Barwick-in-Elmet Historical Society
The Tune - "Barwick Green"
The tune is inspired by Barwick-in-Elmet and is part of a trilogy called "My Native Heath" by Arthur Wood. The other parts of the suite are "Bolton Abbey" and "Knaresborough Hiring Fair" . Arthur Wood was born in Heckmondwike, the eldest son of a tailor in 1875. He was a self -taught musician. He was for a time the deputy conductor of the Harrogate Municipal Orchestra. In 1903 he was appointed musical director of Terry's Theatre in London. He continued as a musical director in the West End for much of the next thirty years. He died in 1953. A much fuller biographical account of Arthur Wood can be found on the musicweb site..
So why did he call one item from his Yorkshire Scenes "Barwick Green"? After all there is no green in Barwick. The reason is that he married a Miss Bean from Scholes and therefore knew Barwick and its maypole which stands in the centre of the village. It is hoped that shortly we will have detail of Miss Bean, her family and how "Barwick Green" became so called.
As to the absence of a village green, the Rev. F Colman (writing in 1908) states:
"More familiar and popular among our antiquities are the Market Cross and the Maypole. The former is sadly shorn of its earlier dignity. It would have had probably a slender shaft surmounted by a real cross, such as the one may see so well cared for in Helmsley market place and elsewhere, standing in what was at one time an open space or village green. Buildings have encroached on that space, there is not even the memory of it left, yet one cannot but think that such a cross presupposes a freer situation than that it now occupies. When it was recently proposed to utilize the remains of the cross for a lamp post the lord of the manor successfully asserted his right to control its use on the ground that the site it occupies is a part of the ancient waste of the manor.
The village Maypole, within a few yards of the Cross, would also naturally have stood on an open space or green............"
The market cross was replaced after the end of the First World War by the war memorial and was moved into the churchyard close to the porch on the south side of the church.
Back to the Sounds of Barwick-in-Elmet
