Methuselah Yates was ‘a perfect master of his craft’
The tomb of Methuselah Yates(Image: LancsLive)
In an unassuming graveyard just outside of Haslingden sits an ornate and adorable memorial to one of Lancashire’s most celebrated huntmen.
The tomb of Methuselah Yates at the church of St. Nicholas With St. John in Newchurch is a full sarcophagus with a carved sleeping hound resting on top of it in recognition of his hunting career.
The inscriptions read: ‘Sacred to the memory of OLD THU (METHUSALAH YATES) DIED 27TH FEBRUARY 1864. AGED 78 YEARS. He was a Huntsman of Harriers for 50 years, five and twenty of which were by the Rossendale Hunt’ and ‘Erected by the members of the Rossendale Hunt’.
Methuselah had been Huntsman to the Newchurch Harriers for upwards of 40 years, and his obituary in 1864 recognised him as a ‘perfect master of his craft’.
The tomb of Methuselah Yates
Known as ‘Old Thew’ he was Master of the Rossendale Hunt for 25 years, and died in 1864 aged 78.
In 2017 Gillian Mackillop presented a painting of Higher Clough Bottom Farm, which now lies under Clough Bottom Reservoir, to the Whitaker Museum. The farm was destroyed to make way for the reservoir in the late 19th century, but the painting, which dates from some years later in 1910, had remained in Gillian’s family.
The painting came into the possession of Gillian’s father Terry Hey, 89, in the 1980s. Born in Waterfoot, he is the great, great-grandson of Methuselah Yates who appears in two portraits held by the Whitaker.
Higher Clough Bottom Farm was the home of John Brown, whose son (also John) would go on to marry Methuselah Yates’s granddaughter Hannah – and then her sister Martha Ann after Hannah’s death.
Jackie Williams, left, director of the Whitaker museum and gallery receiving a picture of Higher Clough Bottom Farm from Gillian Mackillop next to a painting of Methuselah Yates
Mrs Mackillop added: “I got in touch with the museum and said ‘would you be interested in this painting?’ and they thought it would sit very beautifully with this collection and they loved the story, and the connection with Methusaleh Yates.
“He was very well known at the time, there are two large oil paintings of him in the Whitaker museum.
“It was full circle for me really, it was very nice that I could return the painting to where I thought it belonged as part of a historical collection.”
Terry Hey at the tomb of his great-great grandfather Methuselah Yates, Master of the Rossendale Hunt, who is buried in Newchurch
Methuselah’s sarcophagus was Grade II* listed in 2003. Historic England’s listing states: “Dated 1864. Ashlar. Moulded pedestal on base has austere block on top with inscription panels to side and deeply cut relief lunettes on ends carved with trophies of objects of the chase.
“Lying on top is a particularly well-sculpted harrier hound. The austere base enhances the lifelike quality of the animal.”
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