THE MILLENNIUM BOOK OF TOPCLIFFE John M. Graham The MILLENNIUM BOOK OF TOPCLIFFE John M. Graham This book was sponsored by Topcliffe Parish Council who provided the official village focus group around which the various contributors worked and from which an application was made for a lottery grant. It has been printed and collated with the assistance of a grant from the Millennium Festival Awards for All Committee to Topcliffe Parish Council from the Heritage Lottery Fund. First published 2000 Reprinted May 2000 Reprinted September 2000 Reprinted February 2001 Reprinted September 2001 Copyright John M. Graham 2000 Published by John M. Graham Poppleton House, Front Street Topcliffe, Thirsk, North Yorkshire YQ7 3NZ ISBN 0-9538045-0-X Printed by Kall Kwik, Kall Kwik Centre 1235 134 Marton Road Middlesbrough TS1 2ED Other Books by the same Author: Voice from Earth, Published by Robert Hale 1972 History of Thornton Le Moor, Self Published 1983 Inside the Cortex, Published by Minerva 1996 Introduction The inspiration for writing "The Millennium Book of Topcliffe" came out of many discussions, which I had with Malcolm Morley about Topcliffe's past. The original idea was to pull together lots of old photographs and postcards and publish a Topcliffe scrapbook. However, it seemed to me to be also an opportunity to have another look at the history of Topcliffe and try to dig a little further into the knowledge than had been written in other histories. This then is the latest in a line of Topcliffe's histories produced by such people as J. B. Jefferson in his history of Thirsk in 1821, Edmund Bogg in his various histories of the Vale of Mowbray and Mary Watson in her Topcliffe Book in the late 1970s. The approach of the Millennium also provided an excuse, if one was needed, to rake over the past and present it again in a modern format. Generally, book printers didn't like the format that we were proposing because it mixed up all the photographs and postcards with text. They wanted to separate out all the photographs and put them into a plate section in the middle. That did not seem to me to be the best way to present the information in an interesting format. So, this book has been produced and printed by computer. I hope you like the final result. The Millennium also provided a target date for publication. The original plan for the book envisaged something like fifty pages. As can be seen, this has been exceeded, just a little! The present 200 pages could, in fact, have been a lot more but finance for publication, rather than lack of information, became the limiting factor. In producing the book I have acted largely as an editor and collator of information, which has been provided from across a wide spectrum of the inhabitants of both Topcliffe and Asenby. There are many people to thank for their inputs. In addition I have spent a lot of time trawling around the various County Record Offices and archives, in order to dig a little deeper into the past. I have no doubt that once this book is published more photographs and postcards will come out of the attics in Topcliffe. Also the mistakes I have made will be immediately obvious to those who know more about particular aspects than I do. Please, do let me know the mistakes, or let me have more information if you have it, or let me copy your photographs. There may be an opportunity at some time in the future to print a second edition. I hope that you enjoy reading the book as much as I have enjoyed the last two years in putting it together. Acknowledgements J. M. Graham January 2000 First of all to my mentor on Topcliffe village, Malcolm Morley, for his continuous encouragement, interest and comments, and for all the time he has spent in scanning in to the computer and printing photographs, postcards etc. He is responsible for the overlay work in photograph Ph 1.7. Malcolm also arranged, with the help of Mary Halliday, to input all of the tithe map information into a computer data base, to enable it to be manipulated. The original work for this was done by Linda Nuttall who spent an enormous amount of time in copying the tithe map by hand together with the associated information, in great detail and with great accuracy. As a result of this work there is another full booklet on this subject alone. Only the information on central Topcliffe is included in this book. Linda also made available notes of her own work and lots of references to Topcliffe which she is compiling towards her eventual aim of producing a bibliography for Topcliffe. This enabled the research for this book to go ahead more quickly. Doug Allan volunteered to do the proof reading for the book. Perhaps he thought that it was going to be a fifty page book too. Two hundred pages later, having read all the chapters in detail and not in sequence, at least twice, he too has put a lot of his time into the production of the book. Lots of people volunteered photographs, postcards, newspaper cuttings, information and old books. It came in large bundles from Jean Dickenson and Margaret Josephs, together with extended memories of the village in times past. It came in large packets and small ones and also in word pictures from Shirley Brown, Keith Brown, Alan Gatenby, Dr & Mrs Dias, Alan Dickenson, Alan Reeder, John Rayner, Mary Watson, Karl Heim, Marion Snelling, Steve Sidebottom, Ralph Morris, Anne Marie Barningham, Vic Rawlings, Philip Turner, Tony Ardron. Sandra McGrail, Mary Dickinson, Ron Friar, Nellie Ascough, Tom Smirthwaite, Jim Burns, Mrs Crane and Carole Ford who loaned me her study on the evolution of Asenby. Mr William Shepherd was happy to discuss the castle site which is on his land and he gave permission to take photographs. David Haddon-Reece helped with information on the church, Ralph Hindmarch with information on the school and Rev. Neil Graham helped with some background on the Chapel. Charles Shaw gave permission for extracts to be taken from the "Guide to Saint Columba's, Topcliffe" which he and Mary Dickinson compiled some years ago. Charles is also the artist who drew the old church line drawing. Keith Surgey allowed us to use his line drawing of the present St. Columba's, not only in this book, but also on the Millennium Mugs presented by the Parish Council to the children of Topcliffe to commemorate the millennium. Mrs E R Jackson of Sowerby gave me permission to use her late husband's research on the Charles I Ransom at the Toll Booth Philip and John Lister provided information and background help on the Mill and Nigel Graham helped with the railway research. Mr D. Buttery helped with the Baldersby Park section of the book and gave permission for photographs to be taken. He also allowed me to take away and copy some of the Baldersby Album photographs. My thanks are also due to some of the girls from the school who gave me an escorted tour of the building. and to Ian and Margaret Angus for their co- operation in letting Mr Buttery be involved. The RAF have played their part and arranged for me to have access to the memorial room at RAF Linton on Ouse. The RAF Operations records in Figs 5.12 and 5.15 together with some of the extracts in the text were obtained from the RAF records about Topcliffe and Dalton in the Public Record Office in Kew. Geoff Hall, Secretary to the Feoffees, loaned me the old Feoffees minutes and record books. Mr. P. A. Hill-Walker of Maunby kindly gave permission for us to include extracts from the Stubbs Walker Papers. Mr Ashcroft and his staff at the North Yorkshire County Record Office assisted with lots of information and in specially microfilming church records. NYCRO also gave formal permission for extracts from the various papers to be reproduced. Mrs Alison McCann, Assistant Archivist at the West Sussex County Record Office, did her best to answer my letters and queries on the Topcliffe papers in Petworth House. She also kindly arranged to move a large batch of original papers from Petworth to the CRO in Chichester so that I could study them myself. This was a well worth while exercise. She also obtained permission from Lord Egremont to include information from the papers in the book. The North Yorkshire Reference Library staff in Northallerton were very patient with me in my search for information and very helpful too. Linda Smith in the Heritage Unit at County Hall helped with information on the area and allowed me to trawl through their card index. They also helped with aerial photographs and gave permission for some of them to be included. The photographs were taken for the county council by Meridian Airmaps Limited in 1971 at a height of 5,000 feet The East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Record Service helped me to locate the information on the Court Leet and also gave permission for some of the documents to be included. The West Yorkshire Archive Service helped with the search through the Newby papers and allowed the work to be used. The Yorkshire Archaeological Society kindly agreed that extracts from a whole range of their published papers could be made. The photograph of Maidens Bower on the front of the book and in photograph Ph 1.4 is Crown Copyright. It is reproduced by permission of English Heritage acting under licence from the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, with the consent of The National Monuments Record in Swindon.