I wonder how many know who attended the Church by the Washburn in years past. I think of a former Ilkley blacksmith, orator and later Doctor of Divinity, Robert Collyer.
He would be saddened at the thought of such a desolate expanse which was once green fields, farms, and woodland where children played in this once peaceful Yorkshire Dale. Let us not forget the Washburn valley also had it's grim side. Mills dotted the valley and times in comparison to today were hard. Yet Robert Collyer never forgot his boyhood roots, recalling them while lecturing in the land which became his new home. Nor did those who heard him forget his easy ways with words. The bell from the mill in which he first worked by the Washburn, finally found rest at Cornell University in America. The anvil from Birch's Smithy on Leeds Road in Ilkley also found it's way across to America, to be erected in Chicago. Testament to the lowly beginnings of this once great preacher.
Can any of my American readers throw light on the whereabouts of the Mill Bell and Anvil?