New House, Bishopdale

Description

New House, Bishopdale MYD34425 (c) YDNPA, 2023

New House is the oldest dated house in Bishopdale. It was built for a farmer named Christopher Clough and his wife Elizabeth. The datestone over the door reads “CEC 1635”. The rubble-stone built farmhouse and outbuildings are all under one roof and the whole may have originally been thatched. The house is two storeys high. There are three ground floor rooms all lit with stone mullion windows. A stone spiral staircase is housed in a turret to the rear that gives the house its T-shaped plan. The staircase leads to three first floor rooms, also with stone mullion windows. The attached two-storey outbuildings were added later. They would have been used to house cattle during the winter and to store fodder in the ancient ‘long house’ tradition.

A Will and Inventory for the Clough’s son Christopher survives from 1674. It shows that the central ground floor hall was used by the family for cooking and eating. Christopher’s bed and sitting-room furniture were in the parlour, with other family beds in the west parlour and upstairs. It was still common to find farmers sleeping in ground floor rooms in their farmhouses up until quite recent times.

Source:

Hartley, Marie & Ingilby, Joan (1991) The Yorkshire Dales. Otley: Smith Settle

Hatcher, Jane (1990) Richmondshire Architecture. Richmond: C J Hatcher