Fred Hoyle An observer of the world and a ponderer on its problems ...

A Singular Life

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Hoyle’s great grandfather, Ben Preston, famed for his Yorkshire dialect poems, settled in Gilstead in the 1860s. The village lies on the edge of the moors and the eastern side of the Aire Valley and provided a haven away from the industrial woollen town of Bradford.

In 1911, in the year of her marriage to Ben Hoyle, his mother purchased the pair of semi detached stone houses, with, at that time, the address of 3 and 4 Milnerfield Villas.

The properties, originally homes for staff, had an open aspect over the Milnerfield estate where Titus Salt had built a substantial home. It was in number 4 that Hoyle was born on 24 June 1915 and where he lived until he left in 1933 to become an undergraduate at Emmanuel College Cambridge.

He returned regularly throughout his life to visit his family and walk the hills. Number 4 remained a family home for just over a century.