SCOUT or SCOTE HALL, Shibden near Halifax

[Keith Sherwood]

Hi, Everyone,
Can anyone tell me whether the Scout (or possibly Scote) Hall at Shibden near Halifax still exists as a building.
I have come across it being mentioned as a possible baptism place for one of my ancestors...
Very best wishes,
Keith

[woodydog]

Hi Keith- Have a look at the following link for Malcolm Bulls calderdale companion, it sounds as if Scout Hall still exists.
http://members.aol.com/calderdale2/s.html
If your lucky Malcolm will be logged in later & if anyone can tell you it will be him!
All the best
Rose

[Keith Sherwood]

Thanks very much for this, Rose,
I hadn't realised it was such a big place, and my ancestor's baptism must have been a non-conformist one, or at least a private one - if the IGI entry is to be believed, in 1725.
Keith

[Malcolm Bull]

I just visited my Calderdale Companion to check the entry for Scout Hall, and discovered that AOL seems to have lost the photographs.  I've corrected that now, so if you go to

http://members.aol.com/calderdale2/ph251.html

you can see just how big the place is.

If you discovered anything in your family tree about the place, please let me know.

Regards

Malcolm Bull

[Keith Sherwood]

Great now, Malcolm,
I was a little too polite - and generally admiring of your excellent site - to wonder what had happened to those pictures!
The remarkable thing is that someone has recently contacted me on Rootschat with news that he's spent the last many years researching my 5-times-great-grandfather the itinerant Methodist preacher James KERSHAW, who apparently (according to the IGI) was baptised at Scout Hall on St Patrick's Day 1725.
He has indeed researched in amazing depth, and some of his findings do contradict what at present appears in print about this individual, even in the Dictionary of National Biography.  It's a "work in progress", and I'm still digesting some of the details before I supply him with as much as I know and might be relevant to his study on this branch of the KERSHAW family...
Very best wishes,
Keith
N.B. There are 2 entries on the IGI - one says a birth, the other a baptism, for the same date of 17-03-1725 for James KERSHAW

[dave the tyke]

Hi Kieth,
A little circumvent but my family are the Lightowlers who I think originated at the foot of Blackstone Edge near Littleborough. As you are probably aware the Kershaws and Lightowlers were linked by marriage somewhere back in the C16th. Now my particular branch of Lightowlers were living at Cold Harbour, Northowram in 1841. Cold Harbour is nobut a stones throw from Scout Hall so of course I wonder if there is a family link there. I must stress that the link back from Halifax to Littleborough has not yet been established.
Are you also aware that a window in the church at Littleborough bears the Armorial Bearings of Kershaw (Kyrkshalgh de Town House)and Lightowler (Lightollers de Lightollers) and also one of Newall of Town House which is quartered with Kyrkshalgh and Lightollers.
Best regards
Dave

[Keith Sherwood]

Dave,
This is all fascinating new ground for me.  Still taking in all the details about possible KERSHAW links in the early part of the 18thC - never thought I'd get much further with it, until late last week and that posting on here.  This seems to be my only northern piece of genealogy (very proud to realise that I'm not just a Southern Softie!), and I'm trying to get my bearings.
The Halifax area looks on the agenda for a visit some time this summer, certainly to have a look at that remarkable Scout Hall building.
It'll be a while before I can make any kind of confident comment about links between your family and mine, but I'm taking all this new exciting info in gradually...
Very best wishes,
keith

[Keith Sherwood]

Hi again,
I'm still rather perplexed by the role of Scout Hall, as it's given as both birth/baptism place and place of death on the IGI for James KERSHAW, b.1725 and his father James KIRSHAW/KERSHAW b. "about 1697", d. 1733.
Looking at the present-day (2003) photos of this "Calendar Building" - (365 panes of glass, etc!) I'm wondering if it was some kind of seminary for prospective preachers at that time.
It certainly isn't the usual type of chapel that you'd normally associate with baptisms, etc.
Could the KERSHAW's conceivably have owned the place, or lived in part of it at that time?
I'm beginning to wonder too whether the IGI entries that indicate a marriage on 23-05-1722 between a James KERSHAW and a Martha SUGDEN (or LUGDEN!) in Halifax, and a baptism for a James KERSHAW on 27-02-1697 in Holdsworth - where was Holdsworth, exactly? - are reliable or of any relevance.
In other words, has anybody been tracing this KERSHAW in this location, and might know the answers to all/any of these questions...
Keith

[Malcolm Bull]

If he was born at Scout Hall, lived there and died there, is it not possible that he was just baptised at home, rather than the hall taking on any special permanent ecclesiaistical role?  Perhaps he was ill, or they thought he might not survive and brought the clergyman to the house.

Regards

Malcolm Bull