Reeling in the years, a film from the 1970’s..
It’s a sunny day, probably in late autumn and a small group of very young Farsley lads, climb a low wall to get into the Rehoboth to make a spooky film.
However, it’s over 50 years ago when they have their adventure, they film not with a smartphone, but with Super 8 Cine Film.
The wall they climb over is into the Old Rehoboth Chapel grounds, overgrown and derelict. The first filmed scenes are amongst the tombs and memorials that no longer exist, as the then owner smashed them to pieces in the early 1990’s.
Fortunately, the young lads are still here, one is a new volunteer who had kept the old film on a DVD, another is a regular visitor to his family plot in the Rehoboth.
The two-minute film continues with shots inside our present boundaries which we will be converting to before and after screenshots.
To put it simply, this find (to we “anoraks”) is pure gold, it is the only known film footage taken in the Old Chapel Grounds and the Rehoboth prior to our first footage circa 2018.
It shows areas that no longer exist.
As always there is a new Rehoboth coincidence, the first identifiable gravestone on the film is that of Rebecca Keighley, who died aged 34 on the 23rd July 1859,
Rebecca was born 12th November 1825, her maiden name was Rebecca Whitaker, her parents were John and Ann Whitaker of Farsley.
She was baptised on 8th January 1826 at St Wilfred’s Calverley
She married Abraham Keighley at St Peter’s Parish Church, Leeds in September 1852, this now Leeds Minster.
Rebecca died three months after giving birth to her 4th daughter Louisa
Abraham, her husband re married to Mary Nichol in 1859 and emigrated with his children to Ohio, USA dying in 1875 and is buried there.
Her gravestone was amongst the many broken and presumed destroyed in the desecration of the early 1990’s.
However, in what we called “The Archaeological Dig” of 2023 to 2025, where volunteers removed 65 tonnes of debris, rubbish and soil bulldozed from the Old Chapel Grounds into the Rehoboth, from circa 1992/1993 which covered many existing graves, we found some intact memorials and a small number of broken fragments of memorials.
One of these finds was the gravestone of Rebecca Keighley, uncovered in 2024, the fragments were inset into a wooden frame and fixed together with Resin. It is only three weeks ago that this memorial, (please see attached photograph) was placed on display in our memorial area, the closet point within our boundaries to where it originally stood for 134 years.
Please find an enhanced version of the film below: