More Morton Magic #1: Dissenters RIP Here
This is the 1st of a 17-cache series which will take you on a wonderful 6km looping trail up the deep valley of Morton Beck, passing historical farm and residential buildings, industrial ruins, mill ponds and weirs, rich deciduous and pine woodlands, a reservoir, waterfall, low moorland, farm fields and then back down an old track and flower-festooned path into the village.
Provided the weather is OK, it should provide you with a magical 3 hours of time out in a rich, varied and fascinating environment leaving you relaxed, refreshed, restored - and hopefully well geocachingly satisfied!
The setting of the trail became possible with the archiving of f98nay's 10-cache Morton Meander series which was published on 11/3/14 and archived on 31/7/20 after a total of 249 finds and an impressive 69 FPs.
For the record, the original series consisted of: 1. Green End Lane GC502QJ, 2. Upwood Lane GC502QZ, 3. Pool View GC502RA, 4. Waterfall GC502RN , 5. The Tree GC502T9, 6. The Old Bridge GC502TC, 7. Lapwing View GC502TP, 8. The Copse GC502TW, 9. Great View GC502V0, 10. The Gatepost GC502V5.
The short multi is set in the Zion Burial Ground - the tiny, overgrown and apparently neglected graveyard of the long-gone Zion Wesleyan Methodist Church. The cache is hidden a short distance up the lane.
Kerb-side parking is normally available nearby on the north side of Main road, for example at or near N 53 52.495 W 1 50.978. From here walk up to Green End Road and head up past the old Hillside Chapel to the burial ground.
To find the cache:
You will be focusing on the 2 pillar-type monuments as seen in the image above (see here for an interesting well-illustrated piece on Churchyard and Cemetery Monuments) . . .
Step 1: at N 53 52.588 W 1 50.949 you will be standing in front of the tallest monument in the burial ground dedicated to members of the Hartley family and in the form of a square stone pillar in classical style on a plinth and topped with a large urn.
Looking on the south side of this you can extract the following into:
1. Thomas's wife Jane was a few months over A4 years old when she passed on.
2. Sarah, his widow, was born on April 2B 1816
3. Their grandson was a soldier. There are C letters in his first name which starts with D
4. He was killed in action on 13/11/16. The alphanumeric (A=1 B=2 C=3 etc) value of the last letter of the place where he died = D
Step 2: now move a few metres back to the smaller pillar monument @ N 53 52.489 W 1 50.947 dedicated to the Taylors. On the east side of this you will note the following:
5. The alphanumeric value of the 2nd letter of this young child's name is E and . . .
6. He was only in his F year of life when he died.
The cache, a camo-taped preform tube, is hidden at:
N 53 52.(B+1)F(A+D) W 1 50.(C+2)F(A+E)
In the past, like other communities in this part of West Yorkshire, East Morton was a stronghold of non-conformity and a centre for dissenting religions (ie. non-Anglican denominations of Christianity).
English Dissenters or Separatists were Protestant Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 17th and 18th centuries. They opposed state interference in religious matters and, formed numerous sects, founding their own churches, educational establishments and communities.
See here for more information on this fascinating feature of UK religious history - separatists included the Pilgrims who fled persecution, sailed across the Atlantic and established the British colony which became the USA.
In East Morton, they set up a Methodist Society with 28 members in 1795 with a meeting room near Upper Mill. Fortnightly services and prayer and class meetings took place there or in members' homes.
In 1828 these Wesleyan Methodists built a small chapel - Lower Chapel on Main Road (now part of the Village Institute).
From about 1829 this also functioned as a Methodist school. See here for a short video on how these 'societies' were established and developed.
When the congregation grew too large for the small chapel, a much larger chapel was built in 1846 (this was the Zion Chapel - see below) and the old chapel was sold for use by the Non-conformists as a British school. When the National school was built, the two schools existed almost opposite each other geographically and in opposition academically for a few years, but the British school gradually declined and eventually closed.
In 1828 the Primitive Methodists (PM) built their chapel, Hillside PM Chapel on Green End Road @ N 53 52.526 W 1 50.914 which was extended in 1839, a schoolroom added in 1861 and the chapel rebuilt in
1875. Worship continued until 1983 when it closed and was bought in 1993 and subsequently converted into a dwelling.
Primitive Methodist workers played an important role in the formative phase of the Trade Union movement in England. They were always the most working-class of the main Methodist bodies in Great Britain. They also used women at an early date as ministers ('itinerants') and preachers, a notable development in women's emancipation.
The Primitive Methodist Church formed one of the three streams of Methodism which existed then. In 1932 it merged with the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the United Methodists to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain.
Bethel Independent Chapel, Main Road was founded by John Smith, owner of Sunnydale Mill and built for the non-conformists in 1845. It could seat a congregation of 340 and had an attached Sunday school.
The final dissenting chapel to be built (in 1846) - also on Green End Road - was the (Zion) Wesleyan Methodist Church which presumably was attached to this burial ground . This was eventually consolidated with the Hillside PM Chapel in 1954 and closed due to dry rot and falling congregations and its licence to marry transferred to what became the Hillside Methodist Chapel.
Today there are no Methodist churches in East Morton - the only remaining church in the village being the Congregational Church on main road. The nearest Methodist Churches are Micklethwaite Wesleyan Reform Church and Ilkley Road Methodist Church in Riddlesden.
Every summer a Gala is held in Morton. Its forerunner was probably the Morton Children's Festival which was started in 1904. The Gala is a real community effort and all organisations in the village, including the church and the two chapels, all help. The Gala is the highlight of year in Morton when 'old Mortonians' and 'off-cumdens' (folk not born in t'village) come together and have a fun day.
