Peter Barraclough - The Psychic Tuning-In - From Bradford to London to Winderemere - His Life

I just had to include this photo - taken on a Nokia Lumia on Sunday 6th - Monday 7th July 2014 - it was around midnight. I also had to include the dark area to the far right looking over to where Milner Field (the house) was originally. Milner field is mentioned on Spooked Turnip - another of our websites, as well as on our separate site Milner Field House - not to be confused with imposters or sycophants of similar names :) !!

Anyway, back to Peter. I have masses of old photos and cards - many of them produce a vivid tapestry of history which to many is nothing except 'back in the day' - 10 minutes ago!

Thing is, everyone gets old. Sorry folks yes they do. So sooner or later you are going to get called old by someone younger than you are!

On this post there are no old postcards and photos, though the Ancestors are well praised.

July 4th was the 10th anniversary of the passing of Peter Vivian Barraclough in to Spirit. So I decided to attempt contact. I don't usually do this - not try to contact him - but I did it as a one off. What was he going to say?

I am scanning the waves of the ether...

Peter actually does begin to manifest  and talks mainly about his job and how stressful it actually became. He said that what he hoped to come to pass did not happen but instead became boredom and lethargy. He feels he was sidelined.  He never got to enjoy his dream physically on earth and he is still pretty miffed at this.  He had hoped to enjoy some quality 'downtime' as a retired person but things just did not happen like that.  He particularly dislikes a woman at work who got in his way - he says. He does not like how they handled it - what happened.  he is both angry and very disappointed.

He is still has very firm views about things - this comes through, what he does and does not approve of.  He  is now fighting to break through the veil, to return. He has not finished what he started and he wishes to do this.

I am picking up on him fighting to break a membrane that is surrounding him.  he is waiting by a fence - looking for a hitch-hiker to bring him back. He is quite strong as a spirit.  He is not done...

Frederick Walker Gomersall and the Milner Field Connection

Frederick Walker Gomersall, pictured here with his family, was the cousin of Charles Frederick Walker. It is difficult to explain when many family members have the same name of Frederick -  Margaret being another name given to many female family members.

Frederick Walker Gomersall was the son of Sarah Ellen Walker, the eldest Walker child of Robert Walker, a farmer of High House, Goldsborough, near Knaresborough North Yorkshire. Frederick Walker, the father of Charles Frederick Walker, was Sarah Ellen's younger brother who lived with her and her son in her boarding house in Bradford for a time before marrying Elizabeth Mary Hornshaw.

Sarah Ellen was very close to her brother Frederick Walker, naming her only son after him.  She was widowed not long after her marriage to a man from a silversmith's family in Sheffield.The family ran a boarding house in Manningham, Bradford at one time.

In later years, Frederick Walker Gomersall's son purchased a farmhouse which once belonged to the estate of The Knoll, Baildon. He bought a pony for his daughters and inspired his family's love of horses. The Knoll was the former home of Charles Stead, the land originally being purchased by Titus Salt Senior before being sold to Charles Stead a director, of Salts Mill, Saltaire, who built The Knoll. The Knoll was later owned by James Roberts MD of Salts Mill and lived in by his son, Bertram. Both Charles Stead and Katherine Salt were involved in opening Crow Gill Park, Shipley in May, 1890 as mentioned in my book.

The farmhouse, now called West Garth on Bertram Road, Baildon, was at one time Bank House Farm and the dower house of The Knoll. It  was also originally associated with the Fairbank family.
This branch of the Walker Gomerall family who owned West Garth, married in to the Rolfe-Dickinson family who came to Saltaire from the north east and the Rolfe-Dickinson's lived on Titus Street and worked in Salt's mill. A member of their family also once lived in one of the Milner Field gate houses. Oddly enough - one branch of the Dickinson family also came from Goldsborough, the same as the Walker family.

Not long after all this we get to the spooky bit and my contact, made unexpectedly, by my Walker Gomersall cousins - see my website link below.


Visit the Milner Field Website

Richard Hornshaw - Our Great Great Uncle - Director of Manningham Mills (Listers Mill) Bradford West Yorkshire

Our great (x2) uncle (or great grand-uncle to put it another way) - was a man called Richard Hornshaw, a descendant of the Hornshaws of Whyns Farm, Thorpe Arch, Yorkshire, who became a director of Manningham Mills, also known as Lister's Mill, in Bradford.

Lister's velvet was world famous - the mill even supplied velvet curtains to the White House in Washington DC and also supplied and dyed the coronation velvet for the royals. Growing up we had of course, got Lister's velvet curtain in out home.

The Hornshaw's were, collectively, all characters and originally, for 100's of years, farmers.

Charles Frederick Walker's mother, Elizabeth Mary, was the sister of Richard Hornshaw, who lived at a house called Woodbrow, in Heaton, Bradford.

John Hornshaw, Richard and Elizabeth's father, was our great great grandfather.  He was originally from Whyns farm at Thorpe Arch in Yorkshire but ended his days living in Manningham, Bradford.

Richard Hornshaw died in September, 1918. He had been ill and had an operation from which he was expected to recover but unfortunately, this was not to be the case.

A number of notables of the time attended his funeral - one was Mr Augustus E Ingram, USA consul for Bradford and there were floral tributes from Mrs Reixach and family - (Reginald Reixach, son of Jose Reixach) from the Trumpeter's House, Richmond. Reginald Reixach, a friend of Richard Hornshaw, attended personally.

Salts Mill, of nearby Saltaire, a kind of rival to Manningham Mills, also respectfully sent a representative, a Mr H L Searle, who was Salts Mill's export manager in 1918.

Uncle Richard is mentioned  in the 'Letters to Lister' archives and even features during the Manningham  Mills strike, of 'gassers' (spinners), of the early 1890's. He is, in his own right, an interesting notable, part of the tapestry of late 19th century and early 20th century northern English  mill history.

Bradford Daily Argus, September 1918

Urban Exploration Bible?

Inscription inside rear cover

Inside rear cover

Inside front cover

Peter Barraclough's Holy Bible

This Bible looks similar to artefacts found and photographed on urban exploration and derelict buildings forums and websites.

With hidden web names and expensive cameras, these chaps, occasionally accompanied by their Emo looking ladies, (a very discombobulated affair), slither their way in to places no longer occupied, but often stuffed with no longer needed, outmoded but at one time cherished trappings of not necessarily THAT long ago.

I feel the real trick must be the actual thrill of finding what is left behind and getting those all important, atmospheric photographs which eagerly still appear on some forums, though Urbex Forums itself, my total favourite, has gone rather quiet of late.

In recent years the press have tried to muscle in on the urban exploration scene.  Consequently, its not quite 'high ton' any more, to coin a Regency term for very fashionable, but its still 'on dit' i.e. much talked about in some circles.

That though, is where the similarity ends with this particular item. It is a Bible that once belonged to my much older brother, given to him as a Christmas present by his maternal Victorian grandparents, when Peter was nine,long before I was actually born.

The Bible is faded and possibly a little decrepit, speaking of another time and era. It is still cared for though, I keep it, well wrapped in a polythene bag, in my bedroom, not out of tear jerking sentimentality, but because it is a Bible and because it once belonged to my brother.