magnum bonum, sans pareil, nec plus ultra

[Redroger]

"Little boys should be seen and not heard!" Perhaps that is what started me off as  rebellious from a very early age.

[drodgers34]

We had a "J" Stirk in my year at Holmfirth High School - born 'around' 1960

Very distinctive name

[grabee]

I would like to contact Holmemoss with regards to the Mitchels and the Stirks.

Abraham Stirk was father to Edwin Stork who was my grandmothers father.

My grandmother was Kate Elanour Stork before she married Donald Balfour

[Terrier1964]

Hello
Stumbled across this site by accident. Nice to find an ancestry site that is actually free of charge.
Perhaps I can help with any questions re you have re the Stirk from Holmfirth/HadeEdge as Arnold Stirk was my grandad and Hannah Briggs my grandmother !
As for wealth - sad to say this is a bit of a myth - the large house you refer to was called "Hopefield House" situated right in the middle of Hade Edge and was a shared property between my grandparents and an uncle. I can tell you various stories about the village and tale from bygone times if you want to hear the details - this involves the quarries and the steam engines and the blasting's and the roof falls and men being buried alive or blown to bits by wrong set charges. In the mid 1870's Hade Edge was a wild and  pretty lawless place - three pubs no less and hundreds of irish navvies working taking stone from the quarries down to Dunford Bridge to be put on the trains for Sheffield and Manchester.....fights were common - accidents even more so. They even built a Methodist Church to try and make the locals more god fearing and less warlike !

I have managed to trace my family tree back to the "Stork" era but am lost from then backwards....

Hope you may drop me a line

Mark Stirk (grandson to Arnold + Hannah)

[bykerlads]

So pleased you stumbled across this site!
Hannah Stirk was my greataunt, being the sister of my grandmother Florence nee Briggs.
We are therefore related.
I'd like to send you a PM-personal message but I think you need to have made a certain small number of posts to enable me to do this?
I recall being taken to see Hannah at Hopefield House as a child in the 1950's.
I've lots of info about the Briggs back to late 1700's.

[Terrier1964]

Thank You for replying - You mentioned you lived on the Terrace - I guess that was opposite the Bandroom and a little further along from the school.
Did you visit my gran at Hopefield House ? - my dad Ray Stirk and his brother Geoffrey lived there (sadly both passed away now). I spent many hours as a child playing in that area ....the exciting but dangerous quarries on the back fields.....Holmstyes Reservoir .....bilberry picking and blackberries for everyone.....the house had coal fires and I used to chop and saw wood to make kindling....I reckon I could still make a fire from scratch.....

Helms shop....Sunday School.....Bowshaw Whams fishing.....my grandad was a great friend of Jimmy the water bailiff.  Hade Edge band and the little telephone kiosk at the junction of the main road (my gran used to get paid to clean that !) - going a bit further back there used to be a chip shop down Greave Road that they owned.   Aunt Edit lived in the house opposite the gates to Hopefield House (with a chap called Ernest ?) and the Helms used to live a little way below on the corner house.

Lots to tell  - many happy memories.....one story that Hannah always used to tell was that her brother Sykes Briggs committed suicide by weighing himself down and throwing himself into the Holmstyes Reservoir......other names that we told bad stories about were the Boswells (Ephraim and Ezekial  - Holmfirths "Mitchell" Brothers of the 1940's.

Flight Hill.....my grandad was an ARP during the war and he used to cycle up there past Magnum to a little tower to watch the german bombers fly over to bombe Stocksbridge and Sheffield.....he said the whole sky lit up when they got a plastering.....and he recovered dead airmen when they flew into Holme Moss due to low flying and low cloud......and the bomb that got dropped at Stand Bank....probably aiming for either Holmstyes or Washpit Mill.....all fond memories....

[bykerlads]

You have really set some memories going for me!
Though I only lived at the Terrace till I was 2, my grandad, Florence's husband and thus Hannah's brother in law was reservoir keeper at Harden so we spent a lot of time up there as children in the 1950's.
The Terrace is at the back of the graveyard in Hade Edge, you get to it down the lane at the side of what was Helm's shop. If I recall correctly a Stirk lived there in 1851, having married into the Mitchells, one of the original Magnum families.
Sykes Briggs died of typhus- it was his+ Hannah's father Alfred who drowned in the pond at Longley farm.
I think the chip shop was run by my dad's grandma, Hannah's mother.
There is a lot that we have in common- make a couple more posts and then I'll be able to PM you.. with mor info.
Can I ask if you have any old family photos?

[bykerlads]

Terrier/Mark- I've sent you a PM, hope you get it- if not let me know.
Thinking about Hade Edge memories: what about skimming stones on the reservoirs? 
Reminded of this just now when watching the program about the Dambusters. I'm sure my dad used to tell of seeing planes over Langsett res, during the war, practicing for the dambusting. He would have been office boy at Hepworth Iron co or at Penistone grammar school at the time, I'd guess.

[bykerlads]

Not sure if Terrier is still looking in on Rootschat, but just to report that I went back up to Hade Edge today- the most perfect place on such a sunny day: skylark, pee-wits, harebells, gorse and a dramatic set-too over my grandad's reservoir between a buzzard and some seagulls ( get everywhere don't they?)
As usual I visited the graveyard, including Hannah and Arnold and our grtgrtgrtgrandfather Crispin Sykes, one of the original Magnum delvers.