ADDINGHAM CONSERVATION AREA
Historical development and changing character of the Addingham conservation area
In Anglo-Saxon times, Addingham was one of the townships that made up the Wharfedale estates of the archbishops of York; and it is the earliest recorded settlement in Bradford District, for it was to Addingham that Archbishop Wulfhere fled, in AD 867, to escape Viking attacks on York. During the following century the archbishops were dispossessed of Addingham, and by 1066 it had been divided between two other landowners, a division which probably had important consequences for the development of the village. During the Middle Ages, the houses of Addingham's farmers were located not only in the area of the present village, but also further south, along the line of the 'Street', the former Roman road which had linked the forts at Ilkley and Elslack. Some of these farms were involved in iron-working. The community's open fields lay to the north, south and west of the present village. South Field, of which some ploughing ridges are still preserved at Town End, seems to have been enclosed by the 17th century.
Within the conservation area, the late Saxon division of Addingham resulted in the appearance of several distinct foci for medieval settlement. The earliest is to be found on the gravel ridge east of the present village, between Town Beck and the Wharfe, where the parish church now stands. The church is medieval and contains some repositioned 12th-century masonry, but its burial ground was formerly oval in shape, suggesting an Anglo-Saxon origin. This early origin has been confirmed by the discovery of a late Saxon cross-shaft and other contemporary artefacts, and by a group of human burials, excavated in the vicinity of the church hall, which have been dated to the 8th to 10th centuries. There can be little doubt that this was the place where Archbishop Wulfhere came to reside. Later, a medieval manor house was constructed in the field just to the west of the churchyard, centre of one of the manorial estates created in late Saxon times. This had been destroyed by the late 16th century through erosion by the river Wharfe, and only its dovecote remained to be recorded on the Cliffords' estate map of 1585. The earthworks of its associated fishponds survive along Town Beck in the same field.
A farming settlement probably associated with this manor house lay in the Church Street-Town End area, and is possibly the part of the village shown on the edge of a map of 1585. Just east of Town End farmhouse are some earthworks of buildings, probably medieval; excavations have revealed evidence for medieval occupation in Church Street, and two standing buildings, including Fir Cottage, contain medieval structural timbers.
A third settlement focus, probably linked to the second manorial estate, developed further west, between Town Beck and Back Beck. The building known as the Manor House contains structural timbers that are probably of 15th-century date, and a small building on Sugar Hill incorporates posts from a timber-framed building. Fourthly, there may also have been in the Middle Ages at least one farm at the Green, at the extreme west end of the modern village area where the arable fields gave way to common pastures with droveways funnelling in from the west. This is suggested by the name of one of the medieval farmers who appears in early records: Thomas del Grene.
All these areas of Addingham are within the conservation area, and indicate that the very long, straggling shape of the present village is due to infilling between the early settlement foci during the period of industrial growth. The industry was, of course, textiles. The existence of a fulling mill in the early 14th century (see below) indicates that the medieval population was involved in the processing of wool; and late 17th to 18th-century probate inventories record looms and other textile gear. The main expansion was, however, in the later 18th and early 19th centuries: the proportion of adult males engaged in either handloom weaving or woolcombing rose from a quarter to a half between 1767 and 1812. Weavers' houses from the late 18th and early 19th centuries survive in Main Street, along with a Piece Hall, and there are other important survivals of textile related buildings, such as the loomshop in Chapel Street, built about 1806. Among the most significant houses of this period is a pair of semi-detached dwellings built in 1755, the earliest known in the north of England.
Outside the conservation area, a survey of the early 14th century records water-powered corn and fulling mills at Addingham: these were probably on a single site, served by a single water wheel. The plan of 1585 shows that the mills were located on the Wharfe, on the site of Addingham High Mill, and some medieval structural remains are reputed to exist. In the late 1780s High Mill was converted to a textile mill, for spinning cotton, hard on the heels of Low Mill, which was opened in 1787 as Yorkshire's first worsted-spinning mill. Addingham's other early textile mills used the water of Town Beck and Back Beck to power them. At Townhead, at the west end of the conservation area, a cotton mill was erected before 1800, and at about the same time Fentiman's Mill, also for cotton, was erected on the site of the Saw Mill. Finally, Burnside Mill was built in 1886, for silk spinning.
Historical associations
Though Addingham's most notable resident was, arguably, Archbishop Wulfhere in 867, its other well-known families are mainly of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Myers family, agents of the Bolton Abbey estates, had a large house at Farfield in the early 18th century, and in 1728 built the present Farfield Hall, listed as Grade 1. After 1739 part of the Myers estate, including High Mill and the lordship of the manor, passed to the Smiths who developed the mill for textiles. The erection of Low Mill was undertaken by the progenitor of another eminent Addingham family, John Cunliffe. He and his wife settled at High Bank, a house with a datestone of 1790. Their eldest son, who had settled in Bradford, inherited the fortune of the Manningham Listers; their second son bought Farfield Hall and other Myers property. A grandson, Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, became one of the great entrepreneurs of the textile trade. In the mid-19th century he patented a woolcombing machine, which made him a large fortune, and at Low Mill experimented with spinning silk extracted from waste. He also developed mechanical looms for velvet. As first Lord Masham, he was buried in Addingham church in 1906.
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