From Bramhope to Arthington

(REMEMBER YOU CAN ENLARGE PHOTOS IN GALLERIES BY CLICKING ON THEM. THEY LOOK SO MUCH BETTER WHEN YOU CAN SEE THE DETAIL.)

We started our walk here by the church at Bramhope. Opposite is the Brittania Hotel which is a bit of an eye sore built in 1971. It was built on the site of Bramhope Hall – more of that when I do the history of Bramhope.

c1900-1904. View of Bramhope Hall, home of the Dyneley family from the 16th century onwards.

The well and pump were restored in 1991. To read the history of it click on the photo of the info board to enlarge.

The above is the walk that I mapped out. I didn’t record it, so its not quite the correct milage, which worked out just over 8mls. Theres some steep hills as it crosses the “ridge” that the Bramhope Rail Tunnel runs under. We actually went off piste at the bottom of the hill into the woods towards the railway line, where it exits the tunnel and got a photo of the ornate crenelated portal.

We walked through the woods following the path of the line, which was a lovely walk but a dead end, so we had to retrace our steps.

When we met the road we walked down to Creskeld Hall.

The place-name is first attested in the twelfth century, as Creskeld and Creskelde. The name comes from the Old English words cresse (‘cress‘) and kelde (‘spring, well’, itself a borrowing of Old Norse kelda). Thus the name once meant ‘spring with cress growing nearby’. The place-name thus suggests that the settlement dates back to before the Norman Conquest of England.^[2] A spring of fresh water flows past the Hall all year round; and watercress grows in abundance in the streams and water gardens.

n 1189, Hugo de Creskeld gave all his land at Creskeld with an annual rent of 6d and a common pasture of 260 sheep to Kirkstall Abbey. A chapel was attached to the house before the end of the 12th century. The Manor House was leased to Sir Richard de Goldsbro and in 1352 a deed was executed between Sir Richard de Goldsboro and Robert Tottie relating to the granting of Creskeld wood for the smelting of iron. This deed is said to be the oldest deed relating to that industry now in existence.

At the dissolution of the Monasteries, the Manor of Creskeld passed into the hands of Thomas Cranmer, a nephew of the famous Archbishop Cranmer. In 1596 the Wentworth family from Wakefield occupied the Hall and rented it for £15 a year. In 1660, it was inherited by Evelild, the eldest daughter of George Wentworth, who was the wife of John Thornhill of Fixby.

In 1846, Francis Rhodes^[3] of Bramhope Hall, the next door estate, married the only child of the owner of the Hall Charlotte Maria Cooper Darwin. He assumed her surname and arms in 1850 upon inheritance of Elston Hall from Robert Alvey Darwin^[4] and they took up residence at Creskeld Hall.^[5] The estate thus came into the ownership of the Rhodes family, who had been in Wharfedale for many centuries.

Francis (Rhodes) Darwin was born in 1825. He became a barrister, then a magistrate and was Chairman of the Highways Committee and Alderman of the new West Riding of Yorkshire County Council for more than 50 years. He died in 1918 at the age of 93.

The present Hall at Creskeld occupies the site of the original Manor house and there are parts in the centre which date back to the 1600s, with very old oak beams. Much of the rest of the building was built between 1850 and 1920 and includes a chapel room that was rebuilt after a fire in 1870. This was never re-consecrated and is now part of the main house. A flat-roofed billiard room extension was added in 1919. This connects the rebuilt chapel with the main body of the house, and has enclosed a courtyard where the front entrance used to be.

The Hall has been privately owned by the same family since 1919 being purchased by Bertram Parkinson, the grandfather of the current owners. It was then the home of Colonel Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott OBE MC TD, Member of Parliament of the local constituency from 1945 until his death in 1973.

We then walked to the end of the lane, crossed straight over and down Warren Lane to the Arthington Viaduct which I’ve blogged about previously. We retraced our steps and then turned left along the Tadcaster to Otley Turnpike Road, which seems to have always had problems with heavy traffic!

The reason we walked the road is because I wanted to check out the buildings.

Here we came across the Old Post Office with the GR insignia for King George and the old school 1872.

 On the south side of Arthington Lane, Crag View and Ivy Cottage, Holme View, are a pair of cottages, built of coursed squared sandstone with quoins and a stone slate roof, as an eye-catcher, in the 19C. The central two-storey part is Crag View, and the wings are single-storey with screen walls at first-floor level, topped by an open pediment and battlements.  A row of six cottages, Nos. 5 to 10, was built in the early to mid-19C of coursed squared sandstone with quoins and dressings of the same, and a Welsh slate roof. All have a wide recessed arch at first-floor level, merging into the eaves. The row of cottages was originally symmetrical, with the ones next to the end slightly recessed, but No.5 on the right has been extended in a similar style, but without the blank arch.

Next we walked along to Arthington Hall.

The name Arthington is first attested in the Domesday Book as Hardinctone, Ardintona and Ardinton. The first element of the name comes from the Old English personal name Eard, a nickname form of longer names like Eardwulf; the connecting element -ing-, used to indicate Eard’s association with the place; and the word tūn (‘farmstead, estate’). Thus the name meant ‘Eard’s estate’. Spellings with th for d appear from the twelfth century onwards and are thought to show the influence of Old Norse pronunciation on the name.^[4]Arthington was part of the estate of Aluuard of Northumbria, along with Adel, Burdon, Cookridge and Eccup, up until the Norman conquest of England. It was then given to the Count of Mortain (half brother of William the Conqueror). However, it had greatly reduced in value during the Conquest, falling from 30 shillings to 5, and much of the area was described as waste.

It was in the 12th century that Arthington (or Ardington) as a family name was established, as vassals to the tenant in chief, the Paynel and later the Luterel family. Peter de Arthington donated lands at Arthington to Kirkstall Abbey which led to the establishment of a nunnery known as Arthington Priory. The site is now believed to be occupied by the Nunnery, with the main house dated 1585 built from the ruins.^[6] By this time the region had improved with more land under agriculture and more inhabitants.^[5]

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Originally built in the mid 15th century, the hall stands on the site of a former Cluniac nunnery endowed by the Arthington family in the late 1200s, and given by Henry VIII to Archbishop Cranmer in 1543, after the dissolution of the monasteries. Following a fire in the late 1700s, the house was substantially remodelled for Henry Arthington by Yorkshire architect John Carr, who was much in favour in Wharfedale at about that time, designing such illust-rious country houses as nearby Harewood House and Denton Park, and Farnley Hall at Otley.

This was a period when many rich Leeds merchants decided to swap the trading floor for the green and pleasant life of a country landowner-a condition that Carr himself aspired to. Born the son of a stonemason in 1723, he went on to become Yorkshire’s dominant architect, a gentleman, twice Lord Mayor of York, and a justice of the peace for the West Riding, with his own country house and estate.

At Arthington Hall, Carr’s most notable legacy is undoubtedly its famous flying staircase, described by the late Giles Worsley (Country Life, May 5, 1988) as a ‘masterpiece of joinery (and) one of Yorkshire’s unknown 18th-century marvels’. Set in an oval stairwell, it starts with two flights that meet at a half-landing to form a central, unsupported flight that is said to ‘bounce unnervingly’ when walked upon.

The route from Leeds to Wharfedale was already well-trodden by the time the Sheepshanks family (wool merchants, as the name suggests) bought Arthington Hall in 1842. In 1875, William Sheepshanks commissioned a Victorian extension by Alfred Waterhouse; a further wing was added in 1908. The hall has been the Sheepshanks family home ever since, apart from a period during and after the Second World War, when it was used as a convalescent home.

In the early 1990s, the present vendors, William and Alice Sheepshanks, bought Arthington from William’s late mother, Mary, who, with his father, Charles, reclaimed the house and gardens in the 1960s and restored them. However they sold the hall in 2012 as the running cost were becoming too much. I can’t find out who bought it or who lives there

The Nunnery

Situated on Arthington Lane, it is believed that this Nunnery was founded by Peter de Arthington about 1150. It was a small establishment with usually around ten nuns. At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Elizabeth Hall, the prioress received a pension of £35. Nine other nuns were offered much smaller amounts. The building became a home and the land around the farm. TB 15851B is on the house, thought to be the initials of Thomas Briggs and his wife who were early owners.

After suppression of the priory, in 1543 the site was given by the King to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. In the time of Charles I, a plain but substantial hall was built on the priory land. The front doorway which is dated 1585, has been removed from some older building. In 1822 the hall was occupied as a farm house and was the property of the Earl of Harewood. In the parish records it is described as “a large well-built, square house, on a fine elevation above the river”.

Despite the loss of the ancient buildings, the 1822 records have an entry that states: “ARTHINGTON NUNNERY, in the parish of Adel, upper-division of Skyrack, and adjoins the village of Arthington”. This probably refers to The Nunnery, a farmhouse which is said to stand on the foundations and lower courses of the priory church.^[3] Its farm buildings were possibly built over the monastery buildings.^[3]

The information about the history of all these interesting places and buildings has been researched from many web pages and there are some links to these incorporated within the text.  I have mostly used my own photos, as I like to show that I have actually been to all these places, but have used a few old ones from the internet too.

We walked to the church of St Peter built in 1864 for Mr William Sheepshanks of Arthington Hall.  The first vicar was Thomas Sheepshanks.  It is now a Coptic church.

We then made our way up a path up the side of the church, and ascended the ridge across some very muddy fields, finally reaching Bank Top farm where we cross the road following the Ebor Way back to Bramhope.

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Phew this blog has taken a long time.