Facts are in Blue
Nonsensical speculation is in Pink !
I’m hoping someone somewhere can help me discover some history behind my house at Dibbles Bridge.
Please read
on and feel free to email any thoughts or suggestions.
Sited on the B6265 Grassington to Pateley Bridge road
at the western foot of Greenhow Hill in the North Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Attached to the house is what has been called a stable, with over-store and hatch.
The stable (I believe) was built as a 'fill-in' between the house and barn/cart shed.
The barn is sunk into the hillside such that the bottom floor is below ground level on two sides.
The walled up door in the picture below could suggest the building once having 3 floors
as it is too high for the ground floor and too low for the top floor.
Looking at the door and window openings I feel that the barn predates the house (see image map floor plans later)
Still looks like a typical Dales Farmhouse... Until you see it from the North...
The lighter coloured area linking stable and barn is a recent extension.
The rear of the house is a whole story higher and the ground floor of the cart shed and stable are seven feet above ground level.
At first glance one could presume that this is solely due to the sloping nature of the land.
But looking at other local buildings I am hard pressed to find a similar example.
Even as recently as the 1800’s this area of the Dales would have been a rather wild and inhospitable place.
Which begs the question: Why would anyone want to build such a structure on sloping ground ?
The additional expense and labour involved does not lend itself to the needs of a farmer.
Why did the builder not seek to make use of the additional level to the rear in justification of the extra labour involved ?
The picture above shows approximate floor levels and illustrates the large 'void' to the right below the second lift of scaffolding.
Along the wall at this level is a continuous line of engineered through stones. These support the stone beams that in turn support the flags of the floor.
The only area where this can be viewed is from the only currently open cellar in north east quadrant of the house.
A massive pillar supports two beams to bridge the cellar space.
There are (unconfirmed) rumours of another larger cellar in the north west quadrant that was filled with builders rubble when the house was renovated.
There is no obvious access to this void. Curiously the same through stones are present at the entrance to the cellar although they currently serve no purpose.
Dibbles
Bridge has been an important crossing point during the last two centuries,
though evidence suggests many years ago the road took a more northerly route via
Gate Up at Grimwith to make for an easier river crossing.
I have always thought the house has had some association with the bridge.
Two little windows offer views over the bridge...
almost as if they were positioned solely for such a purpose.
Although the house would have been ideally situated for monitoring traffic, local historians (principally concerned with the villages of Hebden or Greenhow) eschew the possibility of the house having been a tollhouse at the time of the Grassington to Pateley Bridge Turnpike trust.
Never the less the house's location directly opposite what is deemed to be a Bridge Liability Marker is curious.
The following link gives details of such markers http://www.outofoblivion.org.uk/record.asp?id=207
I remain perplexed by the use of a cross.
Similar stones bear the initials of the West Riding whom are liable, which makes perfect sense.
But why a cross? The following link hints at a connection... http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1191.html Follow the link to Devil's Bridge
I
have discovered from the County Quarter Sessions that a contractor named John
Gill rebuilt the Bridge in 1833 to the sum of £650.
I
assume that £650 would have been a considerable sum.
Based on the figures in the Sunside Mines ledger for 1829, miners could
earn up to £1 a month, so this would equate to 54 years of wages assuming
work was always this good.
It
may be just a coincidence but my house has a plaque on it reading J G 1833.
Which raises a few questions..
Could this be John Gill ?
Would John Gill have been a specialist bridge building contractor or a local builder ?
Opinions vary on this.
Some say that most building tasks around the area at that time were conduced by farmer/miner Jack of all trades type folk.
I have found a family of Gills at nearby Greenhow of that time.
Others suggest that building a bridge such as Dibbles would have been conducted under the supervision of engineers with steam cranes and all manner of fancy Victorian gadgets !
(Industrial Historians please discuss)
Why
build a house about the same time ?
A local surveyor recently noticed that the back of the house was rubble walled, consistent with farm buildings of the area, but the front was coursed.
Buildings in the locality have long had a history of refurbishment./reuse as times change through the influences of farming, mining and improved transportation.
Is it possible that an existing building was improved in 1833 ?
Perhaps with materials gleaned from the bridge building effort ?
Another oddity that may suggest refurbishment is the door of the cart shed. From the exterior there are 2 large cantilevered lintels with a further above. The interior however, reveals the arch below.
A further oddity (and possibly a red herring) is the fact that the first floor and ceiling joists to the front (south) of the house slope downward toward the outside wall. The slope is uniform throughout the length of the building and the degree of slope of the floor is the same as the ceiling. There is no evidence on the west wall of the south wall sinking.
Fireplaces and other features can be viewed by clicking the appropriate area of the following floor plans.
One feature of note are the two recesses in the back rooms of the first floor (marked O2 & O3). Exactly opposite each other they both feature a curious angled edge to one side face.
At first I wandered whether they might have held beams for a cantilever winch over the back of the house but the fact that only one side slopes made me think again. Possibly they were once openings to allow light in from the centre window. Frankly this makes little sense either considering that each room has it's own window.
The way the internal walls divide the house strikes me as strange, particularly in the roof void. There is no ridge board as such to the roof. The rafters are supported by the off centre mid wall. These dividing walls are accessed by hatches, though there is no hatch from front to back as the diagram below shows. Roofing in the barn is a more traditional A frame style.
I have found that the 1852 OS map shows the property as Bridge House
A few locals have proffered tales that the property served as a halfway house between Hebden and Dry Gill but I'm stumped to place it any earlier than the date stones.
Thomas Jefferys' Map of 1750 shows Deeple Bridge (variations of Deep Pool, Deep Dell or Devil abound)
Curiously this map shows a building to the south of the road but nothing to the north.
My first reaction was that the building to the south was demolished when the site was quarried for lime.
I have since toyed with the Jefferys' map and the current OS map in an image editing program. By comparing the contours of the river and beck I found that the line of the road slightly different. Obviously the accuracy of Jefferys' is questionable and fails to scale directly to the OS but...
Is it possible that the bridge could have been in a different place and the house shown is Dibbles Bridge ?
Could this have been the sight of an earlier bridge or have I spent too long looking out of the window glass in hand ?
Until
2003 the farm at Dibbles Bridge comprised of a farmhouse and a croft, the
farmhouse being called Dibbles Bridge House.
When the Croft (Formerly Bridge House c1852) was sold it took the current
name of Dibbles Bridge House and the farm became known as Dibbles Bridge Farm.
Although
the croft is now officially Dibbles Bridge House the post office appears unaware
of the change as the postcode and parish remain that of the farm (Hartlington
BD23 5EE) when the house is actually in Appletreewick CP .
A search of the West Riding Registry of Deeds between 1830 and 1835
for the John Gill returned no entries.
The quarter sessions Bridge Books (QD3/5,6,10&11) contain references to Drubbles Bridge, Dubbles Bridge and Dribbles Bridge otherwise Devil's Bridge.
1911 Appletreewick Trades and Profs shows John Woodhouse, a farmer at Dib Bridge
Deed
7 September 1950 Appletreewick (vol 134, page 1127, no.499)
Richard
Wallace the Elder - the purchasers
Richard
Wallace the Younger
Richard
Stockdale - the vendors
Jeremiah
Stockdale
Land
at Dibbles Bridge Farm mentions the house, barn and croft.
Purchased
for £4750. 67 acres 3 roods and 4 perches.
Florence Robinson
- the vendors
Florence
Robinson
Richard
Stockdale (farmers) - the purchasers
Jeremiah
Stockdale
Indenture
made 15 March 1921 and referred to land as outlined in the deed of 1903 and
all that land called Summersgill Croft. It also makes clear that Florence
Robinson inherited the land from Thomas Middlebrook.
Coloured
plan attached which shows land including house, barn and croft
The
Skipton and District Permanent Benefit Building Society
John
Bonny Dewhurst
George
Robinson
Abraham
Moses
Alfred
Wood
Thomas
Middlebrook - the purchaser
Firstly
all that farm or tenement situate at Dibbles Bridge in the township of
Appletreewick and Hartlington . . . and containing in the whole according to the
ordnance survey 67 acres, 3 roods 4 perches and consisting of a farm house farm
buildings and several closes of meadow and pasture as described in the
[following] First Schedule:
House
barn and croft 3 roods 24 perches
Dibble
Bridge with barn 4a 3r 15p
High
Bottoms 3a 1r 39p
Rough
End 1a 2r 20p
Little
Allotment 8a 1r 33p
Cow
Pasture 6a 0r 37p
Middle
Field 5a 2r 25p
High
Field 4a 2r 13p
Allotment
31a 3r 38p
Dewhurst,
Robinson and Moses all own a lot of land in Skipton and Appletreewick areas.
Searched
indexes covering 1901-03 and 1885-1900 but no entries showing their purchase.
There are however hundreds of entries for them all relating to this area.
Pre
1901 don't give full addresses
1901
Thomas
Newbould (66), Eleanor (53), Thomas Anthony (16), Simon E (13) at Bridge House.,
Hartlington.
John
Hudson (73), Annie (72), Doris (6 grand daughter), Willie Blades (15 servant) at
Dibble Bridge, Hartlington.
Robert Hebefere (34), Ada A (34), Sydney (4), Ernest (0) at Dittle Bridge, Appletreewick.
The last entry is probably the property now known as Dibbles Bridge House. A search for the name Hebefere returned nothing. The name is absent from all popular genealogy sites.
Could
be misspelled ?