Mick Haywood's Mainly Yorkshire Miscellany

Batley Years - Article

Leeds Years Batley Years
Man holding a certificate and framed photo

Roy Holmes received a long service award from the Cave Rescue Council in 2019
Image credit: caverescue.org.uk

Knur and Spell


This monologue in Yorkshire dialect was written by Roy Holmes of Batley, who used to perform it regularly at Batley Raggers Folk Club which met every Sunday night at the Victoria Hotel, Hick Lane, Batley, in the late 1960s.

Whenever Roy performed it at the folk club, every time Batley was mentioned there were loud cheers, and at the mention of Ossett booing prevailed. Another of Roy’s monologues that went down well with the partisan folk club audience was ‘The Battle of Towton’, recounting the historic ‘War of the  Roses’ battle where in 1461 the ‘House of York’ won a decisive victory over the Lancastrian forces.

Roy, who was a keen potholer, was a founder member of the ‘Heavy Woollen District Pothole Club’, and he along with Brian Gaskin, another member, in 1975 formed G & H Products, Batley, which went on to become ‘Craghoppers’ the outdoor clothing manufacturer.

Knur and Spell by Roy Holmes

Oppen thi lug oils and shurrup thi gob
An lissen to tale a sell tell,
It’s a baht a great sporting occashun
An sport it wor called Knur and Spell.

It were laiked aht one day at Gawthorpe
Between two sides of great renown,
One wor from village called Ossett
An tother were from Batley Town.

Nah Ossett is famous for pidgins
Cos wen wind blows muck inta skies,
Pidgins hev bin known t‘fly backards
Ta keep muck aht on ther ees.

Batley is famous for Shoddy
Which meks all t’Batley lads smile,
Cos they nobbut sell folks ther owd cloas back
That they'd had kickin rahnd for a while.

Nah houwer were proachin three-thirty
It wer chucking aht time dahn at t’Oak,
All Batley folk were theer assembled
Then leader ov them up an spoak.

Nah lads watch aht for theer fielders
They’ve bin known t give ther balls a booit,
Or slip one intter ther pockets
If tha hes chance, cover thers wi thi fooit.

They tossed up t see who wer first in
It wer decide that Ossett should start,
Ther were rumours ov two headed pennies
But t umpire just threw it all aht.

Furst Ossett lad stepped up to spring trap
An slowly he gazed all arahnd,
Then tapped gently wi end of his pummil
T ball rose wi hardly a sahnd.

T batter let fly like a suardsman
Then Ossett lot got a surprise,
As tend of his pumill just left him
Hit second batter reight between eyes.



Batter ran off to his Captain
Shartin, sabertage, treason ant likes,
But captain was busy wi tuther
It wer no good he wer aht like a light.

Third batter came forrard for Ossett
He did his best, did this lad,
In three swipes hed nobutt getten thirty
But ta ther minds it warsnt so bad.

First lad stepped forrard for Batley
He gorra gud swipe at t ball,
It took em a fair bit t fin it,
It hed goan owwer Vicarage wall.

Next swipe by gum were a gud un
Ball whistled off, just like that,
An knocked three foot off top ov Maypole
Then dinted t local policemans hat.

T last knock it wer a brahmer
It set off wi hell of a din,
They fund ball intside ov an houwer
But we havnt seen bloody trap since.

Batley wer then declared winners
But in daht, it nivver could be,
They'd gid t Umpire a suit length of shoddy
An promised him sum ale affor tea.

Forfit wer then paid bi Ossett
Twelve gallons of good English ale,
It wer all supped up in an owwer
So wi went back t‘Oak for a pail.

Ossett lads slunk off back hoam
The just coudnt stommick ther teas,
An nah ther content flyin pidgins
An wipin pidgin muck aht o ther ees.

Painting of men on moorland playing knur and spell

Yorkshiremen playing Knur and Spell from
George Walker’s ‘The Costume of Yorkshire ‘ 1814

Knur and Spell the Game

Knur and Spell originated on the Yorkshire Moors from the old English game ‘Trap-Ball’ that was played in Northern England from the 14th century until the mid 1820s. It was a ‘bat-and-ball’ game where men attempted to hit a ball as far as possible. It became extremely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries and then again without of work menfolk during the 1930’s Depression years.

It was played mainly by South Yorkshire miners in the Barnsley district, and sheep farmers and workers in the woollen industry in the Pennine District of Yorkshire, and just over the border in the Pendle district of Lancashire.

Drawing of a spring trap for knur and spell

Spell spring trap.
Image credit: Otley local history bulletin

The ‘knur’ is a hardwood or ceramic ball known as a ‘potty’, and the ‘spell’ is the apparatus that throws the potty up into the air so the player can strike it.

Men playing knur and spell with a spring trap

South Yorkshire Spring Trap Spell

In South Yorkshire the spell, or trap, is a mechanical device with iron cup and spring mechanism, it was mounted on a wooden base, with metal spikes underneath so it can be securely fixed to the ground . 

Antique wooden and metal apparatus

A Yorkshire spell trap - author's own possession.

knur and spell spring trap, man and spectators

Pennine & Lancashire Style Sling Spell

In the Pennine district and over in Lancashire a gallows like structure called a sling spell is used, and the potty is suspended in a loop hung from the end of the cross bar. The potty was usually a ceramic sphere about 1” (25mm) diameter, similar to the ones that were used to prevent lime scale furring up the inside of kettles in hard water areas.

Pummel head bats and potties - balls - in a display case

A professional set of Pummel Heads complete with Potties
Image credit: Northern Life Magazine

The wooden stick used for hitting the potty is known as the ‘pummel’ and is made of two components, the stick or shaft, and the pummel head. The stick was usually made of ash or hickory and had one end tapered so it could fit into a matching joint on the pummel head, and the two were securely fastened together with whipping twine.

The pummel heads were interchangeable to suit the prevailing weather conditions, they had different hard wood faces stuck onto a beech wood base, and the whole assembled length of the stick tended to be roughly four feet long.

Each player in the game has his own favourite stick and they supply their own knur and spells. On match days, the playing area is usually marked out with wooden posts hammered into the ground every twenty yards, and each player has five 'rises' of the potty.

KNUR AND SPELL - The KING of Sports - BBC Nationwide. 
Coverage of the 1972 Knurr and Spell Championships

There was a mini revival in the 1960s and 70s when Yorkshire TV got involved with promoting the sport, organising the World Championships and Yorkshire TV Cup competitions. The matches received sponsorship from local companies Gannex of Elland, the raincoat manufacturer, and at the time the Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s favourite clothing provider, and Websters Brewery in Halifax. There was great rivalry between the Yorkshire and Lancashire combatants and a new set of rules suitable to both factions had to be agreed on. The renowned Yorkshire Pummel Head
maker Archie Robinson refused to sell his heads to Lancashire players.

Both counties had their champions and favourites and most of them were colourful characters with colourful names. Among them, Yorkshire had Frank Lenthal (Big Yank), Eric Wilson and Tom Chambers. Lancashire had Len Kershaw, Ted Griffiths (The Colne Giant), Jimmy (Applechops) Laycock and Irvine Bracewell (The Dancing Master).

Beer mat for Websters pennine bitter with illustration of Fred Trueman

‘Fiery’ Fred Trueman, the Yorkshire and England legendary fast bowler played in a World Championship Knur and Spell match, they reckon he would have won, but his potty was never found, and one rule stated that the strike was null and void if the ball couldn’t be found within three minutes. Fred was left to drown his sorrows in ‘Websters Pennine Bitter’ which he used to advertise:  “it drives out the northern thirst”.

The longest recorded hit in a competition was struck by ‘Big Yank’, Frank Lenthal at Elland in 1972, it was measured at just short of 293 yards.

Photo of a nipsy stick, egg shaped ball and a brick

Stick, oval shaped Nipsy and brick.

Nipsy

In the mid 1900’s, the South Yorkshire colliers around Barnsley played a much simpler variant of knur and spell called ‘Nipsy’, which only required three simple pieces of equipment, an egg-shaped piece of hard-wood (the nipsy), a brick and a wooden stick. To play the game the brick is stood on its end, with its top face slightly angled, the oval shaped ‘nipsy’ is placed upon it, the end of it is clipped with the stick, and when the nipsy rises, the player hits it as far as he can.

The nipsy was usually made from ‘Lignum Vitae’ a brownish olive coloured extremely hard oily wood, from a tree native to Bahamas in the West Indies, but the impregnated compressed wood laminate ‘Permaliwood’ was also used.

Initially the stick was made from one piece of wood, usually a hickory pick shaft, but later railway brake sticks, as they were harder. To make the flat end of the stick to about 2” wide and 1” thick, the large end of the pick shaft was steamed for two or three hours then pressed, this task was usually done by the pits blacksmith in either a vice or in a rail straightening hydraulic press. The stick's handle was then fashioned by whittling down the rest of the shaft.

Black and white photo men playing nipsy

Ron Darlow about to strike the risen Nipsy in a Barnsley & District Nipsy League game
Image credit: Alan Lever tradgames.org.uk

There was a Barnsley and District Nipsy League in 1950s and 60s, and there was a short lived revival in the 1980s when South Yorkshire County Council organised some Nipsy competitions.

The longest recorded hit in any official match or competition was by Joe Cooke of Monk Bretton and was measured to be 208 yard long.

Peggy

As a boy growing up in a mining family in Mexborough, about ten miles from Barnsley, we played a simpler kid’s version of Nipsy, called ‘Peggy’. Just like Nipsy three items were required to play a ‘Peggy stick’, a ‘Peggy’ and a common house brick.

The ‘Peggy stick’ was a two foot length of one inch in diameter wood, you could just make two out of a sweeping brush handle. The ‘Peggy’ was made out of a four inch long piece of three quarter inch square wood, with both ends tapered to a point except for about an inch of flat in the middle.
To play the game we placed the ‘peggy’ on top of the brick, which was stood on its end, and we struck either end with the stick causing the ‘peggy’ to rise in the air, and the player then attempted to it hit it as far as he could.

Each player was allowed three attempts at hitting the risen peggy, and if the peggy was not struck the players go was null and void. If the player successfully hits the peggy within three attempts, that is the end of his go. When a hit has been made the players side guesstimate the distance in strides from the brick to the peggy, and offer the opposing side the number of strides or paces they have to reach the peggy in. If the peggy is reached inside the set number of strides the player forfeits his score, if not the score is added to the teams total.

Page from an antique book about the game of Tip Cat

‘A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for
the Instruction and Amusement of Little
Master Tommy, and Pretty Miss Polly’, 1787

The game Peggy is a variant of the old English game of ‘Tip-Cat’, but in Tip-Cat the ‘Cat’ is much larger than the ‘Peggy’ and it is placed in a ring on the ground, not on a brick.
‘The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England’ (1838 edition), by Joseph Strutt (1749-1802) and William Hone (1780-1842), contains a description of the game:

“Tip-cat, or perhaps more properly the game of cat, is a rustic pastime well known in many parts of the kingdom, and is always played with a cudgel or bludgeon resembling that used for trap-ball. Its denomination is derived from a piece of wood called a cat, of about six inches in length, and an inch and a half or two inches in diameter, diminished from the middle, to both the ends, in the shape of a double cone; by this curious contrivance the places of the trap and of the ball are at once supplied; for when the cat is laid upon the ground, the player with his cudgel strikes it smartly, it matters not at which end, and it will rise with a rotary motion, high enough for him to beat it away as it falls, in the same manner as he would a ball.
There are various methods of playing the game of cat, but I shall only notice the two that follow. The first is exceedingly simple, and consists in making a large ring upon the ground, in the middle of which the striker takes his station; his business is to beat the cat over the ring. If he fails in so doing he is out, and another player takes his place; if he is successful he judges with his eye the distance the cat is driven from the centre of the ring, and calls for a number at pleasure to be scored towards his game: if the number demanded be found upon measurement to exceed the same number of lengths of the bludgeon, he is out; on the contrary, if it does not, he obtains his call”.

Sources

Knurr and Spell, Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knurr_and_spell

A most Northern of sports, Knur and Spell: the poor man’s golf
northernlifemagazine.co.uk/knur-and-spell/

Knur & Spell, Nipsy etc. - History and Information
tradgames.org.uk/games/knur-spell.htm

Tip-cat Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip-cat

Word Histories meaning and origin of ‘to see which way the cat jumps’
wordhistories.net/2016/12/14/way-cat-jumps/

Batley Articles Index  Next article
Mick in full song
About Mick

Mick Haywood is a traditional folk singer & folk song collector who has run and organised folk clubs and festivals for many years. He now lives in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Links

© Copyright 2025 Mick Haywood
Website by Our Sal