Old Photos

View from the Vicarage in 1864

This photo was emailed to us by Theo Pardoen from The Netherlands. It is an intriguing portrayal of Rathmell as it looked in Victorian times.
Thank you very much to Theo for the picture and for his email which is included below.

Dear editors of the Rathmell Village website, A short while ago I came into the possession of an old photo, which you can find attached and in which the village of Rathmell can be seen. I thought you might be interested.
The photo was taken in 1864/1865 in the garden of the parsonage in Rathmell. It shows the village in the background. On the foreground there is a group of people with the incumbent of Rathmell at the time in the centre. He was Abel Chapman. He is shown together with his late wife’s sister Sarah Hubbersty. (in black). The other people on the photo are relatives of mine. They are members of the West family, who originate from Broad Chalke near Salisbury, where Abel Chapman was stationed before he came to Rathmell. After their parents both died in a short space of time the two sisters (both dressed in white: Hephzibah and Ann West) followed Abel Chapman to Rathmell in 1857. Other family members, such as their brother James (on the left) and their niece Susan (on the right) regularly visited Rathmell.
Abel Chapman died about a year after the photo was taken in October 1866 and afterwards my family members moved on.
Hope you enjoy the photo. Kind regards,
Theo Pardoen (the Netherlands)

Photos received in May 2021 from Rob Salter

During the Coronavirus pandemic in 2021, Rob Salter kindly sent us four postcard photos of Rathmell, saved by his Great Grandmother – Elizabeth Jane Tomlinson (1835-1922, and born in Rathmell).

We’ll wait for analysis from local historians of memorials / houses / dress styles before speculating when each of these might have been taken:

Holy Trinity Church in Rathmell, seen from somewhere around the current Reading Room car park. And with a flourishing tree that’s now a stump next to the war memorial

we asked CSI Rathmell to “enhance” the portion of the photo that had people in it, to aid dating-by-hem-length-and-hat-style

can this be before the Reading Room was built? Certainly (I’d say, but I’m an offcumden) pre-WWI

Cross Keys – we had a pub, and we let it go. As we stand on the brink of (potentially) losing even more of our village amenities, let the Cross Keys be a warning…

the former vicarage, now Rathmell Grange, on Hesley Lane

We are delighted to have received the following four photos from the ‘Ben McKenzie Collection’. They relate to a Thomas Holmes who died in Gisburn in 1823 and had an estate/house called Hannover in the Rathmell area. If anyone has any information about the scenes or the people in the photos please let us know.

Ben MacKenzie is a local amateur historian and has been collecting Dales postcards/photographs & ephemera for many years. The photos date from the beginning of the previous century and the people in them reflect that, but the scenes will be familiar to 21st century inhabitants of Rathmell.

This is a view of the interior of Rathmell Church taken in the first decade of the 20th Century.

This photo was taken in 1908 by Hunt Brothers of Settle.It shows the widening of Rathmell Brow. Message on the back reads “The widening of Rathmell Brow 1908. Great Uncle Willie & Father.”

This photo was also taken by Hunt Brothers of Settle & shows the winners of a fancy dress competition in 1912. On the back the message reads “With the Seasons Greetings from Cis & Dora”. It has been annotated later with “Nurse Smith as Scotch Lass, Cissie as Winter & Dora the Quaker Girl.” At the bottom of the photo it says Mittons Cross Keys in the same hand.