A Proposed Solution to the Question, Where in Buggeration IS Spinner's End?

Wemyss

Story Summary:
Todmorden, W Yorks, as the likely site of Spinner's End, in light of new evidence from DH.

Chapter 01 - A Proposed Solution to the Question, Where in Buggeration IS Spinner's End?

Posted:
08/20/2007
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744

Ever since DH came out, with its revelations of Snape's infant encounters with the Evans girls, the question, Where is Spinner's End, has been asked with renewed interest - and new evidence.

Well? Where is it, then?

Witches and Gentlewizards, I give you ... Todmorden (http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=1583895).

Note chimneys.

As may be seen, Todmorden visually suits (http://www.todmordenalbum.co.uk/) what we now know from DH.

But of course there is more to the matter than that.

What we know of the location of Spinner's End, from canon, is as follows:

Firstly, that it is located far from London.

Secondly, that it is a mill town - and the 'spinning' suggests, although it does not require, that it be a textile town.

Thirdly, that a river runs through it, and not one suitable for a dry fly: rather, the river in question is polluted as late as the time of Snape's forming the Unbreakable Vow in June, 1996.

Fourthly, that it is dominated by industrial architecture, including the looming chimneys of the mills. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/398877

Fifthly, that it is in a vale or dale surrounded by rather steep terrain, but with good road, rail, and - especially - water communications.

What we know of the immediate area from canon is:

Firstly, that the housing is poor, rundown, and quite probably terraced.

Secondly, that the houses are built of brick.

Thirdly, that the streets are cobbled. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/58200

What we may extrapolate from these facts is that the town that, ah, boasts the presence of Spinner's End is a Pennine town that is in the Liverpool or Manchester industrial catchments - cotton and spinning, ye ken - and, although in mountainous or hilly terrain, is possessed of a river, a railway, and, one imagines, a canal as well. http://www.penninewaterways.co.uk/rochdale/rc7.htm

With this in mind, let us consider the case for Todmorden. http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/todmorden/todmorden.htm

Is 'Spinner's End' a plausible residential area or street name in Todmorden? Yes: vide Commercial Street and Industrial Street, with their terraced houses, Cinder Hill Road, Ashes Lane, Kilnhurst....

Is Todmorden a former mill town, in the North, with a river? Indeed it is. Does the river run through a flat valley-bottom, amidst steep surroundings? It does. Was the river - in Todmorden, the River Calder - subject to industrial pollution? Very much so - the more so as the River Calder upstream from Todmorden flows through old, disused coal mining areas. This factor tends to exclude other potential, similar towns nearby that are not in Calderdale, as river reclamation and anti-pollution efforts came later to the River Calder than to other nearby rivers.

Has Todmorden a major canal artery? Indeed it has: the Rochdale Canal was dispositive to its growth. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/398726

Has it rail communications dating to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution? So it does, and erected by no less a figure than Geo Stephenson. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/499621

Todmorden - a very useful site (http://todmordenandwalsden.co.uk/) for which contains numerous contributions from a Mr Jno Alan Longbottom - is now wholly in 'West Yorkshire'; before Westminster fiddled all the old boundaries, the boundary between Lancs and the West Riding ran through the centre of the town (http://www.genuki.org.uk:8080/big/eng/LAN/Todmorden/).

Spiritually, it is very much a West Riding / Pennine town, yet it is also very much in the Mancunian sphere of influence, particularly economically. The Snapes of Bedale would have been drawn to Calderdale and the town of Todmorden via labour-seeking emigration from the North Riding to the West Riding. A Welsh-surnamed family such as that of Petunia and Lily Evans would have progressed from Wales and the Marches through Manchester and Salford into the industrial outlying towns on the Lancs / Yorks borders. The thrawn, working-class Snapes and the middle-class Evanses would encounter one another most plausibly in a town - not a city - of the size and contours of Todmorden. Tobias's family were clearly mill labourers, and his forebears would have run to farm labourers, ostlers, mole-catchers, joiners, fellmongers, or what have you. Lily's father, by contrast: clearly an 'incomer' and not even one from the West or North Riding of Yorkshire, from Manchester, or from the rest of Lancashire; a true 'outlandish fellow': would likely be a solicitor, vet, GP, schoolmaster, minor civil servant, architect and surveyor, or involved in the management of the mills. A town much larger than Todmorden would likely be too large for the children of these sundered classes to encounter one another on several occasions, even in a park. I may add that Petunia's obsessive determination in later life to avoid any retrogression of her class status is surely rooted in her having, as a child, encountered 'that awful boy' who 'lived down Spinner's End by the river': again suggesting that the town of her childhood was small enough that the poor were never securely out of sight and out of mind.

There are, to be sure, any number of Northern mill towns that might meet many or all of these clues; I am merely suggesting here that Todmorden is in the first rank of possibilities, and that its streetscapes, street names, industrial architecture, transport infrastructure, size, and industrial past seem to me from a cursory review of an area not my own to be the best 'fit' I have yet found.

Finally, I rather like placing Snape's childhood in Todmorden for two magical reasons. The first of these is, that, despite its probable derivation from 'Tedda's marsh (mere) steading' or 'the fox's (tod's) mere den', 'Tod-mord-den' at least sounds as if it could be referring to a place of death and murder. The second is, Todmorden - or, strictly, Blackheath (!) - is the site of an ancient barrow (http://www.sypeland.freeserve.co.uk/site91.htm) and what was long thought to be a stone henge.

Subsequent to my first airing these ideas, contributors to the ongoing discussion at LJ http://wemyss.livejournal.com/94082.html have suggested that Bella's casual killing of a fox at the beginning of the chapter in which we first see Spinner's End may be a hint, and that Todmorden's reputation for UFOs at the height of the first war against Tom Riddle may be significant. http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series2/ufo_alien_abduction_yorkshire_pennine_sighting_adamski_mystery.shtml I am much obliged to those who contributed these suggestions.

Wherefore Todmorden as the site of Spinner's End. As Bairnsfather's Old Bill put it, 'If you knows of a better 'ole, go to it!'