1. LITTLE MARKET PLACE

• Alley and steps down to the river (Dixon Keld) probably mark the earliest entrance to the town and pass through what was once a 7th to 11th century Anglo-Scandinavian Christian graveyard (see blue plaque).

• The Old Police House now the Mashamshire Community Office, officially opened as such on 26th Sept 2003 by actor Derek Fowlds, who played Sgt Blakedon in Heartbeat – many scenes were filmed locally with MCO as the offices of the Ashfordly Gazette. NYR = North Riding of Yorkshire (see front stone plaque).

• Number 9 was once the George and Dragon pub and coaching house.

• The current Town Hall was probably built on the site of Masham’s first Christian Church, hence the graveyard and ‘Church Street’ leading to Park House. After being replaced by St. Mary’s after 1066, it became a slaughterhouse, so no archaeology!

• The Town Hall (1912) dominates Little Market Place, once Masham’s pig market was the gift of inventor, industrialist and later 1st Baron Masham, Samuel Cunliffe-Lister. £613 of the £4146 cost came from the sale of the Mechanics’ Institute on Park Street.

2. OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL

• Masham Primary School comprises the old Masham Grammar and National School Buildings in a medley of styles: Tudor, Palladian and Gothic. 

• The building originates from the bequest of Isabel Beckwith of Well, who, by will dated 14th June 1735, left the sum of £100 for the benefit of a Free School at Masham for teaching five poor boys, preference being given to such as bear the name of Beckwith.

• The plaque above the door reads “This school house was rebuilt and enlarged in the year 1834 by Anne widow of William Danby esquire”.

• The current voluntary aided primary school has room for 116 children.

• To the left of the porch is a symbolic carved acorn (part of the Oak Leaf Sculpture Trail that will lead you around the outskirts of town, route map available in MCO). 

• Above the porch is a sculpture of swifts in metal by Michael Kusz. It is part of the Masham Swift Trail which has 10 swift sculptures in stone, ceramics and metal dotted around the town. You can get a free guide from the MCO.

3. FURTHER DOWN MILLGATE

• Millgate used to ford the river before becoming the main road to York. King Richard III would therefore have often clattered along this road with his luggage train on his way between his castles at Middleham and Sherriff Hutton. 

• Down from the school is the old poorhouse and the former fire station (once home to Masham’s horse-drawn steam-powered fire engine, which could blast water over the river).

• The nail-studded door was the local lock-up, useful for sobering up drunks but also by the Mashamshire Volunteers to store their muskets and ammunition. The Volunteers, led by William Danby, responded to warning beacons in 1805 expecting to engage a Napoleonic invasion force near the coast. After marching to Thirsk they were told it was a false alarm, so they proceeded to drink the pubs dry before staggering back to Masham! After Waterloo the muskets were sold and the money raised given to the Free School of Masham. 

• Nutwith House was originally ‘Belmont’, built by Richmond artist George Cuitt the Younger, who moved to Masham in 1820 at the age of 41 and published his 'Yorkshire Abbeys,' and 'Wanderings and Pencillings amongst the Ruins of Olden Times.' These etchings sold well to local tourists. He died at Masham in 1854. Now home to Lady Sue Mountgarret and Johnny Waddington. 

• Down the lane is Masham Mill, former home to William Jackson, an accomplished 19th century musician and composer. Now home to Susan Briggs of Dales Discoveries etc.

4. IVY DENE & ST MARY’S CHURCH

• Ivy Dene was an annex of the Kings Head Hotel, used for staging balls. It later became Masham’s old people’s care home and a place of occasional paranormal activity – A grey lady is sometimes seen in an upstairs window! 

• The grandeur of St. Mary’s Church reflects the power and wealth accrued in the centuries of sheep trading by the abbeys of Jervaulx, Byland and Fountains. 

• The base of the tower has Saxon quoins, indicating construction began pre-conquest, or that stones were reused from the earlier church nearby.

• The tower base and chancel were Norman, but the octagonal section and tall spire were added in the 15th century, indicating Masham was a wealthy town.

• The riches of the church were confiscated by Henry VIII and used to fund the creation of Trinity College, Cambridge, who still formally select Masham’s vicar.

5. GRAVEYARD

• Oldest is the early C9th Saxon (Anglian) Cross shaft, the top row is Christ and the Apostles, below Bible Stories, and below that some fabulous beasts. 

• There’s Samson at the gates of Gaza and there’s King David and his lyre – the oldest surviving depiction of this instrument in England. Being made of sandstone it’s badly weathered.

• The hillock is Gregory Hill – Gregory means ‘look-out’. Maybe the homestead of Mæssa? Next to hawthorn tree is a hump, which was the air raid shelter. The entrance is now boarded up.

• Bell-Ringer George Thornberry (1810) - ‘Here Lies an Old Ringer beneath this cold clay, who’s rung many peals both serious and gay’ …… 

• Julius Caesar Ibbotson’s grave (1817) is round the north side. His mother went into premature labour after falling on ice and died, Ibbetson was delivered by caesarean section. He painted a lot of pictures of Masham but used artistic license, so they are not a true record of how the town looked. 

• The tall cenotaph is to William Jackson (1815-1866), born at Masham Mill, organist at Bradford Cathedral, buried in Bradford. His works include sacred music as well as glee songs.

• 6. OUTSIDE JOHNNY BAGHDAD’S

• The enormous Market Place was for the sheep flocks of the vast Granges belonging to local monasteries - Jervaulx and Fountains. At one time 10,000 sheep a day were bought and sold here.

• The Café is called Johnny Baghdad's because the owner, Colin Johnny Blair, says he had a mate called Terry Aviv and he got the nickname Johnny Baghdad from his middle name.

• The snooker club, above the Café, is reputed to be England's oldest, founded in 1871 when the first table was brought up from London by train at a cost of £41. It now has 3 full-sized tables.

• Stanhope House was the Dames School next to the yellow one, which was the Coach House and the servant's accommodation.

• The Market Place itself has got all kinds of unusual buildings in it, one may have been the Church House, quiet a high-status building. It's got the string course and a nice A-frame structure up in the roof, so that is one of the earliest two-storey buildings. 

• Most of them would have been single storey and thatched with ling heather at a very steep rake. When they were raised to two storey most would have been strengthened to take stone slate roofs. 

• So, they've got a shallow pitch, but Bordar House has still got the old, thatched roof profile - the thatching round here was ling (heather). The oldest bottom parts are probably 13/14th century when the marketplace was created.

7. MARKET CROSS

• Craftsmen and food traders used local markets and fairs to exchange their goods, and the commercial and industrial activity at Masham prompted John de Wauton to obtain the grant of a market and fair from the King Henry III in 1251.

• The market cross is Grade II listed with a 5m square base and is composed of four stone tiers, supporting a tall octagonal shaft with a chamfered projecting band near the top, a frieze and conical capstone with a ball finial. The base is medieval but the shaft and finishings are late 18th century.

• Harry's fish and chip shop was the old Lord Nelson pub, where the mail coach stopped (post house) after that it was the old Temperance Hotel; there was a big Temperance movement in Masham. 

• Masham Gallery has a C14th cellar - originally 2 cottages linked together and has a studio in the loft. Roof timbers reused - moved up a floor. Chimneys are Victorian with glazed bricks. Stonemasons were cabinet makers. Nothing matches.

• Further along there's a very narrow house between the Gallery and Waterloo House on the corner. The narrow house was originally an alleyway and was filled in to provide lodging for the shepherds and then developed into a house. 

• Waterloo House to the left was where I'Anson's Feed Mill first started in the back garden. 

• The stuccoed houses were a speculative venture by William Danby, so they were the first new Georgian buildings developed on the square. 

• The King's Head was always Lightfoot's Pub; Lightfoot's Brewery was where Black Sheep Brewery now is.

8. CHAPMAN LANE

• Chapman Lane is the first part of an old drover’s road to Kettlewell. A chapman was a medieval travelling peddler. The route out of town was cut off in the 1950s when Maple Creek was built.

• The Victorian Gothic almshouses were provided by Mrs. Danby-Harcourt in 1853 and continue to provide homes for Masham’s elderly.

• The cottage on the corner of Chapman Lane is now two houses but was originally – thought to be where Ibbetson lived. His painting of his family in the house shows a big stone fireplace with overhanging lintel and corbels which is still there today. He used to put his latest painting in the window to get the reaction of passers-by. 

• Beckwith House was a pub at one time. Hanging by a wire is one of the Masham swifts by Michael Kusz. Some say it is flying the wrong way. 

9. METHODIST CHAPEL

• The Methodist Chapel (1890) was the third and grandest Methodist church built in Masham, which was a centre of non-conformism. 

• According to its English heritage Grade II listing “This late-nineteenth century Methodist chapel is of special architectural interest. Designed in a contemporary Classical style, it is little altered externally and retains its original fixtures and fittings in an impressive, well-preserved interior.”

• At one time there was also a Quaker Meeting House in Quaker Lane, the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Silver Street and the former Baptist Chapel on Thorpe Road (1828), now in residential use. 

• Opposite the Baptist Chapel was St Columba’s Roman Catholic Church housed in a timber and corrugated iron building that was used from 1910 to 2002. The building may have been one of those originally erected for the navvies up at Breary Banks.

• In the lovely garden you can see another swift sculpture, this one carved in stone by Gaynor Pearson.

10. PARK STREET

• Park Street is the old road to Ripon. Park Square was probably Masham’s first marketplace and Park House its medieval manor house. 

• It was the home of John de Wauton who was granted Masham’s first market charter by Henry III in 1250.

• The building of the 1856 Riddell Memorial Mechanics’ Institute was an enlightened attempt to introduce the working classes to reading and study, and as an alternative to the local ale houses.

• Trinity College granted the land and £20, with the final cost of £736 being met by donations, including £275 raised by Mrs. Danby Harcourt’s “Fancy Fair and Bazaar” held at Swinton Park on 9th July 1856 which was “honoured by a very large and fashionable assemblage, numbering about 1500.”

 

11. OUTSIDE ROGERS BUTCHERS SHOP

• The building on Church Street with the long lintel is the former mill where I'Ansons animal feed business had its beginnings. During the 1970s it was a petrol station selling ICI Petrol for 35.5p a gallon (8p a litre).

• In College Lane stands College House, once the Prebendal Manor House and home to the Old Peculier Court. 

• The Prebend of Masham was once the richest of all the prebends held by York Minster and is still referred to as ‘the golden prebend’. To be appointed prebend holder was akin to winning the lottery every year! 

• The Prebendal Manor House of Masham dates from 1158 and one of only 30 or so properties in England that old that are still in private hands (English Heritage).

• Tradition has it that Cardinal Wolsey, when making his ostentatious ‘Progresses’ into the North was lodged and entertained in the old Courthouse.

• As a Peculier, Masham was one of the few parishes in the country that could make and implement its own local laws.

The Peculier Court of Masham

• William the Conqueror gave the lands and estates of Mashamshire to Nigel de Albini (one of his captains) who had ‘laid waste’ to this part of the country after 1066. They passed to Nigel’s son, Roger de Mowbray, a knight at the Battle of Standard in 1138 with victory over the invading Scottish Army and in the Holy Lands fighting in the Crusades, where he was captured by Saladin and held to ransom for seven years, redeemed by the Knights Templar.  In gratitude he donated the ‘living of the prebend of Masham’ to the Cathedral of St Peter in York (York Minster).

• The journey from York to Masham was both arduous and dangerous, so the Archbishop of York established the Peculier Court of Masham (Peculier is a Norman-French word meaning particular). The chairman of this court is known as the Official and he has a special seal to mark the court’s approval or decision.

• The Court had a great deal of local power, and the following are some of the offences dealt with: Not coming to church enough; Keeping a hat on at communion; For bidding the church wardens to do their worst on being asked to go to church; Not bringing their children to be baptised; Husband and wife living apart; Drunkenness; Swearing; Fornication; For brawling and scolding; For harbouring Roman Catholic priests; For carrying a dead man’s skull out of the churchyard and laying it under the head of a person to charm them to sleep.

• The Peculier lives on in Masham in the form of the ‘Masham Four and Twenty’, a Peculier Court which now functions mainly to aid charitable causes, and, of course, in one of Masham’s famous ales.

12. SILVER STREET

• The large Georgian Townhouse that was chopped in half to build Masham’s Primitive Methodist Church was the Hardcastle Mansion. Originally it was a symmetrical 5-bay house with a front garden path to two gateposts, now on the other side of the street.

• Silver Street was built on a bridge in about 1800. With access under the arches supporting the road it is possible to see the original ground floor of old house fronts abandoned since the 18th century.

• The Black Bull Hotel (now Corks & Cases) is the site of Theakston’s first brewery. It is rumoured that Theakston’s Brewery won ownership of the earlier Lightfoot brewery in a card game! The big cellars underneath it probably built when the road was elevated for extra storage. Beer barrels could be rolled along an underground passage into the cellar.

• Peacock & Verity also has a cellar fronting on to the old street level. It is an old bakery and café currently being restored by a trust to provide affordable housing above an Edwardian Café and Victorian Grocer’s shop with a Post Office Counter. The old ovens will hopefully provide fresh baked bread and cakes.

13. WHITE BEAR MEMORIAL

• On the night of April 16, 1941, more than 100 German bombers targeted UK ports, including Liverpool, but one Heinkel found itself over Masham with one of its engines on fire.

• Its five-man crew shovelled a couple of parachute mines out of the plane before it crashed into a bridge at Huby, near York. The crew survived and were captured.

• The ‘bombs’ fell near the old White Bear Hotel on Leyburn Road facing Silver Street. Four locals and two servicemen in adjoining cottages were killed.

• The damage extended as far as St Mary’s Church which had a window blown out by the blast.

• The White Bear Pub was then relocated into ‘workers’ cottages’ owned by Lightfoot Brewery, having been sold to Theakston’s (or won in a game of cards?).

• Although there is a stuffed polar bear still in the bar, the name most probably comes from the 40-gun Tudor HMS White Bear built in 1586 and decommissioned in 1629 when it was sold to a breaker in Hull who supplied timbers for a number of Yorkshire Pubs, including the White Bear in Bedale and The Old White Beare near Halifax.

14. THE JUBILEE MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN

• The fountain was erected in 1887 to mark the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It was built over an existing natural spring which was probably already supplying drinking water for both people and animals.

• According to a second inscription, 'In the summer of 1941 this country faced the threat of invasion by the forces of Nazi Germany. The words 'OF MASHAMSHIRE' were removed from the fountain by order of the Government so as to hinder any invading force’.

• After the war the German’s were found to have been in possession of extremely detailed and accurate maps, including one of Masham. Defacing the fountain’s inscription would not have held up the invading army!

• This marks the end of our tour – I hope you have enjoyed it and learned something new about our little town.