St Albans, Earsdon

We all went to the picturesque Earsdon in the morning to visit St Albans parish church which looks down across the fields on my mum's home.

There was a wedding about to start but a school teacher sneaked us in prior to show us some interesting stain glass. The glass contained a red Tudor rose that had been made especially for Anne Boleyn. Her marriage with Henry VIII, as we know, went bad and H insisted on the destruction of all memories of her. Lord Hastings of Delaval Hall, (the local landowner who resided at the magnificent Delaval Hall), managed to retrieve the windows and they were installed in the church.

The church also holds the monument to commemorate the loss of 240 souls from the Hartley pit disaster.These included children aged 10. One family, the Liddle's, lost 9 members. The disaster lead to the creation of two shafts in all future mines to aid rescue and recovery.

The disaster was featured in an episode of 'Who do you think you are?' when an ancestor of the presenter Kate Humble had been key in the rescue.

It was wonderful to discover these moving and real stories that affected this tiny, tiny community yet had far reaching consequences.