1. A Garage in Low Way
which used to be a cottage.
2. A Dame School once
occupied Brook House.
3. Two cottages below
the "White Swan".
4. This building was
used as the Preparatory School for Bramham College and later made into four cottages. It is now one private bungalow.
5. This building sited
between "Undercliff" and the cottage next door, was originally a religious meeting house. It was later used as a Reading Room
downstairs from which a lovely metal spiral staircase led to a Billiard's Room upstairs. It
was used as the Conservative Club and also as a Coroner's Court. Mr Blackburn wanted it to become an ex‑servicemen's club, but it was pulled down by Bramham Park Estate in 1952.
6. Four cottages used to
stand where a modern bungalow is now; they were demolished in 1941. Behind .them was another small cottage and various
outbuildings and stables, also demolished.
7. On the left stood two
cottages known as "Rose Cottages". From one a Mrs Storey sold sweets and vegetables.
8. A brick cottage stood
here lived in by the gardener at Bramham Old Hall.
9. Now a garage on
Vicarage Lane, next to a barn, this used to be a small cottage.
10. Barns belonging to
Manor Farm stood here.
11. Off the Aberford Road
and behind the Manor House a thatched cottage known as “Codling Hall" was situated. This was probably a joke name as it
was said to be very dilapidated.
12. In Back Street there
was a row of cottages where the Old Folks bungalows now stand.
13. More cottages stood
here before demolition.
14.
Two single storey cottages stood here replaced now by a modern house. For
several years the building
was used as the meeting place for Bramham Girl Guides
15. A hut used as the
Bramham Scouts Headquarters stood here.
16. A cottage on Tenter
Hill was pulled down to make way for the first by‑pass. Mr Thompson had a small‑holding there, and his mother took in washing
and dried it in the field opposite.
17.
On the High Street
there was a butcher's owned by Mr Cass behind which were large sheds used as slaughter‑houses. The business was later owned by
Mr Kendall and relocated at the bottom of Tenter Hill in 1951.
18. Miss Bradley ran a
remnant shop from her cottage on Town Hill.
19. Opposite the old Post
Office on Town Hill, and still there but disused, is what used to be a tailor's shop where the tailor, Mr Middleton, could be
seen through the window sitting cross‑legged and stitching away. It was then used as a
cake shop owned by Mr and Mrs Middleton. They lived up Almshouse Hill, did all the
baking at home and took the cakes down to the shop. Mrs Middleton had an old pram which she
filled with cakes and took up to Bramham Park selling them to people who worked on the
Estate. The shop was later used by a cobbler.
20. Just below the corner
shop a Mrs Bennett had a sweet shop in her house.
21. Mr Ryle had a
wallpaper and paint shop in Low Way and before that ran his business from premises on Church Hill.
22. Still standing but
derelict at the time of writing, this building used to be a fish and chip
shop. It was owned by Messrs Rhodes, Outton, Benson and Parsons
and later sold fruit, vegetables and wet fish.
23. On Tenter Hill was a cobbler's owned by Mr Good then Mr Spink.
24 & 25. On Back Street Mr
Richardson and Mr Reynolds both had coal businesses. On the back of Mr Reynolds' wagon was the following: Mr Reynolds' father drove a donkey cart and sold yeast around the villages including Aberford.
26. Mr Ridsdale had a
cobbler's shop on Almshouse Hill.
27. At the top of Vicarage
Lane is a cottage previously named Myrtle Cottage. Mr Harrison who used to make and mend pots and pans lived there. His
brother, who lived in one of the houses next to the brickyards, used to travel around
selling them. The cottage was then modernised in 1950 by Mr Waddington, a local builder.
28. A wood yard opened
here in 1960. Before that it was the site of the village tip.
29. There was a gas works
on what was the Great North Road. It was closed in the late 1920's. The cottage that went with the gas works remained and
became in the 1930's a transport cafe and taxi business owned by Mr Dick Taylor. The
children from the village school who were entitled to free meals went to the cafe at lunch
time and all sat round one big table. As there was no running water at the cafe, the owner had to
carry water obtained from the house opposite. The cafe was pulled down to make way for
the first by‑pass.
30. Below "Undercliff" was
a building known as the Old Blacksmith's Shop and Band Room ‑ though no one in living memory remembers a band.
Above this, up a flight of stone steps, lived Mr Bingham. He was a drover who hired
himself out to farmers to drive home from market the livestock they had bought.
31. The Royal Oak ‑this
public house was in the first house in Back Street on the left off Tenter Hill.
32. Mr Chambers had a
joinery and undertaking business on the Aberford Road.
33. The Wood family ran an
undertaking and joinery business for 150 years.
34. A business owned by
Pullens coach builders on Low Way.
35. A pottery was situated
just behind the Old School.
36. Near to the pottery
was an old Smithy.
37. The
Almshouse ‑ Up Almshouse hill is the site of a medieval almshouse, endowed during the fifteenth century by Edward Mauleverer, a
gentleman of Bardsey with interests in Bramham. Though we have no record of where precisely the
building stood, a piece of land, surrounded by old walls, is still owned by the village.
At his death in 1494, Edward
Mauleverer gave an annuity of seven shillings for its
future maintenance, stipulating in his will that the funding should
provide for prayers to be said for his soul, fuel for heating, and lodging for old folk, travellers held up by bad weather,
and the sick ‑ but "not for every vagabond who is roaming about". These latter were a
particular nuisance in England throughout the medieval and later periods, as villagers
were displaced from their homes and livelihoods by the enclosure of land, and soldiers were
constantly returning from battle.
38. Mr
Jack Norman kept a barber's shop on the corner of Back Street and the Wetherby Road
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