The title was just a joke really. This booklet began as a talk to the Hutton Rudby History Society in November 2000, and we couldn't find a suitable title for it until Judy Kitching (currently Secretary of the Society) came up with 'Stately Homes'.
It incorporates the research that wasn't suitable for inclusion in 'A History Walk round Hutton Rudby' and later research done at the request of various people in the village. I revised the text in 2006.
29 February 2020: I have not revised the section on John Mease and Leven House, but my latest research on John and his brother Thomas can be found in the series of posts beginning here. You can find there the story of their ambitious plans and how they fared, and where John Mease was at the time of the 1851 and 1861 censuses.
29 February 2020: I have not revised the section on John Mease and Leven House, but my latest research on John and his brother Thomas can be found in the series of posts beginning here. You can find there the story of their ambitious plans and how they fared, and where John Mease was at the time of the 1851 and 1861 censuses.
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| Map by Michael Brabin |
Contents
Sexhow Hall: the 'stately home' that disappeared?
The Manorial Hall
The Manor House of Hutton
Rudby Hall (mediaeval)
Skutterskelfe Hall (now called Rudby Hall)
Linden Grange
The Elms, North Side
Leven House
Drumrauch Hall
Hutton House & Enterpen Hall
Changing Names
Some Interesting Deeds
Sexhow Hall: the 'Stately Home' that disappeared?
The mediaeval hall at Sexhow was a fortified house on the banks of the river Leven. When it was no longer needed as a manorial hall, it dwindled into a farmhouse and elements of the building still survive in Sexhow Hall Farm.
The manor was owned in the 14th century by the Gower family. It has been suggested that John Gower, the poet and friend of Chaucer, was a descendant of this family but it is generally thought unlikely. In 1322 a John Gower applied for a licence to have a private chapel at the house.
The chapel is mentioned nearly 150 years later in the will of John Layton of Sexhow, proved at York in 1467: "Volo 9d dominus Petrus hobson Capellanus celebrati pro animae mia in Capella de Saxhowe p unu annu integrum px post decessum meum" [cf. 'Church & Parish of Rudby-in-Cleveland' by Revd A Eddowes, 1924].
The Layton family had acquired the manor by marriage. They were important landowners in Hutton, Skutterskelfe, Braworth and Thoralby from the 15th to the late 17th centuries, and were responsible for much of the enclosure of the mediaeval field system of the manors they owned. The death of a Layton of Sexhow is noted (in the time before parish registers came into use) on the fly leaf of the pre-Reformation Service Book which belonged to the parish: "Jan 12. Obitus Thomas Layton de Saxhowe, armigeri qui obit A.D. MCCCCCXXIIII".
Sexhow Hall was a meeting place for the Cleveland gentry who opposed the Earl of Strafford, adviser to Charles I. Sir Thomas Layton and his daughter Mary's father-in-law Sir David Foulis of Ingleby were among the leaders of the northern opposition to Strafford, and both were summoned before the Star Chamber. Mary's husband, Henry Foulis, was lieutenant-general of horse in the Parliamentary forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1642.
Mr Eddowes in his 1924 history records the legend of an underground passage running from the old house to the Church, but adds
The manor was owned in the 14th century by the Gower family. It has been suggested that John Gower, the poet and friend of Chaucer, was a descendant of this family but it is generally thought unlikely. In 1322 a John Gower applied for a licence to have a private chapel at the house.
The chapel is mentioned nearly 150 years later in the will of John Layton of Sexhow, proved at York in 1467: "Volo 9d dominus Petrus hobson Capellanus celebrati pro animae mia in Capella de Saxhowe p unu annu integrum px post decessum meum" [cf. 'Church & Parish of Rudby-in-Cleveland' by Revd A Eddowes, 1924].
The Layton family had acquired the manor by marriage. They were important landowners in Hutton, Skutterskelfe, Braworth and Thoralby from the 15th to the late 17th centuries, and were responsible for much of the enclosure of the mediaeval field system of the manors they owned. The death of a Layton of Sexhow is noted (in the time before parish registers came into use) on the fly leaf of the pre-Reformation Service Book which belonged to the parish: "Jan 12. Obitus Thomas Layton de Saxhowe, armigeri qui obit A.D. MCCCCCXXIIII".
Sexhow Hall was a meeting place for the Cleveland gentry who opposed the Earl of Strafford, adviser to Charles I. Sir Thomas Layton and his daughter Mary's father-in-law Sir David Foulis of Ingleby were among the leaders of the northern opposition to Strafford, and both were summoned before the Star Chamber. Mary's husband, Henry Foulis, was lieutenant-general of horse in the Parliamentary forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1642.
Mr Eddowes in his 1924 history records the legend of an underground passage running from the old house to the Church, but adds
"the formation of the land and the intervening river make this most unlikely, and the supposed entrance to the passage recently unearthed by workmen would probably have ended in a cul de sac had further investigation been permitted. After all, what old mansion, house, or castle is not supposed to have a secret passage?"
The Layton family disposed of Hutton and Skutterskelfe during the 17th century and finally sold Sexhow to the Foulis family in 1721. It is presumed that the small village of Sexhow disappeared during the agricultural enclosures carried out from the 16th century onwards.
The Manorial Hall
The most stately of the homes of Hutton Rudby is, of course, the house built at Skutterskelfe by Lord and Lady Falkland in the early 19th century. (This house was originally named Leven Grove by its owners, after the previous house on the site. By the late 19th century it was known as Skutterskelfe Hall – which may have been the name always used by the villagers – but it was renamed Rudby Hall by the company that briefly owned it in the 1990s)
The question may well be asked – why there is there only a Hall at Skutterskelfe? Why not a Rudby or a Hutton Hall?
The answer lies in the history of the manors of Hutton and of Rudby.
'Halls' can be the successors of the mediaeval manor houses or, later, the home of the lord of the manor or a major local landowner. In the Middle Ages, the lords of the manors of Hutton and of Rudby would not have lived here themselves: the Meinells, the Darcies and the Conyers were considerable landowners, and their castle at Whorlton was not far from this village. There is little of it to be seen now, as it was destroyed in the Civil War, but there was once a substantial stronghold on the site. In 1322 Whorlton castle was visited by royalty, when Edward II stayed there during a hunting holiday. His host was Nicholas de Meynell, "one of the most violent and warlike of the northern nobles".
However, the administration of the manors would still have required a manorial hall for use by the lord’s steward, so that he could oversee the running of the manor.
The question may well be asked – why there is there only a Hall at Skutterskelfe? Why not a Rudby or a Hutton Hall?
The answer lies in the history of the manors of Hutton and of Rudby.
'Halls' can be the successors of the mediaeval manor houses or, later, the home of the lord of the manor or a major local landowner. In the Middle Ages, the lords of the manors of Hutton and of Rudby would not have lived here themselves: the Meinells, the Darcies and the Conyers were considerable landowners, and their castle at Whorlton was not far from this village. There is little of it to be seen now, as it was destroyed in the Civil War, but there was once a substantial stronghold on the site. In 1322 Whorlton castle was visited by royalty, when Edward II stayed there during a hunting holiday. His host was Nicholas de Meynell, "one of the most violent and warlike of the northern nobles".
However, the administration of the manors would still have required a manorial hall for use by the lord’s steward, so that he could oversee the running of the manor.
The Manor House of Hutton
The position of the Hutton manorial hall has long been debated. It was once suggested that it stood on the site of the present Manor House Farm, on the road to Crathorne. However, the farm's name probably dates only from the early 19th century, when the farm's owners also held the lordship of the manor.
The lands of the manor of Hutton had been divided up early in the modern era, and had passed into the hands of several freeholders.
The title and rights of the lord of the manor, together with some lands and the water cornmill, came into the possession of the Turner family of Kirkleatham. According to the Victoria County History, Sir William Turner bought the estate as endowment for his hospital at Kirkleatham, and the year 1678 is quoted in the Hastings publications as the date of purchase. On 5 September 1889, the trustees of the Turner Hospital mortgaged properties which included farms in this parish to Miss Ada Mary Hargreaves of Knightley Grange, Staffordshire. Amongst the properties mortgaged in Hutton juxta Rudby, they included "The Manor".
However this appears on the face of it to be an error by the trustees, as Deeds in the possession of the History Society show that in 1748 Christopher Wayne, an apothecary of Stokesley, purchased the manor and lands from the Turner family. This property had formed part of Turner marriage settlements during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but was sold to meet estate debts by the executors of John Turner, acting under his Will of 1741. Christopher Wayne's Will (dated 28 September 1770 and proved on 23 January 1771) devised to his son Christopher a life interest in the "Manor or Royalty of Hutton in Cleveland in the said County of York together with the Courts Leet and Courts Baron Perquisites and Profits of Courts Leet Courts Baron Rents Services Privileges Emoluments Advantages and Appurtenances whatsoever to the same Manor or Royalty incident belonging or appertaining", together with several houses and crofts in the village, and a farm called Whacker Farm that was not included in the original 1748 purchase.
The property passed down the Wayne family until it came into the hands of Thomas Wayne. Thomas, who was to inherit his brothers' and his wife's property, is thought to have built Angrove Hall between Stokesley and Ayton in about 1758. The house is no longer standing – only the gateposts remain, now to be found at the entrance to the Stokesley Manor House.
The Hall was not a lucky speculation for Thomas Wayne. He had numerous problems with his family and quarrelled with his heirs and his solicitor. After his death his Will was challenged. Angrove Hall became linked in local folklore to a murder, with the murderer identified through witchcraft. Finally the Hall, by then believed to be cursed, fell into disrepair and was demolished in about 1832.
On the break-up of the Wayne estate, the steward Mark Barker emerged from the complicated legal tangle with a considerable amount of property, including the lands in Hutton Rudby. Mark Barker is variously described as Wayne's "servant", a "farmer of Great Ayton" and a "gentleman of Great Ayton". Now a landed proprietor and lord of the manor of Hutton, he built Barkers Row on East Side, donated the site for the new National School in return for a peppercorn rent and sold off the cornmill to John Mease of Stokesley. He died in 1839 and left his estate to his adopted son and heir, Mark Barker Passman. The Passman family – Mark, his mother Sarah Passman, and much older brother Henry – were the owners and occupiers of the farm we know as Manor House Farm in the Censuses for the years 1841 to 1861.
Mark Barker Passman died young in 1858 and left his property to his brother, who continued at the farm until his retirement into the village. Henry was a prosperous and respected local worthy, in spite of what might be expected to have been the handicap of his illegitimate birth, his father being named as one Henry Goldsborough.
It seems therefore that the Passmans renamed Whacker Farm in honour of their status as lords of the manor.
The Hutton manorial hall presumably 'disappeared' when the break-up of the manor rendered it obsolete. The question remains – where was it situated?
We now think that it must have been on East Side, conveniently placed for the mediaeval steward to oversee his lord’s cornmill.
Early Title Deeds relating to East Side show that in the mid-18th century there was certainly a substantial house in the area where the Wheatsheaf public house now stands. It appears from the description in a Conveyance of 1758 that this was a classic North Yorkshire longhouse – possibly the mediaeval manorial hall, like Sexhow Hall, had become an ordinary dwelling.
Rudby Hall
The mediaeval village of Rudby stood to the west of the present road in the field behind Rudby Green Farm, and it seems probable that the early manor house stood on this site.
However, we know that a later Hall stood in Hall Garth Field. Mr Eddowes recorded in 1924 that
However, we know that a later Hall stood in Hall Garth Field. Mr Eddowes recorded in 1924 that
"the late Lord Falkland informed the writer that he at one time possessed an old parchment showing a drawing of the 'Rectory and Hall', which stood in the fields on the opposite side of the road to the Church, and our oldest inhabitant, Mr Mease, (who is now in his ninety-sixth year) well remembers using large dressed stones found in these fields for the purpose of erecting outbuildings and for the damming of the stream"
The manor had been owned in mediaeval times by the Meinells, Darcies and Conyers families, but in the 16th century formed part of the endowment of Cardinal Wolsey's College in Oxford (now Christ Church). The manor was eventually granted by Elizabeth I to two London merchants, who sold it on to Sir John Ingilby of Lawkland. He is known to have lived in the parish, presumably in the Hall depicted in Lord Falkland's parchment.
Rudby parish at this time – in defiance of fines and prosecutions – was one of the local centres of Catholicism, and Sir John adhered to the old faith, being prosecuted for recusancy in 1604. Daily life in the village was apparently not without its acts of religiously motivated spite, as when a labourer from Crathorne destroyed a seat in a close in Rudby which belonged to Ingilby "on which the said John, an old man and lame, was wont to rest himself".
Sir John was buried in Hutton Rudby in 1610. By 1634, his family had sold the manor to Sir Arthur Ingram of Temple Newsam.
It is highly unlikely that Sir Arthur spent time in the parish. He was a notable character with an extremely dubious reputation, and made his fortune during the reign of James I & VI (1603-25).
He was of relatively humble origin, the son of a Yorkshireman who had made a fortune as a linendraper in London. Arthur in his turn became a successful London merchant and bought the manor of Temple Newsam where he built a splendid mansion, together with other estates in Yorkshire. His practice in buying estates was to pay only half the purchase-money and then pretend to detect some flaw in the title, so that the vendor would be forced to go to the courts of chancery to recover the balance. This litigation would frequently ruin the vendor, and Sir Arthur would escape paying the money he owed. In this way he apparently ruined many people.
He was fond of lavish expenditure and spent his way into the service of the king, obtaining valuable posts and a knighthood. He was one of the secretaries of the Council of the North and High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and he also bought the licence to carry on the royal alum works in Yorkshire, but this speculation proved a loss. When on business in York he lived in a splendid house on the north side of the Minster.
Courtiers prevented him obtaining an appointment in the king's household on the grounds of his lowly birth, and in 1624 he was arrested when one of his enemies alleged that £50,000 was missing from the alum accounts; however he was able to clear himself before the king. Charles I, if he had dared, would have sold Ingram a peerage for cash in the early years of the Civil War, when the king was occupying Ingram's house in York. Ingram died there in 1642, and his estates eventually passed, in default of male issue, to his descendant Isabella Ingram.
The tablet to Isabella’s memory on the south wall of the chancel shows she was of very different moral fibre to her ancestor.
Near this Marble is laid what remains on earth of ISABELLA CARY
A Woman meekly wise & innocently
chearful: Whose Charity was the refuge of
the Poor: Whose Benignity was the delight
of the Good: Whose attachment through the long
period of their Union, was the happiness of her
Husband: Whose tenderness to her children ceased
only with their life, or her own: in every vicissitude, in
Youth, in Age, to the last awful Change
the GOSPEL was her stay & support,
Her Death was like her Life, calm & serene, sudden, yet
not unexpected: after many inflictions of pain from a
Chronical Disease, in its last access this Good & Pious
Woman closed her Eyes, & fell asleep in Death
Skutterskelfe Hall
After the Norman Conquest the manor of Skutterskelfe was held by Robert de Skutterscelfe from the Baliols, lords of Stokesley, and presumably Robert had his manor house on his lands in Skutterskelfe.
Continued occupation of the manor house is suggested by the fact that "Ric Lyndelay of Scoterskelf" bequeathed a candle to be placed in Rudby church before the image of the Virgin "in porticu" and another before the image of All Saints in 1481 – the Linleys owned the manor from the middle of the 15th century – and that "Thomas Milner of Skutterskelfe" contributed £25 in 1588 to the country's defence at the time of the Armada.
The tablet on the north wall of the church shows the early modern ownership of the manor – it passed by marriage and descent from the Linleys to the Milners and thence to the Laytons. It was Thomas Milner who gave the church its fine Elizabethan pulpit.
By 1659, the Layton family had sold Skutterskelfe to the Bathursts, who made their fortune from lead mining in Arkengarthdale. The Bathursts were the owners of the estate for almost a hundred years. In 1737 it was Charles Bathurst who built and endowed the small schoolhouse by the church, replaced a hundred years later by the schoolhouse in Enterpen.
The manor house must have been rebuilt many times over the centuries, and the present Hall may be on the site of the original house. Graves in 1808 describes the house as "a modern edifice, erected by the Bathursts, after they became owners of the estate"; a curious comment, given that the Bathursts’ ownership was between 1659 and 1754.
The Skutterskelfe estate passed from the Bathursts to the Turner family when on the death of Charles Bathurst his sisters were left his co-heirs. Skutterskelfe fell to the share of Jane, the wife of William Turner, Esq., of Kirkleatham.
General George Cary bought the estate from the Turners in 1754. It seems likely that Rudby Hall was abandoned at some point in the years that followed, in favour of the Bathurst mansion. Perhaps this was a more comfortable home as the Carys grew older, especially in view of Isabella's "chronical disease".
A tablet on the north wall of the chancel of the church records:
HERE
LIES THE BODY OF
THE HON.ble GEORGE CARY,
SON OF LUCIUS HENRY
VISCOUNT FALKLAND
GENERAL OF HIS
BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S FORCES
AND COLONEL OF THE 43d
REGIMENT OF INFANTRY
HE DIED AP.L 11 1792 AGED 81
AFTER HAVING SERVED HIS COUNTRY
MANY YEARS
WITH COURAGE, FIDELITY AND HONOUR.
HE WAS IN PRIVATE LIFE AN HONEST & CHARITABLE MAN,
AND A GENEROUS FRIEND.
HIS AFFLICTED WIDOW
ISABELLA
DAUGHTER OF ARTHUR INGRAM
OF BARROWBY ESQ
INSCRIBES THIS TRIBUTE
TO HIS MEMORY
George and Isabella left one surviving daughter, Elizabeth. She was the widow of Jeffery, 1st Lord Amherst, and according to Graves inherited the estate on the death of her nephew, Sir George Russell.
She had two memorials erected in the church: the tablet to her mother, and another, as a "friend and relative", to the 9th Viscount Falkland, his wife and daughter. They had died between 1809 and 1827, and their remains were "deposited in a vault in South Audley Street, Grosvenor Square".
Lady Amherst had a great fondness for the house. By 1808 it had acquired a fashionably romantic name – the Revd Graves, in his history, records that Lady Amherst "had her seat at Leven Grove". An engraving of the house, "respectfully dedicated" to Lady Amherst by the Editor, is included in the book. It shows a plain and unpretentious building situated on the hill above the river, with an idyllic pastoral scene of cattle grazing and a man fishing in the foreground.
Lady Amherst's husband was a prominent soldier and commander in chief of the British forces. He was given charge of the expedition to North America in 1758 in which Cleveland's most famous son, Captain James Cook, first came to the notice of the Admiralty. Amherst's command was a success, but his subsequent dealings with the Native Americans during his time as Governor-General of North America were notably unsuccessful and are now considered disgraceful – he at one point considered introducing smallpox as a means of control of the population. He had a successful public career during the reign of George III, and was favoured by the king. Unfortunately, the Dictionary of National Biography records that "he was by no means a good commander-in-chief and allowed innumerable abuses to grow up in the army. He kept his command till almost in his dotage with a tenacity which cannot be too much censured" – however "his personal good qualities were undeniable". His nephew succeeded to his title, and as 2nd Lord Amherst made the celebrated diplomatic trip to China.
Lady Amherst died aged 92 in 1830. She had wished to be buried at Rudby, but was in fact buried at her husband's seat of Montreal, near Sevenoaks in Kent. Her relative, the 10th Viscount Falkland, who inherited the estates, had a tablet in her memory placed on the south wall of the chancel of the church "as a testimony of gratitude and affection".
The 10th Viscount was Lucius Bentinck Cary. He had inherited the title as a small boy when his father died from wounds after a duel. Soon after coming into Lady Amherst's estates, he married Amelia Fitzclarence, one of the daughters of William IV and the celebrated actress Mrs Jordan. While his father-in-law was King the young Lord Falkland had a position at Court, but after William IV's death lack of funds forced him to take up posts as Governor of Nova Scotia and then Governor of Bombay. Claire Tomalin, in her excellent biography of Mrs Jordan, tells how Amelia went with her husband:
She had two memorials erected in the church: the tablet to her mother, and another, as a "friend and relative", to the 9th Viscount Falkland, his wife and daughter. They had died between 1809 and 1827, and their remains were "deposited in a vault in South Audley Street, Grosvenor Square".
Lady Amherst had a great fondness for the house. By 1808 it had acquired a fashionably romantic name – the Revd Graves, in his history, records that Lady Amherst "had her seat at Leven Grove". An engraving of the house, "respectfully dedicated" to Lady Amherst by the Editor, is included in the book. It shows a plain and unpretentious building situated on the hill above the river, with an idyllic pastoral scene of cattle grazing and a man fishing in the foreground.
Lady Amherst's husband was a prominent soldier and commander in chief of the British forces. He was given charge of the expedition to North America in 1758 in which Cleveland's most famous son, Captain James Cook, first came to the notice of the Admiralty. Amherst's command was a success, but his subsequent dealings with the Native Americans during his time as Governor-General of North America were notably unsuccessful and are now considered disgraceful – he at one point considered introducing smallpox as a means of control of the population. He had a successful public career during the reign of George III, and was favoured by the king. Unfortunately, the Dictionary of National Biography records that "he was by no means a good commander-in-chief and allowed innumerable abuses to grow up in the army. He kept his command till almost in his dotage with a tenacity which cannot be too much censured" – however "his personal good qualities were undeniable". His nephew succeeded to his title, and as 2nd Lord Amherst made the celebrated diplomatic trip to China.
Lady Amherst died aged 92 in 1830. She had wished to be buried at Rudby, but was in fact buried at her husband's seat of Montreal, near Sevenoaks in Kent. Her relative, the 10th Viscount Falkland, who inherited the estates, had a tablet in her memory placed on the south wall of the chancel of the church "as a testimony of gratitude and affection".
The 10th Viscount was Lucius Bentinck Cary. He had inherited the title as a small boy when his father died from wounds after a duel. Soon after coming into Lady Amherst's estates, he married Amelia Fitzclarence, one of the daughters of William IV and the celebrated actress Mrs Jordan. While his father-in-law was King the young Lord Falkland had a position at Court, but after William IV's death lack of funds forced him to take up posts as Governor of Nova Scotia and then Governor of Bombay. Claire Tomalin, in her excellent biography of Mrs Jordan, tells how Amelia went with her husband:
"to Bombay when he was appointed governor-general; and wrote and published a lively account of her travels in India, Egypt and Palestine, which show her as adventurous and unconventional, full of curiosity, always ready to meet and mix with the people among whom she found herself, and to go exploring wherever she pleased, sketch-book in hand … [her book] "was called Chow-Chow; being Selections from a Journal Kept in India, Egypt and Syria by the Viscountess Falkland. She chose the title, she explains, because the pedlars in India carried among their wares one basket which they called the Chow-Chow basket, in which there were all sorts of odds and ends; 'and in offering my Chow-Chow basket to the public, I venture to hope that something, however trifling, may be found in it, suited to the taste of everyone'. It was published in 1857, the year of the Indian mutiny; and Mely [as she was known in the family] died the following year, aged only fifty-one."
In 1846 Ord describes the new hall:
"Leven Grove, the seat of Viscount Falkland, is a superb modern edifice in the Grecian style, erected in 1831, in the sylvan and romantic vale of the Leven, on the site of the original mansion of the Bathursts. This elegant building is surrounded by plantations, and commands from the principal tower splendid views, southward, of the great Cleveland range, the conical heights of Rosebury and Whorlhill, the groves of Ingleby and Busby, with the majestic oak-forest of Arncliffe; westward, the Barnard Castle hills, and the mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland; and north-east, the hills of the Wear and Tyne. The gardens and pleasure grounds are extensive; but the stables, outhouses, and even the interior of the hall, are greatly neglected, owing to the non-residence of the noble owner, now Governor of Nova Scotia"
Amelia died after a short illness in 1858, and is commemorated on a tablet beside the altar on the south wall of the church:
THIS MONUMENT
IS ERECTED IN MEMORY OF
AMELIA
THE LOVED & HONOURED WIFE
OF
LUCIUS BENTINCK CARY 10TH VISCOUNT FALKLAND
BY HER HUSBAND
...
"DEATH: ERE THOU SHALT STRIKE ANOTHER
FAIR & WISE, & GOOD AS SHE,
TIME SHALL THROW HIS DART AT THEE"
...
SHE WAS A DAUGHTER OF KING WILLIAM THE 4TH
& YOUNGEST SISTER OF GEORGE, 1ST EARL OF MUNSTER
SHE WAS BORN MARCH 21ST 1807
AND DIED JULY 2ND 1858, AGED 51 YEARS
...
SHE IS BURIED IN A VAULT IN THE SOUTH
EAST CORNER OF THIS CHURCHYARD
Lucius and Amelia had one child. Their son Lucius was married a few months before his mother's death, but died childless at the age of 40. He was buried in Kent; his father had a tablet to his memory put up on the north wall of the chancel.
The 10th Viscount himself died in 1884, and was succeeded by his brother. There are tablets to their memory on the north wall of the chancel:
The 10th Viscount himself died in 1884, and was succeeded by his brother. There are tablets to their memory on the north wall of the chancel:
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED
TO THE MEMORY OF
LUCIUS BENTINCK CARY, 10TH VISCOUNT FALKLAND
BORN 5TH NOVEMBER 1803
DIED 12TH MARCH 1884
HE IS BURIED IN THE CEMETERY AT
MONTPELLIER, FRANCE
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED
TO THE MEMORY OF
PLANTAGENET PIERREPONT CARY, 11TH VISCOUNT FALKLAND
AN ADMIRAL IN THE ROYAL NAVY
BORN 8TH SEPTEMBER 1806
DIED 1ST FEBRUARY 1886
HE IS BURIED AT ALL SAINTS CHURCH
SOUTH NORWOOD
The 12th Viscount, Byron Plantagenet Cary, was the nephew of the 10th Viscount. He and his wife threw themselves into the life of Hutton Rudby in the 1890s.
Earlier Carys had contributed to the village in a way that was perhaps conscientious but impersonal – for example by contributions to the school and church and in financial gifts in times of need – but in the last years of the 19th century Byron Cary and his family were very closely involved in the community. In 1889 he was the first Viscount Falkland to become a Churchwarden, a post he held until 1896. Lady Falkland, a diminutive American who must have been blessed with enormous energy and plenty of charm, ran a parish magazine for which she obtained monthly contributions from the celebrated Canon Atkinson of Danby, who had excavated the Bronze Age burial mound in Skutterskelfe Park. She was also active in the Girls' Friendly Society, the Sunday School, the Coal & Blanket Club, the Village School, and in providing entertainments at Skutterskelfe for the village children, etc. She and her husband took an interest in the Cricket Club, which played on the Skutterskelfe Park ground, and their son the Honourable Lucius Cary played cricket for George Bowes Wilson's schoolboy elevens in 1893. They even provided the village with a Cottage Hospital in Enterpen.
It must consequently have made a sad gap in village life when the family left. They were forced to sell up because of financial difficulties made more acute by the collapse of Lady Falkland’s father's business. Initially they raised several mortgages on Rudby and Skutterskelfe but finally in 1898 they sold the estate to Sir Robert Ropner, and moved to their property in the south.
In their turn, the Ropners were great benefactors of the church and village for some sixty years – their property here was sold in 1950. The Museum at Preston Park in Eaglescliffe has a great deal of memorabilia and information about the family, who also owned Preston Hall.
Closer examination of the tablets in the church shows that on the memorial to the 9th Viscount, the word 'ninth' is in heavier lettering obliterating an earlier word, and that 'tenth' on the tablets to Amelia and Lady Amherst is similarly in heavier lettering. Possibly this indicates how rarely the family were in residence at Skutterskelfe until the time of the 12th Viscount; perhaps the errors were noticed in the 1890s during his time in the village. At one point there were Falkland family hatchments hanging on the north wall of the church. These had been removed by the time Mr Eddowes came to the parish in 1916.
Linden Grange
Mr and Mrs Bell, the present owners of Linden Grange [2006], were told that there had been a house on the site from at least 1735. This must have been one of the early farmhouses built out of the village on the newly enclosed fields.
By the end of the 18th century this farmhouse was becoming a gentleman's residence. It was owned in the latter part of the century by David Simpson and was then known as Tunstall Ground. In Simpson's Will dated 1783, he left a rent charge on the property – 20 shillings (£1) every year for the widows of Hutton and 10 shillings for the widows of Potto – to be distributed on St Thomas's Day by Simpson's grandson and heir Benjamin David Suggitt, and after his death by the overseer for the poor of the township.
Benjamin David Suggitt was the landowner who in 1821 built a chapel on South Side for the Primitive Methodists. This offshoot of Methodism, whose adherents were also known as 'Ranters' because of their enthusiastic form of worship, broke away from Wesleyan Methodism in 1810. They spread their message by means of missionaries who went out on foot and covered huge distances. In 1820 the missionary William Clowes came to Hutton Rudby where he met with a lively response causing a rift amongst village Methodists that nearly ended in blows. Benjamin David Suggitt had purchased a croft from Thomas Sidgwick, and he made this available to the new society of Primitive Methodists, building them a chapel on the site. He died soon afterwards in 1823 at the age of 66, but his Will of 1822 provided for the chapel to be appropriated to
By the end of the 18th century this farmhouse was becoming a gentleman's residence. It was owned in the latter part of the century by David Simpson and was then known as Tunstall Ground. In Simpson's Will dated 1783, he left a rent charge on the property – 20 shillings (£1) every year for the widows of Hutton and 10 shillings for the widows of Potto – to be distributed on St Thomas's Day by Simpson's grandson and heir Benjamin David Suggitt, and after his death by the overseer for the poor of the township.
Benjamin David Suggitt was the landowner who in 1821 built a chapel on South Side for the Primitive Methodists. This offshoot of Methodism, whose adherents were also known as 'Ranters' because of their enthusiastic form of worship, broke away from Wesleyan Methodism in 1810. They spread their message by means of missionaries who went out on foot and covered huge distances. In 1820 the missionary William Clowes came to Hutton Rudby where he met with a lively response causing a rift amongst village Methodists that nearly ended in blows. Benjamin David Suggitt had purchased a croft from Thomas Sidgwick, and he made this available to the new society of Primitive Methodists, building them a chapel on the site. He died soon afterwards in 1823 at the age of 66, but his Will of 1822 provided for the chapel to be appropriated to
"the use of the professing Christians first known by the name of primative Methodists or Ranters, but now distinguished by the name of Primative Methodists only so long as there shall be ten Persons of the said denomination residing in Hutton of that Society, and publick Preaching in the said Chapel of the Gospel at least once a fortneight or oftener is kept up therein".
Suggitt left his estate to his nephew George Merryweather. Merryweather was a doctor in Whitby and the inventor of the 'Tempest Prognosticator' which may now be seen in the Pannett Park Museum. This interesting mechanism for predicting the weather was based on the reaction of leeches to changes in barometric pressure. (The example in the museum is unfortunately not now a working model.)
George Merryweather was married to Jane Anderson Loy, the daughter of his partner. The family may have spent some time in the village, but obviously with Dr Merryweather's practice being in Whitby (then a thriving town and rated the ninth port in England) they cannot have lived here permanently. Indeed, their children were baptised in Whitby in the years between 1826 and 1832, but the Hutton Rudby property was given as the family's address. By then it had a new name – "Suggitt Grove, near Stokesley". This was later replaced by the much prettier "Linden Grove" – named for the avenue of lime trees planted down the drive.
The Merryweathers seem to have let the house for several decades to a succession of interesting tenants. These may be followed through the Censuses, although of course the list may not be exhaustive.
In the 1841 Census, the vicar Robert Barlow, already famed for his sterling work in the cholera outbreak, was living here with his wife and two sisters. He had not yet built the vicarage on Belbrough Lane and like previous incumbents was obliged to rent from a local landowner.
In the 1851 Census, the tenant was Forbes MacBean, a sixty year old Lieutenant Colonel of Artillery on full pay, born at Annapolis, Nova Scotia. His wife Eliza was aged 65 and had been born in St Petersburg in Russia, as had her sister, who was with the family at the time of the Census. The MacBean daughters had been born (unsurprisingly, given their father's position in the army) in Woolwich. The Macbeans went on to live at Kirkleatham Old Hall (now the museum). They were good friends of the Pennymans of Ormesby, and in 1855 their son, who was also called Forbes MacBean and was a captain in the 92nd Highland Regiment, married a Pennyman daughter.
In 1861, Dr Edwin Wilson was the tenant. His social circle and taste for light verse can be seen in the rhyme he wrote on the occasion of Henry Passman's wedding to Dorothy Boyes, quoted in J Beryl Turner's 'Letters to a Miller's Daughter' ("Your Marriage dear Friend took the town by surprise / A Wedding indeed both judicious and wise").
In 1881 Thomas English Pyman, a member of the Cleveland shipowning family which had built up a considerable shipping empire from humble beginnings, was living here. After living in Hutton Rudby for many years, he and his family moved on to West Hartlepool. Sadly he died there at the age of 49 – his death is noted with much regret in the Parish Magazine in 1892.
Finally George Young Blair of Drumrauch Hall purchased the house and the land which went with it, some 97 acres in all. It was occupied by his daughter Mary and her husband Percy Sadler, and was taken by Mary as her share under her father's Will. Mary and Percy Sadler had taken the name Blair after the death of Mary's only brother.
Percy died at the age of forty in 1906. Mrs Blair was long remembered as a benefactor of the village, above all in donating the land for the Village Hall, but also for many acts of personal kindness. She would let the village children come to skate on the frozen pond after 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and when the rhododendrons were in bloom she would send the maids down to walk about in the shrubbery so they could enjoy the flowers.
Mary and Percy Blair carried out a great deal of work to the house – as Mrs Bell pointed out, they seem even to have changed its aspect, as it now faces towards Roseberry Topping, whereas it would appear from the Tithe Map of 1838 that it then faced in the opposite direction. The fine wooden panelling in the hall dates from 1896 and was done by local craftsmen. Photographs of that time show the house clad in creepers, with a bird table or small dovecot strategically placed outside the nursery window. The main driveway to the house was from Enterpen, past the lodge; tradesmen came up from Station Lane. It also had a small wooden chalet, very similar to the chalet still in existence at Drumrauch; at Linden Grove it was the home of the governess.
The house is now known as Linden Grange; the change of name was prompted by the previous owner’s feeling that 'Linden Grove' had come to carry connotations of a suburban address.
George Merryweather was married to Jane Anderson Loy, the daughter of his partner. The family may have spent some time in the village, but obviously with Dr Merryweather's practice being in Whitby (then a thriving town and rated the ninth port in England) they cannot have lived here permanently. Indeed, their children were baptised in Whitby in the years between 1826 and 1832, but the Hutton Rudby property was given as the family's address. By then it had a new name – "Suggitt Grove, near Stokesley". This was later replaced by the much prettier "Linden Grove" – named for the avenue of lime trees planted down the drive.
The Merryweathers seem to have let the house for several decades to a succession of interesting tenants. These may be followed through the Censuses, although of course the list may not be exhaustive.
In the 1841 Census, the vicar Robert Barlow, already famed for his sterling work in the cholera outbreak, was living here with his wife and two sisters. He had not yet built the vicarage on Belbrough Lane and like previous incumbents was obliged to rent from a local landowner.
In the 1851 Census, the tenant was Forbes MacBean, a sixty year old Lieutenant Colonel of Artillery on full pay, born at Annapolis, Nova Scotia. His wife Eliza was aged 65 and had been born in St Petersburg in Russia, as had her sister, who was with the family at the time of the Census. The MacBean daughters had been born (unsurprisingly, given their father's position in the army) in Woolwich. The Macbeans went on to live at Kirkleatham Old Hall (now the museum). They were good friends of the Pennymans of Ormesby, and in 1855 their son, who was also called Forbes MacBean and was a captain in the 92nd Highland Regiment, married a Pennyman daughter.
In 1861, Dr Edwin Wilson was the tenant. His social circle and taste for light verse can be seen in the rhyme he wrote on the occasion of Henry Passman's wedding to Dorothy Boyes, quoted in J Beryl Turner's 'Letters to a Miller's Daughter' ("Your Marriage dear Friend took the town by surprise / A Wedding indeed both judicious and wise").
In 1881 Thomas English Pyman, a member of the Cleveland shipowning family which had built up a considerable shipping empire from humble beginnings, was living here. After living in Hutton Rudby for many years, he and his family moved on to West Hartlepool. Sadly he died there at the age of 49 – his death is noted with much regret in the Parish Magazine in 1892.
Finally George Young Blair of Drumrauch Hall purchased the house and the land which went with it, some 97 acres in all. It was occupied by his daughter Mary and her husband Percy Sadler, and was taken by Mary as her share under her father's Will. Mary and Percy Sadler had taken the name Blair after the death of Mary's only brother.
Percy died at the age of forty in 1906. Mrs Blair was long remembered as a benefactor of the village, above all in donating the land for the Village Hall, but also for many acts of personal kindness. She would let the village children come to skate on the frozen pond after 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and when the rhododendrons were in bloom she would send the maids down to walk about in the shrubbery so they could enjoy the flowers.
Mary and Percy Blair carried out a great deal of work to the house – as Mrs Bell pointed out, they seem even to have changed its aspect, as it now faces towards Roseberry Topping, whereas it would appear from the Tithe Map of 1838 that it then faced in the opposite direction. The fine wooden panelling in the hall dates from 1896 and was done by local craftsmen. Photographs of that time show the house clad in creepers, with a bird table or small dovecot strategically placed outside the nursery window. The main driveway to the house was from Enterpen, past the lodge; tradesmen came up from Station Lane. It also had a small wooden chalet, very similar to the chalet still in existence at Drumrauch; at Linden Grove it was the home of the governess.
The house is now known as Linden Grange; the change of name was prompted by the previous owner’s feeling that 'Linden Grove' had come to carry connotations of a suburban address.
The Elms, North Side
This is the only house built of dressed stone in the village. It is something of a patchwork, with the north side of the roof being of pantiles, and the south side of the roof, facing the Green, being of slate. It shows signs of having been altered in the 19th century when the ceilings were raised and some doors moved, and the stonework is not comparable with the quality of stone to be found in villages such as Osmotherley. I think it is more than a coincidence that this house was conveniently close to the remains of the old Rudby Hall (where Mr Joseph Mease was still finding dressed stones on his arrival in the village in 1858) and I suspect that some of these stones had by then found their way up the bank to The Elms.
The name is thought to have come from the tree planting in 1878-9 when an elm was planted outside this house. Old photographs show a turning circle in front of the house, and traces of that can still be found as a depression in the grass. The carefully tended green of today is historically speaking a novelty. In the past there were many more formal and informal paths crossing the grass, and horses and geese grazed the green within living memory.
The Tithe Map of 1838 shows that the house together with two cowhouses was owned and occupied by James Flounders. Information from the 1841 Census and the parish registers shows that he was a retired farmer of Sexhow who died in July 1841 aged 65.
In the Census of 1851, Miss Ann Righton, a 54 year old "landed proprietor", was living in the house with her two young cousins Miss Ann Paver (aged 24) and Mary Kirby (aged 19). Ten years earlier, Miss Righton and Miss Paver had lived at The Grange, Middleton, where Miss Righton's brother Thomas was the farmer. The burial registers show that at his death in 1849 at the age of 64, Thomas Righton's address was Hutton House. Mr and Miss Righton evidently left The Grange for Hutton village some time between 1841 and 1849, and then following Thomas's death the women of the family moved from Hutton House to The Elms.
Miss Righton lived here until her death in 1868. Miss Paver remained in the house until her death in 1901, when she was 84. She had in her turn taken in a younger relative to live with her – her niece Mary Paver, who died in 1928, and her grandniece Annie Farndale. After they left the house it was occupied by Mr Knowles, the schoolmaster, and his wife and daughter. They lived in The Elms until the 1980s.
The history of this house gives rise to some interesting speculations.
Firstly, there is a story told by Miss Knowles to her successors in the house, Mr and Mrs Lees. She spoke of a naval surgeon – possibly some one who had been at Trafalgar – possibly called Hutton – possibly a tenant at Hutton House in the early 1800s – who had lived at The Elms, and had flown a flag from a flagpole – or had some form of miniature ornamental gun turret – in front of the house.
Unfortunately poor Miss Knowles' stories are very garbled and more often wrong than not. They are a good illustration of the difficulties that lie in investigating local and family anecdotes, which often develop like the childhood game of Chinese Whispers, accumulating details from other stories over the years until they become impossible to disentangle. Clearly this anecdote dates back long before Miss Knowles' own birth and we have no way of establishing the provenance of the story.
There were only two periods when the naval surgeon could have lived at The Elms – before James Flounders bought the house (which may have been only a few years before 1841) or between Flounders' death and the arrival of Miss Righton in about 1850.
I am not aware of any Napoleonic War veterans in the village at this time and there may be some confusion with Lieut Dowell RN, who served with Nelson at Trafalgar, and is commemorated on a memorial in Stokesley church. Two of Dowell's daughters married the Pratt brothers, printers and publishers of Stokesley.
Three surgeons are known to have practised in the village in the early 19th century – none were called Hutton, and none appear to have served in the Navy. William Pannell Marshall was in the village only a short time around 1828. He was a surgeon, apothecary and accoucheur, the son of a Northallerton architect. Thomas Harker arrived in the village in 1832 and indeed lived at Hutton House for a time. He retired to York shortly before his death in 1855. After his marriage at the age of 22 he was a surgeon in Hertfordshire until he brought his family north. No naval experience is recorded – if any, it must have taken place before his marriage, but he was certainly not a surgeon at Trafalgar in 1805. He took the place in Hutton Rudby of the previous surgeon Thomas Pulman. Pulman was born in about 1796 and was in practice in Hutton Rudby by May 1820 until his death in 1832. Again, he would have only have had a short experience, if any, in the Navy. We are therefore unfortunately unable to find any evidence to substantiate any part or variant of the story.
However, the case of Pulman gives rise to an interesting speculation. He was an early and prominent victim of the brief and violent outbreak of Asiatic cholera in Hutton Rudby in October 1832. The first victim was buried on October 3rd, and Mr Pulman was buried on October 7th. The epidemic was confined to the area around the Bay Horse public house and East Side.
Cholera is a disease of water contaminated by faeces – but this was not known until Dr John Snow demonstrated the link between dirty water and the disease after the third pandemic in 1855. Sanitation was then largely nonexistent – reports of the time frequently describe the undrained privies and pigsties, their filth flowing across the streets, and the dung hills and cesspits that lined the roadsides. A vivid example is provided by Haworth, home of the Bronte sisters, from as late as 1850. Here the General Board of Health reported that there were no water closets, and only 69 privies. The Brontes' parsonage was amongst the two dozen or so households that had their own privy. Most people had to share, and in at least two cases there were 24 households sharing one privy. Two of the privies used by a dozen families each were in the public street, exposed to the gaze of the passers-by. Solid household waste – offal, ashes and the contents of privies – went onto dunghills, to be emptied eventually by farmers for fertiliser, but they often overflowed. At the home of the Haworth druggist, the dunghill was up against the back wall of the house and was of such of a size that it reached the larder window. The dunghills and overflowing cesspits were generally known as "nuisances".
(I have so far found three references to privies in Deeds of village properties. Barkers Row was built by Mark Barker in about 1828, and his tenants were fortunate in being provided with privies. There was also a privy at the Carpenter's Arms, on the corner of the Wynd. This may also be referred to in the Will of John Braithwaite, made in 1835. He left a dwellinghouse, garden and privy to his daughters in trust for his son, who already occupied the house. This house was either situated on Enterpen (and was perhaps the Carpenters Arms) or was his house on East Side, near the Wheatsheaf.)
The cholera was brought to the village by John Cook, who had contracted the disease in Newcastle and died shortly after reaching his home in the yard beside the Bay Horse. Almost immediately – probably from the dirty water thrown out by the women who had washed the body, the bedlinen and John Cook's clothes – the water supply to the yard was infected.
How did the doctor contract the disease? Generally, people who paid careful attention to personal hygiene did not catch cholera – the Revd Robert Barlow passed unscathed through the epidemic, even though he was constantly in the houses of the sick. It seems most likely that Mr Pulman was affected because he shared the contaminated water source – the well or pump in the Bay Horse yard.
Perhaps he was in fact a near neighbour. It is possible that Mr Pulman lived next door to the yard at The Elms. No well has so far been found at The Elms – so the household there may well have drawn their water from the well in the Bay Horse yard.
Leven House
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| Hutton Rudby Brass Band at Leven House |
It is often noted that the Rudby cornmill is only a short way downstream from the mill at Hutton – this is curious since during much of the Middle Ages the manors were in the same ownership. As recent archaeological evidence has shown that mills that were previously thought to date from the Conquest were in fact in existence in Saxon times, one possibility may be that this mill pre-dates 1066 by some time, and that it had been found expedient for the community in the Danish settlement (Rudby) to have a separate mill from the earlier (Saxon) village of Hutton.
Mr Eddowes in his 1924 history tells the story of the Avaricious Sexton, best known from the version in Ord's history of 1846. After the burial of an unfortunate woman who had been "given up for dead", the sexton opened the grave to steal the ring from her hand. Finding this impossible, he took his pocket-knife and began to cut off her finger – to his horror, she sat bolt upright and screaming. Her "scared though delighted" husband rewarded the sexton with a gift of linen every year afterwards. Eddowes adds that
"the husband aforesaid lived at the old Mill House which stood on the site of the present Leven House, and the writer is quite prepared to give credence to the story, the more so as enquiries were made of him concerning it from one claiming to be a descendent of the fortunate, or unfortunate, lady."The map of 1858 shows the mill race and sluices that crossed the area on which the Levenside estate was built. The mill race ran through a brick archway under the road and into the mill, so that the road from Hutton to Rudby crossed first the mill race and then the Leven. The mill race then rejoined the river Leven at the little inlet that still exists by the high wall. It appears from the map of 1894 that when the mill was converted to steam power in the 1870s, the mill race was filled in and the land around Leven House was converted to gardens. The stabling and coach-houses were above the house at the top of Hutton Bank on East Side.
Although there is a keystone at the back of the house, confusingly dated 1811, the house as we see it now dates from the ownership of John Mease of Stokesley – presumably he built the old keystone into his new house.
In 1811 the mill area was owned by Thomas Wayne of Angrove Hall and its main work at that time, although it appears that the mill machinery was still used for grinding corn, was as a paper mill. The fields by the river, which now appear so peacefully rural, will have been rather like a small industrial estate.
The ownership of the mill then passed to Mark Barker, who sold it on in 1835 to John Mease. The Tithe Map of 1838 shows that Mease then owned: two large two-storey warehouses; a single-storey gateway; a three-storey engine house; a single-storey water wheel; a three-storey mill; and a single-storey dry house. The dimensions of the house on the site show that it was considerably smaller than the present building.
John Mease of Stokesley was a member of a remarkable family. He was the grandson of Solomon Mease, a weaver of Great Ayton. Solomon inherited property from a relative and his wife brought him a good dowry, but still "his love for cards and drink was such that he was sold up in a few years", in the words of his son. He then joined the army and served as a sergeant in the American Wars. His son John, in contrast, was a careful man. He was a grocer in Stokesley and, possibly because of his father's example, a Methodist. John's sons were Thomas and John. They were linen manufacturers, and built the Stokesley mill which we know today as Armstrong Richardsons'. John had introduced handloom weaving of table cloths and napkins to Stokesley in about 1820 and had a small weaving shed behind his own house (now Barclays Bank). He and Thomas and a Mr Blackett, an engineer from Leeds, bought the mill site in Stokesley for a grand speculation – a steam-driven flax-spinning mill. They installed a gasometer for the lighting, and piped gas over the river to Thomas's house. It was a short-lived venture – the partnership with Blackett ended because of his concerns about the financial position of the company; and indeed the business failed a year later in 1838.
Thomas then went into business with John at Hutton Rudby – John was restoring the water wheel and it is said that he was making ready to weave sail cloth (power-driven linen weaving became possible in the 1830s). The new venture was unfortunately affected by a severe depression in trade, which after some fluctuations brought their business to a close. John appears at one point to have employed his nephew Thomas Pilter as manager – the 1841 census shows that he is living with John’s family, and is listed as a manufacturer and flax spinner. Pilter had better fortune – he went on to found his own flourishing firm and his son became Sir John Pilter of Halifax. The Hutton mill was eventually rescued by the business acumen of George Wilson.
John's brother Thomas Mease was quite a character, but not an ideal business partner. He was a gifted artist and inventor, clever with his hands, but also a speculator who often had to take his family abroad to escape his creditors. A mystery brought to the attention of the History Society in recent years was that of the engraved window. Thomas's daughter Sarah married Edmund Blackett, the son of her father's then partner, and she and Edmund emigrated to Australia in 1842. Before leaving home, she engraved her name with her engagement ring on the window of a Mease family house in Stokesley, and apparently also in the family house in Hutton Rudby. The window was last seen during the Second World War by a member of the Australian family staying briefly on leave with Jennie Mease. Unsurprisingly, in later years he could not remember exactly where the window was, although he recalled that the pane of glass was small. This would suggest that it was not a window in Leven House. It is however possible that on the rebuilding of the mill house the pane of glass was moved, either to Rudby Mill (Leven Valley), the home of Sarah's brother Joseph, or subsequently to Rose Cottage, where Joseph's daughter Jenny lived for some years.
John Mease is found only in the 1841 Census at the house by the mill. In 1851 he had been recently widowed and was not at home. Thomas Mease was then living at West End, Stokesley. In 1861 Thomas and his family were living at what is described as Bank Bottom, Hutton, which might indicate that John has lent them the house. In 1871 only a housekeeper is at home, and in 1876 John died. A tablet to his memory ("John Mease of Leven House") is to be seen in the church.
It had been thought that Mease had sold the mill itself to George Wilson, but it is now clear that he leased the buildings to Wilson, and that the Wilson family continued as tenants of the Mease estate until their mill finally closed. The Mease properties were not sold by the executors until 1928.
The house was let to tenants, the most notable being Alexander Park, who came to the house in the latter years of the 19th century. He lived there with his unmarried sisters, Louisa and Katherine, who were more than ten years older than he. Park was born in 1834, the son of the Rector of Elwick, and was in the words of his obituary "a famous Yorkshire sportsman". He was for many years the honorary secretary of the Hurworth Hunt, and was said not to have made a single enemy during his time in office. On his last day out with the hounds the combined age of himself and the old black horse he rode was 99 years. Noted as a kindly and charitable man, he and his sisters did a great deal of work for the village and church. In 1894, for example, a Travelling Dairy was brought to the village from the Leeds Agricultural College to teach dairy management and butter and cream-cheese making, and this was set up in the Parks' coachhouse at the top of Hutton Bank. The eagle lectern which he gave to the church was apparently carved by Mr Park himself. He died in 1914, some months before the outbreak of the First War.
The three "stately homes" that follow were built in the late 19th century.
Drumrauch Hall
George Young Blair was born in 1826 at Drumrauch, his father’s farm near Dundee. A mechanical engineer, he specialised in the developing industry of marine engines. While still a young man he became a manager in the engineering department of Charles Palmer’s shipyard at Jarrow. He left Jarrow in 1855 to manage the Locomotive Engine Works of Messrs Fossick & Hackworth at Stockton. The firm had been established in 1840, with works at Portrack, near the Union Workhouse. Here George Blair was very successful, becoming a partner in the firm after Mr Hackworth’s retirement in 1864 and then sole owner after Mr Fossick’s death not long after. In about 1866 he moved the firm, now called Blair & Co, to a more central part of town near Norton Road. Its wharf on the Tees lay next to Ropners Wharf. The firm grew rapidly and within 30 years covered an area of about 14 acres and employed 2,500 workmen. The business finally closed in 1932.
George Blair was a hard-working Presbyterian with a strong Calvinist faith and a passionate love of music. He was a private man who did not publicise his charitable works and did not enter into public life – he preferred to spend his brief time away from work with his family. His first wife and their three children all died young. His second wife was Margaret Borrie. They had four children – a son and three daughters. Blair began to buy land on Belbrough Lane in Hutton Rudby in 1875. His first purchase was a farmhouse with an acre of land known as Jake Barn which had belonged to the late William Jackson, together with another five acres of land nearby. The widowed Mrs Jackson was now living in Darlington and her two sons, who would have inherited the farm, had emigrated to America in the month of their father’s death. They had died there the following spring, John in hospital in Houston and Bennison in hospital in Galveston, neither having reached his twenty-first birthday. In 1877, George Blair bought another two acres of land, part of a close called Gyles Ground, from the executors of Thomas Forster. That year he also bought a further two acres which were part of the glebe land known as Jacques Barn from the church. In all, he had acquired a dozen acres, the extent of which can still be made out today by its border of deciduous trees.
On this plot, George Blair began to build his country house. The family home was at 149 High Street, Stockton, and he is to be found there in the 1881 Census, where it is recorded that he was the Managing Director of Blair & Co, employing 1,560 men and 320 boys. The living-in servants were a cook, a nurse and a girl from Hutton Rudby who worked as housemaid. Already the family had begun to take part in Hutton Rudby activities – in the autumn of 1878, when the trees were planted on the village green, young Master Peter Borrie Blair planted a lime tree on the corner near North Side opposite Milburns' shop, and his younger sisters planted another lime near Hutton House (possibly the tree that now has a seat beside it dedicated to the memory of Peggy Stephens). George also bought other land in the area – by the time of his death, he owned the farms of Toft Hill, Gardenstone and Linden Grove.
Drumrauch Hall was built on a grand scale and there were many alterations and additions over the years. According to anecdotal evidence and plans of the hall, in its heyday it could boast: a large stable block, later given a glass roof to shelter the motor cars, and above the archway a clock that could be heard striking the hour across the fields; roadside cottages for the coachman and gardener and their families; a kitchen garden; a rose garden; large glasshouses in which grew vines, peaches and figs, which villagers could buy from the gardener; a long music room with a wooden floor and walls and a locally celebrated organ, where services were held in 1924 while the church was undergoing major alterations; smooth lawns which were cut by a pony-drawn mower, the pony wearing canvas boots so as not to damage the turf with hoof-marks; the little wooden chalet known then or later as Crystal Cottage, which is said to have been bought at one of the Great Exhibitions (its twin was bought for Linden Grove); and of course the Tower from which it is said Mr Blair could, with the aid of a telescope, watch his men going into work at Stockton.
Towers must have been something of a fashion at the time – not far away in Eaglescliffe, Reginald Appleton of Cleveland Mills had a rather similar tower on his house, Woodside Hall (demolished in the 1970s and now the site of Teesside High School). There was of course another tower in the village, added by Allan Bowes Wilson to Hutton House.
Margaret Blair can only have enjoyed the glories of the Hall for a short while – she died in 1888 at the age of 52, and is buried at Hutton Rudby.
Three years later George married Marian Bower. She was nearly thirty years younger than George and was a friend of his daughter Florence. In the same year George's only son Peter died of typhoid aged 24.
George died in 1894 at the age of seventy. He left the Hall in his Will to his wife and daughters for so long as any two of them wished to remain living there. Marian was left a widow after only three years of marriage, and spent the remainder of her long life at Drumrauch Hall.
The eldest girl, Mary (known as "Minnie") married Percy Alexander Field Sadler, the son of Sir Samuel Sadler of Sadler & Co (Sadler's works were in Cargo Fleet Lane, where they distilled tar and manufactured alizrine and aniline colours). Mary's first child Winifred was born in Hutton Rudby in 1890, and the 1891 Census shows Percy, Mary and Winifred staying at the Hall with Mary's sisters Florence and Margaret. There were four servants living in the Hall – two cooks, a kitchenmaid and a nursemaid – and Lily Froade, a 22 year old hospital nurse born in Dublin, is described as a visitor. In the cottages by the roadside, in rather more cramped conditions, were the families of the coachman, Robert Elgie, who had five children, and the gardener, John Ornsby, who had four.
Mary and Percy Sadler changed their name to Blair after the death of her brother Peter. Mary took Linden Grove as part of her share of her father's estate, and she and Percy made their home there. They had six children, four of whom lived to adulthood. Sadly, their only son George was killed in the First War, and in consequence the surname Blair finally died out. Percy died in 1906, aged only forty; Mary died in 1935, the year after the death of her daughter Marian at the age of 35.
Margaret Amy Blair (known as Amy) married a Scottish banker called Smollett Clerk Thomson in 1899. Amy died in 1907 and her husband in 1915, leaving two children.
Florence Blair never married. A village story has it that she was "disappointed in love" and wished to set up household on her own. She bought Eden Cottage (now Eden Lodge) and lived there from shortly before the First War until her death in 1917. This house was previously occupied by John Thormann, an iron and steel merchant, who may have been related to the works manager who preceded George Blair in the Stockton manufactury. It seems probable that Florence, like her father and sister, enlarged or improved her house, which was originally built in about 1870, probably by William Surtees. Surtees was brought up in the village, apparently by his grandmother, Eden Dodds. He went out to Australia, where his first wife and two children died, and came back to the village with his second wife and surviving children. They are to be found in the 1871 Census – the son aged twelve, and the three year old daughter Eva Eden Surtees both born in Australia, while the youngest, a girl of two, was born in Hutton Rudby. Surtees is said to have set up a rival linen manufactury to the Wilsons at Albion House, which failed, possibly because of his untimely death in 1877, after which his family seems to have left the area. The house – and his daughter – seem to have been named by him after his grandmother. It is said that while Florence owned the house there was some form of telephone line linking it directly to Drumrauch Hall. On her death at the age of 47, she left the house to her sister Mary.
At the end only old Mrs Marian Blair was left at Drumrauch Hall, having outlived nearly all of the family. She died in 1943 at the age of 88, and the Hall, which had been requisitioned by the Army during the war, was finally sold by the Blair Trustees.
There is a curious note in the proceedings of the Middlesbrough Town Council for 22 Dec 1948, when "consideration was being given to the use of Drumrauch Hall in connection with the provision of after-care of mothers and young children". A decision was deferred.
The Hall was bought first by two maiden ladies, but within a few years Messrs Arthur Robinson Ltd of Linthorpe Road had acquired the property – and the deconstruction and division of the Hall began. The music room and hothouses were demolished, land was sold off for the building of White Lodge and Holywell House, and there seems to have been a period of picturesque decline until at last with the stables converted into houses and the house divided into flats the Hall took on the appearance it has today.
Hutton House & Enterpen Hall
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| Hutton House |
Hutton House and Enterpen Hall were the homes of village magnates – the Wilsons of the mill.
George Wilson, the founder of the firm, was an agent for Clark & Plummer, linen manufacturers, and first appears in the village in the 1830s. A gravestone commemorating three people – Isabella Cowens, sister of James Wilson, who died in 1851 aged 66, George Hutton Wilson, son of George and Ann, who died in infancy in 1842, and James Wilson who died in 1865 aged 90 – suggests that George either already had family connections in the village, or had brought his extended family to Hutton Rudby with him. By 1860, George was running the Cleveland Sailcloth Mill on the mill site by the river; this was for fifty years the biggest employer in the village.
His wife Anne's maiden name was Hutton. George and Anne had four sons and a daughter. The eldest, James ("Jimmy") who became Rector of Crathorne, was born in about 1837. He was followed by Allan, a couple of years his junior. There was then a gap of five years or so, during which time George and Anne lost the child whose death is recorded on the gravestone, before Thomas was born. Three years later he was followed by John George, and lastly, after another eight years, Annie was born.
The 1841 Census shows the family living in what we think was Layton House on Enterpen. At this point Hutton House was owned by Lord Falkland and occupied by Thomas Harker, the surgeon, with his wife, the wonderfully named Salome Harker, and their 25 year old daughter, Rebecca. It was already a sizeable house, described in the Tithe Map as "3 parts of house, stables, coach-house and out offices". It appears (from title deeds to the area) to have been occupied by the Revd Richard Shepherd and his family before his untimely death in 1830, and in about 1849 it was occupied by Thomas Righton, the retired farmer from Middleton Grange.
The 1851 Census shows the occupants to be the family of George and Ann Wilson. Hutton House remained in the family until 1947.
For some time during this period the Wilsons are said to have used outbuildings at Hutton House for storing sailcloth. This practice may have ceased after the house was remodelled.
The oldest son, James, and the youngest son, John George, were the family scholars and went to Oxford. James was at Wadham College, and John George, who had already distinguished himself at Durham School as an athlete, was at Worcester College. He was an oarsman and excellent at high jump and hurdles, but at Oxford seems to have concentrated on sprinting. He won the English Amateur Championship 100 yards in 1869 at a time of ten and one fifth seconds; his personal best was 10 seconds.
While James was a cleric and John George became a distinguished solicitor in Durham, Allan and Thomas seem to have gone straight from school into the family business, which they inherited on their father's death in 1876. Their mother died two years later, leaving the younger generation in Hutton House.
It would seem that they prospered finely, as from about 1880 both Allan and Thomas began to create themselves a house suitable for their position.
Allan rebuilt Hutton House, giving it the tower which is such a feature of the Green. It is reminiscent of a border pele tower or some sort of fortified manor house, and was perhaps intended to carry suggestions of the mediaeval and the traditional – with possibly a touch of Sir Walter Scott-ishness about it.
At some point Allan acquired the lordship of the manor from Henry Passman, who died some time after 1891. Certainly by the end of the 19th century, Allan was lord of the manor of Hutton, and for a time at least he called the house 'Manor House'. This can seen from his entry in "Armorial Families" by Fox-Davies, published 1899. For his coat of arms he was using the Wilson crest of a demi wolf rampant, and the rather suitable motto 'Res non verba' (deeds not words). His right to bear the arms had not then been established in the College of Arms; I do not know when, or if, this was achieved. Allan lived in Hutton House until his death in 1932, when he left his estate to his sister Annie who continued to live there until her death in 1947. Subsequently the house and tower were divided into separate dwellings.
George Wilson, the founder of the firm, was an agent for Clark & Plummer, linen manufacturers, and first appears in the village in the 1830s. A gravestone commemorating three people – Isabella Cowens, sister of James Wilson, who died in 1851 aged 66, George Hutton Wilson, son of George and Ann, who died in infancy in 1842, and James Wilson who died in 1865 aged 90 – suggests that George either already had family connections in the village, or had brought his extended family to Hutton Rudby with him. By 1860, George was running the Cleveland Sailcloth Mill on the mill site by the river; this was for fifty years the biggest employer in the village.
His wife Anne's maiden name was Hutton. George and Anne had four sons and a daughter. The eldest, James ("Jimmy") who became Rector of Crathorne, was born in about 1837. He was followed by Allan, a couple of years his junior. There was then a gap of five years or so, during which time George and Anne lost the child whose death is recorded on the gravestone, before Thomas was born. Three years later he was followed by John George, and lastly, after another eight years, Annie was born.
The 1841 Census shows the family living in what we think was Layton House on Enterpen. At this point Hutton House was owned by Lord Falkland and occupied by Thomas Harker, the surgeon, with his wife, the wonderfully named Salome Harker, and their 25 year old daughter, Rebecca. It was already a sizeable house, described in the Tithe Map as "3 parts of house, stables, coach-house and out offices". It appears (from title deeds to the area) to have been occupied by the Revd Richard Shepherd and his family before his untimely death in 1830, and in about 1849 it was occupied by Thomas Righton, the retired farmer from Middleton Grange.
The 1851 Census shows the occupants to be the family of George and Ann Wilson. Hutton House remained in the family until 1947.
For some time during this period the Wilsons are said to have used outbuildings at Hutton House for storing sailcloth. This practice may have ceased after the house was remodelled.
The oldest son, James, and the youngest son, John George, were the family scholars and went to Oxford. James was at Wadham College, and John George, who had already distinguished himself at Durham School as an athlete, was at Worcester College. He was an oarsman and excellent at high jump and hurdles, but at Oxford seems to have concentrated on sprinting. He won the English Amateur Championship 100 yards in 1869 at a time of ten and one fifth seconds; his personal best was 10 seconds.
While James was a cleric and John George became a distinguished solicitor in Durham, Allan and Thomas seem to have gone straight from school into the family business, which they inherited on their father's death in 1876. Their mother died two years later, leaving the younger generation in Hutton House.
It would seem that they prospered finely, as from about 1880 both Allan and Thomas began to create themselves a house suitable for their position.
Allan rebuilt Hutton House, giving it the tower which is such a feature of the Green. It is reminiscent of a border pele tower or some sort of fortified manor house, and was perhaps intended to carry suggestions of the mediaeval and the traditional – with possibly a touch of Sir Walter Scott-ishness about it.
At some point Allan acquired the lordship of the manor from Henry Passman, who died some time after 1891. Certainly by the end of the 19th century, Allan was lord of the manor of Hutton, and for a time at least he called the house 'Manor House'. This can seen from his entry in "Armorial Families" by Fox-Davies, published 1899. For his coat of arms he was using the Wilson crest of a demi wolf rampant, and the rather suitable motto 'Res non verba' (deeds not words). His right to bear the arms had not then been established in the College of Arms; I do not know when, or if, this was achieved. Allan lived in Hutton House until his death in 1932, when he left his estate to his sister Annie who continued to live there until her death in 1947. Subsequently the house and tower were divided into separate dwellings.
Hutton House – which of course faces away from the road – has a distinctive presence on the green. This was rather a heavy presence in the past. The story of the advertisement painted on the gable end of the cottage next to Milburns' shop, which Allan Wilson caused to be painted out as it spoilt his view – and which now has a ghostly presence, as the lettering reappears in certain lights – is well known. In some cases the consequences were rather more lasting – for example, to owners of the South Side houses which now have no gardens. The land behind the houses was bought up by Allan Wilson to provide orchards and gardens for Hutton House; his critics alleged certain sharp practices in the dealings. The cottages around East Side for many years had only windows opening on to the Green, to prevent the occupants looking into the Hutton House gardens. Cat Kill Well at the top of the lane to Sexhow disappeared from village use when the Hutton House gardens were extended. These are perhaps typical tales of village life, with the other side of the story sometimes forgotten – the village's indebtedness to Wilson for continued employment, and the many public works.
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| Enterpen Hall |
Thomas built Enterpen Hall, using the same Victorian pale brick as George Blair had used at Drumrauch. It had stables – now Enterpen House – and the cottage in between was used as staff quarters and laundry. This cottage is thought to be considerably older and to have been used in the time of the drovers as an inn, called The Chequers. In the doorway to the Hall is the coat of arms used by the family.
The Hall was converted into flats in the 1970s. Its original impact is hard to imagine without the aid of photographs, which show the Hall and cottage enclosed behind a wall topped with railings, with an imposing gate across the driveway. It had a view clear across to the hills (Highfield was not built by Henry Chapman of Enterpen Farm until the end of the 19th century) and had a pleasantly traditional, comfortable and wealthy appearance.
Thomas married Maria Hutton, who might have been a relation on his mother's side, and they had two sons and a daughter. The plaques commemorating the sons can be seen in the church: the older son became a solicitor, married and had children, while the younger became a professional soldier. Both were killed in the First World War. Thomas's wife died a few years before the mill was finally closed in 1908. Thomas took his retirement in Scotland, in St Andrews, where he died in 1929.
The Hall was converted into flats in the 1970s. Its original impact is hard to imagine without the aid of photographs, which show the Hall and cottage enclosed behind a wall topped with railings, with an imposing gate across the driveway. It had a view clear across to the hills (Highfield was not built by Henry Chapman of Enterpen Farm until the end of the 19th century) and had a pleasantly traditional, comfortable and wealthy appearance.
Thomas married Maria Hutton, who might have been a relation on his mother's side, and they had two sons and a daughter. The plaques commemorating the sons can be seen in the church: the older son became a solicitor, married and had children, while the younger became a professional soldier. Both were killed in the First World War. Thomas's wife died a few years before the mill was finally closed in 1908. Thomas took his retirement in Scotland, in St Andrews, where he died in 1929.
Changing Names
The 19th century censuses show us a small number of interesting changes of farm names. Hutton Grange Farm appears in the 1841 Census, when the tenant was Harrison Terry, as Hutton Grove. This might suggest that Mr Terry had been planting ornamental trees, or that he felt the name was more suitable to his status – he was the first Poor Law Guardian in the village. In the Hastings publication "Hutton Rudby: Industrial Village 1700-1900" it is suggested that the farm had in 1703 been called Town End Farm, but I am not aware of the evidence for this.
Hutton Thorn Farm appears as Thorn Farm in the 1861 Census, and then Cutting Thorn Farm in 1881. This farm would appear to be the subject of a Deed of 3 May 1745, which refers to a 90 acre farm which had previously been called "Roundhill or Hewton Thornes".
A well-known case of change is Indian Farm, which was previously called Butter Hill. The Tithe Map shows that it belonged to Elizabeth Sleigh (also spelt Slee), a considerable property owner in the village. The occupant was then William Sleigh. This is presumably not her son William, whose descendants have informed the History Society that he left this country in 1816 for Canada, where he prospered and married. The 1851 Census shows the occupant is Thomas Sleigh, a bachelor of 50, farming sixty acres; he has a housekeeper and an elderly male servant. By the time of the 1861 Census he had renamed the farm, and it is believed that this was in memory of his service abroad in the army. After his death, the 1891 Census shows that the Charlton family, then in occupation, had renamed the farm Butter Hill.
Some Interesting Deeds
An interesting bundle of some sixty Title Deeds found by Mr and Mrs Lees at The Elms cover the period 1732 to 1921 and relate to a part of East Side, in the area of the Wheatsheaf Inn.
It seems from the Deeds that the buildings here in the 18th century were mainly small dwellings, but there seems to have been a sizeable house on the site, reminiscent of a North Yorkshire longhouse. A Conveyance dated 11 Jan 1758 to Christopher Legg of Stokesley includes
"Goods Ceilings Shelves and furniture hereinafter mentioned now being in or about the said hereinbefore released messuage and premises (that is to say) One long fire-form, One short fire-form and one Chimney Piece in the low fore Room of the said Dwelling House and also all the Ceilings Closets Shelves and one Chimney Piece in the Parlour of the said House and also all the Ceilings and Closets in the Chambers and Garretts thereof also one Manger in the Stable belonging to the said dwellinghouse and the Horse Stone standing before and nigh the said House and also a Stone Trough fixed in the Wall on the backside of the said Dwellinghouse".
This house must then have been subdivided, as later Conveyances indicate that it is occupied by several tenants, until by 1808, when Francis Flintoff conveyed the property to the Whorlton brothers, it consisted of several houses, garths and yards with half a dozen tenants.
In the early 18th century the land was in five separate ownerships, but by 1808 Edmund Taylor, a carpenter, had acquired the two northern properties, and he rebuilt the houses then standing on these plots. His speculation cannot have been entirely successful: while he is described as "of Hutton House" in a Deed of 1830, which suggests a certain status in the village, by December 1833 his mortgagees were becoming desperate for their money. He was served with a notice to pay the mortgage principal and interest due, and this was delivered to him "at Leven Grove" – though whether he was at Skutterskelfe as a tenant or in the course of his employment is not clear. The southern end of his property he had already sold to the tailor, John Braithwaite; his mortgagees eventually sold the northern end to William Barugh, farmer of Rudby.
The three southern blocks of properties – the land belonging to the Whorlton brothers and the two properties to the south of it – came into the hands of the Revd Isaac Benson of Acklam between 1845 and 1847. A Deed of 1863 shows that by then he had demolished the houses on his property and had rebuilt the terrace.
An early photograph of East Side and the top of Hutton Bank shows a succession of lighter coloured houses to the north of East Side (possibly rendered and all in the same style) and an adjoining row in brick to the south – the two types of house appear to correspond with the separate periods of rebuilding. The Deeds show that the houses were not built in a single row alongside the green, but also stood around the yards that lay behind, and this can also be seen in the 1891 OS map.
By the beginning of the 20th century, all the property had come into the ownership of George William Smith of the Wheatsheaf Inn.
Property names in this area changed several times during the 19th century. The northernmost part of the land purchased by the Revd Isaac Benson was known in the 1840s and 1850s as "Little London". There was a four acre garth behind the houses which was known as Hunters Holme in the early part of the century; it was used as allotment gardens in the 1860s. The 1851 Census mentions Bensons Archway and Bensons Yard. Walkers Yard is mentioned in the 1830s to 1850s, during which time the Walker family, Edmund Taylor's former mortgagees, owned the northern end of the property, but in 1871 it had become Bakehouse Yard. It appears that the Wheatsheaf Inn was in existence under the same name throughout the 19th century – and for much of that time had the same landlady, Mrs Elizabeth Raney – but it may not always have been on the same site. A Deed dated 1863 speaks of "that dwellinghouse now used as ... the Wheatsheaf" (my italics).
A second bundle of documents, known as Miss Foggin's Deeds, are in the possession of the History Society. They relate to the cottage owned by Miss Foggin which stands to the east of Crow Bank Lane, the footpath which leads to the river from North Side; the cottage was largely rebuilt in the 1980s and is now called Eva's Cottage. These Deeds are the source of our information on the transmission of the lordship of the manor of Hutton to the Wayne family.
They show that the cottage was built on a garth measuring 1 acre 2 roods 28 perches (40 perches = 1 rood; 4 roods = 1 acre). This field can be seen to correspond to a meadow shown on the Tithe Map, where it is numbered 64. The garth was bounded to the north by the river, described in a Conveyance of 1810 as the "Leven River or Beck", and to the south by the "Townstreet of Hutton". It appears to correspond with the terrace stretching today from Eva's Cottage up to and including the double fronted house number 14 North Side.
In 1810 the garth was sold to Thomas Eland, who occupied the single dwellinghouse on the property. When in 1831 Thomas Eland conveyed an interest in the property to Richard Eland of Newport Pagnell, gentleman, in return for £70 and an annuity to Thomas and his wife, it was noted in the Deeds that the house had been altered to consist of three dwellinghouses, occupied by John Eland, John Sherwood and Thomas Wiles, with a barn, cowhouse and carpenter's shop. In 1855, when Richard Eland and James Eland of Hutton, gentleman (who was Thomas's elder brother and his heir) sold the property to the watchmaker William Codling the three houses had become six, and were now occupied by Thomas Milestone, [ ...] Kearsley, George Snary, Nicholas Jackson, John Mudd, Robert Batty and James Eland. It is not clear how the proliferation of dwellings was achieved – how much by subdivision, and how much by building on – but the OS map of 1894 shows the cottages lining the roadside with some buildings in the garth behind, much as we know it today.
The Deeds also convey the garth in North End measuring 1 rood 28 perches, which in 1810 was "formerly occupied by Hannah Kay, widow". By 1855 it had taken the name "Mustard Garth" and was in use as allotment gardens. It remained in use as allotments until the First World War and was also known as the Onion Garth. The garth stretched from a little way below the Post Office to the footpath leading into Honeymans Field; in the early decades of the 20th century a small terrace of houses was built on the site.
Sources & Acknowledgements (with apologies for any I have omitted inadvertently):-
Many thanks and acknowledgements to Mr and Mrs Bell, Mr Chappell, Mr & Mrs Johnson and Mr & Mrs Lees
A useful source of information, particularly on Sexhow, is Mr Arthur Eddowes’ ‘Church & Parish of Rudby in Cleveland’ (1924); as this is not widely available I have quoted from it extensively
The R P Hastings publications, pub by the Hutton Rudby History Society
‘History & Antiquities of Cleveland’ by Rev J Graves 1808
‘History & Antiquities of Cleveland’ by John Walker Ord 1846
Historic Reflections: the Parish of Rudby-in-Cleveland by Josephine & Alan Marchant
‘Gazetteer of Castles in the North York Moors National Park’ by Geoffrey G Watson
The Dictionary of National Biography
The Victoria County History
‘Mrs Jordan’s Profession’ by Claire Tomalin 1994
Articles in the Cleveland History, bulletin of the Cleveland & Teesside Local History Society, by D W Pattenden ‘The Life & Times of James Stovin Pennyman’
‘Winds of Change: Stockton on Tees 1800-1939’ F G Owens
The obituary of George Young Blair in the 'Stockton & Thornaby Herald' 29 Sep 1894
Research by J Beryl Turner on the Wheatsheaf Memorial Board
Research by Dr Geoffrey Stout
Deeds in the possession of the History Society, and in private hands
For the story of the Murder Mystery of Angrove, cf John Fairfax-Blakeborough’s original account in 1901, or ‘Murders & Mysteries from the North York Moors’ by Peter N Walker 1988
© Text 2000 & 2006 Alice Barrigan
© Map 2001 Michael Brabin
Some of the people mentioned here appear in a bundle of Deeds I was recently given by a relative. I haven't read them properly yet but they relate to a piece of land bought by Henry Chapman(my 2 x great grandfather)in 1884. He lived at Enterpen farm, later built Highfield and owned other properties in the village. I know he owned Lowfield and I have learned here Lowfield was also called Kelsey Castle because of a previous owner, this could be the plot in question. There is a conveyance of the close at Enterpen to Simon Kelsey in 1841. The earliest document is a lease dated 1676 from Robert Layton to William Trenholme.
ReplyDeleteThank you! That is so interesting - I'll pass the info onto the family at Lowfield
ReplyDeleteIf Edmund Tayler is the one who married Martha Eland and later Ann Smith, his father Benjamin was a cabinetmaker who spent some time in Whitkirk (near Templenewsam) and married there.
ReplyDeleteI'm descended from Benjamin through his son Joseph (who married a Flintoft) and died in Leeds about 1861. Joseph' sons Benjamin and Robert Flintoft Taylor both emigrated to the US in the mid-19th century, but they weren't the first to leave. Their uncle Thomas (married Elizabeth Souter) had emigrated to Canada, and their cousin Benjamin Stainsby went to the US (and settled in Newark, New Jersey) about 1832.