Extracts from a Tudor time traveller’s letter to his children in the Calder Valley in 1510…
…last night I slept at a fine inn near the river crossing you know, where there was a wooden bridge that is newly triple spanned and made of stone… the bridge has worn well with time, now it is in the middle of a place called Hebden Bridge, aye, a substantial town has grown up around our new bridge! But you would marvel at the traffic that is gone from its setts, no more do men cart dung nor trains of pack horses cross, laden with bales of kersey pieces on their way to weavers’ square in Heptonstall, only a goodly number of tall, bare-headed, handsome folk on foot, the largest creature a dog. Their dress is exceeding strange, women have short gaudy gowns and black hosen, more like gentlemen in our time, men don long sleeved jerkins over voluminous hosen and no cloaks! Children of your age are not shod in clogs nor robed in hand me down sheepskins, they wear gay colours such as do figures in those glass windows at St Thomas à Becket’s. ‘Tis hard to tell a lad from a lass, their dress is all the same. I have not met a friar nor a priest but their dress disguises them perchance…
…standing at the top of the bridge I can see how the town has climbed the hill sides where we gaze on thick forest. These dwellings must be where wealthy folk live, their windows are all glazed and when the sun sets they glitter like jewels. At the foot of the bridge on the Halifax side there is a street of traders’ booths. None is open to the weather, goods are sheltered by sheets of glass the size of a boat’s sail. Traders keep warm they tell me by a form of stored energy from the sun called gas. At night casements are brightly lit from within, not by candle light but another stored energy called electricity. At the inn they say coal used to be important here, after the age of charcoal and water wheels , and truth to tell from the bridge I spy tall chimneys in the town left over whence coal was burnt…
…Hebden Bridge has clean, sweet smelling streets, latrines and drains are hidden in the houses. Waste water is carried away by metal pipes, this idea came from Roman times but we seem to have forgotten it. Water as good as a spring’s to drink is plentiful indoors brought in by other pipes. The mistress of the inn neither cards, spins nor weaves but serves choice ales and toothsome victuals…
…this place being uncommonly congenial I am oft minded not to return to 1510. Imagine my content, no lice living in the bed nor in my hair. Not a soul looks poor, they eat meat every day of the week. Prepare your mother for my return by reading her this letter…
Frances Platt