Ilkley folk concert pays tribute to local 'hermit' legend

BBC News

02-07-2025

More than 200 years ago, a man who had fallen on hard times was living in a shack the size of a dog kennel on a bleak moorland.
Job Senior was known as the "hermit of Ilkley Moor" - a skilled builder of dry stone walls and a gifted singer who travelled around the local inns to perform.In 1975, local musicians the Mountain Ash Band released a folk album inspired by his story, and a tribute concert based on the melodies will be held to mark its 50th anniversary on Saturday 5 July.The event will raise money for the homelessness charity Shelter, as Job's life was one of hardship and he was often without a permanent home in the 19th Century.
It was in his latter years that Job Senior became known as the Hermit of Rumbolds Moor – the historic name for Ilkley Moor – a wandering singer whose own life reads like a folk ballad.He had been born illegitimate, "so he was kind of stigmatised," explains Geoffrey Shaw-Champion, chair of the Baildon Civic and Historical Society, who is co-organising the concert.Job's father came from a landed family and left him a financial legacy when he turned 21. But as Geoffrey recounts, "he went to Leeds and squandered it on drink," eventually returning penniless to Burley in Wharfedale.By day, Job worked as a farm labourer and later as a dry stone waller, building many of the walls that still stand across Burley Moor and often working into the night by lantern light to finish them."So his legacy is palpable, really," says Geoffrey.But it was his singing voice that ultimately won him a place in Yorkshire folklore.
Job's life had taken a tragic turn after he pursued and married a widow 20 years his senior who owned a small farm and land on Burley Moor."They were quite comfortable for a while," Geoffrey says.But after her death, her relatives blamed him and while he was away, they destroyed his house and stole his wife's life savings.With nowhere left to go, Job suffered what would now be recognised as a full mental breakdown, but refused to get help to find another home.That desire for dignity is "something that homeless people today would understand very much", says Geoffrey.Instead, the hermit built himself a ramshackle shelter on the moor, the size of a dog kennel, living there for nearly 30 years until his death in 1857 at the age of 77."He had a wonderful singing voice," Geoffrey recounts."So he managed somehow to make a living singing in local pubs and hostelries. It was a very sad story, but amazingly he managed to survive in these dreadful circumstances."
Local lore relates that people used to visit the small hovel on the moor to hear him sing, and even to seek advice and hear his weather forecasts. And he too would traipse across the county in all weathers to sing in pubs and inns, often sleeping in the stables.He could even sing "four voices" across the male vocal range, it was said, and would lie on a bed of straw on Sunday mornings singing psalms out on the moor.In his final years, he was known to be unkempt and smelly, sleeping in stables with horses.One story, recounts Geoffrey, tells of a young lad spiking his drink while he was singing in a pub in Addingham. Struggling to walk home afterwards, the landlord took him to the workhouse. He is said to have walked six miles in winter to reach it before he died there, and was buried in Burley's graveyard.Such was his renown that a local inn was named The Hermit in his honour while he was still alive – and it still stands in Burley.The Mountain Ash Band's album told Job Senior's life story from birth to death through music, explains Geoffrey, and their first concert in Ilkley's King's Hall sold out.Geoffrey's favourite track is Stone on Stone, which describes Job building the walls.This weekend's concert will feature a new rendition of the original album by an electric folk tribute band brought together by Tim Moon, who hosts a folk music programme on BCB community radio.Some members of the original Mountain Ash Band, now in their 80s, will also attend."Losing your home can have a devastating effect on mental wellbeing," Geoffrey explains. "Fortunately, Job was able to earn a living singing, and his four voices became well-known in the district."At 200 years old, those walls he built are still standing," he further reflects. "His legacy lives on in the stones he laid across the moor, in the songs he sang, and in the folk melodies that will honour him once more this weekend."The Hermit tribute concert is on Saturday at 19:30 BST at Wesley's Community Hub in Baildon. Tickets are available via baildonchs.org.
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