100 years ago

For some years it had been the custom at the Matlock hydros for the guests to take the place of the servants on one day during the Christmas holidays, and attend to all their duties in the hotel.

The servants enjoyed all the privileges of guests, and were also in some cases allowed to ask their relatives and friends for the day. Recently, however, some guests had resented this topsy-turveydom, as it was called, saying that they came to Matlock for a holiday and not to perform tasks which they would not think of undertaking in their own homes, and it was believed that the hydro proprietors might in future adopt some other plan for entertaining their staff.

The secretary of one of the largest hydros in Matlock explained that the management had done their utmost to keep the affair as quiet as possible. He said: “I can assure you that topsy-turveydom is not a money-making experiment with us. This week it has undoubtedly lost us a large sum of money.”

 

50 years ago

Though the dignified Ionic facade of the 25-year-old Salem Chapel still formed an effective set-piece at the east end of St Saviourgate, York, demolition of the main body of the building was well advanced.

The gilt-painted organ case, with its stencilled pipes, which had dominated Congregational services there for a century, had gone, and the steeply raked galleries were being dismantled. High up, at gallery level, on either side of the large organ apse, remained two Victorian stained glass windows - memorials to the Rev James Parsons, one of the Congregationalists most popular preachers of the 19th century.

In the belief that these windows should be preserved and perhaps put to some use, an interested observer of this desolate scene had arranged to store them if they could be removed from the building intact. Salem had been built in 1839 to accommodate the overflow from the 1816 Lendal Chapel.

 

25 years ago

Work on York’s multimillion pound railway electrification scheme was running well, confirmed British Rail. But motorists faced disruption for several weeks as a massive engineering operation began to raise Holgate Bridge by 1ft.

For four Sundays the bridge would be closed as it was jacked up then fixed in place to give clearance to electrified overhead wires. People living nearby were being sent a leaflet by British Rail detailing the highway closures as work continued on the £306 million London to Edinburgh electrification.

Elsewhere in York, work was well under way on changes which would hopefully see trains running on electrified lines into the city by May 1991. The installation of overhead wires and other equipment was already around one year ahead of schedule.