16 – Hillside

THE 16th Ilkley Civic Society blue plaque was unveiled on a former lodging house and maternity home on the edge of the moor by Professor Mike Dixon on July 11 2009.

Wells Terrace, Hillside, on Crossbeck Road was built around 1857 by a farmer, Timothy Hainsworth from Burley Woodhead.  Three of his sons were stone masons who had worked on Wells House, (designed by Cuthbert Broderick after he had won the competition to design a Town Hall for Leeds) built for a group of Leeds business men which opened in 1856.

One of his sons, Marshall Hainsworth & his wife then lived at and ran Wells Terrace.  He rented the North House part of Wells Terrace, to Charles Darwin to accommodate his family from October 17^th to November 24^th 1859 while he was undergoing hydropathy at the Wells House Hydropathic Hotel. Darwin’s time in North House was characterized by a deterioration in his health – he suffered rashes and boils and finished by feeling worse than on his arrival. His daughter Henrietta later described it as “a time of frozen misery” – not a great recommendation for Ilkley and the water-cure, (though it was out of the season).

Darwin returned to stay at Wells House, after the successful publication of  ‘On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection' (on 24^th Nov) and he began to feel better and started work on the revisions for the 2^nd edition. He left Wells House on the 7^th December.  A few other points of interest is that when Darwin visited Ilkley he did not have the beard, his wife Emma visited Bolton Priory on 31st Oct and Wells House Hydro piped its water from the spring behind the old bath house so Darwin would not need to visit White Wells for his cold water treatments.  More information about Darwin's visit can be found in Mike Dixon and Gregory Radick's book Darwin in Ilkley. Click on the cover to access the publishers website.

Marshall Hainsworth was a successful Lodging House Keeper, land owner, member of the Ilkley Local Board of Health and Ilkley builder.  In the 1861 Census, Marshall Hainsworth, aged 37 and his wife Elizabeth were running Wells Terrace as a lodging house with 3 servants and one lodger, his brother Jonathan Hainsworth, a stone mason. There were 2 separate resident families lodging there as well.

The following is extracted from a talk given to the Ilkley Quakers in 2016 about how the Ilkley Quakers came into being. The full account is found here.  In August 1861 the Brighouse Society of Friends Meeting (Quakers) committee set up to find suitable places for worship in the Addingham and Ilkley area reported an offer from Marshall Hainsworth of Wells Terrace to alter a room in his house so that it could accommodate 50-60 people at a rent of £8 a year.  This was all agreed, and a formal memorandum of agreement for a tenancy of ten years was drawn up in March 1862. The agreed alterations included the insertion of an independent outside door, and the Quaker archives in Leeds contain letters from the builders concerning problems with this work and also detailed accounts showing the cost of various items bought for the room, including a Venetian blind, an umbrella stand, hassocks, and a door mat; the cost of advertisements placed in The Friend and the Leeds Mercury; and the cost of removing forms, i.e. benches, from Addingham to Ilkley. Brighouse Monthly Meeting had asked the committee specially to see to the transport of these forms, and also to ‘give notice of the termination of our occupancy of the premises at Addingham’. It was reported later that the forms were very old but usable at present (and so they had probably come from Farfield). Twenty-four volumes of books were also brought from Addingham and others were donated later, making a total of sixty at Ilkley. Much of this work went on in the autumn of 1862, and official registration of the room as a place of worship was completed in December of that year. It was proposed to hold meetings twice a week, at 11 am on 1st and 4th days, i.e. Sunday and Wednesday.

In June 1868 there is a report to Brighouse Monthly Meeting that the hired room in Ilkley is often too small, now that there are two or more Quaker families resident in the ‘village’, and that a more permanent meeting house seems desirable. It is reported further that land in Ilkley has recently been bought by a Friend, Joseph Dymond - Secretary of the Friends Provident Institution, Bradford, who had moved to Ilkley in 1867and offer to Brighouse Monthly Meeting at cost price.  This land is on Queens Road, where the current Society of Friends Meeting House was built and officially opened 16 May 1869.

Marshall Hainsworth and his wife were still running the lodging house at the 1891 census.  By the time of his death in 1897, Marshall Hainsworth was also a major stockholder with his son in law, William Watson, in The Ben Rhydding Hydropathic Establishment and Hotel and is buried in Ilkley Cemetery, along with his wife who died in 1904.

In 1901 Wells Terrace was being run by Miss Annie Griffiths aged 42 from Swansea, South Wales who was still operating the lodging house in 1911, with 9 servants and a nursery governess, probably for her 4 year old adopted child Nancy.

In 1905 Wells Terrace was in the news.  The Wharfedale & Airedale Observer on 26 May reported "ALL THROUGH DRINK" - Margaret Nolan, a married women, and a domestic servant employed at the house of Miss Griffiths, Wells Terrace, Ilkley, was charged with stealing between the 11th and 21st May a chemise and pair of stockings valued at 5s. from Miss Annie Cogan, a fellow servant.  She was further charged with stealing from the same house a skirt and petticoat, valued at 7s., the property of Edith Farren.  It appeared from the evidence that prisoner had been employed at the house a week when the goods were missed.  When arrested in Bradford by P.C. Walton, she was wearing the skirt.  Accused admitted the thefts and said she was drunk at the time and did not know what she was doing.  She had four previous convictions for drunkenness.  A fine  of 20s. and costs in each case was imposed, or a month's imprisonment.

A change of proprietor clearly took place around 1919 from the advert Three Houses, known as Wells Terrace to be let as separate houses for private residents, or can me made to serve as one house, suitable for private hotel, lodging or boarding house.  By 1920 Wells Terrace had been renamed Hillside and was a Boarding House.  The Boarding House manager was Miss Emily Brooke, born 8 May 1888. The 1921 Census shows Hillside being run by Margaret Henderson, from Morpath an Assistant Boarding Housekeeper, employed by Miss Brooke, Boarding Housekeeper.  There were 11 guests and 6 staff.  To date Emily Brooke can not be found in the 1921 Census!  Regular adverts are found in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer from 1920 until 1940 placed by Miss Brooke, Hillside (‘Resedential chambers’, ‘Guest house’,’small hotel ( unlicensed)’) for odd job youths, cooks, experienced domestic maids often quoting the staff number as remaining at six.

Hillside occupies a position at the top of Wells Road, just prior to accessing Ilkley Moor and close to the original bandstand and current paddling pool, sometimes known as Hainsworth’s Pond.

When St Winifred's closed Daphne trained as a health visitor at Leeds University. She took on her role with renewed vigour and quickly became an integral and enthusiastic part of the community.  Family and friends remember how Daphne would bend over backwards to help anyone who asked. Retirement did not stop Daphne leading an active life. She was a devout Methodist who was totally committed to worshipping and working at Christchurch, Ilkley. She was also involved with the volunteer organisation Soroptimist International, as well as serving as vice president for the Association of Guyanese Nurses and Allied Professionals (AGNAP). Her contribution to the local community was recognised by the Rotary Club, Ilkley Parish Council in 2000 and, in addition, she received an award from the government of Guyana in recognition of her services to nursing in 2001. Not only did this make the headlines, it also inspired many others at a time when people of other races, cultures and ethnicities were not always warmly welcomed in Britain.

Daphne said she was delighted to receive her Guyana award, which was presented to her at a special ceremony, in London.  She said: "Most professionals when they go about doing their jobs are not thinking, 'I'm going to be rewarded at the end of it'. "I was doing a job I loved. I wasn't in nursing by accident. Then after so many years your Government recognises you. It's smashing." Daphne felt a great affinity with Ilkley and has never left the town, she said: "I enjoyed working at St Winifred's. It was a happy place. I am already seeing the children of the children I delivered. It's lovely. If you live and work in the same town there are advantages."

Sadly, Daphne died suddenly in 2004. She is remembered fondly by all of her family and friends, and with affection by many former patients in Ilkley. She will also be recognised by future historians charting the history of the NHS.

Daphne was awarded her own Blue Plaque by the Nubiam Jak Community Trust in 2018 located at St James Hospital, London.  Click on the plaque to learn more.

After the closure of St Winifred's it became part of the Ilkley College before conversion of the property to flats when the college closed.

This plaque has been sponsored by  Ilkley Parish Council, Grainger PLC & Ilkley Civic Society.

Ilkley Local History Hub would like to hear from people with pictures or information about Hillside - localhistory@civicsociety.ilkley.org