History

'A Short History of Grassington', taken from Ian Goldthorpe's book, 'Grassington Towards the Millennium' with pen and ink drawings by the author unless otherwise stated.

First I think it is worth noting the origin of the name “Grassington”, which is derived from the old English word ‘gaersing” which means grazing and the word ‘tun’ which means farmstead or hamlet.

The Grassington we know today is comparatively new when we consider that in much earlier times the local people all lived upon the moors less than half a mile to the north of the present town, in a large open area known as “Lea Green” above Grass and Bastow woods. These earlier settlers would have initially picked this area since at the time this would be less densely forested and, being on higher ground with outcrops of rocks, the woodland would comprise thin scrub with ashes rather than oaks which would be easier to clear and also to use for the construction of dwellings. There was also more early development on the west side of the river, just to the north of Threshfield. From research that has been carried out. And numerous artifacts that have been found over the years, these settlers date back as far as the Bronze Age, namely around 2,000BC. Two Celtic villages were also located between Grassington and Bastow Wood. In order to see evidence of these early settlements, preferably in late evening sunlight, go up Main Street turning left along Chapel Street to the left of the Town Hall, and then right up the steep Bank Lane, at the end of a long row of lead miners’ cottages. After passing some stables on the right, go thorugh the gate ahead and proceed along a nice grassy walled lane. On the left, some hundred yards or so from the gate at the end, you will clearly see the sites of some of the houses, together with the remains of some of the Celtic field enclosures. These primitive dwellings would comprise a low dry stone wall on top of which would be erected a crude timber framed hut, with a pitched roof covered with bracken and heather.

The Romans arrived in Upper Wharfedale during the 50sAD, departing sometime in the 5th century. It is worth noting that they quickly developed the area of Upper Wharfedale around Grassington as an important grain growing area which was soon supplying Ilkley and Bainbridge, comprising hundreds of acres of Romano-British development being an extension of the earlier Celtic agricultural site. Thet were of course great road builders and by AD76 they had completed the road from Aldborough to Ilkley, up Wharfedale and beyond. The had started to mine lead at Greenhow and Scar Street, also possibly the rough and cobbled lane in Grassington known as ‘Water Street’ may be part of their road leading to Greenhow……….

There was a Roman villa not far away in Gargrave. The Roman name ‘villa’ referred to a farm complex. From Buckden the Romans built their road along the line of Buckden Rake, then over Kidstones Pass to their fort in Bainbridge. In Wensleydale they built a number of villas and one of the most important roads they built from Bainbridge was that going south to Manchester. Much of the first section of this road survives as ‘Cam High Road’, then becoming far a time the route of both the Pennine Way and Dales Way. Little is known of its route across the Forest of Bowland, but part of its route is evident where it crosses Longridge Fell near Ribchester. Here they had built another fort in AD79, which lies partly below the Medieval Church and the adjacent Churchyard. The National Trust Museum in the village records Ribchester’s ancient history and possesses many artifacts.

Nearby is the White Bull, which is an inn with Roman columns gracing its front entrance. Beyond in Greenside, as a result of excavations carried out by the Lancashire County Museum experts in the 1970s the foundations of various rooms of the Bathhouse can be seen.

Here the Romans built a ford over the River Ribble, and through the West Pennine Moors much of the route of the next section is well-known. Several miles of road near Darwen and through Affetside are built on top of the original Roman road terminating at the north end of Deansgate, in Manchester.

At the north end of Deansgate Manchester Cathedral is located and at the other end excavations were carried out in the early 1980s, on the site of the Roman fort in Castlefield. The reconstruction of the North Gate of the Fort at this time is an example of the final fort built here around 200AD, the only one that would have been constructed in stone. The original Fort was made of timber and its walls of soil. Inside, the buildings included the Commander’s House Stables, a hospital, granary and barracks to house the soldiers.

As far as development within the bounds of present day Grassington is concerned this also goes back a very long way, since the Doomsday Book in the year 1087 recorded that at this time there was already 300 acres of arable and meadow land in its vicinity, upon which tax was paid to the king. It waould appear, therefore, that Grassington had been founded several generations earlier and the late Susan Brooks, a local historian, thought that this would be sometime in the 7th century. This site would have been chosen on account of it being located on a fairly level shelf above the more densely wooded slope leading down to the river.
One of the few streams in the area, though today hidden in a culvert under part of Main Street and The Square, also provided a ready water supply. Nearby was land that could be gradually cleared from the moraine-covered slopes. Initially it would be difficult to plough, not only because of the contours but also on account of the great number of stones and boulders, even though the soil was fertile. These were removed and placed in lines about 30ft apart and the land between ploughed. On account of the slope, in most instances the furrows had to be worked along the contours with the sods being turned downhill, eventually creating a series of steps separated by steep ‘risers’ which have survived intact, since for many centuries now the Dales have been a great sheep rearing area with very little arable land. These terraces which today are much in evidence on the hillsides around Grassington are often known as ‘strip lynchets’. Locally they are commonly known as ‘raines’ and thus ‘Raines Lane’ which runs along one of these terraces. The first wooden huts to be erected made from nearby trees, surrounded a grassed open space which until not long ago was known as the ‘Market Place’ and now “The Square’.

When William of Normandy became king of England in 1066 the country was fairly well organised from a local government point of view. For in the time of Edward the Confessor, his predecessor, the country was divided into shires, which in turn were divided into hundreds or wapentakes as they were locally known. Grassington was int the wapentake of Staincliffe. Most townships and villages had a thegn (or thane), a lesser nobleman, usually responsible to an overlord or ins some instances directly to the king. The most important change that William made was, in most cases, to replace the thegn by a Norman Lord of the Manor. The last Anglo-Saxon thegn of Grassington was Gamelbar, a wealthy man who owned land in Linton and Threshfield. He became a king’s thegn after the conquest and was thus, in effect, the first Lord of the Manor under William. William divided out all the country, apart from the royal estates, among the comparatively few Norman barons who had helped him win the Kingdom. These barons were able to grant out much smaller estates to their friends and relations, which were called manors. The first Lord of the Manor of Grassington was Nigel de Plumpton who by 1190 held the manor from the great Percy family, who in turn held it from the king.
A manor at the time was the smallest unit of local government and the king relied upon the Lord to keep it in order. To the Lord of the Manor it was a source of income and his prestige depended upon the number and condition of the manors that he held. Normally he would not have a lot of personal contact with his manors, this being the responsibility of his bailiffs and stewards. However in the Grassington Manor the Lord reserved for himself some of the best arable land as well as Grass Wood. The local people had strips of arable land and pasture rights on the common pasture in return for working a number of days, usually as craftsmen etc., according to their particular skills. In 1282 Robert de Plumpton gave the king ten pounds for the institution of a market and also a fair in Grassington. The market was held each Friday and the fair was held on the day before and the day after September 29th, the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, to which Linton Church is dedicated. In 1752 the calendar was changed, losing eleven days which the local people refused to accept, and , from then onwards, the Grassington feast was held on the 10th October instead of September 29th.

The Lord of the Manor only paid occasional visits to his Manor House or Hall. Grassington Old Hall as it is known today, was originally a timber framed building which was replaced by a single story stone building forming part of the present structure. Fountains Abbey had a large estate at Kilnsey which extended up on too the moors to the west. About 1190, not so long after the abbey was founded, Nigel de Plumpton gave the Abbot and the Community right of passage through his land at Grassington avoiding the arable and meadow land. This went on until 1539, and the beasts, carts, horses and men during this period followed a route across the open common pasture, roughly on the line of High Lane. Incidentally, it is recorded that about 1400 Fountains Abbey received some lead from Grassington which came from the Lea Green area.

In 1597, George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, inherited the Lordship of the Manor of Grassington. He quickly arranged mortgages with most of his tenants, as he was in debt at the time, whereby they received a lease of their holdings for a short term in return for a lump sum, repayable at a fixed date. Many of these leases were already in place by 1603 and within five years most of the mortgages were paid off.
At the time George Clifford inherited the Manor, nearly all the buildings, apart from Linton Church and Grassington Old Hall, would have been constructed in timber, including the bridge over the river, which by this time was in a very dilapidated state. In 1603, the old timber bridge was dismantled and the downstream section of the present bridge, originally known as 'Linton Bridge', was erected as a narrow stone humpbacked packhorse bridge, similar in many ways to Barden bridge and also possessing many mason's marks. The older structure can be clearly seen today if you look at the stone work on the downstream side. It was repaired in 1661, and widened in 1780 and raised to its present level in 1825. A cantilevered pedestrian footpath was added on the upstream side in 1984. Nearby, in 1600, would be the 'cruck' building today known as 'Lady Well Cottage' with a thatched roof and walls constructed from wattle and daub.
Lady Well Cottage would probably have been the last cruck building when going up the dale: some cruck buildings still survive in Drebley and lower down Wharfedale many of these buildings remained until the early 1900s. It would appear that from Grassington updale most of the buildings would be of timber framed construction reusing, in many instances, timbers from the earlier huts, together with thatched roofs and wattle and daub infill between the framework. There were few individual field barns at this time since from the Medieval period onwards the produce and food for the animals was kept in tithe barns operated by the Lord of the Manor. The barns that did exist would be mainly of timber construction although a few stone ones would have already been built and Pletts Barn could well come into this category, perhaps dating from the latter part of the 16th century.
The new landowners who were known as 'freeholders', soon set about exchanging land with their neighbours in order to get together large enough areas to form reasonable sized fields and , once they had paid off their mortgages, set about rebuilding their farmhouses together with new farm buildings in stone. Soon afterwards land, and often whole farms were sold to people from outside Grassington since investment in land was growing; this led to absentee landlords and thereby a new breed of tenant farmers.
I think it would be appropriate here to just mention, very briefly, some of the other industries and events which have played an important part in the life of Grassington unto the present time, often leading to the subsequent arrival of new people into the area.
Lead mining in the vicinity of Grassington has been carried out at since, at least, the 15th century, initially as mentioned earlier being on Lea Green in the form of shallow opencast pits which can still be seen alongside the Dalesway.
When George Clifford Earl of Cumberland became Lord of the Manor the industry which had been carried out intermittently over the years, took on an new lease of life. The Earl, who was familiar with lead mining brought skilled men from Derbyshire mines to work in the mines on Grassington Moor. In addition, miners from Swaledale and Cornwall also settled here bringing with them valuable expertise relating to mining techniques. A few years later, the Earl built a smelt mill adjoining his corn mill on the River Wharfe.
A century or so later, in 1750, the Duke of Devonshire married one of the Clifford heiresses and came to be the Lord of the Manor of Grassington. He quickly began a great development plan for the industry including the construction of a watercourse, the erection of a large new smelt mill together with a cupola, and the tall chimney which is still an important feature today. The Duke then greatly improved the road between Grassington and Gargrave where he owned a wharf on the Leeds and Liverpool canal.
As a result of this great influxx of new people into the area, many new properties were built in Grassington, mainly in the form of infilling between the buildings of the farming communety, from the latter part of the 17th century up to the early part of the 19th century. Also a number of the existing larger properties were each split into two or three smaller dwelling units, and thus the unique and quaint urban character of Grassington came into being. Many of the little 'folds' being the original farmyards in more rural times.
But even though the people had moved here at times when the lead mines were prospering, life in Grassington must have been grim and very hard. the daily trek up Hungry Laugh Hill to Yarnbury in all sorts of weather must have been a nightmare and have taken its toll on the health of the miners. Life for the families would also have been difficult living in very cramped conditions, in damp cottages and having to carry water from either Well Head or the Fountain in The Square, long before the advent of damp proof courses, electricity, mains drainage or mains gas, a prospect that would have enticed few of our present day offcumdens to settle here!
How different things are today with the many restored cottages, in the summer months adorned with numerous window boxes and hanging baskets together with wall creepers and very colourful little front gardens, such that a picture of the attractive cottages in Chamber End Fold with their great myriad of flowers together with the occasional hollyhock and sunflowers may well soon compete with the thatched cottages of the South of England for a place on the from of greetings cards, chocolate boxes and biscuit tins of the leading brands of these lines of merchandise.
The late 1870’s marked the start of the demise of the lead mining industry and many miners and their families gradually left the area. Shortly afterwards Grassington House changed its use from a private house into a boarding house, thus heralding the birth of the tourist industry which is still so important to Grassington today. Towards the end of the 18th century a new textile industry had grown up with the establishment of Grassington and Linton mills, but compared with the lead mining industry, these both had a relatively short life. Grassington mill had closed by 1894 and Linton Mill was closed in 1959.
Quarrying and the transportation of limestone is now quite an important industry employing a number of local people. When I first came to Grassington, Swinden Quarry was very small and, until not so long ago, the road to Skipton went between the various buildings connected with the processing plant. In more recent times the old quarry at Skirethorns has been considerably expanded, and a limited planning permission was granted some 10 years ago for quarrying at Cool Scar near Kilnsey.
Going back in time again to the 18th century, there was a great need for some better roads. Therefore, in the late 1750s the road from Grassington to Pateley Bridge was turnpiked, the route as far as Hebden being much lower down, with a marked double bend where it goes around some old enclosures. In 1853 the Duke’s improved road to Gargrave was joined by a new road from Cracoe to Skipton. The road up the dale from the bridge turned immediately left, avoiding the steep hill up into Grassington, joining the line of the present Grass Wood Lane near the barn just beyond Bull Ing Lane.

With the coming of the railway in 1902, many new people, mainly Bradford commuters, moved into the Grassington area and the long terraces at Bridge end and Brooklyn, looking almost as though they had been transported from Bradford, arrived shortky afterwards together with other properties to satisfy the new demand for housing.

Soon after the First World War, in 1919, Grassington Hospital on the road to Hebden was opened by Bradford as a TB sanatorium, having approximately 200 bends together with accommodation for staff and doctors. In 1966 the hospital ceased to be a sanatorium, becoming instead a Psycho-Geriatric hospital and finally closing in 1984. When the hospital changed its use there were twenty three Spaniards who continued to work there. At its peak there were, for a short time, as many as two hundred and eighty beds and about one hundred and fifty six staff, resulting in new people moving into the area, additional employment for local people and a number travelling daily from the Skipton area.

Early in 1939 the Linton Residential School site was developed as a camp to temporarily accommodate whole families who had lost their homes during the war, a number coming from the Brighton area. Soon after the Second World War the camp buildings were bought by the Bradford Corporation who established a residential school for underprivileged children, which again bought some new people into the area and provided additional employment for local people. The school finally closed in the early 1980s.

Again in the 1980s, a limited amount of new development was permitted by the National Park Authority and, together with the advent of early retirement, a number of people who had visited the Dales over the years and fallen in love with the area moved here, mainly from London. Lancashire and West Yorkshire at the same time initiating many of the newer activities which now take place in the Grassington district. This growth in activities was further helped by the many new people who have been coming to live at Long Ashes since the 1980s.

Since Mary and I came to live here, there has been virtually no unemployment, similarly there is a great wealth of very talented craftsmen especially connected with the various aspects of the building industry. In this context we shouldn’t forget the ancient craft of building and repairing dry stone walls. Of course farming is still probably the most important industry in the Yorkshire Dales as a whole, and we are frequently reminded of this, as ever larger tractors and muck spreaders trundle their way through Main Street.