The lost house. That is where I planned to go today. I printed a map of the area and read other's descriptions of visits and photos. I wanted to find it too. Well, I can tell you this! It is just not that easy. For starters the bits that are still lying around are on private property. So that was that really.
We piled into the Fronz car and went across Bingley moor to Shipley. We drove all down the lane that the house had been on and came to the site...Milner's Field and discovered it to be a farm track....with working farm. I figured The battered old Fonz containing an excited to see farm animals Monza dog would not go down too well specially as it said on a notice...PRIVATE PROPERTY.
We piled into the Fronz car and went across Bingley moor to Shipley. We drove all down the lane that the house had been on and came to the site...Milner's Field and discovered it to be a farm track....with working farm. I figured The battered old Fonz containing an excited to see farm animals Monza dog would not go down too well specially as it said on a notice...PRIVATE PROPERTY.
This is the nearest I got.
Milner's Field. This was once the site of a Gothic Mansion owned by Titus Salt Jr. I saw a print of the old place at Salt's mill shop and wanted to know more.
The curse of Milner field by Lisa Firth. This is the article which intregued me enough to go out and look....Click on the purple writing and you can see for yourself.
" Like the skeletal shell of the once mighty Titanic lying desolate on the ocean bed, the sparse ruins of Titus Salt Jr's Milner field mansion at Shipley Glen are steeped in history, ledgend-and grim mythology". Lisa Firth
So with that.....we set off to Shipley. We went the country route across the moors.
Milner's Field. This was once the site of a Gothic Mansion owned by Titus Salt Jr. I saw a print of the old place at Salt's mill shop and wanted to know more.
The curse of Milner field by Lisa Firth. This is the article which intregued me enough to go out and look....Click on the purple writing and you can see for yourself.
" Like the skeletal shell of the once mighty Titanic lying desolate on the ocean bed, the sparse ruins of Titus Salt Jr's Milner field mansion at Shipley Glen are steeped in history, ledgend-and grim mythology". Lisa Firth
So with that.....we set off to Shipley. We went the country route across the moors.
This is the image. It is by Simon Palmer and it is for sale at Saltaire in Salt's Mill. I have bought it.
Titus Salt Jr commissioned this house and vast landscaped gardens. There had been a smaller house on this site since 1400, owned by the Milner family, then Oldfield, and Fell families. Sir Titus Salt bought the land in 1869 from Admiral Dunscombe for £21,000 and had the house demolished thinking that he would build himself a palace. This fell to his son, as Titus died soon after .
The style of the house described in Building news magazine 1873 was as follows
"12 century medieval, an assemblage of circular conical-capped towers, great chimney stacks and machicolations, all raised up on a terrace"
The shell of the house went up over 1871-1873 as a fashionable neo-gothic mansion. John Ruskin described it as a Gothic monstrosity!
It was built in local grey stone and the roof was Whitland Abbey green slate bought from Wales. A very lot of thought and design went into the interior, and this included.....
An elaborate lighting system, water piped from local springs, an underground reservoir and canal to supply the kitchen and glass houses in the kitchen garden, own filter beds for sewage, telephone systems with an extension at Salt's mill, water cooled dairy's and storage...like a fridge, and fire pumps which could pump at high pressure.
The house was at the best between 1873-1887 when the Salts were renowned for their lavish entertaining. Royalty and celebrities of the day were frequent visitors. At this time it was a charmed life as Titus Salt Jr had inherited his father's vast industrial fortune, and the world was at his feet as they say. Titus and his wife Catherine had four children. They were the elite of Yorkshire society and their entertaining included the Prince and Princess of Wales (king Edward V11 and Queen Alexandra).
By 1887 Titus Salt Jr died of a heart attack aged 44. the families fortunes had been hit by a slump in the wool trade, and Titus invested in ventures in United States, but mostly he invested heavily in 1887 Yorkshire jubilee exhibition, with a back drop of the wildly extravagant Milner field house.
So really what I am saying here is that the stress of all that money and building the monster house killed him in the end.
The next owner of Milner field was Sir James Roberts, who was also the new proprietor of Salt's Mill. he purchased this all from the Late Titus's widow.
Sir Robert too experienced sadness and death as a result of too much of everything....He moved in to Milner field in 1904. His 11 year old son was drown during a family holiday in Ireland.His second son died of a nervous break down in 1912 aged 36, and his last son was badly injured in the First world war preventing him from taking over the family business at Salt's mill. The nurse whom he fell in love with whilst treating his injuries also died and he ended up marrying her sister instead.
Now this is the good bit........
. .
On top of all this there was shame heaped upon the family by a huge public scandal. In 1903 Alice Roberts eloped with a doctor, Norman Cecil Rutherford This was greatly against her father's wishes as her father had wanted her to marry a polish count. how ever by 1919 after the birth of six children she wanted a divorce in order to marry her lover, a friend and collegue of her husband, Major Miles Seaton. Alice informed Norman of her intentions upon his return from tending wounded soldiers in the trenches suffering from what we now know was shell shock. He did not take to the news from his wife at all, and basically went ballistic then hunted down his rival and shot him in the chest. He then spent the next ten years in Broadmoor for his trouble for murder.
The next occupants of the house suffered also.until the final owner of the estate was Arthur Remington Hollins who moved in 1925. he was also managing director of Salt's mill....His wife died of pneumonia shortly after moving in and he died after three years it is said of Hic cups.
The house was thought to be cursed and had a far reaching reputation. No one wanted to live there. Not many could afford to run a house like this in those days so the house was left to decay. It became gutted and derelict. by the 1950s an attempt was made to dynamite it to rubble. This failed the first time. The are a number of ghosts which are said to walk this site.....Titus Salt jr, Eva Gates, Anne Hollins....all died here......and a Green man who wanders the site playing a flute.
So yes! I really wanted to find the lost house. Never mind for now. I will try again come spring. I think we went to the wrong part of Milner field.
On the way to Milner Field I took these photos...
18 October 2018 .4.50am and I am waiting for the dawn. I have a couple of hours yet too. I am well behind on photos and blogging as I had to work on Tuesday night and I am used to a day off and going out. As it turned out... we went to Skipton Castle woods. We drastically ran out of time and I had to rush about trying to get all the laundry, cooking and cleaning done. All I achieved by this was making myself into a disaster area. I dropped fabric softener all over the laundry floor in the cellar....smells lovely but is now very slippery on the tiles....moved my work table in the kitchen to get to the freezer and smashed a porcelain doll....one of the ones I was going to make into a vampire....then rushed off to change for work...arrived...and mucked up that too because I was not concentrating!!!
I did not get to finish all the Skipton photos either.
So Bingley moor.....and we discovered that this is a golf course!
The sky was really spectatular, and as we were up high we could see for miles! Monza loved it. he likes moors and good old Yorkshire views.
I could not get him out of the car as there were loads of people about with dogs. some were heading to the golf course. The people that is...as far as I know dogs do not like to play golf.
We went to Shipley and parked up at the local super market. The square here holds many delicious junk shops all of which we explored.... This "photo Barbie" was my first purchase of the day.....
Anothr Olaf for Christmas....
and an old Barbie with ratty hair.....
and a Halloween window.......
So now the light is coming up and the dawn is near. I have filled up these early hours very nicely this morning with Milner field...even though I did not actually get there.
Last night's sun set and moon.
It is now time to start another day. I have caught up with my stories and photos, so I am off out to take some more before going to hospital with Lee for a scan. I hope to go to Temple Newsam as well.......
Titus Salt Jr commissioned this house and vast landscaped gardens. There had been a smaller house on this site since 1400, owned by the Milner family, then Oldfield, and Fell families. Sir Titus Salt bought the land in 1869 from Admiral Dunscombe for £21,000 and had the house demolished thinking that he would build himself a palace. This fell to his son, as Titus died soon after .
The style of the house described in Building news magazine 1873 was as follows
"12 century medieval, an assemblage of circular conical-capped towers, great chimney stacks and machicolations, all raised up on a terrace"
The shell of the house went up over 1871-1873 as a fashionable neo-gothic mansion. John Ruskin described it as a Gothic monstrosity!
It was built in local grey stone and the roof was Whitland Abbey green slate bought from Wales. A very lot of thought and design went into the interior, and this included.....
An elaborate lighting system, water piped from local springs, an underground reservoir and canal to supply the kitchen and glass houses in the kitchen garden, own filter beds for sewage, telephone systems with an extension at Salt's mill, water cooled dairy's and storage...like a fridge, and fire pumps which could pump at high pressure.
The house was at the best between 1873-1887 when the Salts were renowned for their lavish entertaining. Royalty and celebrities of the day were frequent visitors. At this time it was a charmed life as Titus Salt Jr had inherited his father's vast industrial fortune, and the world was at his feet as they say. Titus and his wife Catherine had four children. They were the elite of Yorkshire society and their entertaining included the Prince and Princess of Wales (king Edward V11 and Queen Alexandra).
By 1887 Titus Salt Jr died of a heart attack aged 44. the families fortunes had been hit by a slump in the wool trade, and Titus invested in ventures in United States, but mostly he invested heavily in 1887 Yorkshire jubilee exhibition, with a back drop of the wildly extravagant Milner field house.
So really what I am saying here is that the stress of all that money and building the monster house killed him in the end.
The next owner of Milner field was Sir James Roberts, who was also the new proprietor of Salt's Mill. he purchased this all from the Late Titus's widow.
Sir Robert too experienced sadness and death as a result of too much of everything....He moved in to Milner field in 1904. His 11 year old son was drown during a family holiday in Ireland.His second son died of a nervous break down in 1912 aged 36, and his last son was badly injured in the First world war preventing him from taking over the family business at Salt's mill. The nurse whom he fell in love with whilst treating his injuries also died and he ended up marrying her sister instead.
Now this is the good bit........
. .
On top of all this there was shame heaped upon the family by a huge public scandal. In 1903 Alice Roberts eloped with a doctor, Norman Cecil Rutherford This was greatly against her father's wishes as her father had wanted her to marry a polish count. how ever by 1919 after the birth of six children she wanted a divorce in order to marry her lover, a friend and collegue of her husband, Major Miles Seaton. Alice informed Norman of her intentions upon his return from tending wounded soldiers in the trenches suffering from what we now know was shell shock. He did not take to the news from his wife at all, and basically went ballistic then hunted down his rival and shot him in the chest. He then spent the next ten years in Broadmoor for his trouble for murder.
The next occupants of the house suffered also.until the final owner of the estate was Arthur Remington Hollins who moved in 1925. he was also managing director of Salt's mill....His wife died of pneumonia shortly after moving in and he died after three years it is said of Hic cups.
The house was thought to be cursed and had a far reaching reputation. No one wanted to live there. Not many could afford to run a house like this in those days so the house was left to decay. It became gutted and derelict. by the 1950s an attempt was made to dynamite it to rubble. This failed the first time. The are a number of ghosts which are said to walk this site.....Titus Salt jr, Eva Gates, Anne Hollins....all died here......and a Green man who wanders the site playing a flute.
So yes! I really wanted to find the lost house. Never mind for now. I will try again come spring. I think we went to the wrong part of Milner field.
On the way to Milner Field I took these photos...
18 October 2018 .4.50am and I am waiting for the dawn. I have a couple of hours yet too. I am well behind on photos and blogging as I had to work on Tuesday night and I am used to a day off and going out. As it turned out... we went to Skipton Castle woods. We drastically ran out of time and I had to rush about trying to get all the laundry, cooking and cleaning done. All I achieved by this was making myself into a disaster area. I dropped fabric softener all over the laundry floor in the cellar....smells lovely but is now very slippery on the tiles....moved my work table in the kitchen to get to the freezer and smashed a porcelain doll....one of the ones I was going to make into a vampire....then rushed off to change for work...arrived...and mucked up that too because I was not concentrating!!!
I did not get to finish all the Skipton photos either.
So now the light is coming up and the dawn is near. I have filled up these early hours very nicely this morning with Milner field...even though I did not actually get there.
It is now time to start another day. I have caught up with my stories and photos, so I am off out to take some more before going to hospital with Lee for a scan. I hope to go to Temple Newsam as well.......
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