Hallowe'en

Time for tales of the supernatural and the ghostly.

Dragons, to begin with.  There was a dragon at Sexhow - and a dragon at Whorl Hill near Swainby.

View of Whorl Hill

(Or possibly, the same dragon, with two lairs).

These frightful Worms were a menace and a dread to the people.  They suffered terribly from the depredations of the beasts, hoping always to be rescued by some gallant knight in shining armour.

When at last the Worm of Sexhow was slain, the happy villagers carried its pelt to the parish church in Hutton Rudby, and hung it in triumph against the wall, where it remained for many long years ...

And now the tale of Awd Nan of Sexhow - a suitably frightful story for Hallowe'en.

Awd Nan had been the village witch.  One night, her ghost appeared to a Sexhow farmer to tell him the whereabouts of some buried treasure.  The silver he was to keep for himself, but the gold must be given to Awd Nan's niece, who lived in Stokesley.  At the end of a year, the ghost warned him, she would be back to see what he had done.  But the foolish man kept both the gold and the silver.  At last Awd Nan reappeared to him and jumped up behind him on his horse at Stokesley.  Seizing him by the throat, she gripped him tighter and tighter until he fell dead at his own door.

And then there's the White Lady of Skutterskelfe (though she might be just the mist over the beck) and some speak of the Grey Lady of Drumrauch, though little is known about her.  I sometimes wonder if they were just ways of terrifying the young from straying far from the village. 

Branwell Brontë’s ‘honest and kindly friend’: Dr John Crosby of Great Ouseburn

An article of particular interest to Brontë enthusiasts:

The experiences of Anne and Branwell Brontë in the household of the Reverend Edmund Robinson of Thorp Green near York had significant and dramatic consequences for them both.

Branwell never worked again after his sudden dismissal as tutor to young Edmund Robinson in June 1845; it precipitated the self-destructive decline that ended in his death in September 1848.  Anne’s novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall derive much material from her five years as governess to the Robinsons’ daughters and from the painful three years at Haworth Parsonage during which Branwell descended into drunkenness, irreligion and despair.

The cause of Branwell’s dismissal has long been a subject of debate, while in recent years there has been increasing interest in Anne and appreciation of her work. The lack of information about their time at Thorp Green has therefore been most unfortunate; the following account of Branwell’s ‘honest and kindly friend’ [1]  Dr John Crosby and his friends and neighbours, whose social life Branwell probably shared, may therefore be appreciated.

Industrial Hutton Rudby

Rudby corn mill, Hutton linen mill & the church

More photographs from the History Society's collection:-


The Rudby corn mill is in the foreground of this picture, and beyond lie the buildings of the Hutton sailcloth mill.

Hutton sailcloth mill

The sailcloth mill seen from across the river Leven.

The mill with the church beyond

The Bathurst Charity School can be seen to the left of the church.

Bleach works 1877

The bleach works were on the Hutton side of the river - behind them, on the Rudby side, can be seen Spout Bank, which was said to provide a supply of good water that did not run dry in summer.

Hutton Rudby in old photographs

East Side 1879

This photograph of East Side was taken the year after the trees were planted on the Green - they were protected from livestock with iron guards.

To the right of the picture can be seen Hutton House - the tower had not yet been built.  The tree guard nearest to the photographer masks the point where Barkers Row ends - the houses in the centre of the picture are set back from the Row.  The pump has not yet been installed.

East Side in the early 1900s

This photograph shows the entrance to the Wheatsheaf Inn was via the archway, which led through to stabling and a cottage.

Hutton House

Hutton House now has its tower, and there are railings at the front of Barkers Row.

The pump on the Green c1905

Geese gathering round the pump and children playing on the Green ...

A photograph of Enterpen in quieter times, looking in the direction of the Green.

On the left can be seen a blacksmith's shop and the Station Hotel.  The smithy stood at the junction with Doctors Lane.

Hutton Rudby ornament

The church, the plough, the loom.
(Height: 4.5 cms)

Allan Bowes Wilson of Hutton Rudby & the artist Ralph Hedley

There is an interesting and close link between the Wilson family, who owned the Hutton Rudby sailcloth mill,

Hutton Mill, seen from the Rudby side of the river

and the Newcastle painter and artist, Ralph Hedley (1848-1913), many of whose paintings can be seen in the Laing Gallery.     

For years Hedley was out of fashion and his paintings were destroyed or thrown away – but more recently they have come back into favour as a record of ordinary life in the North East in the late 19th century.

George Wilson, founder of the family linen business at Hutton Rudby, had four sons and one daughter.

The eldest, James Alder Wilson, became Rector of Crathorne.  The youngest, John George Wilson, after excelling as an athlete at school and at Oxford, became a solicitor in Durham.  He inherited Staindrop Hall, on the condition that the family surname was changed to Luxmoore.  Allan Bowes Wilson and Thomas Bowes Wilson, the second and third sons, took over the sailcloth manufactury on their father’s death.

Allan Bowes Wilson, c1903

Thomas married and lived at Enterpen Hall.

Allan – though gossip has it that he kept a mistress in the village – never married and lived with his unmarried sister Annie in Hutton House, on the Green.

John George Wilson (1849-c1930) was Ralph Hedley’s solicitor, friend and patron.  He was a keen buyer of Hedley’s paintings and carved furniture and recommended the artist to friends.

Ralph Hedley lived in Newcastle from the age of two, but he had been born at Gilling West near Richmond and he returned to the North Riding as often as he could – Runswick Bay was a favourite destination.  He specialised in scenes of ordinary working life, using his sketchbook and making notes in preparing his paintings, and also even taking photographs.

Allan Bowes Wilson (c1839-1932) also collected Hedley’s work.

He commissioned Hedley to paint the Bilsdale Hunt, arranging with him by letter to meet several of the huntsmen at Spout House, Bilsdale. I don’t know how the picture came to be used as an advertisement for Bovril, but I believe the artist wasn’t very happy.

'Counting the Bag'

The nearby Sun Inn was also the setting for Hedley’s 'Counting the Bag' which was painted in 1902 and bought by Allan Bowes Wilson.

Another of Hedley’s works, ‘The Brickmakers’, was painted somewhere near Hutton Rudby:

Sketch for 'The Brickmakers'

John Millard’s book ‘Ralph Hedley: Tyneside Painter’ is only available second hand at the moment, so I hope he'll forgive me including the sketch for ‘The Brickmakers’ which features as an illustration in his book.

It has been suggested that the scene depicted is somewhere near Faceby Manor, but perhaps one of you will have a better idea?


Many thanks to Clodagh Brown, great-granddaughter of Ralph Hedley, who contacted me to tell me of this fascinating link and for all her information.

For more on the Wilson family, see this blogpost on James Wilson, the founder of their fortunes.

The Roman Catholic population of Hutton Rudby, c1780 to 1830

After the Reformation, the mediaeval frescoes in Hutton Rudby parish church were whitewashed over and a wealthy parishioner left money in his Will for a pulpit to be installed, in accordance with the new Protestant emphasis on preaching.

Even so, in the late 16th century, Rudby was still known as one of the local centres of Catholicism and we know of two prominent Catholics in the parish: Sir John Ingilby and the Venerable Mary Ward.

Sir John Ingilby of Lawkland owned the manor of Rudby.  He was prosecuted for recusancy in 1604.  A labourer from Crathorne destroyed a seat in a close in Rudby which belonged to Sir John “on which the said John, an old man and lame, was wont to rest himself”. 

Mary Ward (1585-1645) lived in quietly in Rudby parish near the end of her life, after her many hard years of journeying in Europe and her struggle to found the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In 1642, during the Civil Wars, she came back to her native Yorkshire and took refuge at Hutton Rudby with her Ingilby relatives.  During her time there, Mary prayed at the shrine of Our Lady at Mount Grace.

I think we can assume that she stayed in the old manor house of Rudby, which stood beside the river Leven.  (There is nothing of it to be seen today - only a field, across the road from the church).  In this obscure corner of the Ingilby estates it seems very unlikely that the family maintained another house that could be suitable for sheltering an elderly and infirm woman and her companions.

Hutton Rudby was, in those days, a very remote place and in early 1643 Mary decided that she must move to Heworth near York, in order to be in communication with friends and supporters.  She died there on 30 January 1645.  She was the foundress of the Bar Convent, York.

Apart from Sir John and Mary Ward, we know very little of Catholics living in the village - until the baptismal registers for St Mary's in Crathorne provide us with names for the period c1780 to 1830.