The walk starts from the gate onto the golf course at Holt Farm on Holt Lane. Make your way straight on down the hill bearing right towards Breary Nature Reserve and Pauls Pond. Make your way leftwards around the pond going straight on into the woods. A little way in you will see a gate on the left, by an information board, turn through this gate towards some converted farm buildings. Go through the yard and over the cattle grid. Where the road bends to the left, take the path on the right towards the direction of Bramhope. Deer are often spotted here. Go over the stile at the bottom into a field (beware the cattle if they’re there) and carry straight forward past the rugby club on your right. You will come out onto The Sycamores.
Turn right up the Sycamores to the end of the road and cross over the A660 and climb over the stile and follow the way markers.
Breary Grange farm was established by the monks of Kirkstall Abbey who owned most of the land around Cookridge, Adel, Bramhope, Pool, Arthington, Horsforth and further afield. Kirkstall Abbey must have been very, very well off. In the last photo you can see the farm at East Breary. Both East and West Breary were townships, each had a farm but no village.
Eventually you reach Black Hill Road where you take a left. Shortly you will see Bank Top Farm, here take a footpath on the left, part of the Ebor Way. On your right as you walk through the fields is Blackhill Quarry . The main source of Bramley Fall stone is here, operated by Mone Bros Ltd since 1979. But the quarry has been worked for a lot longer than that. In 2011, four thousand tonnes of Bramley Fall sandstone, sourced at Blackhill, was used to widen the Blackfriars bridge across the Thames, when the new railway station was being constructed in London.
Follow the way markers which will lead you to Breary Lane East. There are some amazing houses down here, but their view across country has been blighted by the building site of Miller Homes.
There are a number of older cottages too. At the junction at the bottom of the road take a right onto Creskeld Lane then left onto Creskeld Drive. Now I have to warn you that the next mile or so is in suburbia, but not any old suburbia because this is high end Bramhope and I just love looking at all these beautifully styled houses. You’d need a £1000000 or so to buy one and employ a cleaner! but they are all so individual and beautifully designed and the views over the valley are to die for. As you near the bottom of the hill there is a path off to your right opposite Hall Rise on the left. This takes you through woods towards the North entrance of the Bramhope tunnel and a where Bramhope Corn Mill used to be, if you would like a short detour.
The solarium that you see in someones garden is a listed building and was in the grounds of Bramhope Hall. Keep going up Hall Drive, which is a quite a large hill. At the top you meet the A660 again. Turn left and come to the Puritan Chapel.
Bramhope Chapel is gable on to the Leeds Otley Road, its principal elevation facing south, with a small enclosed sanctuary at the east altar end, and a bell cote surmounting its west gable. It was formerly in the grounds of Bramhope Hall, which has been demolished, and now stands close to the edge of the hotel car park. It is built of coursed squared sandstone and has a stone slate roof.
The chapel dates from 1649, and is a single storey Puritan Chapel having a virtually symmetrical 6 bay elevation with round headed doorways in bays 2 and 5, the remaining bays have 3 light windows except for the 1st bay that has a two light window, all with chamfered mullions set in double chamfered surrounds with square heads (Thornborrow, 2004).
Principal structural alterations date from the early 19th century, when the walls and roof structure were raised by a few feet and a flat plaster ceiling (now removed) was inserted. After a period of neglect and severe storm damage in 1962 it was placed in the care of the local authority and thoroughly repaired (Stell, 1994). It was built by Robert Dyneley of Bramhope Hall who was a devout Puritan.
The second photo shows some graves of the inhabitants of Bramhope Hall over the years. The fourth photo is interesting as it states that Francis Walker and his wife Susannah and all descendants bearing the name of Walker are interred in a straight line facing Northwards. The next photo is of Charlotte Darwin wife of Francis Darwin(Rhodes) of Creskeld. 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.
The next one is Sarah Ellen Rhodes nee Sheepshanks. We met the Sheepshanks family in Arthington from Arthington Hall. The last is a memorial to William Rhodes who died in 1869.
I have found there are so many connections with families within the West Riding areas.
The Hall (demolished in the 1960s) is thought to have occupied the site of an earlier medieval hall, and is located underneath what is now the hotel, off Leeds Road. The Hall is thought to have incorporated building phases from at least the 16th century, and is known to have been owned by the Dyneley family from 1546 until 1767. Between the 17th and 19th centuries the Hall had several owners and was structurally altered several times.
The earliest known settlement in the area was a British camp established off Moor Road. The Romans built a road through the area from Adel to Ilkley, traces of which remain in a field near Leeds Bradford Airport.[2]
Bramhope is mentioned in the Domesday Book as the manor of an Saxon thane, Uchill. In 1095 the manor passed to Percy family, and in 1165 was sold to Ralph de Bramhope. In the 13th century the monasteries owned much of the land and had granges where sheep were grazed. The monks used tracks, such as Scotland Lane and Staircase Lane, as they travelled from their outlying granges to Kirkstall Abbey.[2]
The village had a small population until the 20th century. The Black Death of 1348-9 reduced the number of adults to 34, but this gradually increased to about 400 in 1900. Now it is in the region of 4,500.[2] Water was drawn from private wells or the town well at the foot of Northgate (now Church Hill). The town well was restored in 1991 by the Bramhope History Group, and is located opposite St Giles Church.[2] The plaque says that the well was exposed in 1991, so perhaps it had been lost for some time.[3]
If you come out from the chapel turn left, walk past the hotel entrance and just past there you will see the information board about the well and the hall pictured below.
Back to the walk. Cross over the road to St. Giles church – theres not a lot of interest to the church, but opposite, the other side of Church Hill is Old Manor Farm circa 17th.
Walk up the hill past some old cottages on your left and another listed building on the right, then reach the Cross and the Fox and Hounds pub, which has been here since 1728. Bramhope has two distinct characters. At the cross-roads of Eastgate and Church Hill is the historic centre of the once nucleated settlement. The second came following the construction of the Leeds to Otley turnpike road in the mid 19th century. From this time Bramhope developed into a suburban settlement, particularly from the 1930s onwards.
The church Hill and Eastgate routes were known to have been bridleways in the medieval period and the sunken nature of parts of them suggest that they are ancient landscape features.
Most of the standing buildings centred around the crossroads near Church Hill date to the 17th and 18th centuries, and reflect the largely rural and agricultural past of Bramhope village. They are typical Yorkshire millstone grit buildings, with little ornamentation, and have stone or slate roofs. Many of the buildings are Grade II Listed former farmhouses (such as ‘Old Manor Farm’ (1691), Bramhope Manor (originally constructed in the 16th century but rebuilt in 1803), 1 Church Hill (late-17th century) and ‘The Hollies’ (mid-18th century)), however there are also indications of local industrial production at ‘The Smithy’ (dated 1687) and ‘Weavers Cottage’ (1709).
So turn left and walk down Eastgate and you will see the weavers cottage on your right. There are then a number of cottages, then some houses of 17th/18th century. And then the Methodist Church which is the biggest church in Bramhope. Methodism in Bramhope has a long history, the first documentary evidence of Methodist preaching in the village dating back to 1777. Services took place in cottages and barns for many years until the first chapel was built in 1837. This building eventually became too small so the present church was built to replace it in 1896.
After the church there are a few other buildings of interest but I haven’t been able to find any information about them.
The first house above has a date of 1758 above the door. Go down a lane by the side of the Knoll Playground ( see info in photo below).
At the end of the path cross straight over the road and follow the path through the woods. As you come to the end you will come across another railway tunnel shaft.
So now you meet Moor Road. Cross over and you will see a stile to your left which you clamber over and check out the sighting tower which I have mentioned before ( Bramhope Tunnel Update Post). See map below and finish off walk this way following post backwards.
There will be another post on Old Bramhope soon. Old Bramhope is up Old Lane past the Robert Craven Memorial Hall. I hope to do some detective work on the children’s home there.
Bramhope is one of Leeds many conservation areas believe it or not! Miller Homes have been allowed to build on what must have been Green Belt in Bramhope, so I don’t know what conservation status actually means!