Category Archives: Modern

REVIEW – The Fool and his Dancers: Tales of Dark Morris from the Wild Welsh Border by Rob Elliot

The Fool and His Dancers
Available from Amazon

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away…

It is a time of rebellion, Morris Dancing has been brought into submission by Cecil Sharp and has been reduced to a quaint show for those too slow to run away from the sound of approaching bells.

In an area far from the bright centre of the morris universe a small group turn their back on the empire and join the dark side, engaging in a morris style from a forgotten or ignored past.

Read more »

Stott Hall Farm – A Modern Myth

In the 1970′s, the M62 (built to connect Hull and Liverpool) forged it’s way across the rugged Pennine hills making it the highest motorway in England. Just over the border into Yorkshire lies Stott Hall Farm, instantly recognisable to anyone who has traveled this route and quite a few who haven’t.

The farmhouse (built in 1737) now stands isolated by the two carriageways of this busy motorway, which pass to either side. Modern mythology would have us believe that this was all down to the stubbornness of Ken Wild, the man who lived in the farm at the time.

Whilst hundreds of homes were demolished to make way for this major artery across the country, Stott Hall Farm remained standing. Despite offers of ludicrously large sums of money by bowler-hatted civil servants who reluctantly came up from Whitehall to this desolate location, the farmer refused to budge and the Government was forced instead to change the plans at great expense.

The truth is, that it was the land itself that forced the mile long rent, the waterlogged moorland and steep incline on the hill making it impossible (at the time at least) to construct the two carriageways side by side without the land slipping and destroying the construction.