ILKLEY
4116 4476.
334 Subsidy £11.25
MARKET CHARTER
(Charter) Wed; gr 1 Feb 1253, by K Hen III to Peter de Percy.
To be held at the manor (CChR, 1226-57, p. 418).
In 1293, Robert de Percy, son of the grantee, claimed the market (QW, p. 225).
FAIR CHARTER
(Charter) vfm+5, Luke (18 Oct); gr 1 Feb 1253, by K Hen III to Peter de Percy.
To be held at the manor (CChR, 1226-57, p. 418).
In 1293, Robert de Percy, son of the grantee, claimed the fair (QW, p. 225).
Should you require further information please contact the Bradford Metropolitan District Council law library.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Stop Before It’s Too Late.
A little bit of in fill here. A little bit of in fill there. Keep on and any spare ground will soon be gone. I foresee in years to come when Bradford Metro-politan Council disbands, small towns like Ilkley will be left to fend for themselves again. The need for council yards, plant nurseries, garages for council conveyances etc., will be in great demand. But where to put them? The previous council was very quick to build on former council yards, for-mer rail yards, former school buildings, former hospitals, former all manner of things. No forward planning appeared necessary. Fools! Little streams grow into big streams and big streams cost money.
Farmland, moorland and woodland would, in years past have soaked up water. Now it teems into what has become England’s fastest flowing river. Down stream the seemingly never-ending flow swirls round the answer to swamped villages, stilted eco-towns. If we carry on building the above scenario could be more fact than fiction. We don’t have inexhaustible land to build on. If the worst ever did come to the worst, and we had to fend for ourselves again, where will we plant our crops?
Where will we source our water? What will we do for power? When will this and future Government’s realise we are an island nation. A very over populated island nation. We can’t take any more peo-ple no matter what the EU or others say.
We are at over capacity as it is. Stop now before it’s too late.
Farmland, moorland and woodland would, in years past have soaked up water. Now it teems into what has become England’s fastest flowing river. Down stream the seemingly never-ending flow swirls round the answer to swamped villages, stilted eco-towns. If we carry on building the above scenario could be more fact than fiction. We don’t have inexhaustible land to build on. If the worst ever did come to the worst, and we had to fend for ourselves again, where will we plant our crops?
Where will we source our water? What will we do for power? When will this and future Government’s realise we are an island nation. A very over populated island nation. We can’t take any more peo-ple no matter what the EU or others say.
We are at over capacity as it is. Stop now before it’s too late.
Glaciers Crushed It!
Glaciers crushed it, stone age man carved it, Brigantes chased Romans over it, a much removed ancestor courted on it, Prime Ministers shot grouse on it, Darwin took cold baths on it, UFOs land on it and now lads on push bikes make ruts in it. Poor old Ilkley Moor whatever will it have to put up with next? This is what happens when you stick an Urban Common in the mid-dle of a Rural District. It may sound fine on paper but try getting it through peoples heads who use it. There’s plenty of room up there for everyone; it just needs a bit of thought, a bit of planning and a bit of common sense.
My aunt tells me, by comparison, there are few horses to cyclists on the moor. She also points out the animals have been used up there for centuries, millennia even, without doing noticeable damage. When I was a young lad we often walked the countryside taking care not to leave signs we had been. It is strange the two things most upsetting people today came from the same continent. With the throw-away society bringing up a third.
My aunt tells me, by comparison, there are few horses to cyclists on the moor. She also points out the animals have been used up there for centuries, millennia even, without doing noticeable damage. When I was a young lad we often walked the countryside taking care not to leave signs we had been. It is strange the two things most upsetting people today came from the same continent. With the throw-away society bringing up a third.
Friday, 20 February 2009
The 'Right' Lord Lovat
From
The Table Book, 1827
An old man claiming to be the ‘right’ lord Lovat, i.e., heir to him who was beheaded in 1745, came to the Mansion House in 1818 for advice and assistance. He was as much in person and face as much like the rebel lord, if one may judge from his pictures, as a person could be, and the more especially as he was of advanced age. He said he had been to the present lord Lovat, who had given him food and a little money, and turned him away. He stated his pedigree and claim thus:- The rebel lord had an only brother, known by the family name of Simon Fraser.
Before lord Lovat engaged in the rebellion, Simon Fraser went to a wedding in his highland costume; when he entered the room where the party was assembled, an unfortunate wight of a bagpipe player struck up the favourite march of a clan in mortal enmity with that of Fraser, which so enraged him, that he drew his dirk and killed the piper on the spot. Fraser immediately fled, and found refuge in the mines of Wales. No law proceedings took place against him as he was absent and supposed to have perished at sea.
He married in Wales, and had one son, the old man above named, who said he was about sixty. When lord Lovat was executed his lands became forfeited; but in course of time, lord L., not having left a son, the estates were granted by the crown to a collateral branch, (one remove beyond Simon Fraser) the present lord, it not being known that Simon Fraser was alive or had left issue.
It is further remarkable that the applicant further stated that both he and his father, Simon Fraser, were called lord Lovat by the miners and other inhabitants of the spot where he was known. The old man was very ignorant, not knowing how to read or write, having been born in the mine and brought up by a miner; but he said he had preserved Simon Fraser’s highland dress, and that he had it in Wales.
The above remarkable anecdote, communicated by a respectable correspondent, with his name and address, may be relied upon as genuine for the Table Book. I would be very interested to hear from anyone in Wales or with Welsh ancestry who have knowledge of the above and also have any family connections with The ‘Right’ Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser.
The Table Book, 1827
An old man claiming to be the ‘right’ lord Lovat, i.e., heir to him who was beheaded in 1745, came to the Mansion House in 1818 for advice and assistance. He was as much in person and face as much like the rebel lord, if one may judge from his pictures, as a person could be, and the more especially as he was of advanced age. He said he had been to the present lord Lovat, who had given him food and a little money, and turned him away. He stated his pedigree and claim thus:- The rebel lord had an only brother, known by the family name of Simon Fraser.
Before lord Lovat engaged in the rebellion, Simon Fraser went to a wedding in his highland costume; when he entered the room where the party was assembled, an unfortunate wight of a bagpipe player struck up the favourite march of a clan in mortal enmity with that of Fraser, which so enraged him, that he drew his dirk and killed the piper on the spot. Fraser immediately fled, and found refuge in the mines of Wales. No law proceedings took place against him as he was absent and supposed to have perished at sea.
He married in Wales, and had one son, the old man above named, who said he was about sixty. When lord Lovat was executed his lands became forfeited; but in course of time, lord L., not having left a son, the estates were granted by the crown to a collateral branch, (one remove beyond Simon Fraser) the present lord, it not being known that Simon Fraser was alive or had left issue.
It is further remarkable that the applicant further stated that both he and his father, Simon Fraser, were called lord Lovat by the miners and other inhabitants of the spot where he was known. The old man was very ignorant, not knowing how to read or write, having been born in the mine and brought up by a miner; but he said he had preserved Simon Fraser’s highland dress, and that he had it in Wales.
The above remarkable anecdote, communicated by a respectable correspondent, with his name and address, may be relied upon as genuine for the Table Book. I would be very interested to hear from anyone in Wales or with Welsh ancestry who have knowledge of the above and also have any family connections with The ‘Right’ Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
HMS Trincomalee
The Second Oldest Wooden Warship Still Afloat.
A quite unconnected sequence of events re-united an Ilkley resident with his old ship, at least part of it, after forty one years. Listening to a BBC Radio Cleveland report on the £13 million major Naval Heritage Project taking place in the North-East, reference was made to a £5 million restoration project of HMS Trincomalee and the need for a further £1 million as the presenter quoted, ‘To put the icing on the cake,’ in other words to finish the project.
She, HMS Trincomalee (and her sister ship HMS Amphritite) were constructed of Malabar teak, instead of the usual oak, perhaps one reason for her remarkable survival. The original plans for her construction were sunk, on the way to India onboard HMS Java, by no less a ship than the frigate USS Constitution now preserved in Boston. A curious link between the world’s two oldest wooden warships still afloat.
The sailing frigate HMS Trincomalee is one of the most important historic ships in the world. Built of Malabar teak in 1817 at the Wadia shipyard, Bombay, she has outlived all her contemporaries. Only HMS Victory, in permanent dry dock and USS Constitution, still afloat in Boston, are older. The sole survivor of a long line of 334 sailing frigates of the Royal Navy.
She sailed nearly 150,000 miles during active service in the 19th century in the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, including action in Kamchatka a little known Pacific sector of the Crimean War. Active sea service ended in 1857 when she reverted to harbour duty as a Royal Navy drill ship. First at Sunderland for two years, then in the new town of West Hartlepool from 1862-1877.
Featuring prominently in the social life of the day, according to contemporary accounts, thus Trincomalee is an important part of Hartlepool’s Victorian heritage and latterly, Southampton. In 1897 she was sold to the breakers, however HMS Foudroyant (Nelson’s old 74 gun flagship) owned by Victorian philanthropist G Wheatley Cobb, was lost during a storm in Blackpool Bay*, in the same year.
As a replacement he bought Trincomalee, renamed her Foudroyant and used her for the training of young boys, first in Falmouth and later Milford Haven and finally Portsmouth, where she remained until 1987 after nearly a century of youth training. The last thirty years under the guidance of the Foudroyant Trust of which author Alexander Kent was a trustee.
(*I understand a considerable quantity of timber from the wreck was used by local people to furnish their houses, make chairs commemorating the ship of which two featured in a sale at Andrew Hartley’s Sale Rooms last year. It has been said the boardroom of Blackpool’s football club is clad with panels from the ship).
After more than 50 years in Portsmouth Harbour, Foudroyant (as she was then) was carried on a semi-submersible barge to the North East for a complete refit. Hartlepool, an area of very high un-employment, was chosen for the skills and experience of local men and women, who had recently completed restoration of the ironclad battleship HMS Warrior, now on display in Portsmouth Harbour.
A significant gift was received by the Trincomalee Trust from Mr Neville Wadia, descendent of the ship’s famous builder, Jamsetjee Bamanjee Wadia. Mr Wadia still lives in Bombay where HMS Trincomalee was launched in 1817, and in 1995 was able to make a trip to the ship. It is hoped this may be the first step in developing links with the Indian community in the UK and abroad.
Trincomalee is not only Britain’s oldest ship afloat but India’s too. Trincomalee, the second oldest wooden warship afloat in the world, has spanned the era from sail to nuclear propulsion. Her greatest honour is to be the oldest British Warship still afloat and will continue to fly the Ensign of HM Fleet for many years to come.
Which brings us back to the Ilkley resident. In 1959 while at school in Kent, Frazer Irwin joined a group of fellow schoolmates for a week on TS Foudroyant in Portsmouth Harbour, and so started a lifelong interest in the ship and naval history. It is difficult to explain why those seven days made such a mark on a lad of twelve! Perhaps it was sleeping in a hammock for the first time, or swabbing decks, maybe learning to tie knots or navigate a boat (or not as the case may be).
The latter was doomed from the first as he, his crew, and the Royal Navy were soon to find out. It could have been sailing an open whaler in a gale from the Isle of White to Portsmouth and near three hours to tack some four hundred yards to the ship, or maybe a visit to HMS Dolphin submarine base. Whatever it was the lad came home with a certificate which deemed him to have acquired sufficient knowledge of boatwork to make him a useful member of a boat’s crew.
During the refit sections of the Ship’s hull along with a certificate of authenticity could be purchased by members of the public. Thanks must go to presenters Stuart MacFarlane MBE and Keith Proud of BBC Radio Cleveland on acquiring the last section of Trincomalee’s hull for Frazer Irwin. Also to Martin Peacock & Antonnia Wains for transporting the historic piece of timber on it’s journey from Durham City to Ilkley.
While on a shoot with the Airedale-Wharfedale Archers Mr Irwin found a fellow bowman had also spent a week on TS Foudroyant about a year prior to him. How many others from this part of the country have done the same? Perhaps with help from Ilkley Gazette and the Telegraph & Argus, we could interest the local Asian/Indian community in this historic ship. Mr Irwin purchased a stone in Ilkley’s Millennium Green Maze to commemorate HMS Trincomalee’s restoration.
***********
An interesting note; the Grandfather of Rev Dr Robert Collyer served in the Royal Navy during the Battle of Trafalgar. Unlike Nelson his body never returned to port, however his grandson may have viewed USS Constitution when he gave lectures on Ilkley in Boston, during the latter part of the nineteenth century.
A quite unconnected sequence of events re-united an Ilkley resident with his old ship, at least part of it, after forty one years. Listening to a BBC Radio Cleveland report on the £13 million major Naval Heritage Project taking place in the North-East, reference was made to a £5 million restoration project of HMS Trincomalee and the need for a further £1 million as the presenter quoted, ‘To put the icing on the cake,’ in other words to finish the project.
She, HMS Trincomalee (and her sister ship HMS Amphritite) were constructed of Malabar teak, instead of the usual oak, perhaps one reason for her remarkable survival. The original plans for her construction were sunk, on the way to India onboard HMS Java, by no less a ship than the frigate USS Constitution now preserved in Boston. A curious link between the world’s two oldest wooden warships still afloat.
The sailing frigate HMS Trincomalee is one of the most important historic ships in the world. Built of Malabar teak in 1817 at the Wadia shipyard, Bombay, she has outlived all her contemporaries. Only HMS Victory, in permanent dry dock and USS Constitution, still afloat in Boston, are older. The sole survivor of a long line of 334 sailing frigates of the Royal Navy.
She sailed nearly 150,000 miles during active service in the 19th century in the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, including action in Kamchatka a little known Pacific sector of the Crimean War. Active sea service ended in 1857 when she reverted to harbour duty as a Royal Navy drill ship. First at Sunderland for two years, then in the new town of West Hartlepool from 1862-1877.
Featuring prominently in the social life of the day, according to contemporary accounts, thus Trincomalee is an important part of Hartlepool’s Victorian heritage and latterly, Southampton. In 1897 she was sold to the breakers, however HMS Foudroyant (Nelson’s old 74 gun flagship) owned by Victorian philanthropist G Wheatley Cobb, was lost during a storm in Blackpool Bay*, in the same year.
As a replacement he bought Trincomalee, renamed her Foudroyant and used her for the training of young boys, first in Falmouth and later Milford Haven and finally Portsmouth, where she remained until 1987 after nearly a century of youth training. The last thirty years under the guidance of the Foudroyant Trust of which author Alexander Kent was a trustee.
(*I understand a considerable quantity of timber from the wreck was used by local people to furnish their houses, make chairs commemorating the ship of which two featured in a sale at Andrew Hartley’s Sale Rooms last year. It has been said the boardroom of Blackpool’s football club is clad with panels from the ship).
After more than 50 years in Portsmouth Harbour, Foudroyant (as she was then) was carried on a semi-submersible barge to the North East for a complete refit. Hartlepool, an area of very high un-employment, was chosen for the skills and experience of local men and women, who had recently completed restoration of the ironclad battleship HMS Warrior, now on display in Portsmouth Harbour.
A significant gift was received by the Trincomalee Trust from Mr Neville Wadia, descendent of the ship’s famous builder, Jamsetjee Bamanjee Wadia. Mr Wadia still lives in Bombay where HMS Trincomalee was launched in 1817, and in 1995 was able to make a trip to the ship. It is hoped this may be the first step in developing links with the Indian community in the UK and abroad.
Trincomalee is not only Britain’s oldest ship afloat but India’s too. Trincomalee, the second oldest wooden warship afloat in the world, has spanned the era from sail to nuclear propulsion. Her greatest honour is to be the oldest British Warship still afloat and will continue to fly the Ensign of HM Fleet for many years to come.
Which brings us back to the Ilkley resident. In 1959 while at school in Kent, Frazer Irwin joined a group of fellow schoolmates for a week on TS Foudroyant in Portsmouth Harbour, and so started a lifelong interest in the ship and naval history. It is difficult to explain why those seven days made such a mark on a lad of twelve! Perhaps it was sleeping in a hammock for the first time, or swabbing decks, maybe learning to tie knots or navigate a boat (or not as the case may be).
The latter was doomed from the first as he, his crew, and the Royal Navy were soon to find out. It could have been sailing an open whaler in a gale from the Isle of White to Portsmouth and near three hours to tack some four hundred yards to the ship, or maybe a visit to HMS Dolphin submarine base. Whatever it was the lad came home with a certificate which deemed him to have acquired sufficient knowledge of boatwork to make him a useful member of a boat’s crew.
During the refit sections of the Ship’s hull along with a certificate of authenticity could be purchased by members of the public. Thanks must go to presenters Stuart MacFarlane MBE and Keith Proud of BBC Radio Cleveland on acquiring the last section of Trincomalee’s hull for Frazer Irwin. Also to Martin Peacock & Antonnia Wains for transporting the historic piece of timber on it’s journey from Durham City to Ilkley.
While on a shoot with the Airedale-Wharfedale Archers Mr Irwin found a fellow bowman had also spent a week on TS Foudroyant about a year prior to him. How many others from this part of the country have done the same? Perhaps with help from Ilkley Gazette and the Telegraph & Argus, we could interest the local Asian/Indian community in this historic ship. Mr Irwin purchased a stone in Ilkley’s Millennium Green Maze to commemorate HMS Trincomalee’s restoration.
***********
An interesting note; the Grandfather of Rev Dr Robert Collyer served in the Royal Navy during the Battle of Trafalgar. Unlike Nelson his body never returned to port, however his grandson may have viewed USS Constitution when he gave lectures on Ilkley in Boston, during the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
When Jimi Hendrix played in Ilkley
Purple Haze over Ilkley
Purple Haze over Ilkley Jimi Hendrix died 25 years ago this week at the age of 25। His early death helped him become one of the world’s most venerated pop stars alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Jim Morrison। Unknown to most people, the man who headlined Woodstock in 1969 had two years earlier played a single date in a town called Ilkley. With the help of an exclusive interview with Noel Redding, former bass player of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Matthew Catling describes how the legendary band threatened to take the roof down.
Today it is hard to equate Ilkley with Jimi Hendrix. The former is a quiet and deeply conservative Dales town, and the latter a figure of fabulous flamboyance and excess. This is the man whose explosive virtuosity made contemporaries like Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Pete Townsend feel pathetic. He was simply better, louder, more original and outrageous than anything they had seen. On stage Hendrix could play his guitar effortlessly with his teeth or behind his back and might then smash up the instrument before setting fire to it. This was after blitzing an audience by peppering his songs with flashy improvisations and bursts of feedback, from which was able to suddenly snatch haunting but beautiful refrains.
If his talent and act were otherworldly, so were his striking looks. He was born in America of black, white and Cherokee blood. With his frizzed up hair and taste for flowery shirts and brightly coloured clothing he was an icon for the psychedelic sixties. His charisma and sexual allure were considerable and Hendrix soon developed a reputation as the British music scene’s stud. And his appetite for drugs, particularly hallucinogens like LSD, became equally famous. Much of this legend had not yet been established in early 1967 when the Jimi Hendrix Experience set out on a tour of small venues in the north of England. The itinerary included a night at the International Club in Leeds on Saturday March 11 followed the next evening by a gig at the Giro Club in the Troutbeck Hotel, Crossbeck Road, Ilkley, now the Troutbeck Nursing Home.
At this point the trio - completed by Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass - had just started their meteoric rise to fame. Few Venues Their first single, Hey Joe, was slipping out of the charts having peaked at number three some weeks earlier. The next single, the ground breaking Purple Haze, was set to be released a few days later and the band were rehearsing and laying down tracks for their first album, Are You Experienced? Despite the fact these were the early days it is still hard to see how, from the perspective of 1995, Ilkley could attract somebody like Hendrix.
The answer is that in the 1960s' venues for rock gigs were few and far between. Yet there was an explosion of interest in the music and an emphasis on playing live created by financial necessity and audience expectation. Against this background places like the Troutbeck Hotel and Stoney Lea Hotel in Cowpasture Road found a place on the circuit for bands which had not yet made the big time. Although Hendrix had not yet shot to superstardom the buzz created by Hey Joe and the rave reviews of his first London gigs preceded him. Those in the know flocked to Ilkley in the hope of witnessing a legend in the making - some travelled from as far away as Newcastle. The Troutbeck was consequently packed when the Experience stepped on stage in its ballroom. Sketchy and conflicting reports of what happened next were carried in the Ilkley Gazette and other local newspapers.
The Yorkshire Post trumpeted ’700 in uproar at beat club after police stop show’. The Gazette quoted a ‘national paper’ whose ‘Pop Fans Ran Amok in Hotel’ story had 800 teenagers running riot after police halted a pop concert ‘in mid verse’. The report continues: “They ripped off doors, pulled out electrical fittings and smashed furniture after a police sergeant stepped on stage and stopped pop singer Jimmy Hendrix half-way through a number.” All of the newspapers agreed that the police had pulled the plug on the gig halfway through the second song, because of the number of people in the ballroom flouted fire regulations.
But the Gazette questioned the truth off the riot by quoting a spokesman of the Troutbeck. He was surprised at how ‘quiet and orderly’ the fans were and said limited damage had been caused simply because there were so many of them. A police officer confirmed this by telling the Gazette that no official complaints of vandalism had been received. He explained the officers were initially called to the hotel by residents because nearby roads were blocked by cars belonging to Hendrix fans. It was then discovered the ballroom was seriously overcrowded and the decision taken to stop the concert in an attempt to reduce the audience to its legal limit of about 250. Chaos ensued and the concert did not resume.
Until today this was the extent of all documented accounts of the incident. So what really happened? Vince Philpotts of Steeton and Peter Dobson of Ilkley were in the Troutbeck Hotel on the night. At the time both were members of local soul band Moldy Warp. Mr Philpotts, then 20, played saxaphone and Mr Dobson, then 21, played bass. Wild “It was one of the high points of my youth. It was a night I wouldn’t have missed, short as it was,” said Mr Philpotts. “The ballroom was designed for about 200people but by my estimation there were about 450 inside - even standing on the windowsills and tables. As soon as Hendrix made his appearance the place went wild. There was shouting and jumping - it was a thrill to watch this fellow walking on stage.”
According to their combined recollections Hendrix was wearing a brown suede waistcoat, a purple scarf, boots, black pants (trousers) and possibly a black hat. He also did not appear to be ‘under the influence’ of anything illegal. “It wasn’t my impression that he was drugged up. He was just so laid back and a charismatic character just by his demeanour,” said Mr Dobson. Mr Philpotts continued: “He came on that stage and he was as lucid as you or me. He started off with one hell of an instrumental. Noel Redding started with a bass line then Mitchell came in on the drums. It was just a huge bang straight into the set. It was loud and excellent.
The next thing this suicidal plain-clothed cop in a gabardine gets up on stage and tells Hendrix to shut up and says the place was in breach of fire regulations, everyone had to go home. He just got everybody’s back up. It was the way he did it.” Mr Dobson added: “There was trouble. It was a case of having your dinner put in front of you and then taken away.”
The policeman’s lack of diplomacy is backed up by the Gazette report which quotes Stuart Frais, a disc jockey at the Giro Club. “When he began ‘Listen boys and girls’ there was bound to be trouble. After all everyone in the audience was over 18,” he said. In Mr Philpotts recollection the audience started booing and shouting. Meanwhile Hendrix’s reaction was to repeatedly back into his amps, thus drowning the policeman’s words with feedback. The officer then started ‘rushing around’ to find the switch which would turn the amplifiers off, but initially only succeeded in fuelling chaos by turning the lights in the ballroom on and off.
Eventually the band agreed to leave the stage and retreated to their dressing room. But members of the audience decided to express their unhappiness, by dumping items of furniture in a pile in the bar as they filed out. The allocation of refunds at the front entrance was thrown into disarray when a fire door at the back of the building was opened. As a result some fans doubled their money by simply walking around the building and re-entering the queue. “It wasn’t vandalism or the rioting that we know today. Things were just thrown there to show their objection,” said Mr Philpotts. “We actually saw Hendrix as we walked past, he was sitting in the kitchen.
We asked him ‘Hey Jimi, what’s up?’ and his answer was something like ’The pigs won’t let us play.’ I think it would have gone straight through and there would have been no hassle at all. People weren’t interested in drinking, they were there to see Hendrix,” he added. Mr Dobson reached the same conclusion, but threw a slightly more sinister light on what followed the appearance of the police. He remembers that some tables were wantonly smashed and that some fans had arrived at the hotel drunk. He recalls talk that the use of ‘illegal substances’ among the audience had spurred the police into action. In an exclusive interview from his New York home Noel Redding, former bass player with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, told the Gazette he could still remember the night in Ilkley.
His version of events adds weight to that given by Mr Dobson and Mr Philpotts. He explained that at the time the band did much of it’s travelling in a van and would have probably arrived in Ilkley during the afternoon with their road manager, Jerry Stickles. Mr Redding continued: "A lot of the time we would just pile into the van. I used to go and lie on top of the equipment in the back. Jimi sat in the front. He loved England, especially the travelling about and going to different parts. I knew the country so I used to be the tour bus guide. We didn't have any women with us in those days - we didn't have enough room. There were only about twelve people at the Leeds gig the night before - I don't think everybody up north had heard of us yet. It was also a bit of a rough area. We still played our 45 minute set to them. They enjoyed it. As far as I can recall there were just too many people at the Ilkley gig.
I probably started off with a bass riff and then Mitch would join and then Hendrix would start and then we would go into Killing Floor. We never had a list. We would just follow Jimi. The second track would have been Stone Free." Mr Redding couldn't specifically remember Hendrix drowning out the policeman with feedback. But he commented: "That would be Hendrix. None of us were very fond of the police really because those were the days of reefers.” After the curtailed gig Mr Redding remembered going down the road to a pub with Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell.
Jimi loved the country pubs. In between things he and I would without fail go and find a nice little pub and then have a couple pints of bitter - he liked bitter. that was about it at the time, reefers and bitters. The harder stuff didn't come until about 1969," he said. The band spent the night at the Crescent Hotel in Brook Street, then owned by Crest Hotels, part of the Bass Brewery's empire. According to the owner of the time they arrived late at night. Upon finding the front door locked, Hendrix, no doubt feeling the effects of three or four pints of bitter, walked to the back and urinated against the wall.
Mr Redding could not confirm this had occurred but said it did 'ring bells'. Early next morning the most famous pop star to visit Ilkley hit the road, probably for London where photo shoots and studio sessions had been booked prior to a tour of Germany which began four days later. Jimi Hendrix tragically died in 1970 on the morning of September 18th. The Jimi Hendrix Experience were paid £60 for their Ilkley gig. Two years later they were paid $18,000 to headline Woodstock. The band's manager at the time of the Ilkley visit was Chas Chandler, a former member of The Animals. If you or any of your friends, family, acquaintances can remember the above, or attended the gigs at the Troutbeck or International Club in Leeds, I would like to here from you/them. Can you remember other rising stars who played at the two venues. Who were they and व्हेन?
Purple Haze over Ilkley Jimi Hendrix died 25 years ago this week at the age of 25। His early death helped him become one of the world’s most venerated pop stars alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Jim Morrison। Unknown to most people, the man who headlined Woodstock in 1969 had two years earlier played a single date in a town called Ilkley. With the help of an exclusive interview with Noel Redding, former bass player of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Matthew Catling describes how the legendary band threatened to take the roof down.
Today it is hard to equate Ilkley with Jimi Hendrix. The former is a quiet and deeply conservative Dales town, and the latter a figure of fabulous flamboyance and excess. This is the man whose explosive virtuosity made contemporaries like Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Pete Townsend feel pathetic. He was simply better, louder, more original and outrageous than anything they had seen. On stage Hendrix could play his guitar effortlessly with his teeth or behind his back and might then smash up the instrument before setting fire to it. This was after blitzing an audience by peppering his songs with flashy improvisations and bursts of feedback, from which was able to suddenly snatch haunting but beautiful refrains.
If his talent and act were otherworldly, so were his striking looks. He was born in America of black, white and Cherokee blood. With his frizzed up hair and taste for flowery shirts and brightly coloured clothing he was an icon for the psychedelic sixties. His charisma and sexual allure were considerable and Hendrix soon developed a reputation as the British music scene’s stud. And his appetite for drugs, particularly hallucinogens like LSD, became equally famous. Much of this legend had not yet been established in early 1967 when the Jimi Hendrix Experience set out on a tour of small venues in the north of England. The itinerary included a night at the International Club in Leeds on Saturday March 11 followed the next evening by a gig at the Giro Club in the Troutbeck Hotel, Crossbeck Road, Ilkley, now the Troutbeck Nursing Home.
At this point the trio - completed by Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass - had just started their meteoric rise to fame. Few Venues Their first single, Hey Joe, was slipping out of the charts having peaked at number three some weeks earlier. The next single, the ground breaking Purple Haze, was set to be released a few days later and the band were rehearsing and laying down tracks for their first album, Are You Experienced? Despite the fact these were the early days it is still hard to see how, from the perspective of 1995, Ilkley could attract somebody like Hendrix.
The answer is that in the 1960s' venues for rock gigs were few and far between. Yet there was an explosion of interest in the music and an emphasis on playing live created by financial necessity and audience expectation. Against this background places like the Troutbeck Hotel and Stoney Lea Hotel in Cowpasture Road found a place on the circuit for bands which had not yet made the big time. Although Hendrix had not yet shot to superstardom the buzz created by Hey Joe and the rave reviews of his first London gigs preceded him. Those in the know flocked to Ilkley in the hope of witnessing a legend in the making - some travelled from as far away as Newcastle. The Troutbeck was consequently packed when the Experience stepped on stage in its ballroom. Sketchy and conflicting reports of what happened next were carried in the Ilkley Gazette and other local newspapers.
The Yorkshire Post trumpeted ’700 in uproar at beat club after police stop show’. The Gazette quoted a ‘national paper’ whose ‘Pop Fans Ran Amok in Hotel’ story had 800 teenagers running riot after police halted a pop concert ‘in mid verse’. The report continues: “They ripped off doors, pulled out electrical fittings and smashed furniture after a police sergeant stepped on stage and stopped pop singer Jimmy Hendrix half-way through a number.” All of the newspapers agreed that the police had pulled the plug on the gig halfway through the second song, because of the number of people in the ballroom flouted fire regulations.
But the Gazette questioned the truth off the riot by quoting a spokesman of the Troutbeck. He was surprised at how ‘quiet and orderly’ the fans were and said limited damage had been caused simply because there were so many of them. A police officer confirmed this by telling the Gazette that no official complaints of vandalism had been received. He explained the officers were initially called to the hotel by residents because nearby roads were blocked by cars belonging to Hendrix fans. It was then discovered the ballroom was seriously overcrowded and the decision taken to stop the concert in an attempt to reduce the audience to its legal limit of about 250. Chaos ensued and the concert did not resume.
Until today this was the extent of all documented accounts of the incident. So what really happened? Vince Philpotts of Steeton and Peter Dobson of Ilkley were in the Troutbeck Hotel on the night. At the time both were members of local soul band Moldy Warp. Mr Philpotts, then 20, played saxaphone and Mr Dobson, then 21, played bass. Wild “It was one of the high points of my youth. It was a night I wouldn’t have missed, short as it was,” said Mr Philpotts. “The ballroom was designed for about 200people but by my estimation there were about 450 inside - even standing on the windowsills and tables. As soon as Hendrix made his appearance the place went wild. There was shouting and jumping - it was a thrill to watch this fellow walking on stage.”
According to their combined recollections Hendrix was wearing a brown suede waistcoat, a purple scarf, boots, black pants (trousers) and possibly a black hat. He also did not appear to be ‘under the influence’ of anything illegal. “It wasn’t my impression that he was drugged up. He was just so laid back and a charismatic character just by his demeanour,” said Mr Dobson. Mr Philpotts continued: “He came on that stage and he was as lucid as you or me. He started off with one hell of an instrumental. Noel Redding started with a bass line then Mitchell came in on the drums. It was just a huge bang straight into the set. It was loud and excellent.
The next thing this suicidal plain-clothed cop in a gabardine gets up on stage and tells Hendrix to shut up and says the place was in breach of fire regulations, everyone had to go home. He just got everybody’s back up. It was the way he did it.” Mr Dobson added: “There was trouble. It was a case of having your dinner put in front of you and then taken away.”
The policeman’s lack of diplomacy is backed up by the Gazette report which quotes Stuart Frais, a disc jockey at the Giro Club. “When he began ‘Listen boys and girls’ there was bound to be trouble. After all everyone in the audience was over 18,” he said. In Mr Philpotts recollection the audience started booing and shouting. Meanwhile Hendrix’s reaction was to repeatedly back into his amps, thus drowning the policeman’s words with feedback. The officer then started ‘rushing around’ to find the switch which would turn the amplifiers off, but initially only succeeded in fuelling chaos by turning the lights in the ballroom on and off.
Eventually the band agreed to leave the stage and retreated to their dressing room. But members of the audience decided to express their unhappiness, by dumping items of furniture in a pile in the bar as they filed out. The allocation of refunds at the front entrance was thrown into disarray when a fire door at the back of the building was opened. As a result some fans doubled their money by simply walking around the building and re-entering the queue. “It wasn’t vandalism or the rioting that we know today. Things were just thrown there to show their objection,” said Mr Philpotts. “We actually saw Hendrix as we walked past, he was sitting in the kitchen.
We asked him ‘Hey Jimi, what’s up?’ and his answer was something like ’The pigs won’t let us play.’ I think it would have gone straight through and there would have been no hassle at all. People weren’t interested in drinking, they were there to see Hendrix,” he added. Mr Dobson reached the same conclusion, but threw a slightly more sinister light on what followed the appearance of the police. He remembers that some tables were wantonly smashed and that some fans had arrived at the hotel drunk. He recalls talk that the use of ‘illegal substances’ among the audience had spurred the police into action. In an exclusive interview from his New York home Noel Redding, former bass player with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, told the Gazette he could still remember the night in Ilkley.
His version of events adds weight to that given by Mr Dobson and Mr Philpotts. He explained that at the time the band did much of it’s travelling in a van and would have probably arrived in Ilkley during the afternoon with their road manager, Jerry Stickles. Mr Redding continued: "A lot of the time we would just pile into the van. I used to go and lie on top of the equipment in the back. Jimi sat in the front. He loved England, especially the travelling about and going to different parts. I knew the country so I used to be the tour bus guide. We didn't have any women with us in those days - we didn't have enough room. There were only about twelve people at the Leeds gig the night before - I don't think everybody up north had heard of us yet. It was also a bit of a rough area. We still played our 45 minute set to them. They enjoyed it. As far as I can recall there were just too many people at the Ilkley gig.
I probably started off with a bass riff and then Mitch would join and then Hendrix would start and then we would go into Killing Floor. We never had a list. We would just follow Jimi. The second track would have been Stone Free." Mr Redding couldn't specifically remember Hendrix drowning out the policeman with feedback. But he commented: "That would be Hendrix. None of us were very fond of the police really because those were the days of reefers.” After the curtailed gig Mr Redding remembered going down the road to a pub with Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell.
Jimi loved the country pubs. In between things he and I would without fail go and find a nice little pub and then have a couple pints of bitter - he liked bitter. that was about it at the time, reefers and bitters. The harder stuff didn't come until about 1969," he said. The band spent the night at the Crescent Hotel in Brook Street, then owned by Crest Hotels, part of the Bass Brewery's empire. According to the owner of the time they arrived late at night. Upon finding the front door locked, Hendrix, no doubt feeling the effects of three or four pints of bitter, walked to the back and urinated against the wall.
Mr Redding could not confirm this had occurred but said it did 'ring bells'. Early next morning the most famous pop star to visit Ilkley hit the road, probably for London where photo shoots and studio sessions had been booked prior to a tour of Germany which began four days later. Jimi Hendrix tragically died in 1970 on the morning of September 18th. The Jimi Hendrix Experience were paid £60 for their Ilkley gig. Two years later they were paid $18,000 to headline Woodstock. The band's manager at the time of the Ilkley visit was Chas Chandler, a former member of The Animals. If you or any of your friends, family, acquaintances can remember the above, or attended the gigs at the Troutbeck or International Club in Leeds, I would like to here from you/them. Can you remember other rising stars who played at the two venues. Who were they and व्हेन?
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