A visit to Barden Tower concentrated mainly on the Priest’s House and Chapel, part of the building which is now a restaurant. This was once a banqueting tower and an observatory for star gazing. Detailed descriptions by Arnold Pacey were provided to explain the building. Inside the Chapel we could see a wall which had a space from where a hatchment was missing. We continued to Bolton Abbey where, in the Boyle room at the old school, we were able to see the hatchment which had been removed.

Mills were to feature in a number of the year’s visits. In Skipton, our visit began at the High Mill, which dates back to the 12th century. Originally a water-driven corn mill, it was first called the Water-Corne Milne, and later the Soke Mill, before becoming known as the High Corn Mill. Over its history it has been used to process corn and wool, spin and weave cotton and produce rags for paper. Now it is generating electricity for up to forty homes and houses small businesses. Some of the old workings are preserved behind glass and the water wheel has been replaced. We then walked to the Parish Church for a very informative talk by Susan Broadhead indicating many points of interest, and then on to the Town Hall to view the ornate ceiling of the ballroom and the council chambers

In May we visited Weston and Denton. The visit began with the church at Weston, a building dating from the 11th century with 14th century additions and a 17th century porch. The features of interest for us were the porch, dated 1686, the box pews and the three decker pulpit, the Vavasour arms in the form of the cockerel and the ‘Squire’s Parlour’ with its own entrance, and some early 14th century stained glass. The Vavasour family were lords of the manor for five centuries. Weston Hall, their family mansion, is a Tudor building with later additions. It has a separate banqueting hall, an imposing building which must have seen some fun in its time. After lunch we moved on to Denton, the imposing hall visible on the right as we approached. Its church was built in 1776 by John Carr of York, replacing an earlier chapel. The church contains many memorial tablets to the Ibbetson family, including the hatchment on the west wall of the porch of Sir Charles Henry Ibbetson. The chancel window is by Henry Giles of York, made in 1700 for the old chapel. The stone structure of the east window in the Gothic style was specially designed by John Carr to accommodate the old glass. Next we drove to the Hall, also built by John Carr, which we could not enter, but admired as we walked all around it, contrasting as it did with the much older hall we had seen in the morning.

July saw us at Bramham Park, a large house created by Stuart Gibbons. The house manager, who showed us round the lower parts of the property, gave us a history of both the house and the family. The house was built in 1698 for Robert Benson and has remained in the ownership of the same family ever since. It was a very relaxed visit; we were able to sit on the chairs and sofas in each room this being a family home and not a museum. The house was completely destroyed by fire in 1828 and although some of the contents were saved many were destroyed when a large piece of furniture became wedged in the main doorway. The property was left empty and derelict for eighty years until 1908 when it was restored by George Fox-Lane.

Wensley is the village which gives its name to the dale. Once a thriving market, it lost a lot of its inhabitants to the plague, and never recovered its position in the economic life of the area. Most of the houses were rebuilt in 1881, in the distinctive ‘Richmondshire’ Jacobean style, with mullioned windows (originally iron frames) and decorative bargeboards. Some cottages were clearly older, and some new build had been allowed, this being still an estate village belonging to Bolton Hall. We were shown round the village mill, with some of the workings tucked away, and the drying kiln added at the side. The fire grate was still in situ, and we could see the ventilated tiles used for the floor. The stone bridge across the Ure was built by John Aylwin , who died in 1436. On the downstream side, two of his early 15th century double chamfered pointed arches can still be seen, flanked by classical arches of 1744-6, and semi-circular arches upstream where the bridge was widened in 1818. We could have spent a whole day in the church. Some of the carvings are thought to be survivals from monasteries, with a ‘family likeness’ discernible among carvings in Ripon Minster, Aysgarth & Wensley. The Scrope family pew has a carved parclose screen from the early 16th century which was saved by John, Lord Scrope and moved from Easby Abbey at the Dissolution. The choir stalls with carved bench ends date from 1527 and are the work of a single artist and his assistant who came from Jervaulx Abbey.

In September we visited Wycoller. Although Wycoller has been a Lancashire Country Park since 1976, our focus was the hamlet’s ancient hum of agriculture and weaving life, and also the ruins of the Cunliffe family’s Wycoller Hall. We were aware of the pre-Conquest cattle-farming and domestic weaving, the 11th- 14th century manorial ownerships and the monastic management of a developing sheep industry. Extensive woodlands once existed in the immediate environs which were an important source of fruits, nuts, leaves and timber, and a habitat for foraging pigs, but had to be sold and re-used in the 19th century to pay heavy estate debts. The developing wool and textile industry in the 13th-19th centuries led to hyge power-looms in the bigger towns and cities, and much of Wycoller’s population was drawn to such better-paid workplaces. We appreciated many 17th century buildings, ancient bridges and trackways, the outstanding vaccary stone enclosures and the 16th century aisled barn, all of which evoke an atmospheric past.

During our visit to Fountains Abbey our NT guide took us down to Fountains Hall, built by Stephen Proctor between 1598 and 1604, partly with stone from the abbey ruins. We queried the lack of symmetry at the front of the Hall and noticed the slightly quirky architecture. We looked at the outside of Fountains Abbey Mill dating from the 12th century. Inthe 1140s grain from the granges was brought to the abbey for milling. Tannery waste from this time has been excavated on the site. There was a range of industrial activities at the mill until 1937. We then moved into the Abbey itself, where we studied the architecture of the guest house dating from the mid 12th century. This started as a simple building. Later the Rose window was filled in to provide a fireplace. The Abbott’s house no longer remains. The original abbey church, built of wood but soon replaced in stone, was damaged in an attack on the abbey in 1146. It was rebuilt, on a larger scale, on the same site. In the nave we looked at the changes in style from rounded arch to Gothic, the perpendicular style and the scalloped form of decoration on top of the columns and plasterwork. The tall tower, added not long before the Dissolution, is in an unusual position at the northern end of the north transept. In 1720, after leaving parliament, John Aislabie devoted himself to the creation of the garden. After his death in 1742, his son William extended his scheme by purchasing the remains of the Abbey and Fountains Hall. In strong contrast was the Palladian style mini banqueting house, and the Gothic folly of the Octagonal Tower. St. Mary’s church was designed by William Burges for the Marquess of Ripon in 1859. Infront of us was the Chorister’s House – built at the beginning of the arts movement – the final building in the 900 years of history which we had been following on our walk through the estate.

Mills, banqueting houses, hatchments, but much more made our 2013 season varied, informative and enjoyable. We are looking forward to 2014.

Marion Hutchinson

Langcliffe

The village of Langcliffe is mentioned in the Domesday Book and charters of Sawley Abbey. After the Dissolution the Manor belonged to the Darcy family and was later sold in several parcels to the tenants. By the 1640s, after the Civil War, increasing prosperity meant that houses could be rebuilt in stone. Some survive from that time but others are from the 18th and 19th centuries. At that time this now peaceful village was busy and prosperous with a tannery and tallow works as well as a large quarry and limeworks nearby. During this period, many inhabitants worked at the mills on the Ribble, once corn mills owned by the monks of Furness Abbey that were turned into thriving water-powered cotton mills. During the recession of 1850 to 1860, however, the mills closed and many villagers moved to Accrington to work in the Lancashire cotton mills. Nearly every house in Langcliffe became empty, with grass growing in the streets. In 1861 Lorenzo Christie from Derbyshire bought the mills and the village began to thrive again. He, and later his son, built more houses for their workers and also an Institute, which was for men only and served no alcohol. Inside the Institute, we looked at exquisite tapestries depicting the history of Langcliffe from pre history to the millennium and met several of the ladies who worked on them following an inspiring visit to

 At the river we saw the salmon ladder and locks for the mill pond, before walking between cottages built for the mill workers to the edge of the lovely tranquil pond at High Mill. This grade 2 listed former cotton mill, having closed in the 1950s, is still in use as a paper mill and we were able to examine the outer building and see where the water wheels were once housed. Nearby is the large house of Langcliffe Place, also grade 2 listed, built for the mill owners. We took the workers’ path leading to an interesting footbridge over the railway and back to Langcliffe, where we were lucky enough to see the gates opening for Langcliffe Hall, allowing us a brief glimpse of the facade of the house with its ornate doorway and date stone of 1602 and the coat of arms. The hall was originally built for the Somerscales family but the Dawson family and their descendants have resided here for most of the last four centuries. After lunch at Watershed Mill we drove to Craven Limeworks (closed in 1939), now a derelict site near Langcliffe with public access. We explored the impressive remains of the Hoffmann Kiln and also Murgatroyd’s Triple Draw Kilns. Frances Bland

Harewood Castle and Church

June 2013

In the 14th century there were two estates -the Harwood (as it was then) Estate and the Gawthorpe Estate. Two families, the Redmaynes and the Rythers shared occupation of Harewood Castle which had been built by the father of the two heiresses, William de Aldeburgh in the 1360s. The Gascoigne family built Gawthorpe Hall and lived there for sixteen generations. These three families intermarried and also married into the Wentworth family who owned both estates by 1580. The son of Sir Thomas Wentworth (Earl of Strafford) sold the entire holding to Sir John Cutler in 1657 who in 1738 sold to Henry Lascelles, a successful merchant and financier in the West India trade. It was his elder son, Edwin Lascelles (later Lord Harewood) who inherited in 1753 and he started to build Harewood House involving John Carr, Robert Adam, Capability Brown and others. Gawthorpe Hall was demolished in 1771,

The castle, or fortified house, was a picturesque ruin with no public access until massive stabilisation work was carried out in 2004, hence the need to have an official guide who met us at Harewood Church. Here, the six pairs of tombs were discussed: dating from 1419 to 1510, these are all linked to the families of the two estates and are regarded as the greatest surviving examples of alabaster carving in England.  We then walked through the churchyard on to Church Lane, down to Sandgate, past Cuttler’s Cottage (dated 1678) and down a narrow ginnel on to the Permitted Footpath, which loops round the castle close to the A61 and climbed over the ha-ha. Harewood Castle is an enormous 646 year old building, four/five storeys high, built on a sloping site. It has some excellent stonework and much of the detail retains surprising crispness. Our guide had the keys to allow us into the Lower Hall (with a wonderful elaborate buffet recess) and into the basement. There was an upper hall or Solar, small chambers in the towers linked by newel stairs. Over the porch there is a portcullis chamber and a small chapel and the arms of Aldeburgh were noted along with those of his patron Edward Balliol, the former puppet king of Scotland. This was a most impressive home wit many fireplaces and facilities for those early years. The whole area is covered in trees and botanists in the party noted the many Sweet Chestnut with angled spirals of heavy ridges, indicating their great age. After lunch, some members went on to the Harewood House Terrace (designed by Sir Charles Barry in the 1840s at the invitation of the wife of the 3rd Earl of Harewood, Lady Louisa Thynne of Longleat).

From here, we could look down towards the lake on to the site of Gawthorpe Hall which has recently been excavated by the University of York and the York Archaeological Trust. There was an interesting link from this visit to our visit last month, to Denton Hall. Denton belonged to the Vavasours; a daughter married into the Thwaite family, who then occupied Denton for many years. Much later, after the parents of Isabel Thwaite had died, Sir William Fairfax of Steeton (near Tadcaster) married her at Bolton Percy Church in 1518 and hence Denton then belonged to the Fairfax family. The grand-daughter of William de Aldeburgh (builder of Harewood Castle) had married John Thwaite of Denton and Isabel was their grand­daughter.  Les Bloom

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Malham

20 June 2013

Disappointingly, Malham Tarn yielded very few birds when we visited; Sand Martins over the water, a lovely view of a male Common Redstart, and a Roe deer buck, were the highlights.  However, it was a botanical sighting which caused most excitement; after all our visits over the years, at last the Lady’s Slipper Orchids in the cage by Tarn House have produced flowers, three in fact.  We were very pleased to see the Yellow Wagtails at their usual hay meadows at Low Tren

• Lismore
• Field Society Library
• Birding Year in Hebden
• Butterflies in Upper Wharfedale
• Yorkshire Dales Biodivesity Forum
• Barden Scale

The following walks took place and the reports are below:

Hellifield