Did you know about this stone? Even if you walked the path to and from the school every day you might not always see it, due to it being laid flat in a natural dip which means all rain and leaf fall covers it with mud and muck and renders it invisible very quickly. Putting …
This unusual tomb, one of only two in the graveyard, holds a parent and child – vicar and singer – two figures whose time in this town was relatively brief but who were essential parts of people’s lives here. William Augustus Conway was born in West Derby near Liverpool in 1821, one of the children …
Read more “37.11 – William Augustus and Maria Louise Salusbury Conway”
A farmer’s grandson who made the ultimate sacrifice is remembered here. The question is…why? Maybe we can figure out the “why” from the first story here. William comes first. Born in 1807 in Todmorden, William was the son of a farmer and became a farmer himself. William Sr. lived at Scaitcliffe but William Jr., our …
Read more “37.21 – William and Ellen Mitchell, and Albion Mitchell Barker”
A short story for a plot marker for a journeyman painter and his son. And that’s the bulk of what we know. James Rothwell was born in Haslingden in 1836, the same year his future wife Betsy Ormerod was born in Newchurch. James was a house painter and so good at it that he became …
This little plot marker hides a big secret…in more ways than one! Read to the end for a twist in this explorer’s tale. The story begins with James Sims, who was born in 1816 in Penryn, Cornwall. Penryn is just to the east of Falmouth on the south coast and a quick look at a …
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 …
Sometimes only a fleeting spell in Todmorden is enough to draw someone back later, in the hopes of a better life. Thanks to Leesa Harwood for sending us this story about her ancestors! The gravestone in Christ Church Graveyard marks the burial place of Charles Neesham, his wife Jane (Kilburn) Neesham and their daughter Margaret …