You may not know who Jesse Horsfall is…I can guarantee you have seen one of his buildings though.
Jesse was the architect for:
- The Drill Hall on Rose Street
- The Firemen’s cottages across from Morrisons
- The Fielden Coffee tavern/Conservative Club
- Part of National School (our neighbours on one side)
- Todmorden Golf Club
- The old Post Office building on Rochdale Road
- The Union offices on Hall Street (now Union House)
- The Council secondary school at Stile
- The Liberal Club in Hebden Bridge…we will forgive him that one
- Burnlea on Burnley Road, where he lived and died…and is still in sight of
- And many many more.
In our opinion Jesse deserves a blue plaque. He also deserves his final resting place tending and looking after. But then, so does everyone else in the yard…
Jesse married Ada Blacka in September 1883 at All Saints Church at Harley Wood. You can see he already had a signature with a little bit of flair to it.
Ada’s father James retired to Oldham later in life, and it was to Oldham that Ada went after Jesse died in 1910. She died in 1928 herself. Mabel Alice was their only child, or at least the only child they had together who was baptised – you can easily imagine how sad her loss was for them. When Ada died she left her estate to her two younger sisters, Annie and Sarah Elizabeth.