Part 5 of Henry Harrison's articles appeared in the Cleckheaton Guardian on 23 Dec 1910.

In the year 1842, the occupier of the old homestead of the Manns was a John Bennett (father to Bill, named before) and his family. For a second wife he married a Mrs Malam, who had a son called Isaac - a boot and shoemkaer, and a noted resident in his day - and two daughters. The youngest of these daughters, Ann, had a beautiful voice, and Mr Henry Mann was so much taken up with her singing that he was at the expense of her training under Mrs Sunderland of Brighouse. In course of time she sang with the Philharmonic Society, and on leaving this neighbourhood, she went to reside in Leeds. Bennett had a son named Henry, and both were employed by the Manns, in the starch department, where John was the foreman. Henry married the youngest daughter of old John Kitson, a cardmaker. 

Here it may be interesting to readers of the Guardian, to give something of Mr Kitson's career. His last place of cardmaking was in what is now the old lime-washed building at the end of Pyenot Hall Lane, close to the stile, and he ended his days in the house close to the card shop. He was a descendant of the ancient family of Kitsons, of Ye Syke (Syke Fold), dating back to the early part of the 16th century. In the time of King Henry VIII, the leading men of this district were James and William Pearson, two brothers, Thomas Naylor, Thomas Kitson, of Ye Syke and Richard Brook. They represented the commercial element of Cleckheaton nearly four centuries ago. Richard Brook resided for some time in Cleckheaton, but afterwards at Eddercliffe. He was a manufacturer, and had also large landed estates in Liversedge and Cleckheaton. It is said later on that the Naylors, Kitsons, Brooks and a few others were the chief landowners in the Spen Valley. In 1608 came King James' inquiry into lands in Liversedge, and I find a Thomas Kitson given as a tenant of Sir John Neville's. In 1615 a John Kitson, one of the freeholders of Liversedge, participated in the division of the common lands, receiving as his share 17 acres, 3 roods and 19 perches. He was a descendant of the old family of Ye Syke - a family which had occupied a good position in this district from the earliest times. In the reign of Henry VIII, Thomas had grown to be very wealthy, and it is supposed that the Kitsons about that time would build the handsome halled house at Syke Fold. John, the cardmaker, was, in his day, a highly respected townsman, a deacon and trustee of the church at the Old Red Chapel.

In 1849 Richard Kitson, the only son of John Kitson, emigrated to the United States and died there in 1885. John had four daughters and one son. The eldest daughter married a gentleman called Mills, and for some time they resided at Alec Hill in some portion of the Spen Hall buildings. The third daughter married John Morton, a grandson of old Mr Atkinson of Peg Mill.

After the Bennetts, the next tenant of the old homestead was Samuel Blackburn and his wife Tamar. Mrs Blackburn was the granddaughter of old Will stead, living near the top of Quaker Lane, and there are children in Cleckheaton today who represent the fifth generation of their descendants. Mr Stead kept a few cows and farmed the land down the right hand side of Quaker Lane to the beck, and where part of Lund's mills stands today. After Mr Blackburn left the old homestead, it was occupied by George Haley and his wife Hannah, whose maiden name was Brook and who was a servant of the Manns up to being married. George was a woolsorter at Peg Mill, and was a great favourite of Mrs Edward Atkinson, of Spen House. He was a good brewer of home-brewed beer, and Mr Edward, being a maltster at the that time, I am inclined to think that would be the reason George's beer got so much praise. More than twenty years ago, while I was taking a Sunday afternoon walk, George called me in, and showed me two old oil paintings of the father and mother of Joseph, John and Thomas Mann. In distributing a few old relics, Mr Henry Mann had sent the two pictures to hang on the walls in the old home till such a time as he wanted them again. 

While the Haleys were living there, a good many years back, the house and grounds were flooded, and much damage done, the covered beck nearby not being large enough to take the great quantity of water coming down after a very heavy rainstorm. The place was visited by hundreds at the time, as many today will remember. Just through the stile near to the kitchen door and adjoining the house is another building, where Mr William Mann kept his dogs. A small portion of ground was railed off to form a yard. In the upper room I have known live game kept in winter time, and there was a supply of brushwood for them to get under. The dog keeper was Bill Sim, and when not with the dogs, he filled up his time in the starch house. Like one or two others whom I have named, "Sweet William" was very fond of Old Nanny's and Old Tommy's home-brewed beer. He lived then at the Walshhouses, and often we could hear him coming home singing in the small hours of the morning. Near to the kitchen door in the croft was a fine run of spring water, from which the village of Spen was supplied for domestic purposes. In very dry times I have known people be there all night waiting for their turns, and many used to come from the surrounding neighbourhood.

At the right hand corner of the croft we have entered, stands a solitary old house, which was the home of George, wife and her parents. She had a brother named Ned, who was groom and under miller to the Manns. The old house is now used as a hen-house and lumber room.

Approached by a footpath up the centre of the croft, there stood a low cottage and other buildings occupied at that time by Johnny Mortimer. During the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1848, his brother Joe, better known as old "Matrip," carried a little loaf on a hayfork while Dan Clay carried a big one. This house and a long narrow garden belonged to Mr William Rhodes, colliery proprietor, who then lived at Gomersal House (which afterwards became the property of the second Dr. Carr). Mr Rhodes owned a pack of beagles and preserved the land from Spen Lane to Listing Lane. The keeper of the beagles was Ned Wharton, father of the late Mr Joe Wharton, a well-known boot and shoemaker in Cleckheaton. Old Johnny had a lodger named Jacob Bates, who was groom and cow keeper for Mr Atkinson at Peg Mill, and on leaving he went to the Ravenswharf Hotel and ended his days there. The man to fill his place was Fred Downend, formerly groom for Mr Dixon, whose family are well-known in Cleckheaton today.

I must now retrace my way back by coming up the causeway side of Spen. In the first cottage with its gable end to the causeway, lived George Mortimer (youngest brother to Johnny Mortimer). He worked for Mr Cartwright at Rawfolds, and while at work, he was taken ill and in twelve hours passed away, leaving a wife and seven children - three boys and four girls. For the second boy, Dick, the mother got a donkey and cart, and he helped to maintain the family by leading coal, which at that time cost 2½d a cwt. In order to avoid the toll bar at Spen, he had to go to Cleckheaton by way of "Scrat Lane" and the beck. When Dick grew up he married a granddaughter of Robert Law, by whom he had three children, but he did not turn out well, and ultimately left the district. Behind the cottage occupied by the Mortimers was a gateway and wicket gate leading to the house of Miss Jane Wright, an old maiden lady, with whom lived as servant maid old Betty Tyas. The door and windows of the house, and also the entrance gate, were always painted white. The old house and its pear tree are still there, facing the garden down to the stream. A couple of cows were kept in a mistal beyond the house, old Betty acting as milkmaid. Miss Wright was a sister of the wife of Jonathan Fox, of Mount Pleasant, and when the Rev Mr Daley first came to Gomersal, she took him in as lodger.

Behind Miss Wright's house stood another cottage, a little back from the causeway, in which lived John Brook, a stonemason. To distinguish him from other John Brooks, he was always called "Red Johnny" - a common custom in those days. His wife was sister to old Joe Hartley. Forward up to the toll bar cottage was a fine planting in Miss Wright's field. At the toll bar cottage lived George Mawson and his family. One of their sons, William, was a well-known jobbing gardener in his day; the eldest daughter married John Pickles, a corn miller; another married Jonas Yates, a son of old Will Yates, brother of the wife of Mr Alec Dixon; and the third became the wife of Robert Law, woolsorter. Afterwards Jonas Yates, having left his uncle Alec, became foreman for Mr George Anderton jun., who had commenced as manufacturing chemist in his father's mill yard. Near the bar house, against Miss Wright's fence, stood the horsing steps, the next higher up being at Gomersal Hill Top.

Here I must leave my friends at Spen; adding only that each individual I have named was well-known to me, with the exception of John and Thomas Mann and George Mortimer, and that there is no guesswork in what I have set down.