"Mills and Milling" by Helen Hoult and Richard Green of the Holgate Windmill Preservation Society. Helen and Richard explained the Society was formed in November 2001 and the society has raised almost £400,000 towards the restoration of Holgate windmill in York. Having almost completed the restoration, the society is now in a process of transition from 'preservation' to 'operation' of the mill. They explained the restoration process, the mechanics of the working mill, how it is open to visitor groups and how it won the award of 'Roundabout of the Year'!
Books, cards and flour were brought for purchase and a very successful night in the Arts Centre Studio with good attendance.

East Riding emigration was the topic for the talk and was held in Melbourne Methodist Church and was given by Susan Butler of Howdenshire History. Susan gave a few examples from the area on Emigration to Australia and Canada. She read the letters of correspondence between family members in the East Riding and those who had emigrated to Canada. Some were from her home village of Eastrington about which Susan has written an excellent book. A good attendance enjoyed the evening in an excellent venue for the event. An article on Emigration appeared in the Pocklington Post for 24th October 2013

An evening of discussion and study on the Pocklington Parish Registers started our winter programme. The workshop got underway with a presentation by Andrew Sefton who looked at the location of the records, availability of records on the internet, and an examination of our own group resources. Volunteers for transcription were asked for and a thorough discussion took place on whether this would or not be worthwhile to do as commercial organisations are already scanning the registers to put them on line.

Thanks to Steven Oliver of the Fangfoss and Bolton Local history group, and a fine evening of weather. We were given the benefit of Steven's expertise when we visited St. Martin's church in Fangfoss, past the old Chapels, and then into Bolton to view the site of the Chantry Chapel and the old Manor house, which were excavated and reported some years ago. A fine display of the work of the group in Bolton Chapel was accompanied by refreshments. The walk back to Fangfoss concluded with a nice refreshing pint in the Carpenters Arms.

The last talk of the season was held in the Yorkshire Wolds Heritage Centre at St James Church, Warter and had an attendance of over 100 people! It was given by Peter Smith of the Snape Local History Group. Peter was born in Warter where his father was assistant estate manager for nearly 40 years. He gave an excellent talk on the history of the Priory in two parts. The first half covered the original priory founded by Augustinian monks in the 12th century and destroyed in 1536 in the reformation. Part two used some evocative old photographs of the later Victorian building also named Warter Priory and vastly extended and improved by the Wilson family into one of the most impressive East Riding buildings with over 100 rooms and extensive gardens. Peter's personal photographs of the destruction of the priory in the 1970's were particularly distressing, but an important historical record.

A four hundred year old piece of Pocklington's history was handed over to the Pocklington & District Local History Group by local resident, Brian Penter, at the recent Flying Man Festival in All Saints. After the Civil War in 1642 there was severe inflation in England, and small change was in desperately short supply. With the government unable or unwilling to do anything about the problem, a number of larger tradesmen created their own 'trade tokens' - small denomination coins that were used for local everyday transactions. Mr Penter handed over to the group archivist Andrew Sefton an example of one such local token produced by leading Pocklington citizen, Barney Buttery, in 1666. Buttery was a wealthy Pocklington businessman and maltster who lived in one of the town's biggest houses up until his death in 1669. The copper alloy trade token has 'Barney Buttery, His Half Peny' on the obverse side, with a motif of three interlaced flowers and 'BB, 1666 Of Pocklington' on the reverse. The token came into Mr Penter's possession when it was put into a collection box in the 1970s, and after taking care of it for over 30 years he has now decided to donate it to the history group's archive. The Pocklington & District Local History Group is always willing to give advice and support to anyone who wants to preserve a part of the town's history. However, it is just as keen to record any local items or features for the group's digital archive by photographing or scanning them and returning them safely to their owners.

Anyone willing to have a Pocklington artefact or photograph copied for posterity should contact the history group.

Good attendance considering the weather

Jumps and rides in the Pavement

The Parish Record entry for the flying man

The history group display

Not a flying man but a flying girl!

A wet day for climbing a tower!

East Yorkshire Local History Society visited Pocklington and were given a tour of the town by the Pocklington and District Local History Group. Watson's sundial, the school, Pocklington Arts Centre (the Oak House), the Feathers, the course of the beck and a visit to Pocklington Church was the itinery for the visit. Picture right in Railway Street.

 

David Rumbelow gives a guided tour of the church.

The visit finished with tea and cake in the Old Court House, and a vote of thanks by the visitors.

Jo Green gave a summary of a very busy and successful year for the group, followed by the treasurers report from Peter Green showing a healthy closing balance. Andrew Sefton administered the election of chair in the absence of President Roger Bellingham. Jo Green was re-elected and presided over re-election of the existing committee. One of the committee has resigned (Heidi Woodhouse). Election of two new committee members took place, they were Jane Henley and David West. The mini-talks then commenced with Phil Gilbank who tried to untangle the confusion over the history of the Pocklington Manors, Jim Ainscough (pictured right) gave a fascinating short account of the life of George Harsh, the American murderer sentenced to the electric chair, who survived to serve as a RCAF tail gunner and claimed he met Churchill at Pocklington. Andrew Sefton again concluded the meeting with a slide show of interesting photographs donated in the last year. 2013/14 Committee: Chair & Secretary– Jo Green, Treasurer – Peter Green, Archivist/Webmaster – Andrew Sefton, Committee – Phil Gilbank, Dennis Moor, Paul Jennings, David Rumbelow, Chris Bond, Jane Henley (representing the villages) and David West. Roger Bellingham is Honorary President.

Another superbly attended evening. Old films are a reliable guarantee of good attendance. The evening started with a film taken by Robert Sefton in and around Bishop Wilton in 1959/1960. Shots were shown of the Sefton family, harvesting on their farm, Bishop Wilton Show, Bishop Wilton Sunday School outing to Scarborough, shots from the top of Pocklington Church, Leeds Railway station and the Yorkshire Show.

This was followed by a series of films from Yorkshire Film Archive of soldiers gathering in York prior to the first war, egg collection, Market Weighton Station, Pocklington Penny Arcade. Everyone enjoyed the evening and the feedback has been very positive.

Angie Edwards kindly set out, in the school's library, artifacts, documents and photographs from the school's archive of memorabilia. They included the school seal (shown here) which dates from the 16th c., old record books, issues from the school magazine 'The old Pocklingtonian', the old Cocking bell from the 17th c., and documents linked to William Wilberforce who attended the school. Our thanks go to Angie and the school for their hospitality in providing a most interesting evening for our group.

Ken Deacon is the acknowledged expert on Howden's Airship Station, and has written books on the subject. Ken gave a very interesting illustrated talk on the history of airship station with illustrations of the layout of the site which had living quarters, large hangers and even it's own railway line. It was the location for the manufacture of the R100 airship designed by Sir Barnes Wallis. The airship station closed in 1930, and today there is little evidence left of the airship activities that once took place there.