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I visited Haggate for the 2nd time yesterday. I had a spare afternoon and fancied filling it with the possibility of a slightly better coordinated journey and, hopefully, finding the Church that my ancestors had used. I was also somewhat fired up with the thought of giving something 'back' to this wonderful Forum by hopefully getting some photos of graves that might have been missed due to difficulty in the past. However, I wasn't quite prepared for the wilderness that consists of Halifax Road Chapel!
First of all I had decided to drive past the site and explore some of the Eastern area of Haggate - mainly 'cos I wanted to see Lane Bottom, where Kippaxes past have dwelt. No idea really where to begin with trying to find ancestral pads in Lane Bottom, but I was most surprised to find Hill Lane Chapel which I had - 'til yesterday - assumed was one and the same as the 'old' Halifax Road Chapel!
An awful lot of Nuttalls in Hill Lane. I have an interest in this line as my GG Grandmother Sarah K who left Briercliffe for Holmfirth was born of Kippax and Nuttall. Never been able to place her mother, Ann Nuttall, into any Nuttall tree though, although I will keep trying! At first glance, I also failed to have found any of 'my' Kippaxes at Hill Lane, but I'll attempt to match up the stones with my tree later.
Having finished my photographing at Hill Lane, I headed back to Haggate which I had explored on an earlier visit - apart from the land behind the fence. I had expected there to be a handful of graves behind the fence and then, presumably, easy sighting of the remains of the old church - the church that my ancestors had attended. Oh, how wrong I was!
Within a few feet I'd come close to falling down a seemingly bottomless grave, which really gave me the willies! Eventually I slowly - oh so slowly! - edged around the corner and was quite stunned by the overgrowth and size of the area of Halifax Road's burial ground. I had, as I said, endeavoured to attempt to get to as many of the headstones as I could, for there really is no excuse for not attempting to view all of the primary sources that are at one’s disposal when genealogising. Especially when they’re all within a few dozen feet of you!
Came across the family grave of James and Mary Kippax, and then that of the young children of Robert and Ann who I again thought were of my direct line, but of course, they sadly were not. Found a very secreted grave which I’d noticed on this website before – that of Sarah, wife of Benjamin K, and dug a little deeper to make sure I had the date correct – May 16th 1853, aged 57. Very much an ‘old’ Kippax then, and Benjamin is the 2nd cousin of ‘my’ Sarah’s father, but still quite distant. I dug further and further into the undergrowth and found a few graves that possibly hadn’t been disturbed in some time, so I snapped them too – James Watson, Sarah White(head?), John Edward Jones, William Simpson, Richard Sanderson, and finally the rather exciting Paul and Phoebe Nuttall (what modern names!) who are of the same era as my Ann Nuttall. After this, I had a look around the two entrances to the old churchyard. One of them was via the road, and came up by a fairly steep set of steps. The path could just about be made out, when one felt along the side of it with one’s hands. The other entrance was up a path to the left of this main path. A large wall on the left of this 2nd path (and continues up the left hand side of the main path). I had thought at one point that this might be the remains of the old church, but of course it isn’t. This left the assumption that the church must be the part to the right of the main (road) path. The bit without gravestones that was entirely covered in undergrowth. I started to make my way in and found myself on a series of fairly narrow (just wide enough for two feet) stone slabs. I wondered whether this was church foundations (too smooth) or a path (too narrow) and figured that it was probably a wall to one side of a path. I realised this almost too late as, at one point, I almost fell into the brambles below. Gradually my way forehead became more and more tricky and, cut rather to shreds (despite my sensible dress for the day) I had to retreat.
I’m quite sad that I wasn’t able to access any of the site of the old church at all, but I’m fairly sure I know where it is. Maybe some thick gardening gloves and secateurs might help at some point? I’d also dearly love to make sure that every grave in that place has been transcribed, as it can’t be many more years before they’re all buried deep underneath the nature that’s fast taking them over.
I’d like to send my photos of my visits to the three cemeteries available to the website. To whom should they be sent? Hopefully at least one of them might be of some use to someone out there!
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