History of Greystones, 43 Station Road, Baildon

Upper Stubbing

One of a row of 8 semi-detached Edwardian houses built to take advantage of the proximity of Baildon Station, Greystones was built in 1908 on part of a field called Upper Stubbing. The term "Stubbing" was often associated with areas of cleared or coppiced woodland.

The earliest known reference to the plot is in a valuation survey of the estates of Robert Stansfield Esq made by a Mr Strothers in May 1755. Along with Stubbing and Spring Gardens, Upper Stubbing was valued at £6 14s annually. It was rented to Sir Thomas Moss. Since its area was 1 acre 3 roods 16 perches (= 8954 sq yds), compared to a later assessment of 11277 sq yds, it must be presumed that its boundaries were drawn differently.

The following year, in a Lease and Release dated 1-2 January 1756, the Esholt estate of Robert Stansfield was sold off and two messuages in Baildon, together with their associated closes or fields, were conveyed to Ann Butler for £2350. Upper Stubbing was among the closes sold. Anne, the widow of Thomas Butler, was a member of an old-established and influential family that lived near the Church and built Butler House.

A few days later, Anne raised a Mortgage on her acquisitions from John and William Perfect of Pontefract.

In a Surrender dated 14 December 1758, the Perfects finally conveyed Upper Stubbing to Anne Butler – presumably she had found the wherewithal to pay off the loan.

Anne Butler was probably still alive when her daughter, also called Anne, married Isaac Hollings in 1768.

Although the Marriage Settlement lists many of the properties that were to be conveyed to Hollings, Upper Stubbing was not mentioned by name. It may not have been included in this particular Settlement or it may have come under the catch-all ‘other messuages, cottages, barns, closes, barns, lands, tenements and hereditaments … situate lying & being in Baildon’.

With the acquisition of the Butler lands, the Hollings family became the largest non-ecclesiastical landowners in Baildon.

Sixty years later, a Lease and Release dated 30 Apr-1 May 1828 listed a number of closes and messuages in Baildon, including Upper Stubbing. The parties were Thomas Hollings and his wife Jane of Manningham, a worsted spinner called George Stansfield of New Laiths in Horsforth, Francis Simes of Bradford and James Ridehalgh (Reddihough?) of Scholefield in Marsden, Lancashire.

The purpose of the conveyance seems to have been to raise a mortgage with the proceeds probably being used to fund the construction of Hollings Mill in Silsbridge Lane, Bradford.

A Mortgage conveyance, dated 20-21 Mar 1829, listed the same closes and messuages, including Upper Stubbing. The parties were Thomas Hollings, George Stansfield and Joseph Hollings (brother of Thomas) of Whetley Hill, Manningham.

On 13-14 April 1841, much of the land between the River Aire and Station Road was offered for sale by auction at the Fleece Inn (aka Golden Fleece, now the Halfway House) on Otley Road.

Lot 8, Upper Stubbing, was said to measure 2 acres 1 rood 12 perches (= 2.33 acres or 11277 sq yds). The land was farmed by William Ives, who occupied the farmstead of Hole (Hoyle) Top, now Ashtead, at the junction of Low Baildon Road and the lane leading to the future railway station. He was listed at Hole Top in the 1841 census and on Low Baildon Road (probably at the same place) in 1851.

Alongside the auction notice was another for land, buildings and industrial premises in Bradford and Manningham. Among the lots were several occupied by Thomas Hollings: his mansion house in Toller Lane, Manningham, the family's Mill in Silsbridge Lane and a valuable plot of land in Kirkgate. It is known that by the 1840s the Hollings businesses were failing and it is likely that the brothers were selling property to raise money.

Anne Lambert was the successful bidder for Upper Stubbing. A Release dated 4 September 1841 confirmed this. However, the fifth and last partner in the deal was Thomas Hollings himself, suggesting that he retained an interest in the field.

Anne Lambert, a daughter of William Holden, had married John Lambert in 1809. Her grandfather Robert Holden built Baildon House in 1724. Immediately to the east of Baildon House was a wayside inn called the Leather Breeches, the future site of Baildon Lodge, which is now (2020) called Grange Court. When John Lambert died in 1824 he is thought to have bequeathed Baildon House to his eldest daughter Margaret and Baildon Lodge to Caroline Anne, who was born in 1813.

Although the Holden family owned much of the land that extended from the gates of the future Beech Mount down to the River Aire, Upper Stubbing was actually part of the Stansfield estate until it was bought by Anne Butler and passed to the Hollings family after her daughter's marriage to Isaac Hollings.

In 1845, when the Baildon Tithe Map was published, most of the plots advertised in the Bradford Observer were still recorded in the ownership of the Hollings family. The exception was Upper Stubbing: the Map assigned ownership to Anne Lambert of Baildon.
On the Tithe Map, Upper Stubbing was a rectangular field just south of the old road to Esholt, the so-called Low Baildon Road; it extended from the junction with Slaughter Lane, now Kirklands Road, to a point opposite the western boundary wall of Langley House. Its 2 acres and 1 rood were assessed as arable land with a charge of 5s 2d due to the Improprietors. Along with the adjacent fields of Lower Stubbing, Near and Far Ing, Succour Leys and Broad Flat, it was still being farmed by William Ives. These fields were in the ownership of the Hollings family while the owner of Upper Stubbing (as well as of Baildon House and Baildon Lodge) was recorded as Anne Lambert.

The Tithe Map shows that not all of Upper Stubbing was arable land. Almost ½ acre at the western end was represented as woodland - around 1816 this corner had been planted with trees and flowers by John Lambert and became known as the Plantation. The planting was controversial and Lambert had to gain local approval for his scheme.

In an Indenture dated 2 August 1849, Thomas Hollings and his brother Isaac Butler Hollings of Toller Lane House conveyed a number of properties in Horton, Manningham and Baildon to a Greenwood Bentley of Bradford. The family's Toller Lane property was part of the transaction, suggesting that the mansion had not been sold at the 1841 auction. Upper Stubbing was also included in the deed, confirming the impression that Thomas Hollings had retained an interest after the 1841 auction. The fact that Mr Bentley, who was a solicitor, paid only 10/- for the transaction suggests that it was a nominal one - the concluding formality in a complex legal process instituted, perhaps, by Anne Lambert.

In an Indenture dated 24 Aug 1852, the entire Upper Stubbing field measured 2 acres 1 rood 12 perches or 11277 sq yds (it was given as 10270 sq yds in an Indenture of 5 March 1907). The plot that would later contain the 8 semi-detached houses (of which Greystones is one) measured 5451½ sq yds in the 1907 document. The four east-most properties – Greystones, One Oak, Auldstead and Holmelea together measured 2839 sq yds.

The document referred to an earlier Indenture, which has not been found, written on 22 April 1850. Parties with an interest were Anna Jane Meeke (who owned large amounts of land in Baildon), William Schofield, William Maud and Caroline Anne Lambert. No other details were given.

On 25 August 1852, Caroline Anne Lambert married Dr Thomas Lockley. A medical doctor from York, he was listed in the Bradford Observer of 16 April 1863 as Thomas Lockley MD, a member of Major Fawkes’s Committee, living in Baildon Lodge and a magistrate at Leeds Court House. On the previous day, 24 August, the couple were party to an Indenture which conveyed Upper Stubbing to Richard Paul Amphlett (probably Caroline Anne’s cousin by marriage) and James Browne, a local merchant. The Hon Sir Richard Paul Amphlett was, by 1877, a Baron of the Exchequer Division of the High Court of Justice and had an address in Wimpole St, London.

Caroline Anne Lambert was seized of the messuages, lands and hereditaments… intended to be thereby granted and conveyed for an estate of freehold & inheritance in fee simple … Did grant bargain sell and convey unto Richard Paul Amphlett & James Browne:

All that close of land situate in Baildon called Upper Stubbing lately occupied by William Ives (a farmer) amounting to 2 acres 1 rood 12 perches.

But despite this conveyance, Caroline Anne Lockley appears to have retained certain rights in the property.

This was probably because it was held in trust for her by Messrs Amphlett and Browne as a means of circumventing the law of coverture:

To hold the same unto the said Richard Paul Amphlett & James Browne & their heirs To the uses nevertheless & upon the trusts thereinafter declared concerning the same, that was to say

To the use of the said Caroline Anne Lambert & her heirs until the solemnization thereof To the several uses therein parlarly mentioned & expressed.

Provo that is should be lawful for the said Caroline Anne Lambert either during or after her said intimated coverture (to be executed by her during the said intimated coverture but not otherwise) by any Deed or Deeds with the consent & approbation of the said trustees of by her last will or codicil thereto to subject or charge the Messuages Lands & hereditaments thereinbefore granted with any sum or sums not exceeding in all £2000 for the benefit of herself or any other person or persons whomsoever.

The effect of the conveyance and its provisos appears to have been that Caroline Anne Lockley had the right to raise money – up to the purchase price of £2000 – against the property.

This she did, raising £700, £300 and £1000 between 1852 and 1860. Amphlett appears to have raised some of this money by selling parts of his lands to Titus Salt (whether senior or junior was not specified; the land sold was also not specified).

On 17 November 1874 Caroline Anne Lockley leased Upper Stubbing to Reginald Thompson, a brewer who was the resident of Hollins Hall in 1881. The lease was for 3 years at £200 per annum.

Clearly she was the de facto owner of the land.

Interestingly, the plot was described as a close of land situated near or adjoining a messuage called Kirk Field connecting the Pleasure Ground with the Plantation. The land was occupied by Harry Rouse and amounted to about 4 acres. Harry Rouse may have been a JP who was the occupant of Firby Hall near Northallerton in 1881.

The Pleasure Ground has not yet been identified.

The lease makes it clear that Upper Stubbing (and another plot called Back Pasture) was part of the deal: it gives the areas at 4 acres (for the main plot) and 4 acres and 2 acres, 2 roods for Back Pasture and Upper Stubbing, respectively.

On 24 March 1877 Sir Richard Paul Amphlett agreed, with the consent of Caroline Anne Lockley, to an absolute sale of property to William Midgley (the coal mine owner of Hawthorn House) and Thomas Michael Holmes (a worsted manufacturer of North Parade and Overseer for the Poor in Baildon) for £7000.

The trusts and powers established in 1852 were revoked.

The land involved in the deal comprised:

Upper Stubbing, Kirk Field, Back Pasture, Lower Halliway Banks and Halliway Banks Wood, with its Well.

All these properties, apart from a portion occupied by James Dibb, were tenanted by Reginald Thompson.

Midgley and Holmes were permitted to erect one or more dwelling houses on the site provided they cost not less than £500 each to build. The Lockleys evidently wanted to ensure that any new neighbours of theirs were of the right quality.

Back Pasture was a large field on the opposite side of the Low Baildon Road from Upper Stubbing.

Kirk Field was one of several fields of the same name just to the north-west of Back Pasture.

Halliway Banks and its eponymous Wood and Well were immediately north-east of Back Pasture.

The Well supplied water to Baildon House and Baildon Lodge and filled the trough on the wall at the bottom of Holden Lane. A spectral hound with large glowing red eyes is said to haunt the Well, according to the Hogwarts website.

On 27 February 1878 part of Upper Stubbing itself was sold to John and Benjamin Taylor of Bradford, who were farmers and George Taylor of Bradford, an Innkeeper, for the sum of £817 14s 6d. The area sold amounted to 5451½ sq yds out of a total area of 10270 sq yds. It was bounded by Thomas Hollings’s land on the East, by Jeremiah Ambler’s land on the South and by George W Lupton’s land to the West. This last plot had recently been sold to Lupton by Midgley and Holmes.

The western boundary of Lupton’s land appears to be roughly where the main gate of Struan Lodge is today. The land beyond, to the west, was probably the Plantation and was owned by James Bent. Lupton’s land was later sold to Colonel George Hoffmann, a pork butcher from Eccleshill, whose son Alfred came to occupy Baildon Lodge in 1901.

On Benjamin Taylor’s death in 1883, his one third of the property went to his widow, Sarah Clarkson (she married John Clarkson in Skipton in 1884) and his children Eliza and Hannah. The husbands of Hannah and Eliza, Alfred and George Thompson respectively, got their names on the Deeds at this time – 5 May 1885.

Around the same time, George Taylor sold his third share to John Taylor.

When John Taylor died in 1895, his trustee George Taylor and executor John Whitaker administered the property.

After Whitaker’s death in 1906, George Taylor sold the land to William Isaac Fawcett for £795. It was stated to be part of the plot known as Upper Stubbing and it amounted to 10270 sq yds. This was the plot that included the Lupton / Hoffmann field.

Fawcett conveyed 2839 sq yds of his land to a Thomas Pollard on 5 March 1907 and on 15 June 1907 borrowed £2000 at 5% from him.
Four semi-detached houses were being constructed on the site at the time, presumably by Fawcett.

On the same day, 15 June 1907, the mortgage of £2000 (plus an extra £400) seems to have been transferred to John Kitson Empsall and Herbert Amos Raistrick Wood, who also got the title to the land transferred to them. The interest rate was 5½%, to be repaid in twice yearly instalments. Wood was a solicitor while Empsall was a valuer.

The houses (except Holmelea) were occupied by 21 May 1909 when all four were valued at £3675. The recommended mortgage security was £2400, the amount sought by William Fawcett.

One Oak (aka One Ash) was occupied by A N Smith at a rent of £46 10s 0d.

Greystones was occupied by W H Melhuish at a rent of £45.

Auldstead (aka Putiala) was occupied by Clara Wilkinson at a rent of £40 or £42 per annum.

At some point before 1932, One Oak was sold off separately.

After his first wife died in 1929, William Fawcett married Kate Shepherd in Bradford in 1930.

When he died on 1 June 1933, he left Greystones, Auldstead and Holmelea as well as land known as Fawcett Park and his house “Seeburn” at 25 (now 41) Kirk Drive to his wife Kate. Kate Fawcett, Alfred Craven and Charlie Smith were the Trustees of his estate.

On 30 December 1937, Holmelea was sold to Tom Speet.

On 1 July 1943 Auldstead was sold to John Ronald Burnet, who in 1958 became Yorkshire’s last amateur Captain of Cricket.

On 27 May 1949 Greystones was sold to John Francis Raper.

History of the Kirk Lands of Baildon

[sources: Baildon – a Church History by Philip Baxter 2007

The Story of Baildon by John La Page 1951]

“Baildon” is thought (by Baxter) to refer to a hill (don) of pit diggings.

The Domesday Book of 1086 does not mention any particular village or manor but says Baildon was an area of land belonging to 2 other manors – Bingley, whose overlord was Gospatrick and Otley, under the Archbishops of York. It was described as “waste” but was likely to have been an area of common moorland and woodland (echoed in the present-day names of Roundwood, Woodbottom, the Knoll, Ferniehurst, and Temple Rhydding) interspersed with pasture. Pasture and arable land has a history of ownership; what follows is an attempt to stitch together the evidence of land ownership for a strip of land running south-east from the Parish Church to the River Aire.

The Otley manor included the riverside lands from Woodbottom to Esholt Lane. The Bingley land was the north-western, higher ground from The Bank as far as Eldwick.

By the 1180s, the two manors were unified under the lordship of William de Lelay. The Otley manorial hall was at Nether Hall or Elmfield at Brook Hill on the old road to Otley (now Station Road). The Bingley manor hall was in Westgate. William de Lelay probably received the land from his overlord, William de Percy, who in turn had been gifted them by the Conqueror.

It is not clear how far the original pre-Conquest landowners were able to maintain their influence after 1066. They did, notes Baxter, undertake several legal actions against the de Lelays concerning land ownership. And, it seems, they lost.

The Essulf family, of Anglo-Saxon or Viking origin, held large tracts of Yorkshire before the Conquest, including all the ground between the River Aire from Woodbottom to Esholt and the moor.

Ulf, the father, probably held Esholt.

John Fitzessulf, the eldest son, probably held the western portion from Barnsley Beck to Kirklands Road.

Richard Fitzessulf de Tonge held lands in Bierley (Tong) and Low Baildon, from Roundwood Road to Gill Beck (Tong Park). His son, later known as Hugh de Baildon, probably inherited this property.

Jordan Fitzessulf held the ground from Kirklands Road as far as the track to Idle (Roundwood Road and Buck Lane), land that later became known as Kirklands.

Jordan was a national figure on account of his position as Constable of Wakefield and his central role in a miracle connected with Thomas á Becket. This led to several windows being endowed in Canterbury Cathedral.

According to Baxter, William de Lelay, or his son Hugh, probably transferred his Baildon holdings to a Dame Alice St Quintain of Appleton Roebuck (south of York) in exchange for some of the rich land she owned on the York plain. The outcome of the deal was that Alice acquired the site of Baildon chapel (dedicating it to St John the Evangelist), together with the unenclosed, steep land immediately to the south, and the productive pasture land that slopes down to the River Aire (Kirklands).

After Bannockburn in 1314, the Scots ravaged northern England. In 1318 they are said to have swept through Baildon, burning the chapel and massacring the fleeing villagers in Slaughter Lane (now Kirklands Road). It may be noted, though, that slaughter is an old name for the fruit of the blackthorn – sloe – and is a possible, if less romantic, origin of the word.

The chapel was rebuilt. It survived the Reformation of Henry VIII because it was secular in origin, rather than monastic, and was therefore responsible to constitutional bishops who owed allegiance to the king, rather than the Pope.

In 1535, an Act of Parliament granted Henry a tithe (tenth) of all church income. Baildon’s income from its property was assessed at £4 and its tithe at 8s.

In 1548, however, all property owned by the Church was sequestrated by Edward VI. A close called Kyrke Lande was one of the properties declared by Baildon chapel. Such land was usually leased back to local landowners for 21 years. The new tenant would then sublet the land and donate some of his income back to the chapel. For example, in 1608, William Stead of Hall Garth bequeathed the lease of Netherhall (Elmfield) to his son-in-law.

In 1688 an enclosure Deed set aside 12 acres of land to be enclosed for the benefit of the Minister of the Chapel of Baildon. In so doing, it formalised the practice of endowing the chapel with gifts of land and land rents. The Deed also established a Trust to administer the Chapel lands and to appoint the Minister.

During Queen Anne’s reign, the tithes that Henry had diverted to the Crown were put into a fund and returned to the Church in the form of grants. Local landowners were empowered to enclose portions of common land for the benefit of the Church. In 1719 40 acres of the common land of Baildon was approved for enclosure. Following this, a grant of £200 was agreed by the Governors of Queen Anne’s Bounty to match the enclosure effort of the freeholders. This grant was later used to purchase a farm in Coniston Cold. In this way, the Chapel began to accumulate a substantial portfolio of properties and rents.

The Kirklands endowment was not among the properties specifically listed in a Deed of 1768; but among the yearly rents that were payable out of several lands and tenements in Baildon, the inheritance of William Holden was mentioned.

There was also a mention of two closes of land in Baildon, called the Kirkfield, being transferred to the Trustees.

The sequestrated Kirklands were eventually transferred out of the clutches of the Crown either to the Trustees or into private ownership. There are no details of how this was accomplished.

It may be surmised, however, that William Holden acquired Kirkfields (north of the Idle road) and Kirklands (south of the Idle road). Through marriage, some or all of these lands subsequently came into the possession of the Lambert family.

Baxter says that some of the sequestrated land that “was later re-donated back to the chapel may have been sold off at the construction of the new Otley turnpike road in 1825 and at the construction of the Midland railway to Ilkley and its adjacent railway workers’ cottages in Kirklands Road (built in 1901)”. He notes that “these developments, through Kirklands, may have produced an influx of cash which encouraged the thoughts of chapel-rebuilding in the 1840s and improvements in the 1870s”.

By 1848, the Chapel Trust had become known as the Kirklands Trust, when it appointed Joseph Mitton as Minister.

Timeline

1593	WBAD [William Baildon] was at Netherhall / Elmfield. When his father Robert died in 1599, he moved to Baildon Hall.
1612	John Brook, a tanner from Tong, bought a messuage at Brook Hill and a messuage and croft at Hop Butt from the Lord of the Manor. Samuel Brook also bought a messuage in the same area.
1657	A child called Mercy was born at Hole (Hoyle).
1715	JAL [John & Ann Lambert] were at Netherhall (Elmfield).
1715	The date on the cottage near the future Baildon House.
1718	Thomas and Ann Brook built the house formerly known as Brook Hill Stores.
1724	Robert Holden built Baildon House.
1740/50	Crowtrees was constructed – 3 cottages for weavers. [In the 1940s, after the school closed, Hermann and Ivy Bateson lodged there while The Borrins was renovated.]
1765	Brook House was constructed.
1784	Francis & Robert Bolling inherited Kirklands Farm.
1816 1831	John Lambert of Baildon House laid out The Plantation. Brook Hill Estate was sold; John Rhodes bought New Close and The Rocks.
1845/6	Whitelands – 2 fields were owned by Jane Ann Meeke
1851	Hugh Rowling was the farmer at Hole. In 1881 it was listed as 35 acres; the Ambler family now owned the land.
1868	James Bent, husband of Margaret Lambert, was now the occupant of Baildon House
1876	Baildon Railway Station was opened.
1877	Langley House was built by W J Whitehead.
1886	John Reddihough constructed Beech Mount.
1889	Langley Lodge was built by W J Whitehead.
1898	Roundwood Grange was built for John & Alice Ambler.
1899	Woodlands House was built by George Ambler (who formerly lived at Kirklands House).
1908	8 semi-detached houses were built on the Upper Stubbing field, Greystones being one of 4 built for William Fawcett.
1909	The 4 east-most houses were valued at £3675.
1909	Greystones was rented by William Melhuish, Company Secretary to Woolcomber’s Ltd, for £45. By 1917 he had moved to Rushcroft Villas, Baildon and then to Avondale in Shipley.
1912	Hoyle Court was built for Sam Ambler.
1917-1928	Greystones was occupied by George Armstrong, a butter importer. By 1932 he was without his wife. By 1934 he had moved, with his children and female servant, to Cecil Ave in Baildon.
1935	Greystones was rented to John Percival Hoyle Mitton, who was married to Joan Tankard, a niece of James Marsland Tankard, a mill owner who had lived at Bolling Hall, Fairfield Hall and Roundwood Grange.
1938	Low Baildon Road became known as Station Road.
1938	Greystones was occupied by John Leslie Gill, a bank manager.
1949	Greystones was purchased for £3050 by John Francis Edward Raper, a Woolcomber’s Manager and Company Director. He was a first cousin, once removed, of Joan Tankard.