Bramham Moor
Bramham Moor was reputed to be a wild and desolate place. After the Romans left it was probably a large area of common land on the edge of the cultivated
ground surrounding the village.
It remained a no man's land until the Count of Mortain claimed it as part of William the Conqueror's gift after 1066 and before
the Domesday Book of 1086. It was here that a couple of hundred years later the Canons of Nostell Priory had their sheep pasturage and rabbit warrens.
Bramham Moor was the site of a major battle in 1408, and was often in use as a place for gathering and exercising troops, right through until the Great War of
1914-18.
Throughout the centuries before 1350, at which point, like much of England, the Moor was enclosed, forming many individual plots, it
was well known as a resort of footpads and highwaymen, especially as two arterial roads crossed it.
The dip, half-way between Bramham
village and Toulston Lodge was particularly notorious.
The Moor was also the home of herds of half-wild animals. Bramham itself served
as stopping place for mail coaches and travellers - hence its many coaching inns and houses of ill repute, in the old days.
The famous
highwayman, Nevison, is said to have used it as a regular rendezvous; indeed the Black Horse Inn, now the farm just south of Bramham
Crossroads near the Shell garage, was a place where he is reputed to have rested his famous mare during his ride from London to York.
Probably
because of the eminence of the emerging Benson family who had settled in Bramham, during the reign of Queen Anne, Bramham Moor was
famous as the site of a race course. On 22 December, 1702 a gold cup valued at one-hundred guineas was given by Her Majesty to be run for on
Stubbins Moor near Wothersome.
The field was entirely for six year olds and their mounts, twelve stone gentlemen. The races lasted a week and must
have been quite an event with cock fighting contests and various side shows.
However the sport of racing progressed, a permanent ground was fixed for
Yorkshire on the Knavesmire in York, and Bramham's course fell into disuse.
Nevertheless the advantages of the area appreciated by the Romans still held good in Victorian times.
It is recorded that John Watson
of Malton declared that, from the middle of Bramham Moor, a man could see ten miles around him, within which area there would be enough stone
to built ten cities.
There was much clay, sand and coal, and two iron forges. There was lead, and three navigable rivers within those ten miles,
as well as many forests stocked with deer. He noted too, in his desirable area, no fewer than seventy gentlemen's houses.
The stone John Watson mentioned was not restricted to the Moor, for there were quarries all around, even within the village itself -
up Tenter Hill, along the Clifford Road near the present Junior School, and next to the Old Hall for example.
The Bramham magnesian limestone,
with its rosy blush at sunset, has always been found attractive, though it has not been so productive as the great Toulston quarries of Smaws,
Lords and Jackdaws, from which so much of York's walls and Minster have been built. |
