Above the village of Longwood, just outside Huddersfield, there stands what can only be described as a strange stump of a building. This is the  Longwood Tower, built by local men without formal design or architect, in time for the intriguingly-named Longwood Thump of 1861.

The Thump was the name given to the local holiday celebration, and the name is peculiar to Longwood. Nearby Kirkheaton had its annual Rant, and Almondbury a Rush, whilst Honley was a little more transparent with its Feast. At each games were played, picnics were eaten, and the ale flowed. In 1861, when the Longwood Tower (also known as the Nab End Tower) was built, there was considerable hardship in the area with many men out of work ‘during the manufacturing distress’. The unemployed men used their time to build ‘the conspicuous tower’ with the permission of the landowner, William Shaw of Botham Hall, and using stone from the adjacent quarry.

‘A Novel Erection’, ran the headline in the local paper, the Huddersfield Examiner, in August 1861. From the start the building was considered a ‘curious affair’, with its great mass of dry stones, but it formed the centrepiece of the Thump with feasting and fireworks lasting several days. The rustic date stone of 1861 is accompanied by the initials G.H. for George Hellawell, a stonemason who lived in the village and supervised the building. George Collier of Milnsbridge wrote lines to celebrate the opening:

On Longwood Edge there stands a Tower,
that end near Quarmby Clough,
and if you stand out by the church,
you’ll see it plain enough.
This Tower was built by men and boys
of Longwood, that is true,
and if you want the height of it
it’s twenty-nine feet two.
So come my lads and lasses gay,
come, and join the throng,
we’ll have a spree this Longwood Thump
in eighteen sixty-one.

The tower provided a backdrop to cricket matches between local teams, including the Lumb Challenge Cup of 1889 where ‘the mighty Armitage Bridge crumbled to small pieces, and fell a ruined wreck in sight of the mythical structure of Longwood Tower’. The Athletic News reporter joked that the victors, Cliffe End, had the edge because the ‘Bridgers’ were unused to the altitude of the ground and were exhausted by the walk up the steep slope.

In 1895 the Shaw family gave the tower and the surrounding land to the people of Huddersfield as a recreation ground. Three years later they paid for the already deteriorating tower (throwing the loose stones down the hill was apparently a favourite pastime) to be consolidated, but payment was accompanied with the proviso that it was then the sole responsibility of the town council.

The Longwood Thump had always involved music, and as well as Brass Bands there were choral performances, called ‘sings’. Longwood’s pioneering role in the development of this local tradition, led to their annual event becoming known as ‘the Mother of all Sings’. A hollow just below the tower was developed as an outdoor concert hall, although crowds overflowed across the whole hilltop: crowds were estimated at 5,000 at the 1893 event when Handel’s Messiah was among the works performed.

At a time when fundraising for the National Health Service has been very much in the news, thanks to the efforts of Captain Sir Tom Moore and others, it is worth remembering the days when there was no free healthcare, and charity was often the only hope. The Longwood Sing of 1869 was in aid of Samuel Shaw, an elderly music-lover who was sick. In 1896 the Sing raised funds for the Huddersfield Infirmary, and the organisers expressed a hope that surrounding districts would follow their lead. As the programme above illustrates, the sings have continued to raise funds for good causes.

It’s doubtful if the builders of 1861 expected their tower to be standing more than 150 years later, or thought that a British Prime Minister would one day climb up to their tower for the annual Sing, as Huddersfield-born Harold Wilson did in 1973*. In 2008 the Longwood Tower was restored by Kirklees Council at a cost of £200,000. Bullen Conservation inserted specialist anchors, or ties, to hold the building together and prevent collapse. It remains a popular spot, and long may the singing continue.

* Technically a former and future Prime Minster: Wilson had been PM 1964-70, and would return to office the year after his visit, serving as PM in 1974-76.

1814 saw the centenary of the ascension of the House of Hanover to the British throne. Although it was only a few years since George III had celebrated a reign of 50 years, it was decided that a grand national fête would be held in August to mark the occasion, an event which would also commemorate ‘General Peace’ and the anniversary of the ‘Glorious Battle of the Nile’.

The whole of the pageantry in St James’ Park was superintended by Sir William Congreve M.P.; his prowess developing rockets for warfare in the earlier years of the century presumably qualifying him to design the pyrotechnics. The centrepiece was a vast stage-set ‘castle’ which thanks to painted transparencies, lighting and fireworks dramatically transformed from a martial fortress into a Temple of Concord, illustrating Britain’s path from war to peace. The vignettes above illustrate the spectacles and festivities that drew huge crowds to the park.

Another showpiece was the ‘beautiful Chinese bridge’ that was built over the canal. On it was constructed an ‘elegant and lofty pagoda, consisting of seven pyramidal stories’. It was illuminated with gaslights and formed the centrepiece of a huge fireworks display ‘both fixed and missile.’ The canal was the scene of mock naval battles, and there were also pleasure craft in which the public could view the scene from the water. Bands played, and there were food stalls and magnificent marquees in which to dine. Such was the excitement around the celebrations that publishers took presses to the park to issue some prints on the spot.

Sadly timber buildings, fireworks and flaming gas lamps are not good companions, and as midnight approached the pagoda went up in flames, causing two deaths and a number of injuries to the men who were supervising the display. By the time the fire was extinguished the tower was reduced to only one storey and had become ‘a melancholy wreck of its former elegance’. Print makers were quick to issue a reworked view showing the conflagration.

The pagoda was not rebuilt, the bridge was taken down a few years later, and the temporary structures were largely forgotten until the late 1960s when the artist Barbara Jones was asked to design a mural for a new cafe in St. James’ Park. The Cake House, which replaced an earlier cafe of the same name, was designed by Eric Bedford of the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, and the cafe deliberately echoed the shape of the marquees erected in 1814.

For the interior Jones created a design for a mural based on the history of the park, with the ornamental buildings of the Grand Jubilee playing a major part. Another of the themes was cows, which traditionally had been kept in the park to provide milk for visitors.

According to Building magazine the mural was executed in ceramic tiles by ‘Richard Parkinson Associates’, presumably the Richard Parkinson better known as a creator of ceramic figures in partnership with his wife, Susan. This company name appears only in this magazine feature of 1970, so the associates were probably Parkinson, Jones, and her assistant Tony Raymond. They were apparently credited in the cafe, but like the rest of the mural this is long gone. The thick file on the building of the cafe, now held in the National Archives, contains a memo which notes only that the interior wall is to be ‘finished in blue mosaic tiles’. No designer or contractor for this work is mentioned.

The refreshment pavilion was officially opened by Mary Wilson, wife of Prime Minister Harold, in February 1970 (apparently she took daily walks in the park whilst resident at No. 10). The blue and white tiles were accentuated by white pedestal tables and fashionable polypropylene stacking chairs in charcoal, light grey and deep blue. Featured in The Daily Mirror a few days after opening the mural was ignored, although the exterior (‘looks like a rather gay tent’) was admired. The queues for the new-fangled self-service system did not go down well, and the reviewer was not impressed by the ‘lukewarm’ soup, or indeed the gateau which was ‘a bit mushy’.

The Cake House survived for more years than the pagoda, but by the end of the 20th century it was considered outmoded with ‘insurmountable functional and structural issues’, and was demolished to make way for Inn the Park, which opened in 2004.

Building within a historic park has always led to criticism. In 1969, as the Cake House was under construction, the Architects’ Journal thought the structure ‘far too intrusive’ for its location in the gardens. In 1998 Sir Michael Hopkins designed its replacement, Inn the Park. The Architects’ Journal reported that it too was ‘wholly unsuited to the site’ but thirty years on, fashion being fickle, the old Cake House was now remembered with fondness for fitting into ‘the landscape as a folly or surprise’.

Big thanks to artist Ed Kluz whose recent show at the John Martin Gallery in London featured the Pagoda bridge and awakened my interest. Read more here https://www.jmlondon.com/exhibitions/facades-by-ed-kluz/

Barbara Jones’s series of designs for the Cake House mural can be seen at Neil Jennings Fine Art’s forthcoming show of works of art on paper by Twentieth Century British women artists at Fisher London, Grays Inn Road Wednesday 20th November- Saturday 30th November 11am-6pm (closed Sunday). For further information follow Neil on instagram @neiljenningsfineart or email neiljennings20@gmail.com

For more on the history of London’s public parks there’s a new show at the charming Garden Museum from 20 November 2019 https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/play-protest-and-pelicans-a-peoples-history-of-londons-royal-parks/

Inn the Park remains but is now a branch of the Benugo chain https://www.benugo.com/partnerships/public-spaces/parks/st-jamess