The former Pig Yard Club museum in Settle

[Pitlamp]

Does anyone know exactly which building housed the Pig Yard Club archive of archaeological material in Settle? It was closely associated with the late and great Tot Lord. I'm sure I went in it as a teenage caver; I think it was on Chapel Street (the road that goes alongside the former police station (now converted into flats).

 

[Alan Sp8]

It was at the top of Constitution Hill past the Co-op
"In 1948 he bought Townhead, a delapidated mansion overlooking Settle, and turned the ground floor into a museum, which included the finds from Victoria Cave, including those from the museum at Giggleswick School, which were in danger of being lost.
The house was knocked down and the land developed into the housing estate - Hence Townhead Way

 

[Alan Sp8]

Forgot to add I went with Lugger when I was a NCC member back in 1965 walked up the hill to find the museum was closed - Tot Lord died in 1965 so I think it closed after Tots death

 

[mikem]

Although the museum was in his house:

All you need to know about Settle’s famous son, Tot Lord

An information board about the life of Settle’s famous son, Tot Lord, has been erected at The Courtyard, just outside Settle.

www.cravenherald.co.uk

The Pig Yard Club originally wasn't:

Tot Lord and Victoria Bone Cave

AN exciting moment for me was one lunch-time when Freda, my wife, met me at the front door of our home in High Hill Grove, Settle, and - with a…

www.cravenherald.co.uk

& First display was in the schoolhouse:

The Community

Under the Uplands is uniting archaeologists, the public and Yorkshire's well-established caving community to bring the region's distinctive cave archaeology to national attention. Here's how...

projects.digventures.com

Tot interview in 1948, saying they had to move the now too large collection again:

Tot Lord

'Tot Lord - One of the Yorkshire Dales Greatest Characters' A warm and nostalgic look back at the life and times of Yorkshire Dales legend, Tot Lord.

rwhinray.webs.com

15 newspaper articles between 1938 & 1959 mention visits to the museum (10 of those before he moved into Townhead):

Results for 'pig yard club museum' | British Newspaper Archive

Your search results for pig yard club museum: 957252 newspaper articles contained information about pig yard club museum. Filter your results by date, publication, region, county, place, type or public tag

www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

His collection is now apparently at:

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www.lowerwinskill.co.uk

 

[mikem]

Richard Whinray, one of his grandsons who wrote a book about Tot (link above), also organised a local walk - unfortunately this copy of the map isn't readable, but some of the pictures can be scrolled through at bottom right:

Tot Lord

'Tot Lord - One of the Yorkshire Dales Greatest Characters' A warm and nostalgic look back at the life and times of Yorkshire Dales legend, Tot Lord.

rwhinray.webs.com

Chapel Street does take you up to the museum of north craven life, but that only opened in 2001

 

[Pitlamp]

Thanks for all those interesting replies.

Some time in the 1970s there was definitely a museum on Chapel Street (long before the Museum of North Craven Life). I visited it as a child and remember a display about a skeleton found in the clints somewhere at Borrins. I always assumed (since then) that this was the Pig Yard Club collection of material but could be wrong. (This particular museum closed a very long time ago.) I also have very vague memories of an attempt, for a few years, to resurrect the PYC museum; the Chapel Street premises was perhaps part of this initiative?

Town Head House looks to have been a magnificent building from a photo in the link MikeM gives above. Shame it was demolished. The replacement buildings don't look anywhere near as distinguished!

I must have a netter with Lugger or Tom Lord when our paths next cross.

 

[Pitlamp]

Someone else I know also remembers that museum on Chapel Street from the late 70s.

 

[mikem]

"The Museum of North Craven Life was founded in 1976 by the Settle and District Civic Society, then chaired by Alan Bennett."

The Museum of North Craven Life - The Folly

Museum, cafe and shop in an extraordinary historic building. Settle in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.

thefolly.org.uk

This gives a contact address of 6/8 chapel Street a couple of years before they bought The Folly:

Chairman's Report to the North Craven Heritage Trust

Came across this list of more recent displays: http://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Geology_in_Yorkshire's_museums

 

[mikem]

Although that address appears only to be from 1987:

From the archives

100 years ago

www.cravenherald.co.uk

 

[Alan Sp8]

I remember the museum that Pitlamp recalls in the 70s - just a bit further up the street than Settle Watersports but on the opposite side of the road.
I found this mention "The Museum of North Craven Life was founded in 1976 by the Settle and District Civic Society, then chaired by Alan Bennett. This later developed into the North Craven Building Preservation Trust and the North Craven Heritage Trust, with the two organisations continuing to work closely together. So it might well have been the MoNCL back then

 

[mikem]

From "The Yorkshire Dales Review Spring 1989" (museum is now at The Folly in Victoria Street):

In 1976 it formed a Building Preservation Trust as a separate limited company with charitable status to purchase and restore property, and in the following year the Museum of North Craven Life opened in a restored building in Victoria Street, Settle. This rapidly outgrew its space and in 1985 moved to become part of a larger North Craven Heritage Centre in 6-8 Chapel Street, Settle. Its present building is 17th century and was formerly a shop and two dwellings. Many of the original features have been retained and include a separate wash-house in the cobbled back yard which incporates a dated doorhead of 1685. It lies just a short distance from the Market Place and close to The Folly, an outstanding town house of 17th century date.

 

[Pitlamp]

Thanks all. This is a bit more complicated than I'd thought!
Will have a stroll along Chapel Street next time I'm in Settle.

 

[langcliffe]

According to the BCRA Council Minutes of 24th September 1978, following a flood at their then home in Skipton Reference Library, the Yorkshire section of the BSA Records were moved to a "warm, dry, newly decorated and well lit room in the Pig Yard Museum at the rear of Tom Lord's house (Rock House) in Settle."

They remained there for about five years.

 

[Pitlamp]

This is a picture of the building in Settle with a shop front which I think was once a museum which housed the Pig Yard Club display, at some stage in the 1970s. To the right (just out of shot and set back from the tarmac) are Nos. 8 and 6 respectively but they don't have shop fronts. If you were to walk down the road rightwards from here, you'd pass the former Settle Watersports shop on the right and Cragdale on the left (the former police station and which, mainly before the war, was partly occupied by the BSA and "Cymmie" in particular).

For anyone particularly into trees, I ought to mention that between Cragdale [now called "Cragdale Lodge" and converted into flats] and the main road there is a magnificent specimen of the fern leaved beech; Fagus sylvatica asplenifolia, which is fairly unusual in the Dales. I think this is the tree where the police used to hang a large white sheet when there was a cave rescue on a Sunday. This was before Settle was bypassed by the A65 and all the cavers heading home to Leeds, Bradford, etc would see this and stop to offer to help and / or be provided with the perfect excuse not to have to go in to work on a Monday!)

There's a lot of caving history in this little area of Settle.

 

[langcliffe]

Ask Tom Lord!