Ravenstonedale Parish History Group

17th March 2020
by rphg2015
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Talks and local history research update

Details of our programme of talks for 2024-2025 are on the Talks Programme page.

Our usual Christmas get-together for members and friends on a Bring and Share basis will be on Wednesday 11th December at 7.30pm in Ravenstonedale Community and Heritage Centre. We will be featuring a locally-themed Quiz.

The third talk on 20th November was by Jean Scott-Smith about Our Viking Inheritance.  We were very pleased to welcome Jean back for another of her fascinating talks, and this was the first talk we have held in the afternoon instead of the evening.  It was well-attended by members and friends, and we were pleased to see people who are unable to come to our evening talks. We have another afternoon talk planned for 19th February. Anthony Hughes, one of the County archivists based in Kendal, will explain the role of County Archives and show some of the material they hold relating to Ravenstonedale Parish.

The second talk on 16th October was by one of our members, Val Fermer. Val presented one of her Ravenstonedale Tales stories of local families which included some surprising discoveries. This one featured a lost Ravenstonedale inheritance, and her research identified local people who gained from a particular Will in 1832 and also those people who should have inherited but missed out – and why!

Our first evening talk of the season took place on 18th September, an audio-visual presentation by Ambleside Oral History Group about working life during the last century. The Group started recording local people’s memories in 1976, so they now have a large archive of sound recordings – including some from people who were born around 1900. Everyone in the audience agreed that it makes such a difference to hear people’s memories spoken in their own words, and there were some intriguing photos as well. We learnt about “struggling bars” and hiring fairs, as well as the common experience that when schoolchildren finished school at the age of fourteen, they were just placed into a job that had already been earmarked for them. It was a fascinating evening, and we look forward to welcoming the Group back in the future.

RPHG Members and friends on our mailing list should now have received the Autumn Newsletter by email as usual, with more details of our current activities.

Our new online archives catalogue will soon be available to RPHG members, who will be emailed instructions about how to sign up to view the contents. At the moment we are concentrating on populating this catalogue with the many digital images which we hold, so that all members may see these. After that we hope to add other catalogues of the archives items that are held on spreadsheets at the moment. (Some of these are printed out in our archive files in the archives room at Ravenstonedale Community and Heritage Centre, but not all).

These individual online archives catalogues have been provided to member groups and societies by Cumbria Local History Federation for a nominal fee. We are very pleased to be able to take advantage of this.

Some RPHG members are currently working with the Stainmore Railway at Kirkby Stephen East Station towards their lottery-funded project to highlight the previously unknown (or just forgotten) roles of women who worked on this railway. It ran through our Parish for 100 years to the former station of Tebay Junction, passing through stations at Ravenstonedale (nearer Newbiggin-on-Lune) and Gaisgill more locally to us. We are also researching the changes brought about by the coming – and disappearance – of the railway here and have already spoken to people who have memories and/or photographs they are willing to share, to help us put together a booklet about Ravenstonedale and the Railway in due course. Please leave a message on one of the Comments forms on this website if you would like to talk to us about this, and we will get back to you.

In connection with this RPHG members were invited to a fascinating joint private visit with Upper Eden History Society to Kirkby Stephen East Station on Saturday 28th September. After a short introductory talk in the newly-restored meeting room, we enjoyed train rides in the newly-restored coaches, visited the maintenance shed to see restoration work on the huge snowplough which featured in the famous 1955 film “Snowdrift at Bleath Gill”, and walked to view the 1861 signal box which is currently being rebuilt and restored to become the oldest working signal box in the world. We were of course very pleased to meet station cat Barras as well!

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24th February 2020
by rphg2015
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Ravenstonedale Tales – Volume 1 and now – Volume 2

Volume 1 relates three fascinating family histories, each of which starts with an interesting discovery found in the Parish History Group archives.  The reader is taken far beyond a rural Cumbrian Parish to stories of wealth, High Court litigation and a legacy of historic buildings, celebrating success in the Victorian age. These three stories making up this 96 page paperback book are extensively illustrated, mostly with documents or photographs reproduced from the History Group Archives. Where images have been taken from other sources these have been individually acknowledged. Original illustrations are also included, commissioned from local artist Stuart Wells.

Each chapter is intended to take the reader through a story which unfolds, much as the research unfolded as it was undertaken by author Val Fermer. Recognising that some readers will have a genealogical interest, a Genealogist’s Checklist of family names from the three stories is included as an Appendix.

About the author: Val Fermer began researching her own family tree as a teenager, inspired by her grandfather. This was before the internet and consequently much time was spent at the various record centres in London and wandering around churchyards looking for family gravestones! On moving to Ravenstonedale in 2007, Val became involved with the Ravenstonedale Parish History Group and began to apply her genealogical knowledge and interest to local research projects which evolved to become annual talks to the History Group during its winter evening programme.

Volume 2 has now been published.

In the first Tale in the second volume: The Tale of the Manchester Migrants, Val shares the stories of the sons and daughters of Ravenstonedale who embarked upon the economic migration to the first indusrial city – Manchester – and beyond. From 1801 to 1851 the population of Manchester increased from 88,577 to 339, 483, and by the 1900s this had increased again to around 700,000. Val explores the historical and social perspective of this economic migration while at the same time revealing fascinating aspects of local Ravenstonedale history. The second Tale entitled The Tale of the G and T’s tells the story of a bankrupt, a marriage of convenience and surprising connections to gin, cricket at Lord’s and horseracing and is the story behind the auction in the early 1900s of over 40 properties in Ravenstonedale and Kirkby Stephen which all belonged to two local families – a story revealed when Val began researching a Sales Prospectus held in the Parish History Group archives.

The third Tale introduces local survivors of the fighting in the First World War – what happened to them during their military service and what happened when they returned to the Parish.

Ravenstonedale Tales – Volume 2 and Volume 1 are both available from the Ravenstonedale Parish History Group bookstore – each costs £18 plus £3 postage and packing to UK addresses. Please fill in a Comment form on the website if you would like to purchase a copy and be sure to state which Volume you would like. You may also enquire about overseas postage rates! You will then be contacted by email so purchase can be arranged (NB your email address will not show on the website).

RPHG receives the profit from sales made via this website.

Copies will also be available at Ravenstonedale Parish History Group talks and events when we resume our “live” evening talks programme from September 2021 and we also have a limited number of the 1996 edition of History and Traditions of Ravenstonedale, Westmorland by Rev W Nicholls (first published in 1877) for sale.

 

20th September 2019
by rphg2015
2 Comments

News from previous years

News from 2021 – reopening after the Coronavirus closure…

September 2021:  We welcomed visitors to the Archives Room again from 7th October 2021, having had to close it and also present our evening talks online via Zoom for the 2020-2021 season.  We were able to co-lead two local Ravenstonedale village heritage walks on Saturday 12th June 2021 with Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership, and another walk on 24th July for local folk who couldn’t get booked on those two earlier walks as they sold out so quickly!

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20th December 2017
by rphg2015
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Thursday afternoons

The History Group archive upstairs at High Chapel is usually open to visitors from 2 to 4pm on Thursday afternoons. Please note we may not be open during January if the weather is bad. The History Group can still be contacted with family history enquiries etc when we are not open if you leave a message on the form on this website – your comment will be moderated, it may be edited for reasons of space, and your email address will not be shown to other website users. There are message forms at the bottom of the About the Group, Family History, and Gifts to the Archive pages.

13th November 2017
by rphg2015
6 Comments

Recent visitors

We recently welcomed another former pupil of Fell End School who was delighted to see the fireguard which used to fit round the stove in the schoolroom, which we think was made by the local blacksmith. Like one of the visitors who came to our Schools exhibition in October 2016, she last saw this iron fireguard, probably made by the local blacksmith, before the school closed in 1946.

We gave her some information about an Akrigg ancestor and in return she told us many anecdotes about the village – and she also identified herself and her siblings as the three pupils mentioned in Fell End School logbook who were unable to get to school one day from their remote farm because of deep snowdrifts.

A brother and sister descended from Thomas Carver contacted us last year as a result of a newspaper report of Val’s talk on the Carver family and their connections to the village, and we were able to show them, among other things, the family gravestone in High Chapel burial ground (which incidentally is duplicated in St Oswald’s Churchyard). Thomas Carver and his brother John were both trustees of High Chapel, and in the 1890’s were responsible for renovating the Chapel, the upstairs Schoolroom and the Manse and for enlarging the burial ground in memory of their mother Elizabeth Airey. This is recorded on a wall plaque in the main part of High Chapel which the visitors were able to photograph. We have subsequently sent them copies of some of our archive photographs, including one of their ancestor Elizabeth Airey. We thank them for their kind donation to the History Group.

27th October 2016
by rphg2015
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History Room refurbishment

A few of our volunteers are still working on cataloguing our ever-growing archive…if you would like to help us out with this, please come along on a Thursday afternoon between 2 and 4pm when we are open to see what’s involved – no obligation! We are very grateful to Phyllis and Jon Ring (who visited the village from the USA) for their donation enabling us to refurbish the storage in the room – members of Phyllis’s family lived at The Chantry and Chantry Lodge for many years. We are also purchasing archive-standard storage boxes for the more fragile paper items as our funds allow.

11th December 2015
by rphg2015
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Christmas Get-together 2017

On Wednesday 13th December at 7.30pm in High Chapel we held our annual Christmas get-together with a Quiz. Dave’s Quiz this time was an Eggheads inspired list of multiple choice questions on the Lakes and Dales, followed by the killer Sudden Death questions (no choices) to sort out any ties between the teams….all did very well with the winners scoring an impressive 29 out of 40. Thanks to Bill for his keyboard accompaniment to our carol-singing and to Ann for the Christmas decorations.

18th September 2015
by rphg2015
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Annual Exhibition 2017

Our annual exhibition on 14th and 15th October in High Chapel from 2pm to 5pm each day featured some of the old maps of the Parish and sales prospectuses which we hold, including a bound copy of the first Ordnance Survey maps of the Parish dating from 1859, donated to the History Group earlier this year. More of our photographic archive relating to Parish gardens past and present, and more of the history of Ravenstonedale School – photos and yearbooks from around 2000-2001 – were on show too, as well as the story of how the Parish Millennium Map was created.

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12th February 2015
by rphg2015
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Tarn Gill Bridge saved – and renamed Artlegarth Beck Bridge

The Friends are celebrating the addition of the bridge to the National Heritage List for England at Grade II, for reasons of architectural and historic interest, and group value. Historic England have now named it Artlegarth Beck Bridge, after the beck over which it stands, and its List Entry Number is 1455814.  The County Council who own the bridge decided not only to allow investigations of the perceived problem with the north-east abutment, but also to do the work themselves and, more importantly from the Friends’ point-of-view, to pay for this investigation and any subsequent repairs, subject to them being within budget.  The Friends are now pleased to announce that work to repair the bridge has been completed and as of December 2021 the new interpretation board is in position near the bridge thanks to Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Meanwhile, the History Group are still trying to find out how old the bridge is. The earliest map showing a bridge on the site is Cary’s map of 1789 which later accompanied the edition of Camden’s Britannia (Richard Gough translation) published by John Nichols in 1798. It seems that the bridge would have been built to allow carts and heavily laden horses to cross Artlegarth Beck without having to go through the adjacent ford, which would have been impassable after heavy winter rain or snowmelt. The bridge is certainly on a packhorse route. Even the new “Irish Ford” was impassable to traffic on one morning during the December 2015 floods – but the bridge stood firm, although suffering some damage. Our latest research has uncovered a former name for the bridge in use locally – Ford Bridge – which would have been used before the nearby house named The Chantry was built.

The beck itself has also uncovered some cobbles under the bridge and just upstream which were laid by hand at some point in the past, which we understand were probably placed there in an effort to streamline the flow of water when the beck is in spate.