Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

On July 21, 1661, near Sheffield, by the river Dun, was seen a great army of white soldiers upon the earth. After them went another great multitude of horsemen, all in white, with white horses. After appearance near an hour they all vanished away, asserted by many credible persons. Mr Bloome, formerly minister at Addercliffe near Sheffield, where the sight was seen, having examined some neighbours, and living in the town, told me of it, and from credible persons.

Mr Ferman, hearing it had rained blood, sent to know the truth of it, and a man newly come in out of the field was wet with blood.

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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.

Comment

Comment

The year is transcribed as 1661, which is both impossible (the Act of Uniformity under which the Rev. Bloome was dismissed only passed in 1662) and unlikely (prior and subsequent entries are all for 1666).

I don’t get all the symbolism. Who did the army represent?

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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.

• Act of Uniformity 1662 (4) W/G ·
• Attercliffe (4) W/G ·
• Bloome, Matthew (-1686) (1), Brotherton-born curate at Attercliffe, ejected 1662 and imprisoned at York, maltster, founded with Hancock a Congregational chapel at Attercliffe W/G ·
• English folklore (17) W/G ·
• Ghost (2) W/G ·
• Heywood, Oliver (1630-1702) (34), Bolton-born nonconformist minister and diarist, active in the West Riding, resident at Northowram, ejected for his beliefs W/G ·
• Procession of the dead (1) W/G ·
• River Don, Yorkshire (10) W/G ·
• 📌Sheffield (80) W/G ·
• Superstition (14) W/G ·
• White horse (3) W/G ·
• White horses in mythology (3) W/G ·

All tags.

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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.

Comment

Comment

The year is transcribed as 1661, which is both impossible (the Act of Uniformity under which the Rev. Bloome was dismissed only passed in 1662) and unlikely (prior and subsequent entries are all for 1666).

I don’t get all the symbolism. Who did the army represent?

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Similar

2 March 1665: A sighting of the northern lights at Northowram (Halifax) recalls the eve of the civil war

11 April 1667: A hubristic Sam Mitchell impersonates a gypsy in a Halifax pub, and nemesis follows

9 August 1805: Joseph Locke, who made the railways pay, is born under indifferent auspices at Attercliffe (Sheffield)

10 April 1877: Echoing Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe”, John Collier tells a meeting at Walkley (Sheffield) that local Normans and Anglo-Saxons initially lived apart

14 April 1792: The ballad of Spence Broughton, hung this day at the York Tyburn for robbing the Sheffield and Rotherham mail

11 March 1864: An inhabitant of Bacon Island survives the Great Sheffield Flood

30 October 1981: Joanne, Michelle and Carl go caking in their Sheffield villages

2 January 1673: Despite Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence, Presbyterians Oliver Heywood and Christopher Richardson are detained while preaching at Lascelles Hall (Kirkburton)

5 April 1676: The Lord saves a Presbyterian from his horse in Craven

10 March 1665: Blizzards and Dutch attacks prolong Restoration-induced shortages of fodder and coal at Northowram (Halifax)

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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.

Comment

Comment

If a chauldron is 36 bushels, a bushel is 8 gallons, and a gallon of coal weighs 40 pounds, then coal was slightly less than £1/tonne. In 2021 a tonne was retailing at roughly £420, almost three times as much after inflation. Fortunately we have gas. No, wait.

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