Wednesday 28th January 1835

Up at ¼ to 9 – after breakfast read Sismondi till 1 oclock – knitted a little at blanket, had luncheon, put on my bonnet to go out – Washington arrived, had him upstairs, as Dr. Kenny came just at same time Mrs. Lister carried downstairs to him, he felt her pulse, Miss Marian saw him, but did not ask him to see her father, dearest & I did not make our appearance, but he enquired after us – Washington brought me his accounts & I settled with him about the hay he took from Collins at Lidgate, said he had had Mr. D. [Daniel] Carter about purchasing some – thought it ought to be worth £50- had £40. bid for it – I told Washington he should not lose by it – I advanced £140. last February to enable him to take this hay, & he proposed th to pay me back £100, & that I should give him the £40, with the hay gathered from the Croft at Lidgate & lodged in 1833 at Crownest – to this I agreed – W- [Washington] told me Brooke would be glad to have Empsall’s cottage if he would give it up – but if he does leave I have another thing in view – Walked to Bramley Lane, to see wall that Schofield is building for me – gave orders about removal of gate posts – & fixed place for planting of thorns in Hemingway Crofts, & Cliff Hill field back at 20 to 6 – took off my bonnet & went to Mrs. Lister – in a few minutes Mr. Jubb came – dinner – afterwards went to see Mr. Lister – Cordingley not been seen to look so well for a long time, at least this was Matthew’s report whom Miss Marian sent over to enquire after her – A B. not coming tomorrow, but comes on Monday, on saturday Miss Inman is to come & stay till Monday morning as the confinement at school does not agree with her –

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale WYC:1525/7/1/5/1/39

[up at] 8 20/..

[to bed at] 12

no kiss – fine morning tho’ rather hazy and dull – Fahrenheit 43 1/2º at 9 1/2 a.m. – Looked over page 25 to 69 end of De la Beche’s Geological notes – breakfast at 9 3/4 – to 10 3/4 – then out with Charles Howarth doing top cornice for north passage – then with Pickels at the dry bridge – Holt at the drift – came in with him at 11 50/.. and he staid till 1 3/4 – the deed made by Stansfield and Thompson ready for signing Mrs. Machin’s coal 14 dayworks to Mr. Rawson for £200 – but 7 people concerned mother and children, and …… the sadler at North bridge having married the oldest daughter and not being consulted would not let his wife sign and promised to bring all the rest over to sell to Holt – valued at £40 per daywork but Holt thinks he can get them to agree for £300 down – said I should be glad if he could – but he must give £350 rather than miss the bargain –In short he must buy the coal – then speaking of Spiggs, he had told William what I had said about the deed from Wilkinson, and said he (Holt) should be here this morning and expected William Keighley to come here and meet him and bring the deed – said I should now 1st see about settling this matter about the deed – and that I did not care about agreeing with the Spiggs company for that I understood the Keighleys were indemnified by the 2 Clarkes (Tommy and his brother) of whom they bought their share – asked what Holt valued the Spiggs colliery at as it stood – £1000 – very well, said I – we shall see – if I open this Shibden colliery it will be my interest to stop Spiggs altogether – why! yes! said Holt it would – his cousins Holt had agreed to sell their 1/2 share to Stocks; but when I bought Staups, Stocks would have nothing more to do with Spiggs – he would have loosed Northowram coal (Swain’s coal) by Spiggs thro’ Staups – Stocks has only 1/2 of Swain’s coal and the two Clarkes have the other 1/2 – and Stocks will not care much about loosing it till he has it all – Wilson quite fast – cannot stand many months longer – I could loose Stocks (Swaine’s coal) and a few acres of Upper brea top land by my water wheel at Tilly holm stile if I liked – but I loose neither him nor anybody else unless I like – said I had made up my mind to loose my coal and set up the water wheel at Tilly holm style and wished to begin of this job – the sooner the better – the 1st thing to do is to begin at Mytholm damstones, and drive up a drift to Tilly holm stile – this at a rough guess, might be from 600 to 700 yards – say at 4/. a yard if advertised might be done for less – might be done in about 8 months – then would have a walled and arched culvert (3 x 2 feet) from Tilly holm stile to the end of my liberty into the brook – say (said I) about 600 yards, all labour done at 5/. per yard and stones (field wall stones for sides and parpoints for arching) and carting = 7/. per yard – therefore culvert total cost of per yard = 12/. then put down the water wheel – wheel to be 6 feet broad – put the wheel and engine pit just above the gall (that runs thro’ Well royde land etc.) so that there would only be 14 or 15 yards to pump – suppose the wheel and engine pit cost from £300 to £400. the 2 coal-heads or drifts (large enough for hurrying gates – going corves along one and returning corves along the other) will pay for themselves by the coal got out of them – that is, will pay for driving but there will be rails to find – those Hinscliffe had just got me from Farrer are to be £8 per ton, 4 feet long rails, of which one ton will reach 80 yards – Told Holt my plan of sinking another pit 50 or 60 yards on this side of Walker pit – not necessary to sink another pit – Even if I stopt Spiggs colliery, and kept it stopt (for which I should have to raise the water 3 yards) so that Walker pit should be 3 yards deep in water, this would not signify – I could chamber the pit just above the water, or fill it up to that height, if I liked, and cut a gallery or drift from Walker pit thro’ the coal to communicate with the drifts (leaving between the pit and drift a yard’s breadth of coal as a landing or fence to keep the water from the drift) – Holt quite sure I cannot stop Spiggs without letting the water 3 yards deep into Walker pit bottom – the dead water stands – that is the water rises, as it is, as high up on the coal as the wall at the head of the clough in Trough of Bolland wood – I smiled and said I thought Hinscliffe would have no objection to my stopping Spiggs colliery – which Holt seemed to agree in – I think Hinscliffe is afraid of his trespass being discovered when Walker pit is bottomed – we shall have to phey about 180 yards along the face of the coal in the old works, at 3/. a yard for this gate will be good and then about 50 yards forward thro’ coal and then Holt thinks we shall come at the trespass – but the coal will pay when we get to it – Holt staid till 1 3/4 – then had Washington upstairs in the blue room, Dr. Kenny being below at the same time     told Washington to look after the tumbled down wall at Staups – Adney agreed to excuse him £40 of the £140 he was to pay her for the Lidgate hay, so that there is only a hundred to deduct from the £500 to be paid for his field adjoining Hardcastle’s – Glad to avoid Dr. Kenny so kept out of the way (in my study) – Adney and I off at 2 3/4 along the walk and the Leeds and Whitehall road to her fields in Bramley Lane where Robert Scholefield is walling – some time there, and while Adney went in to Mrs. Draper’s I stood talking to Flather – would not tell me exactly what he sold his farm for to Joshua Keighley, but said he had altogether made what I bade him, or rather the sum I named to him, i.e. £800; for he had cut down the wood, therefore, wood = £200 for William Keighley told me his brother gave £600 – Flather would not tell me what he sold the farm for for fear Joshua Keighley should be vexed at him for perhaps I was about making a bargain with Joshua Keighley – no! said I, I am not   In returning Adney and I went into the Cliff land, to set out holes to be made for thorns to mark the pump and trough – home (all along by the old Wakefield road) at 5 10/.. – some while with my father and Marian – Letter left by someone from Mr. W. Browne surveyor of taxes, asking if I had not a gamekeeper (Joseph Pickells) and a pointer dog – dinner at 6 1/2 – coffee – with my father and Marian 1/2 hour till 8 – I then had Eliza Howarth my sister’s gauche housemaid aetatis 17 into the little dining room for a little good advice for near 1/2 hour – mercy upon us, what a girl for housemaid here! then talked to Adney and wrote the journal of today – 1/4 hour with my aunt till 10 1/4 – she had Mr – Jubb 1/2 hour this evening between 6 and 7 – fine day Fahrenheit 43 1/2º at 10 20/.. p.m. –

[In margin:]

Mrs. Machin’s coal

Holt’s valuation of Spiggs colliery

I can loose Stocks’s Northowram coal by Tilly holm water wheel

Estimate of expense of loosing coal at Tilly holm stile

cost of rails etc.

where the dead water now stands

distance to phey and price 

Flather’s farm

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale SH:7/ML/E/17/0155 & SH:7/ML/E/17/0156