8 October 1733: John Hobson bids £1,400 for most of Delph, including the famous Friarmere bakestone pit
John Hobson. 1877. The Journal of Mr. John Hobson, Late of Dodworth Green. Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ed. Charles Jackson. Durham: Surtees Society. A (morbid) compendium of everyday England. It is sometimes unclear whether the date given is that of an occurrence or that on which news reached his capacious ears. Get it:
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Went to Delph in Friarmere, in the parish of Saddleworth, to view an estate there, which was to be sold, belonging to Robert Whitehead, about 70l. per annum, for which he asketh 1,800l. I offered him 1,400l. It is there where all the havercake [oatcake] bakestones are got out of a quarry, the only one I ever heard of in England. The mine lies on the side of a hill, about 8 yards thick, about 3 yards of earth to clear of it.
To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:
- ER: East Riding
- GM: Greater Manchester
- NR: North Riding
- NY: North Yorkshire
- SY: South Yorkshire
- WR: West Riding
- WY: West Yorkshire
Comment
Comment
In November Hobson records having paid £1,580 – ca. £263,000 in 2021. Lilian Hirst has more, much of it borrowed from Ammon Wrigley, including a rhyme on the sign of the long-vanished Bakestone Inn at Delph:
These bakestone makers are brave men,
They take a pot here now and then;
Be not in haste, come in and taste
With these ingenious gentlemen;
For it is the axe, the pick, the shave,
That make the bakestone look so brave.
(Hirst 1963/11/23)
Apparently the stone was fired, but I still don’t know what kind of stone it was. From the 19th century they tend to be cast iron or steel.
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Original
Went to Delph in Friarmere, in the parish of Saddleworth, to view an estate there, which was to be sold, belonging to Robert Whitehead, about 70l. per annum, for which he asketh 1,800l. I offered him 1,400l. It is there where all the havercake [oatcake] bakestones are got out of a quarry, the only one I ever heard of in England. The mine lies on the side of a hill, about 8 yards thick, about 3 yards of earth to clear of it.
89 words.
Tags
Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.
- Bakestone (1)
· - Delph (1) ·
- Doggerel (8) ·
- Griddle (1) ·
- Hobson, John (32), enthusiastically morbid diarist of Dodworth Green (Barnsley), the date of whose own death is unknown ·
- John Stapylton (2) ·
- Oatcake (1) ·
- Poetry (70) ·
- Quarry (4) ·
- Saddleworth (6) ·
- Sir Miles Stapylton, 4th Baronet (2) ·
- Song (20) ·
- Wrigley, Ammon (2) ·
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