As the builders near the completion of the reconstruction of our conservatory I have been compelled to take advantage of the window of opportunity which their activity makes possible. Today I had a particularly thought-provoking experience. They have created a certain amount of broken glass, removing the old windows. Some of this has fallen down a grating which ventilates the cellar. I decided that today I would get behind the screens beneath this grating and clear out the material that, over the years, has accumulated there.
This part of the house is estimated to have been built in the early years of the eighteenth century. I wondered when it might have been that the ventilation shaft was last cleared out. There were several kilos of junk there, and not only our glass, and the spiders webs in the shaft had quite evidently not been disturbed for a very long time. I started to wonder how old some of the debris I was removing might be. Could it possibly be the case that I was digging out 300-year-old muck? Sadly, in the absence of any possibility of radio-carbon dating the stuff I will have to rest content with speculation.
The oldest part of the house was later acquired by a man called Timothy Riley, who built the rest of it in 1814. An interesting fact we have discovered about Riley (among many) is that he was the church warden to Patrick Bronte, when the latter was curate at Thornton …. just across the valley.* As I worked I enjoyed the fantasy that Riley and Bronte might have sat on a bench together, enjoying the sunshine, just next to or even over the ventilation grill. As they knocked out their pipes the debris of their tobacco might have fallen into the ventilation shaft, and might (just possibly!) have been a small part of the muck I was digging out today. Fancy that! As Cleo Laine sang: “I can dream, can’t I?”
*Patrick was the father of the famous Bronte sisters, known for their literary achievements. The near-by village of Haworth has become a celebrated tourist destination because the family moved there when Patrick was awarded the living of the parish church there.