Boroughbridge History Revealed

In February 2014 lottery funding was granted to a Boroughbridge society to investigate the area where one of its members grew up. What did the grant turn up?

Last year On Your Doorstep reported that the Boroughbridge and District Historical Society had been awarded a grant of £10,000 by the Lottery Heritage Fund. This money was earmarked to launch the Dog Kennel Lane Project and research the countryside around a mysterious mound that long-term David Barley, a long-term resident of Langthorpe, remembered from his childhood.

At around 120 years long and 30 years wide, the mound was located on farmland adjacent to the Newby Hall estate, bounded by the A1(M) to the east and Langthorpe to the south, but it has long since disappeared. “I remember my brother sledging down the bank and rolling Easter eggs down it when I was a youngster,” David said, “but the farmer bulldozed the lot at some point in the 1970s.”

“We have staged nearly 50 events and visited several historic places.”

It’s well documented that there were settlements in the area dating from pre-Roman times as the Devil’s Arrows are very close to Langthorpe. Knowing this gave David and local archaeologist Kevin Cale the confidence to apply for their lottery grant. In conjunction with Boroughbridge District Historical Society, they embarked on organizing a year-long programme of field walks, historical outings and special talks to meet the various provisos set out by the Lottery Heritage Fund. Activities have included geology and archaeology workshops, field walks searching for ancient relics and wildlife walks involving children from local primary school.

“It’s been a busy year; we have staged nearly 50 events and visited several historic places like Ripley Castle and the Bar Convent in York, which both have strong historical connections with the area we have been investigating,” explains David.

Field walks and augering (taking slender cores out of the soil to discover what lies hidden below the ground) have turned up some remarkable finds, including a series of flint Stone Age tools, as-yet-unidentified coins, buttons from Austrian military uniforms dating from World War Two and most importantly signs of remains of a Roman fort outside the village of Roecliffe. Another significant discovery was a round stone quern, used in Neolithic times to grind cereal.

Now coming to an end, the Dog Kennel Lane Project is happily set to have a permanent legacy in Langthorpe. A circular heritage walk is to be set up taking in the all the main sites involved in the project. Starting off in Dog Kennel Lane, the walk will cross farmland close to the site of the former mound, pass several Tudor and Victorian farmhouses, at one point follow a permissive track across Newby Hall land and lead through the pretty village of Skelton-on-Ure. Highlights along the peaceful, rural route include passing the site of the dog kennels that gave the project its name and the Victorian church of Christ the Consoler in Skelton.

With a length of around four miles, the walk will be officially launched on Sunday 24 May at the Coronation Hall in Langthorpe. An official plaque to mark the start of the route will also be unveiled at the launch, along with an official brochure showing the historical and archaeological highlights along the way. This will be available in Boroughbridge Tourist Office in 1 Hall Square, along with other leaflets in the ‘Ure Walks Through Time’ series.

And what of the mound that David remembers from his childhood? Although it undoubtedly has ancient – possibly neolithic – roots, little is known about its original purpose. One theory that is widely accepted today is that it was used as a military camp by General Wade, who was the commander-in-chief of the British army and who failed to arrest the southwards march of Scottish troops during the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745.