Sculpture at Berry Brow Station
I remembered a sculpture at Berry Brow Station when I was travelling on the train to Huddersfield in the 1960's. As it was no longer there I decided to find out what had happened to it. The sculpture of a train was carved as an apprentice piece in 1886 by 16 year old John Charles Stocks and was sculpted from sandstone bought from Scotgate Quarry in Honley for just ten shillings.
John Charles was the son of Thomas Stocks, also a stone mason, whose best work includes the carved heads of six prominent men, including Shakespeare, Handel and Isaac Newton, with the tools of their trade, on the outside of Huddersfield Town Hall, and those of twelve Greek and Roman gods inside it.
Interestingly, it was the father, Thomas Stocks, who, as a young man himself, carved the first sculpture of a steam train on the rocks above the station platform in 1864, at the request of Mr Thomas Swinburn, chief engineer on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's Huddersfield to Sheffield line. Thomas based his carving on an engine of his day, but by 1886 this model was outmoded. His son was then approached to carve a more up to date version as a replacement, and chose to carve a model of a LYR Barton Wright 0-4-4-T train emerging from a tunnel with busts of Thomas Swinburn, Milton and Shakespeare above.
The original sculpture was removed from the station when it closed in 1966 and stored at York Railway Museum. In 1989, when the station re-opened, there were hopes that the sculpture would be returned to its original site, but for safety it was instead taken to Huddersfield's Tolson Museum where it is on display.
John Charles Stocks was born in Berry Brow in 1870 to Thomas and Sarah Stocks and lived with them in Berry's Row and Parkgate Back. After his father's death in 1891 he lived for a time with his widowed grandmother in Drawer's Row. His deceased grandfather, Charles, had also been a stonemason. John Charles married Mary Ann Nichol at Armitage Bridge in October 1894. He went on to become a renowned sculptor and even travelled to America. He died in Huddersfield in 1949.
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