This is mainly a story about some Stephensons of Hanging Ditch and the routes they took in life – however far they travelled they always came back, and now they aren’t about to travel anywhere anytime soon… At two ends of the age spectrum are a pair of siblings, Sarah (aka Sally) and James. Sarah …
Read more “37A.26 – Mary, Benjamin and Sarah Bottomley, and James, Wright and Sarah Ann Stephenson”
Mother and daughter, together forever – thanks to descendant Leesa Harwood for this story. We love guest posts, so if you have an ancestor whose story we haven’t told yet and that you want to share, get in touch! Betty Lord was born on 30th June 1848 in Stansfield, Todmorden. Her father was John Lord …
Back in 1808… Back in 1986… Back in 2002…no, that’s not right either…back in September 2024, our Chair and Secretary went on a jaunt around Calderdale inspecting some closed non-conformist graveyards, and their final stop was Cross Lanes Baptist up the Buttress, above Hebden Bridge, to scout out some stones that linked either to Lumbutts …
Read more “43.21 – Greenwood, Henry, Mary Ellen and Sarah Baldwin (inaccessible)”
Next time you wander up Stansfield Hall Road and stop to smell the flowers, ask yourself who might have been smelling them 120 years ago…and who might have been planting them then too. This grave’s story starts in Child’s Ercall, Shropshire, in 1836 with the birth of Richard Green. Richard grew up in a household …
This is one of our mysteries of the graveyard, and a tale about the power of grief and shame. Caroline Coles was not a poor woman, and her husband not without some local prestige; so where’s her grave, and where are her two children who are buried here? They might be at this plot marker …
Read more “Caroline Elizabeth Coles and her children (location unknown)”
There are five members of the Spencer family in this grave, William, Grace his wife and three of their seven children. We don’t know much about William Spencer; according to the information from the census he was born in 1796 in Stansfield and in his adult life was a farm labourer – that’s all the …
Read more “40.0 – William, Grace, William, Hannah and Grace Spencer”
More continuity here for those with an interest in the Freemason’s and later Weaver’s Arms on Blind Lane – maybe you remember William and Martha Jane Sutcliffe under the school’s story? Well this is how they got there (or at least how Martha Jane got there). We have go back a bit though. Let’s start …
Schoolmaster – land agent – house builder – railway inspector – all in one? How?? Burnley lad Thomas Newton was born in 1812. There he grew up, and a good brain (not family financial support – his father was a carter) meant he was able to find a better job than most young men in …
If you’ve been following for a while then you’ve already met quite a few of these Fieldens, but here’s some from another generation back. Charles Fielden was born in 1842, the son of Abraham and Mary (Gibson) Fielden of Wadsworth Mill, Shade. He was their second child and second son and his time on this …
This grave is one of the very, very small number of table tombs in the yard. Does that denote someone special? Not many people in this town have a street named after them, but then, if you’re the one who built it then you get to do as you please. Hammerton Terrace is named for …
Read more “39.29 – William Holden, Adam, Alice, Robert and James Mills”