31/10/25 Finding Yorkshire Pudding, And a Church.

I was killing time in Sainsburys while waiting to meet family after work.  "Where do you keep the Yorkshire pudding?" I asked the staff at Sainsburys. I asked two staff, both of whom replied in helpful but broad Yorkshire accents, accompanied by pointing. I followed the direction pointed, but Yorkshire pudding eluded me. I ran out of time and never did find the Yorkshire pudding. Life is cruel sometimes.

I had spent the morning vacuuming and mopping and went downtown early to polish off some errands and explore downtown Huddersfield. No sooner did I step out of the shopping centre than St Peters, just down the street, announced itself by chiming the hour.

"Well " thought I. "I've looked at churches in every place I've visited, so I'd better see at least one church in Huddersfield too."

I'm so glad I did.

I met an elderly chap arranging flowers and he shared his passionate enthusiasm for St Peters. He shared quite a lot of detail, most of which left my head as soon as it entered, but here's some of the things that stuck.

The first St Peters was built in the 11th century, followed by rebuilds in the 16th and 19th centuries.  Each rebuild incorporated stone and woodwork from the previous buildings such that my self-appointed guide could identify bits and pieces from the past as we walked around. Renovations continued into the 2010s when an English Heritage grant allowed refurbishment of the ceiling and released the congregation from the need to install netting lest plaster rosettes fall on their heads during worship.

"We didn't realise how pretty it was because we didn't dare look up! Now it's fixed we look up all the time."

Pagan symbols such as the faces of Green men were woven into the church structure, testament to the propensity of early Christianity to adopt and attribute new meaning to old symbols.

My volunteer guide showed me the pipe organ, adorned with a plaque celebrating the service of the Parrats, father and son, who between them gave 92 consecutive years at the keyboard of St Peters pipe organ.

Not that my guide cared about that.  "The other son was the important one!" He said. "Walter Parrat was the  Master of Music to Queen Victoria and Kings Edward and George!" And just like that the 92 years of faithful service by the father and brother Parratts were rendered unimportant.

As we were talking a young man slid into the organist's seat and provided a stirring musical background to our conversation.  We had a nice chat duing which I learned that he had grown up and studied music in Huddersfield, suggesting that St Peters continued to be quite successful at home-growing its organists.

I took reluctant leave of St Peters to take a quick look at Huddersfield's Open Market. 

It was shut.

By then I'd run out of time so off I went to Sainsburys where I embarked on my fruitless quest for Yorkshire Pudding, and then home for a round of British comedy and hard-fought Scrabble.

Hah!

Rainbows and autumn leaves.