Penistone in Pictures

The Tour
Welcome to the main part of this Penistone Pictorial website. This is just a collection of pictures but the difficult part is to give an impression of the personality of our Yorkshire market town. Each section has thumbnail pictures which mostly link to larger pictures. Please note that due to server space limitations and previous eyesight problems, some pictures are poorer than is desirable. My apologies for that. The whole website fits within 100 MBytes.

I hope that you will find something of interest here. The aerial views give an impression of the size and setting of Penistone then there are some privileged views from the church tower and behind the scenes in the Town Hall. My thanks go to Penistone people and ex-pats, who have always been very helpful and supportive of this project. I am very democratic; feel free to add your thoughts and comments (good or bad) to the Guestbook.

Our Town
Penistone is a small market town built of Yorkshire stone and red brick, with rural and urban characteristics. Major landmarks are Penistone Church, the railway viaduct and Hartcliff tower folly, with the elegant Emley Moor transmitter tower a few miles away. We are a small town of distinctive character, surrounded by unspoilt countryside and not contiguous with any other large settlements. We have a town mayor and a community local radio station and 'Penistone Show' in September every year. The Show is a wonderful event and a shop window on what Yorkshire and the Penistone area in particular have to offer. It always draws a large crowd from all over the country.

Penistone has a busy market-place in an oaken cruck barn, a town hall/cinema/theatre, an ancient parish church and the famous 'Showground' (a popular recreational field) close to the main shopping street. The nearby Trans-Pennine Trail is very popular with cyclists, dog walkers and horse riders. A large swathe of houses surrounds most of the town. Our main street has various shops, chemists, pubs, food take-aways, two supermarkets and a large Tesco nearby. We also have a railway station, police station, fire station and a post office. Penistone Grammar School has a history traceable back to 1392 and now it has become a mega-school with modern facilities.

A Vibrant Community
Where have you heard of Penistone? Was it our legendary ice-cold railway station which many a serviceman passed through or Sheffield Wednesday's football ground - on Penistone Road. Farmers know of the Penistone breed of Sheep. Or perhaps it was Penistone Moors and Penistone Hill in the village of Howarth where the Bronte sisters lived (different etymology). In the old days, people wore 'penistones'. These were cheap but very warm jackets.

Penistone people are quirky and good-natured - and maybe a bit reserved until they get to know you. 'Comers-in' have moved to Penistone from all over the UK after a house-building explosion in recent times. Various protests in recent years have emphasised the point, almost by accident, that there is a strong community spirit to be found in Penistone. If further evidence was necessary, I could assert that a good many people whom I grew up with are still around in the Penistone area.

Local website 'Visit Penistone' has a lot of interesting features, including a wonderful virtual tour around the district. Also, have a look at some 'Penistone in Particular' booklets from Katia Harston of the Barnsley Chronicle.

	1	Aerial Penistone and in 1993
	2	Penistone Church
	3	Views - from the top
	4	Pubs & Nosheries
	5	Town Hall and Cinema Organ
	6	Market Street and Market Area
	7	Around the Streets
	8	Trans-Pennine Trail
	9	Fire Drill
	10	Milking time
	11	Library
	12	Viaduct
	13	Winter Views
	14	Penistone at Play
	15	Penistone FM
	16	Surrounding Area
	17	Miscellaneous

Marking the Territory
We are no more 'in Barnsley' than we were 'in Wakefield' as part of the West Riding. The geography of the land did not change as political boundaries were re-drawn in the 1970s but the comrades of Barnsley Council (BMBC) loved to take political control of Penistone and its assets, such as the Showground.

When 'Council Tax' came along to gain taxes from most dwellings, they allowed something like a 25% increase in house-building for our area. This helped them splash money around on wasteful schemes with no benefit to our area. Now they show their domination over us by decorating our street signs, direction posts and even (appropriately) refuse wheelie bins with their 'tag', like a dog marking out its territory. We are powerless to prevent it.

The Barnsley Council Coat-of-Arms commemorates their glorious past - and its long-lost industries. It has little relevance to us here, miles away in the countryside. In fact, our old industries were steel, clay, vinegar brewing, farming and textiles, although some local people would have worked in the Barnsley area.

The Latin motto 'Spectemur Agendo' on their tag recklessly invites the public to: 'Judge Us by Our Actions'. I encourage everyone to take up Barnsley's invitation at every opportunity. It is an interesting design. I am no expert in heraldry but the following interpretation might help my patient visitor to understand its symbology.

The emblem sports a camp and blousey character on the left, wearing flared 1970s trousers and carrying the traditional Barnsley 'yard of ale'. This no doubt refers to wild nights out in Barnsley pubs and clubs. Standing at the other side is a serious-looking miner, taking it all in. So between them you have the worlds of the night and the day. The griffon on top has taken a particular dislike to the reveller by sticking its tongue out. Unless it's a come-on. I'm not sure what the set-square is for but the piece of old rope, that the griffon stands on, must obviously refer to profligate council decisions. That's 'money for old rope' as the saying goes. The crossed pick-axes reflect upon Barnsley's politics with echoes of the Russian hammer and sickle. So that covers the politics.

The doorknobs refer to council estates, because posh people have handles instead, while the cigar tubes are symbolic of the great affluence currently relished by over-paid council bosses. That gives you the opposites of poor and rich. The roulette wheel did not appear until local government re-organisation in 1974 when Barnsley conquered the outlying places like Penistone. This gave the council more money to play games with - and for barmy schemes (think 'halo'). So that covers money but I think that a bucket would have worked better here. On several levels. The official Barnsley Coat-of-Arms page has a different explanation but my version goes deeper. The disc is properly called an 'escarbuncle', of the same etymology as 'carbuncle'.

The Clarel Coat-of-Arms
Meanwhile, Penistone has its own de-facto Coat-of-Arms which comes from Thomas Clarel, who was Lord of the Manor of Penistone in the fourteenth century. (Wikipedia gives the name as John Clarel). He drowned in the River Don on May Day 1442. The emblem is most strongly connected with Penistone Grammar School, as Thomas Clarel left Penistone a gift of land for the purpose of building a school. It has long been adopted by Penistone in general and pops up here and there in various clubs and societies. There is also one behind the curtains of the Paramount (Penistone Town Hall). PGS has now abandoned the historic Clarel design to fit its urge for change. It has adopted two different logos in recent years. The Penistone community continues to use the historic emblem.

Here are two variants. The one on the left was derived from that used by Penistone Agricultural Society for this website. The other one was the normal PGS style before their makeover. At full size it would carry the old PGS motto 'Disce aut Discede'.

Penistone people have asked why it is not used instead of the camp glass-blower, as it has more historic relevance to our town. It has been said: - "If we can have our own mayor, why can't we use our own Coat-of-Arms on the signage?". I have asked Penistone Town Council the same question but they are not sure if they have any control over street names and signs. They don't have the fire to give it a try.

This interesting page on Clarel shows an older form of the emblem. This shows the martlets in a 3-2-1 formation, as they were in the old PGS badges up to the mid nineteen-sixties. Perhaps we should adopt that for Penistone as a more authentic version.

Further Info Pages
These link to a few pages within this website.

• Historical references
• Miscellaneous Penistone Information
• Local and National Elections
• Penistone Facts and figures
• Street plan