Netherthorpe in 1900
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The following extract from the Leeds Mercury details Netherthorpe as it was in March 1900.
Another twenty-five minutes' walk along the quiet road Nether Thorpe, which belonged at one time to Worksop Priory.
Here are bubbling springs and water-cress brooks; crab-apple bushes by the roadside, and in the autumn waxen "pommes" of a higher type in the orchards. Golden dossel-headed stacks, meadows where goldilocks and saxifrage thrive, granges roofed with pantiles the colour of red-lead pigment, stained greeny-yellow with lichens, lend at various times of the year an interesting blend of colour to the otherwise commonplace scene.
The cottages are liberally supplied with tiny peep-holes of windows. The old crones sit over their slow fires this chill March day. In a few weeks there will be sunshine and flowers, and the birds will gladden the heart of every old body when she goes into her bit of garden.
About a mile and a half to the south of Nether Thorpe, on the Derbyshire border, is a little gem of Norman work, known as Steetley Chapel. Allowed to go to ruin for at least a couple of centuries, it was annexed by an enterprising farmer, who turned his fowls into it, and allowed them to roost, lay, and hatch their chickens there. Happily, the fowls have been eliminated, and the complete restoration of this exquisite little edifice effected in a scientific manner. Not only are the decorations very rich, but wonderfully well preserved, in spite of the damp, neglect, and even abuse to which they have been subjected. The south doorway boasts a diapered pediment, and on one of its shafts are medallions which appear to represent the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The chancel arch - a fine example of Norman carving - bears on one of its capitals a picture in relief of the fight between St. George and the Dragon. There is a Norman apse; and an elaborate corbel table to the nave is decorated with floral and lace designs. But these are not half the beauties of Steetley Chapel.
I am now on the border with Nottinghamshire. There are bits of brake and copse where yellow-green catkins hang. There are ivied stumps, and tawny grasses, with bristly undergrowth. A silent, grey, distanceless March afternoon, with occasional powderings of snow. The last brown oak leaf, riddled with holes like the standards in York Minster, which until the present moment had actually withstood the long siege of winter's frosts and gales, spins plump down to mother-earth, and lies there in single blessedness on the grassy mould, as it had done for some months on the twigs above. The grass, however, has a fresh, vernal complexion where it comes in contact with running water. Bushes if ivy peep over every limestone fence or scramble up some black inanimate tree-bole. Treescapes on the far-away sky-line are like feathery blue-black shadows. But the farmer and the wanderer in Nature's realm are not hodge-gnats who only take their sport when the sun shines. God forbid that I should call my March afternoon incorrigibly bad; for at any moment the sun may fill his vials with sunshine, and the larks call merrily with snatches of Aeriel's music to all the spirits of the air. Even as I listen a throstle begins to sing, as though determined to charm Nature into a rather more pleasant mood.
Gradually the mournful yews assume the aspect of Gothic spires and pinnacles, or tabernacle-work sobered down by the frosts of old age.
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