Thorpe Arch, Yorkshire, - Whyns Farm Line-Up Circa 1899

Here we have Great Aunt x 3, Isabella Hornshaw aged 69, middle seated, our not very distant cousins, Leah Hornshaw, aged 27, left, and Rachel Hornshaw aged 27, right of their mother. Standing we have Walter Hargrave aged 27 who married Leah and Henry Hedley Hornshaw aged 32.

Whyns farm (various spellings - Whynns and Whinns) was a trust farm, tenanted by the Hornshaws since the 17th century.  Ordinarily the eldest son took the farm over from their father,so John Hornshaw, who at the end of his life lived at 7, Athol Road, Manningham Bradford, West Yorkshire, would ordinarily have taken over the farm. He didn't want to, becoming a sadler instead.

The farm was run and taken over in John Hornshaw's absence, by his younger brother Thomas, who married Isabella (also known as Isabel) Hedley.  Thomas drowned in the river Wharfe on Good Friday, April 1874, after falling through the trucks in a bridge used by workmen who were building the current bridge near Collingham. His body was found on Easter Sunday.

The supernatural part of this story is that his wife Isabella firmly believed that the spirit of Thomas Hornshaw was guiding her and indeed telling her what to do in all her farming dealings and she prospered and became rich taking the advice given by Thomas's spirit, whilst other farms failed.

Isabella left enough money for her son Henry Hedley Hornshaw, (cousin of Elizabeth Mary Hornshaw, who married Frederick Walker of Goldsborough, and Lister's Mill Director Richard Hornshaw), to travel to both Australia and New Zealand, before buying and settling down at Killerby Grange, Cayton Bay, Scarborough, now a public attraction that is now called Playdale Farm Park.

Isabella's money was amassed solely on her belief in Spiritualism and her guidance from her husband Thomas in spirit. She took his advice on all matters concerning the running of Whyns Farm as well as all her business dealings.

Of course, had John Hornshaw taken his rightful role to claim the tenancy of Whyns farm, Thorpe Arch, Yorkshire, from the trustees, as the eldest son, instead of taking up residency, first in Knaresborough and then Bradford, so giving the rights of Whyns farm  to his younger brother Thomas, the story here would have been quite different.

As it was, Whyns farm was commandeered by the Ministry of Defence in March 1940 and pulled down in order to build a wartime munitions works, known as Ordnance Factory Number 8.

 Thorpe Arch Trading Estate and the British Science Lending Library were later built on part of the land previously belonging to Whyns Farm. The Hornshaw family had run the farm for 250 years as at March 1940. It was the end of an era.