in itself.

I thought, naively, perhaps, that Melcombe would be pretty easy to find. After all, the works in Bradford had turned out to be right under my nose (another story, again). The problem was, the picture above, together with some very vague memories from my father, was all I had as a guide. On leaving the train in Harrogate and purchasing a street atlas in the bookshop, I discovered that there is no such street as St James' Park.

So I knew what the house ought to look like, and I knew that it had to be near The Stray, which is a park in the centre of Harrogate. So I was looking for a big, turn of the century, probably grey stone building near a park.

Harrogate consists almost entirely of big grey stone houses and parks.

After wandering around fruitlessly for about forty minutes, humming 'New every morning', phoning my father for what I hoped would be more detailed remembrances ('north east across the Stray, and you may have to cross the railway line'), and finding (but being unable to get into) the church they attended (remind me to tell you some stories of the Reverend Guy some time) I did what I should have done in the first place, and went to the library.

There I found, in the excellent Local History section, a 1908 copy of "Robinson's Harrogate Directory". This not only lists Reverend Douglas S. Guy as Rector of Christ Church, The Stray, but also includes "Robert Jowitt, Melcombe, Cavendish Avenue, St James' Park".

Cavendish Avenue, you will be pleased to hear, is in the A-Z.

Sadly, Melcombe is no longer on Cavendish Avenue. I walked the length of it twice, and everything was either too new or too big. Or both. And it was coming on to rain, so I went back to the station and had a baked potato for lunch.

And that, dear reader, is why I don't have a current photo of "Melcombe", and that's why you're getting this post today.

Work seems to be going out of its way to make my 101 in 1001 easier. In just over a month I'll be on a training course in Leeds. It's a two-day course, on a Tuesday and a Wednesday - and they're happy for me to take the Monday as annual leave. So I'll be going up on the Saturday.

Location, location, location. Leeds is pretty close to Bradford, and Bradford is the Old Country. Back in the nineteenth century, when my ancestors were nouveau riche wool merchants, that's where they were based. I know a little about their history there, and I'll be phoning my father next week to find out more.

Quite apart from my own curiosity about my roots, there are quite a few awesome people concentrated in that particular bit of Yorkshire, and I hope to meet up with at least some of them. I have heard a rumour, for example, that the elusive Lord Hobbs is around there somewhere. Even if he manages to elude me, he's likely to recommend somewhere to go to Evensong. matgb and miss_s_b are in Brighouse.

Another person who lives in Leeds and whom I've never met is Ms Alex - who taught me everything I know about making a success of 101 in 1001. While I'm on the subject, I heartily reccomend that you go and have a look at her 101 blog. Come to think of it, most of what I know about Leeds I learned from her, too.

Next steps: do some research into family history; find a place to stay on Saturday and Sunday nights; work out something resembling an itinerary. Simple. Or perhaps not simple, but definitely fun.

I'm really looking forward to this trip. Could you tell?