Gill(Ghyll)House(Hall)Farm 1813-1830

[CaroleT]

I may have asked about this place in the old website but I have a bit more information now. I am trying to find out about any associations for the Watson family with Gill House in the early 19th century. I have Thomas & Margaret(nee Simpson)WATSON from the Newsholme, Gisburn area with possibly 7 children - James; Thomas; Isabella; Ellen; Solomon; Margaret & Alice. I think they must have lived there around 1813-30.
Margaret, Alice and Ellen have illegitimate children whilst at Gill House dating between 1813 and 1830 according to church registers. Isabella marries John Taylor and lives at Stony Flatts nearby. Ellen's paramour is Robert Brown(e) of Nuttercotes. Margaret's is Robert Nutter of Gill. Alice's is John Waterworth, horse dealer.

I would like to find out more about the history of Gill House and it's past occupants. Was it a tenanted property? Who was the owner at that time? Did more than one family live there - i.e were there associated cottages? Was it just a farm or were there other activities there - apart from the fathering of illegitimate children?! Are there any photographs? etc etc.

Hope someone can help.
CaroleT

[elise]

Listed building recently refurbished
http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk ... lancashire

[Stanley]

It's a long time since we looked at Gill Hall on Gill Brow as part of the investigation of vernacular architecture when I was at Pendle Heritage. To be honest, I wouldn't have recognised it from that photograph, it was very different then. It had all the signs of being a rebuild of a timber hall but we never did a full investigation. It's certainly an important site and I've always felt that the area has more to it than meets they eye. It was no accident that the new church was built nearby and it wouldn't surprise me if it was an old religious or ritual site. The pictures I did then in about 1983 are all in the archive at PH. Being an old fart I always use the archaic spelling of 'Gill' but you can find examples in the old documents of 'Ghyll' as well.
Here's what I have in the index for it:

Gill. 1770 land tax, John Cockshott £1-18-0
John Edmondson named as elector of Barlick in 1835/1837/1841. Address Gill Hall.
1841 census. Gill Hall. William Edmondson, 70, independent. John Harrison,55 agricultural labourer. ? Harrison wife , 50. James Harrison 15 cotton weaver. Elias Harrison 14 cotton weaver. Christopher Harrison 13 cotton weaver.
Given as address of H William Edmondson elector of Coates in 1947.
Barrett Directory of 1896 reports Edward Aldersley as farmer at Gill.
In 1851 census given as the address of William and John Green, coal merchants.
Owen Duxbury told me that he thought Reginald Nutter owned the farm in the 1950s because he saw plans and accounts for work done there when he was researching the Duxbury family.

I've done a search and can't find the Watson index on the site so I'll put it up as a separate topic.

[CaroleT]

Thank-you for the photo, Elise. It doesn't look as if there were ancillary cottages on the site, so presumably my Watson's lived in the house. Thanks also Stanley. My Watsons must have been there between the Cockshotts & the Edmondsons. Ellen Watson, my Grt Grt Grandmother was in Little Marsden by 1841. I will have to go to Barnoldswick Library to see if I can glean anything about the years 1813-30 in the church registers. Does Barnoldswick have a local history society? Is Dennis Cairns still around?
Regards
Carole

[David Whipp]

Does Barnoldswick have a local history society? Is Dennis Cairns still around?

Dennis is still pretty active; he's publishing a book this year.

David Steele (Sycamore Way) chairs the History Society I think.

[elise]

Extracts from TRANSCRIPT of Gill parish registers:

1813 Robert Eastwood s.o. George and Nancy of Gill
1815 Isabel Eastwood d.o. George and Nancy of Gill
1817 Turner Watson s.o. Alice of Gill
1826 Margaret Watson d.o. Margaret of Gill House
1827 Isabella Watson d.o. Ellen of Gill House
1830 Thomas Watson s.o. Ellen of Gill House
1833 John Hartley Sutcliffe s.o. Caleb and Ann of Gill House
1835 Eleanor Sutcliffe d.o. Caleb and Ann of Gill House

[CaroleT]

Thank-you David. Elise, you have filled in a few gaps but I am puzzled by the Baptism of Isabella, d. of Ellen. I knew Ellen had a daughter Isabella, named after her sister, but this one was baptised at St.Paul's , Little Marsden on 30/07/1837 and the dates in subsequent censuses confirm the approx. age. So the Isabella you quote must be an earlier child who died. Do your transcripts show a death of an Isabella Watson between 1827 and 1837 ? And is Gill the same as Gill House or are there nearby cottages that might fit the description?
Regards
Carole

[Stanley]

Don't discount outbuildings at Gill. They were there in the 1980s when I saw it and here's the 1950 revision of the 25" OS map.

[elise]

TRANSCRIPT Burial at Gill church, Barnoldswick.
1831 Isabella Watson of Cotes

[elise]

Window tax 1770 Barnoldswick
John Cockshott for Gill paid 3s 0d for 6 windows

[Wendyf]

If you look at the photograph of the gable end of the house on the Listed Buildings website Here there appears to be a blocked up fireplace and a doorway, so there may have been more to the building at one time.

[elise]

Two dwellings.
1841 census Gill Hall

859 EDMONDSON, William M 70 1771 Ind

860 HARRISON, John M 55 1786 Ag Lab
860 HARRISON, Sarah F 50 1791
860 HARRISON, James M 15 1826
860 HARRISON, Ellias M 14 1827
860 HARRISON, Christopher M 13 1828
860 HARRISON, Precilla F 12 1829


Bottom left of gable end is an original looking door

[CaroleT]

Thank-you Stanley, Wendy & Elise. It is obviously a building with a complicated historical and architectural past. What a pity there are no paintings or sketches of it around 1800. The Watson family were definitely in Newsholme near Gisburn around the turn of the 18th & 19th centuries and then disappeared from there so I am surmising they went to Barnoldwick. Then I think Thomas the father ended up in Carleton. I don't know what his occupation was but I am wondering if it was something to do with quarrying as there was a quarry at Newsholme and from Stanley's map I see there is a quarry at Gill Rock which I think was active at that time.

Elise - I think the Isabella burial may have been Ellen's child - what a pity there is no mention of age. She may have been 4 or 5. Is Cotes an alternative name for the area of Gill House or does it imply another place? Also, Elise, is the source of your information a transcript of the actual church register or from the Bishop's transcript? If you know it would help me, as I could look at the other to see if there is extra information. The baptisms that I have quoted were from the ancestry.co.uk site at the weekend when it was free and I omitted to check the source but they gave more information than the transcript that you have i.e the reputed fathers.

Carole

[elise]

I have been in this house many years ago, the central chimney stack is from a wonderful very large ingle nook fireplace.
I think you will find the building in 1800 would be very much the same as the black and white photo above.
Cotes is an area half a mile nearer to Barnoldswick from Gill Hall, in a census of 1757 there were twelve families in Cotes.
My transcripts are a copy of the ones in the safe at Gill church, copies of the registers made by a succession of incumbents, the originals are in Preston record office.

[plaques]

Hope you don't mind Wendy but I've copied your picture on again to make it easier to understand which end we are talking about.

[Wendyf]

Just had a peep at the original registers on Ancestry -
Isabella was baptised June 17th 1827, daughter of Ellen Watson and John Peel of Marton.
The burial record on January 14th 1831 states that Isabella is 3 years old.

[CaroleT]

Thanks for that Wendy. Looks like my Great Great Grandmother had a lot of illicit relationships! My line, if you can believe the register, is from Robert Brown (at Nuttercotes in 1829) - that's going to be difficult to trace further back. Why can't he have had an unusual name?

Carole

[Stanley]

You're right about the difficulty of interpreting these buildings. One clue is the lack of order and symmetry in window and door openings, almost certainly an indicator of radical internal alterations. The massive central fireplace pile can also be a clue. These are very often the remnant of a timber hall and were reused when the building was rebuilt. If central they often have a domestic cooking fire on the backside and even, as in the case of Hey Farm, a beehive oven. Remember that until the end of the 16th century building in stone was almost exclusively the prerogative of Royalty, the church and fortification. It was the Dissolution in the mid 16th century that released masons onto the general market and before this virtually all vernacular buildings were timber halls. In these, the only stone construction was the fire stack and it was often massive and retained in any rebuilding in stone. Other clues can be the roof timbers and structural timber embedded in the new walls, they were often retained from the old building. In this area the rebuilding seems to have started around 1650 and by the 18th century new builds were often 'polite' in that they exhibited some symmetry in the placing of windows and doors. There are examples of houses in Barlick which retain features that almost certainly pre-date 1650. For instance I found a wooden mullion window in what to all appearances is an 18th century house on Wapping. So if you can date something like the fire stack before 1650 you are almost certainly looking at a rebuilt timber house. The best book on this is Brunskill, 'Vernacular Architecture' which I think is still in print. I remember that 35 years ago my conclusion was that Gill Hall was almost certainly a rebuilt timber house but it would take a deep investigation to prove it.

[Wendyf]

I came across a page in the registers which listed the pew allocations in the church in 1817 (I think, it's a bit unclear). Gill has 2 pews, numbers 32 & 36, which suggests that there were 2 dwellings at that time.
Let me know if I can look anything else up for you on Ancestry, Carole.

[David Whipp]

Just a word about Cotes.

I assume this is the civil parish latterly known as Coates. This was a parish in its own right until it was incorporated into the township of Barnoldswick in the early 20th century.

[Stanley]

Here's what Serlo de Percy, one of the lay brothers who came to Barlick in 1147 said.... "Moreover there was a church at Barnoldswick , very ancient and founded long before, with four parochial vills, to wit Marton and another Marton, Bracewell and Stock besides the vill of Barnoldswick and two small vills appertaining, Elfwynetrop to wit, and Brogden of which the said monks were by this time in possession, after the removal of the inhabitants."
Elfwynetrop has always intrigued me. The nearest modern equivalent is Ellenthorpe near Gisburn and I have always suspected that this was what we now know as Coates. The name is never repeated as far as I know and Coates was certainly a vill of Barnoldswick at the same time.

[elise]

http://oneguyfrombarlick.co.uk/gallery/ ... ge_id=4770

http://oneguyfrombarlick.co.uk/gallery/ ... ge_id=4768

Does indeed look as if there has been more to this building at one time and the original quoins reused

[CaroleT]

Thanks everyone for all the information and photographs of Gill House. I will have to make a trip to Barnoldswick Library to see what I can find about the Gill House area in the early 19th century and any mentions of the Watson family and Robert Brown. I have a record of the 1841 census of a Robert Brown living with the Clapham family (lock-keeper) at Greenberfield Locks with a wife, Mary and I know there was a family of Browns with, amongst others, a son, Robert born 1790 in Thornton parish from the Thornton parish registers. I don't think they are the same Robert because of the ages, even taking into account the rounding down to 5 yrs in the census. Unless, as often happens, the ages are a "moveable feast".
Anyway, I have something to be going on with. If you can find any other info about a Robert Brown in this area at around 1830, Wendy, I would love to have it. But please don't put yourself out. Pity Brown is such a common name.
Regards
Carole

[Stanley]

I had a look for a Brown Index on the site but it looks as though I have never done one, probably because I have written so much about the Browns in the context of Brown and Pickles. I'll do one today and put it up on the site.

[Wendyf]

There is a marriage for a Robert Brown and Isabella Hainsworth in Thornton in Craven 1834. They both appear in the 1841 census aged 50, so it looks like the baptism you were doubtful about is unlikely to be your Robert. There is a baptism in Gisburn in 1790, but again there is a corresponding entry in the 1841 census.
No sign of a marriage yet either...the Gill registers on Ancestry have a big gap after 1812, which is just the period you need. Looking at the entry for Robert & Mary at Greenberfield in 1841 there is a / mark between the Clapham entry and Robert's, so it was a separate dwelling. I noticed too that there is a John Brown aged 25 living with another family at Greenberfield Farm (the next entry) as a servant. I wonder if that is their son?