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Wordsworth's Minster mystery
Baker Fold Halifax Now we have Halifax Minster, rather than Halifax Parish Church. While there is no record of the church having been called a minster before 2009, it has been suggested that the "minster" referred to in William Wordsworth's poem Lucy Gray was in fact Halifax Parish Church.
The relevant lines are: "The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon!"
The setting of the poem's tragedy is usually stated to have been a wooden bridge at Sterne Mill, near Sowerby Bridge. As the church at Halifax was the closest which might be regarded as a minster, critics inferred that must be the church to which Wordsworth referred.
Of course, it is hardly likely the chimes of the Parish Church would have been heard on Norland Moor, from which Lucy is said to have set out on her ill-fated journey. But perhaps we should allow for poetic licence?
Included in some late 19th century editions of Wordsworth's poems, is this note on Lucy Gray by the poet himself: "Written at Goslar, in Germany. It was founded on a circumstance told me by my sister, of a little girl who, not far from Halifax in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snowstorm.
"Her footsteps were traced by her parents to the middle of the lock of a canal, and no other vestige of her, backward or forward, could be traced. The body, however, was found in the canal."
In February 1794, when he was 24 years old, Wordsworth spent a month at Mill House, Triangle, the residence of William Rawson and his wife. The poet's sister, Dorothy, was brought up in Halifax by their cousin, Miss Elizabeth Threlkeld, who afterwards married William Rawson.
Dorothy would have been familiar with the folklore and tragedies of this area. Lucy Gray was written in 1799.
David C Glover
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Weather for Halifax
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light snow
Temperature: -0 C to 1 C
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