On a lovely sunny day, a Sunday, late August in 2017, I collected my parents, John & Moira, along with 3 of my siblings, Phil, Mandy & Tricia and my brother-in-law Eric.
Our goal was to retrace the steps of some of our ancestors, and in particular visit some of the places my father, John Spence, recalled from his childhood years – Loftsome Bridge farm, Goole, Swinefleet and Howden.
And so it was the 7 of us set off set off on a trip down Memory Lane. You can watch the video directly below or read about our trip and look at our photos below the video.
Loftsome Bridge Farm
Loftsome Bridge farm was the home to my father’s Uncle John (Blacker) and Aunty Maggie (Brahmhill), the elder brother and sister-in-law of my grandmother Lilian Blacker. The couple moved to the farm in 1931 along with what became 10 children!
It is this branch of the family that keep in touch today and invited our family to their Blacker reunion in 2017, because of my genealogy relationship with Christine Hewitt nee Blacker, daughter of Ernest Blacker, the 6th of the 10 children.
I’m not sure when the house was sold out of the family, but John passed it on to his eldest son Clifford prior to his death in 1962, spending some years in retirement at “The Bungalow” in Wressle. Clifford and his wife Doreen sold the farm some years later and moved to a large modern house which they built at Newsholme near Wressle. With no children, the house was not passed on.
My father remembers visiting the farm on many occasions. He recalls a glass cabinet in the hallway of the main farmhouse, filled with stuffed animals. Presumably these were the spoils of their shooting escapades, which my dad recalls fondly.
He remembers one time, out of many hunting for rabbits, when they were out hunting with their rifles with one of his cousins, his father and uncle. He recalls a close shave, or more accurately when a bullet gave him a new hair parting. They were supposed to walk around with guns ‘cocked’ for safety, to ensure a trigger was not pulled by accident. Whilst walking along, a noise startled the group and a shout went up to alert the group of a target close by. One of the cousins, with gun not cocked but locked & loaded, swivelled round, took aim (presumably) and fired. Over the head of John Spence junior, fortunately missing by a few millimetres, or so it seems. It’s unclear whether the shot hit its intended target, and it’s either left unsaid or forgotten as to who it was exactly that fired the shot. Perhaps this was the only and last time that John fully appreciated his slight lack of height!
John also had happy memories of fishing in a pond, not too far from the farm house. Despite many eyes and a decent stroll, we were unable to locate it.
The river derwent, along with the Ouse, Aire and Trent, is prone to flooding, as I’ve seen many times flying around the miles of flat land between York and Goole. This is not a recent global warming phenomenon, indeed much of the land south of Goole was reclaimed marshlands. Cornelius Vermuyden, a dutch engineer, was employed by King Charles I in 1626 to drain much of the area in order the Charles could avoid disruption to his hunting caused by the regular flooding. This wasn’t completely popular as many locals depended on the marshes for their livelihood, through fishing and peat cutting. This whole area is our family homeland, though our ancestors took off in farming once the marshes were drained, and in river transport once the canal was constructed in the 1800s.
John remembers one occasion when the Derwent rose so high that a boat on the river came over the embankment, floating high in the flood water, and ended up outside the farm house in the adjacent field. It’s not known now whether there was anyone on board, but if there was it would have been quite an experience!
There’s an old photo in my archives, which I copied from Christine Hewitt nee Blacker, which was taken in the courtyard outside the farmhouse.
It shows Auntie Maggie’s father, Luther, and one of Uncle John’s eight children, Mavis, outside the farm in the late 1940s. Luther would die in 1952 and Mavis would have been about 16 in the photo. The man lurking in the doorway may have been John Blacker.
We tried to fund the location the photo was taken, but were not 100% sure. Best guess for anyone returning to the scene in the future – take a look behind the fishpond.
I met Mavis in 2017 at the Blacker reunion. She certainly hadn’t aged as well as her elder sister Mary who I sat next to – she was very sharp and had a great memory for the past. Sadly, she died before I had opportunity to find out more about this side of the family.
Howden Minster
My grandfather, John Spence, a teacher in Goole, was badly injured in the first world war during the battle of Oppy Wood.
My father talks very fondly of his father, a man who cared greatly for the children he taught, often buying chocolate biscuits to handout to the less fortunate ones as prizes, and on occasion taking them on a weekend away with the family. How the world has changed.
Whilst his injury prevented him from taking in part in many of the sports my own father enjoyed, he still enjoyed physical activities. In gardening he excelled, teaching many of the school children and their families how to grow vegetables as part of a wartime scheme in the second war. He was also a member of the Royal Horticultural Society.
In cycling, he would cover reasonable distances pedalling a cycle with just one leg, allowing the injured leg to follow along.
And the reason for this stop in Howden – he was an active bellringer at Howden Minster. A minster is basically a church that served a wider community than a parish – many became Cathedrals in the 19th century, Howden did not. A number of the Blacker family members have married at Howden, including my own 4x great grandparents John Blacker and Mary Durham, who married in the minster in 1786. I’ve not, as yet, found any burials there, but perhaps going back further, I’ll find some of our ancestors at rest in Howden.
Only a century before John & Mary were married in the minster, England suffered it’s Civil War, during which the parliamentarians marched from Hull to attack Wressle Castle, just down the river from Loftsome Bridge. On the way they ransacked Howden Minster, causing significant damage.
Sadly, this was not the first or last time. In 1536, a catholic rebellion against Henry VIII caused major damage and resulting in the bishop retreating to Durham after which the minster fell into decay. And as recently as 1929, in our own grandfather’s time, a group of arsonists set fire to the church and caused major damage, including the loss of some of the many ‘mouseman’ carvings it was locally famous for.
Perhaps this latter event was a catalyst for our grandfather to get involved with the Howden community. My father recalls his father making the 5 mile journey each Tuesday evening to ring the bells, and my father accompanying him on occasion. Today it’s a pretty village, a historic looking minster, and clearly holds a soft spot in my father’s heart.
The Ship Inn, East Cowick
Here is a place my father did not remember. In fact, he’d not heard of it until I did my research and found that his grandfather, John Spence had come from a family of innkeepers and had himself been the landlord of the Ship Inn in East Cowick, a small village between Knottingley, his birth town and Goole, the town he settled in, lived most of his life and died at. It is Goole, of course, where my own father and grandfather were following my great grandfather’s move there in the 1880s. The reason for the move was simply that John had married a Goole girl, Mary Glew, part of the Glew family who were undertakers and later garage owners.
Dobella Farm, Rawcliffe
Down Dobella Lane from Rawcliffe village, close to the M62 and the railway line, sits Dobella Farm. The farm was in the Blacker family from around 1840 to 1915 across 2 generations.
Our grandmother, Nanna (Lilian Spence nee Blacker), used to visit her uncle Robert here. Robert was a big drinker and womaniser, but my grandmother had a soft spot for him. When she and her sisters Clara and Elsie would visit, Robert would take them out for a ride to town on his cart. No sooner than they’d got up the road, the cart would turn into the first inn, and Robert would pop in for a quick drink. He’d return before long and the journey would continue as far as the next public house. And so it continued until Robert was too inebriated to continue. They’d return by supper time, singing songs and giggling on the cart. When they got back to the farm and came in the house, Robert’s housekeeper, a very nice lady, would scold him saying “I’ll be telling master Joseph about this nonsense and the girls won’t be allowed to come any more”. She never did tell, and they continued to visit!
One of the other stories from Dobella Farm, has a far darker and tragic side to it. In 1885, one of the servants, Miss Cooper, was returning to the farm carrying a bucket of potatoes from a nearby field. The field was on the far side of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway line, carrying freight and passengers between Leeds and Goole. The railway line had only been built in 1848, and perhaps people were still not used to its dangers. However, it does seem unlikely that one would not hear a train coming, but for poor Miss Cooper, that may have been the case, or perhaps she became stuck in some way whilst crossing. Whatever the precise cause, that morning in 1885 she was hit by a train and killed. One can only imagine the impact that will have had on the family and the other farm workers at that time.
Swinefleet Cemetery
Our next stop was at Swinefleet, the local village where my grandmother, Nanna, went to school. Her own home, Pasture Farm, was equidistant between Swinefleet and Reedness, but this was the village with the church and therefore the venue for baptisms, marriages and funerals.
My own great grandparents, Joseph & Ada Blacker are buried in Swinefleet as is Robert “Bobbie” Blacker, Nanna’s brother. My father’s Uncle Bobbie is not to be confused with my grandmother’s Uncle Robert, he of the horse & cart pub runs. Bobbie, by contrast, was tea total. My father remembers him fondly, the favourite uncle who would take him for bike rides round the local area.
Pasture Farm, Swinefleet Common
Next stop was the farm where my grandmother, Lilian Spence nee Blacker was born and brought up. After the Joseph & Ada Blacker, Nanna’s parents, died, the farm was inherited by Robert, Uncle Bobbie, the eldest child. So this was the farm my father used to visit on his bike rides with Uncle Bobbie, and he has very fond memories of it. That said, his memory of the actual house is somewhat different, and believes it to have been rebuilt in more recent years by Bobbie’s son who inherited the farm.
River Ouse
Our next stop was a very quick pull onto the river bank of the Ouse, just outside of Old Goole, close to the village of Swinefleet. John used to stop here on his bicycle on rides between home in Goole and Pasture Farm in Swinefleet, and do whatever young kids did by rivers. Fortunately nothing too dangerous or we might not be here to tell the story.
Morley Street, Goole
Our next stop was to Morley Street in Goole, my father’s house where he was born & bred. Sadly, it’s not a house he is proud of, and talks of his father having similar views. Old Goole was a new commercial centre in the 1800s and turn of the 20th century, and much of the housing was put up quickly in the style that rapidly became slums. Outdoor toilets, back-to-back terraces, with a backdrop of industrial docklands.
Despite general working class conditions, the Spence’s and Blackers thrived buying up several houses in the streets of Old Goole (the part of Goole south of the canal), which ironically is newer than the rest of Goole which was built before it.
The house next to John’s no 2, was unsurprisingly number 4, and it was owned by the Blacker family and the house which Joseph & Ada, whose grave we saw in Swinefleet, lived in once they’d moved out of Pasture Farm. It was at number 4 that both Blacker parents died.
My Dad talks much of the property of the Spence’s. His recollection is of the Spences and the Blackers owning many of the houses of Old Goole. I’ve not yet managed to establish the reality through property records, but I do know that grandfather Spence owned 2 houses on Couper Street, parallel to Morley Street, the wider family owned number 2 and 4 Morley Street, and that Uncle George Spence bought 6 houses on Couper Street in 1923.
Couper Farm, Goole
The next street parallel to Morley Street is Couper Street, which nowadays is called Moorlands Road. Much of Couper Street has been demolished, including the houses the Spences owned. But at the bottom of Moorlands Road, the street opens out into fields. Either side of the farm track are allotments, which along with the farm at the bottom of the farm track, was owned for the early part of the 20th century by my great grandfather John Spence.
John and his wife Mary moved to the farm (from the Ship Inn where had lunch) around 1889 and worked the farm as tenant farmers. It seems that it did not become owned by John until after Mary’s death in 1918 – a newspaper article notes the sale of 95 acres of arable and warp farmland, a farm and all outbuildings.
On this trip, we drove to the end of the farm track, but did not drive into the farm. Perhaps a trip for the future?!
Goole Grammar School
Our last stop was outside John’s school, Goole Grammar. Most of his memories here are of playing rugby rather than of academic achievement or other activities. He enjoyed gymnastics, had friends he went cycling with, including a long ride from Goole to Wales, and was scrum half for the school Rugby first team.