THORNER-SCARCROFT

91

style. Unfortunately it was destroyed by fire in 1828, and instead of rebuilding it its then owner took up his residence in an adjoining mansion. In the fire of 1882 numerous pictures and objects of great value were destroyed, amongst them a portrait of Queen Anne which she had presented to Lord Bingley in remembrance of her visit to Bramham. From the Bensons their estates descended through the female line to the Foxes, with whose name Bramham is most closely connected.

The kennels of

the world-famous

Bramham Moor pack of fox-hounds are situated in the park, and house about fifty couples.

On the western edge of Bramham Park there are several villages and hamlets well worthy of a visit. A by-road runs from the park to Thorner, an old-world village which has become largely modernised by the extension of the railway system, but which still contains some ancient houses and a fine church of late Gothic architecture. Round about Thorner and the neighbouring village of Scarcroft there are several farmsteads and houses which are worth examination because of their antiquity and rustic surroundings, and at one, known as Moat House, there are the remains of an ancient moat. A little distance beyond this survival of a bygone age lies Bardsey, a village of many charms, but chiefly famous as being the birthplace of William Congreve, the poet and dramatist, who was born at Bardsey

Grange about 1669, in the February of which year he was baptized in Bardsey church. Within the precincts of Bardsey is a high mound, presumably artificial, which at some time has been separated into two portions and joined by a bridge. Three sides of this eminence, which is supposed to have been a Saxon fortress, were protected by a stockade; the fourth by a moat. At the foot of the mound there are traces of a circular fortification which appears to have enclosed a considerable tract of land. The house in which Congreve was born stands near the foot of Castle Hill, as this mound has long been called, and was originally a granary belonging to the monks of Kirkstall, who had here a fish pond, well stocked, and much store of wild fowl. The church, which is chiefly remarkable for its curious tower, contains some Norman work. In the churchyard is a huge block of stone which weighs many tons, and is said to cover the remains of several abbots of Kirkstall who had a residence in the village.

From Rigton, a little hamlet on the by-road from Bardsey to Compton, there are some exceedingly fine views of the surrounding scenery. Rigton, as its name implies, is a place set on the summit of a ridge. It gives one the impression of being far removed from the world-its houses are old and quaint, its street is steep and rough, and its gardens and orchards seem to have been laid out with the view of making as many angles and corners as possible. From the top of the ridge there are wide prospects of Wharfedale from the heath-clad moors beyond Otley and Burley to the pastoral meadows which surround Wetherby. Between here and Compton a magnificent view of East Yorkshire opens out, spreading across the Wolds to the bold country north of the Derwent. Compton, one of the smallest of hamlets, is chiefly remarkable for the discovery in its midst, some fifty or sixty years ago, of the remains of a Roman villa, which comprised a quantity of tesselated pavement, coins, and other remains, together with several British querns, all of which were safely unearthed and removed to the museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society at York. Rigton, Bardsey, and Collingham, a village of some size and pretensions, lying in the valley between Compton and Wetherby, at one time formed a royal manor, which was exchanged by Henry II. for the town and forest of Danby, and afterwards re-exchanged during the reign of John. There are several objects of great interest to lovers of the antique at Collingham. A few years ago there were erected in the church two ancient crosses found close by, one of which has a Runic inscription at its base, and the other a sculptured representation of the Twelve Apostles. The discovery of these crosses, which somewhat resemble the fragments at Dewsbury and Thornhill, and are closely akin to those at Ilkley, has led to a supposition that Paulinus preached here at some time, but there is nothing to show that this notion is correct. The church at Collingham possesses an Early English tower, and is prettily situated amongst rich meadows through

which the Wharfe winds in a long curve towards Wetherby, with the highroad running at one side and the railway at the other.

If he should chance to reach Wetherby on any other than a market-day the traveller will wonder at the sense of quiet rest which seems to hang over it, from the bridge which crosses the Wharfe at the foot of the town, to the quaint market-hall, with its curious colonnades, which stands in its midst. It is in all respects an old-fashioned town, grey and quiet, and very suggestive of the days of the stage-coach and the post-chaise. Its inns are roomy and comfortable, and the fact that their walls are liberally adorned with ancient pictures of a sporting nature, and with portraits and prints of famous owners, trainers, and jockeys, is sufficient to prove that Wetherby is first and last a sporting town. It is, indeed, a typical example of the old English market-borough which has not been so much affected and changed by the resistless rush of modern life as to have forgotten its behaviour during the good old days. Although it possesses a railway station, it is still on the Road, and scarcely be one lingers marketa coachcome galthe bridge the little liness for a

Great North one would surprised as about its place to see and-four loping over and waking town to live

brief halfhorses were

and pasfreshed. In days Weththe site of all trace has long appeared, name is the title posed situa

Garth. In

century it

perty of Templars,

the Knights from whose hands it passed into those of Henry de Lacy. During his possession of it the marauding Scots burned castle and town, together with the neighbouring church of Kirk Deighton. There were various skirmishes and engagements in Wetherby during the Civil War, in which

the Fairfaxes played their usual vigorous part. Leland mentions seeing an ancient cross at Wetherby, which presumably stood in the centre of the market-place. When Cooke was here very early in the present century he speaks of the principal trade of the town as being in flour, the pressing of oil from rape-seed, and the preparation of logwood for the use of clothiers and dyers, and praises the grandeur of the cascade made by the erection of the dam on the Wharfe, which had then and still has the appearance of a waterfall. The parish church of Wetherby, although four hundred years old, is not striking or interesting, and the chief charm of the little town lies in its old-world appearance and in its picturesque situation on the banks of the Wharfe.

CHAPTER XXX

The Wharfe from Wetherby to Weston

VIEW FROM CLIFF TOP-KIRKBY OVERBLOW- -NETHERBY-GALLOWS HILL -HAREWOOD ITS CASTLE, CHURCH, AND HOUSE-WEARDLEY: THE BIRTHPLACE OF JOHN NICHOLSON-ARTHINGTON AND BRAMHOPE WESTON-RIGTON-GREAT ALME'S CLIFF-STAINBURN-POOL BANK

FARNLEY PARK-OTLEY CHEVIN-OTLEY-WESTON HALL.

I

N the north side of the river Wharfe, in the district lying to the west of Wetherby, a series of by-roads and lanes traverse the head of the ridge which divides Wharfedale from the valley of the Nidd, and from various points of vantage along them there are several fine prospects of the scenery in the country surrounding these two rivers. The traveller will observe that as he goes westward on his journey into the middle stretches of Wharfedale the scenery becomes bolder and wilder, and forms strong contrasts to the pastoral surroundings of the river at Tadcaster. The ground on either side rises to more considerable heights, and assumes irregular contours and outlines which greatly add to the romantic nature of the scenery, while the river itself, winding in picturesque fashion through the midst of a vale which can scarcely be equalled for the richness and vivid colouring of its foliage, helps to make one of the most delightful landscapes in the county. From the eminence known as Cliff Top, a little distance above Collingham on the road from Wetherby to Kirkby Overblow, there is an excellent view of this part of

Wharfedale. The course of the river may be traced for a considerable distance as it winds past the ruins of Harewood Castle and beneath the wooded slopes of Bramhope and Poole to the foot of Otley Chevin. Nearer at hand the curious rock formation known as Great Alme's Cliff, or Orme's Cliff, is seen, sharply outlined against the sky, at the edge of the moors which extend from the western side of the Washburn valley to the head of Beamsley Beacon overlooking Bolton Priory. On a clear day the principal peaks and eminences of the Craven Hills are plainly visible from this point, the general view from which is rendered all the more attractive because of the pastoral character of the valley lying in the immediate foreground.

There is a curious story told in this neighbourhood of the disappearance of a Scotsman, a travelling draper, who was in the habit of frequenting these parts some years ago for the purpose of selling his goods. He was accustomed to make an annual pilgrimage through the Yorkshire dales, commencing his journey at Richmond in Swaledale and extending it to Wharfedale by way of the valleys of the Ure and the Nidd. He had made this journey so many times that there was scarce a market-town, village, or farmstead where he was not known, and it was his general custom to take up his lodgings for the night at one of the latter. On the occasion of his last journey he had travelled from Pateley Bridge towards Wetherby, and when near Sicklinghall he paused to rest at one of his usual stopping-places, Skerry Grange, an ancient farmstead, where he was always a welcome visitor. He supped with the farmer and his wife and stayed there for the night, and next morning after breakfast, at which meal he was noticed to be in the best of health and spirits, and to be in possession of a capital appetite, he shook hands with his entertainers, and departed towards Wetherby. He was passed on the way, plodding along under his pack, by a man who knew him, and with whom he exchanged greetings. After that he was never seen again. His friends in Scotland, finding that he did not return home, instituted a search, and his sons visited the district and made every effort to discover their father, without avail. The wandering Scotsman, whose annual visit had been an event of importance in the year's doings of the lonely farmsteads, had disappeared strangely and mysteriously, and was never seen or heard of afterwards.

At a short distance from Cliff Top the traveller will perceive the village of Kirkby Overblow, a place of great interest, standing on the summit of the ridge which divides Wharfedale from Nidderdale. Its church and churchyard, which are on an elevation of nearly 400 feet above sea-level, abound with features of interest. The church is a fine. specimen of the Perpendicular style, and is embowered in tall elm trees above which rises the tower, from the battlements of which there are views so wide-spreading and extensive that they include the whole of the surrounding country from Knaresborough to Selby, with glimpses into the valleys of the Wharfe, the Nidd, the Ouse, and the Derwent.