Mince Pie Walk

1 December 2013 — Leader - Alan King
 JOURNAL 
 2014 
 North Craven 
 Heritage Trust 

We gathered in Greenfoot Car Park in Settle for a stroll around part of Settle. Alan introduced his walk by saying that archaeologist and historian Dr Arthur Raistrick left his collection of papers to the University of Bradford when he died, but as it happens it was made known that the papers could be taken away by the first-comer. Thus it was that the Curator at Ironbridge Museum associated with Birmingham University drove a van north and collected 28 tea-chests of original historical documents relating to our region. Some were passed on to the Ashmolean Museum in Cambridge. Alan searched for a 1765 sketch map of Settle in the papers at the museum at Ironbridge in vain but found what he was looking for on the wall of the Abraham Darby House there. He copied by hand what he could see of the map in a rather restricted space. This is the Lettsom map discussed in the NCHT Journal of 2005.

Alan used the map to walk from the car park past the Folly and up Victoria Street back to Upper Settle and his home on the Green. He remarked on the name of Liverpool House associated with the proposed development of a canal basin for a connection to the Leeds-Liverpool canal. The basin would have been where the car park is now and on Lettsom’s map, Paley’s Puddle, just at the corner of Chapel St and Cheapside.

He spoke about some of the old houses on Victoria St and their histories, particularly noting the many changes in the buildings carried out in earlier times. At Tanner House on the Green, we looked at the plan of the house and outbuildings and site of the tannery followed by inspection of the tan-pits behind the house.

Mince pies followed at the nearby home of Hilary and David Holdsworth to finish a pleasant and informative afternoon.

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