• The Clockmakers Of Askrigg-Wensleydale

Coleby Hall early 1908

The present owners of Coleby Hall are the Scarr family

The Scarr Family Crest
The name of Scarr is found in Northern Britain but is of Saxon origin and signifies something remarkable or rather terrific, hence the name Scarsdale, Co. Derby, Scarcliffe etc.

But the Arms as registered in Heraldry are: In the name of Scarr:-
“Azure a Dolphin haurient embowed, or between three Escallops Argent.
Impaled with the Arms of Gameson:-
Or, a Lion paasant between three Mullets Gules, charged on the shoulder
with a mullet of the field.

The crest of Scarr is :-

“on the trunk of a tree couped and sprouting a new branch on the dexter side environed with a serpent, an eagle, rolent (or rising), all proper”

Motto: “Polando reptila sperno”

• (Flying myself, I despise creeping things”

The crest of Gameson is :- A Lion’s Gamb (or paw erect) holding a fluer-de-lis.

Motto: “Jamais arrieve”

• (Never behind)

Scarr Family Members outside Coleby Hall in 1946ish

A History of the Manor of Wensleydale and Coleby Hall

No commentary on the Scarr family would be complete without a history of the Manor of Wensleydale and Coleby Hall.
From a 17th century survey we learn that the Manor of Wensleydale consisted of the possessions of the Abbey of Jervaulx in the forest of Wensleydale, north of the Ure. This survey provides us with the following history.

In 1086 four Carucates (One carucate is the area of land a team of eight oxen could plough in one year, approximately 120 acres) in the place known as Fors were held by Count Allan by Bodin. His nephew Acharis, son of Bardolf granted one and a half carucates here to found the Abbey of Charity.
Hugh, son of Gernagen, probably a tenant of Acharis was granted a like amount. The monks only remained at Fors for eleven years before founding Jervaulx Abbey.
Fors was considered cold and bleak and the monks sought more fertile and productive lands.

The old building was known as Dale Grange and in 1301-2 the abbot paid subsidy for it and for the hamlets of Skellgill, Cams, Simonstone, Cotterdale and others. The whole estate now began to be known as the manor of Wensleydale, the alternate name (Dale Grange) being due to the fact that courts were held by the Steward of the Abbey at Dale Grange.

At the dissolution of the monasteries, 1536-1540, and the attainder of the Abbot of Jervaulx, (he was outlawed), the Manor of Wensleydale was worth £68-13s-4d per annum.
It was granted by Henry VIII in 1544 to Mathew, Earl of Lennox and Margaret, his wife, but returned to the Crown in the person of James I (1603-1625).

The stone staircase leading up from the main hall
In Elizabeth’s reign (1558-1603) there had been disputes between the Crown and the tenants in 1570, and between the Crown and the Countess of Lennox in 1573, over the title of the Manor. On the 6th August 1603 the title was granted to Ludovick Stuart, Duke of Lennox, together with the Manors of Settrington and Temple Newsham.
The Duke of Lennox found himself in conflict, not with the Crown, but with his tenants. In the course of the trouble the very existence of the Manor was disputed although Thomas Ascoughe, Deputy Steward claimed that he knew the lands “in Abbotside called (as he had reads in the book called Domesdaie) by the name of the Manor, or the Lordship of Wensleydale.
View from the main porch front entrance
Later it was confirmed that Thomas Ascoughe could not find the statement in the Domesday Book. Further trouble existed between the tenants and the Duke of Lennox over fines and leases and in 1606 the tenants who had taken leases met at Hardrow and decided to ask Lennox to mitigate their fines. If he refused they would complain to the King. In the meantime the tenants collected money for the necessary fines and put the matter in the hands of Peter Metcalfe (Peter of Bowbrigge). He was reproved by Lennox’s Commissioner –“as but a busy fellow who came not in the business of their neighbour”

At this time the movement among the tenants passed into the hands of Anthony Besson of Grays Inn, the founder of Yorebridge Grammar School near Askrigg. He, more than Metcalfe, was looked upon as the leader of the tenants against the Duke.

The Original Date Stone

The date reads 1633 or 1655? and the builder’s initials were I. C.
A new replica date stone has been made and has replaced the orginal as it was in very poor condition.

Further meetings took place in 1606, on a Sunday in Hawes Chapel, and Anthony Besson, who was not even a tenant, fell into the background, and his place was taken by Richard Besson. There seems to be no evidence of the relationship between the two, though they may have been brothers. Richard appears to have been a man of some importance. He had a farm at Litherskew and was, in 1606, charged with shooting two hares in the forest of Wensleydale with a gun.

At the end of Elizabeth’s reign he apparently collected the rents of the Manor of Wensleydale, and in consequence became involved in a most unusual case concerning a certain discrepancy between the rents collected and the rents paid in. Richard Besson was never able to satisfy the Duke of Lennox, and what satisfied the late Countess did not satisfy the Duke.

At this period a new commercial spirit was abroad which led the landlords to try and obtain mores revenue from their lands.

In 1614 Lennox leased the manor for 21 years to Sir John Leedes, John Coleby and Henry Goodreeke. Little is known of these men. A Sir John Leedes was in constant trouble at the time for making disrespectful remarks about the King (his wife was apparently the chief offender).

John Coleby was probably the John Coleby of Nappa who died in 1616, and whose widow, Mary Coleby, later acquired a share of the manor. Henry Goodreeke was Deputy Lieutenant of Yorkshire in 1638-39.

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John Coleby father of the builder, in 1614 acquired a lease of a third of the Manor of Wensleydale, and for a time lived at Nappa Hall.
He married Mary, a sister of the notorious Walter Calverley who murdered two of his sons, and leaving two boys,Francis and John. He died at an early age, in 1616.
From Yorkshire Village by Marie Hartley MBE and Joan Ingilby

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First and top floor mullions of front entrance with stepped hoodmoulds

Stone fireplace archway in main room

The builders marks on this stone work match the stonework in the main entrance arch.

From some later additions to the survey in 1614 it appears that the Coleby share of the manor comprised Dale Grange, Helm, Skelgill, Yorescot, Brockelcote, and except for one tenement, Shawcote and Holehouses.

Later in the same year Lennox sold the entire manor to Sir Francis Baildon of Kippax, Thomas Rookwood of London and Edmund Rolte of Grays Inn for £10,000.
It then passed through the hands of a number of men who were probably merely speculators.

In 1616 one third of the manor was sold to George and Thomas Cole for £4,750. Another third was bought by George Cole, price not known. The final third was bought by Mary Coleby who leased it to George Cole for 10 years for £220 per annum. The manor was again surveyed and divided into three equal parts, two parts to the Coles and one part to Mary Coleby.

About 1632 land in and around Sedbusk changed hands freely and at this time it was known to be in the hands of Sir John Lowther of Lowther, although it is uncertain when he acquired an interest in the manor.

Some of the original plaster moulding

Unusually one of the pieces is in relief showing the fluer-de-lis and what looks like pineapple, in the the other piece the moulding is hollow.

The orinal front door circa 1633/55

Coleby Hall is variously described as having been built in 1633 by Mary Coleby, or by her son John in 1655. although I understand a datestone inscribed `IC 1655′ indicates the latter.

In 1670 John Coleby is described as of Bowbridge Hale the old hall on the site of the Primitive Methodist Chapel, also known as Bowling Hall).

In 1657 Camms Farm with 333 acres and two messuages was sold to Bernard Smith for £1,125: this was part of Coles share.

In the second half of the 17th Century a new dispute arose, this time concerning the third part of the manor held by Mary Coleby.
This was inherited by John Coleby, Mary’s son, who sold it in 1678 to Alexander Smith. The purchase price was £4,300 of which £ 1,300 was paid and the remainder secured. Anthony Fothergill and Thomas Lambert were to have a proportion of Smith’s purchase on good consideration.

Looking down the spiral staircase
Alexander, son of John Coleby, sued Messrs Smith, Fothergill and Lambert in chancery to have the purchase set aside.
According to Alexander Coleby the purchase conveyance and fine were obtained from his father by fraud.
Though his appeal was without success, he was tendered £2,800 in repayment, but Smith refused to pay this amount.
The case went to the House of Lords who on the 18th March 1685 dismissed the appeal of Messrs Smith, Fothergill and Lambent and affirmed the decree made in the Court of Chancery.

In 1707 the whole manor was in the hands of Lord Lonsdale who sold it in 1723 to Edward Wortley. As part of the Wortley estates it appears under a new name, that of the manors of High and Low Abbotside. It passed from Edward Wortley to his ascendants, the Earls of Wharncliffe.

I wonder what this is from

Could it be part of the statue of Aurelius Commodus (A.D. 180-193)excavated at Brough Hill Bainbridge, and was last seen at Nappa Hall but now sadly no longer exists?

In the 18th Century the Manor of Wensleydale had a mixture of customary leases (40 year, perpetually renewable); 2,000 year leases (fixed `ancient rents’ granted for a capital sum at the outset) and short leases (annual or half-yearly renewal).
Such arrangements were hard to shift and customary tenant right was a powerful force throughout the Dales.
With perpetually renewable leases, decision-making power lay in the hands of the farming community not the landlord, who only retained the mineral and hunting rights to his land.
Only where rents were not subject to manorial custom could they be easily raised to more economic levels.

About 1885 part of the estate, which had belonged to John Coleby, son of Mary Coleby, was sold to the Hon. William Lowther.

An important shift came about in 1909 when the government of the day introduced land value duties on unearned income from land ownership.
Those with large estates began to sell individual farms to their tenants and in 1913 the remainder was broken up and sold in lots.

The view from Coleby Hall looking across to Low Abbotside

Is this a relic from Fors Abbey?

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