The Grand Houses of Bramham (cont)
Bowcliffe Hall
Begun in 1805 by William Robinson, a Manchester cotton magnet, and sold soon afterwards, on his bankruptcy, for £2,000 at public auction. The house was completed around 1825 for John Smyth, before coming the residence of the Lane Fox family during the period 1841-1906, after the disastrous fire at Bramham Park. Subsequently it was owned by Mr W G Jackson from 1908 and Mr Robert Blackburn, the early aviation pioneer and manufacturer from 1920 until 1945.
He was chairman of Blackburn Aircraft Ltd, and founder of the flag school at Brough for the training of officers of the Air Reserve. In 1912 he built a one-seater two-engine plane.
He was also the owner of a plane which won the "War of the Air Trophy" presented by the Yorkshire Evening Post. The fuel companies Hargreaves and Bayfords have used the house as offices since 1956.
Hope Hall
At one time a home of Sir Thomas Fairfax, of Civil War fame, in the 1640's this was owned by the Reverend J Troutbeck and much later by the Postmaster of Tadcaster, Mr Marshall. From 1852 it was the sporting seat of Viscount Nevill, though owned by the Bramham Park Estate. Latterly the Bramham Moor Hunt Kennels were installed, and the house turned into flats for estate personnel.
Beech House
Formerly Beech Grove, owned by Mr George Wright, Beech House, with its annexe, became the Estate Office of the Bramham Park Estate, under its clerk, Mr Benson. Here lived Mr. Wagstaff, the General Foreman Mason, a very considerable man, brought from Birmingham to supervise the re-building of the Park before its re-opening in 1907.
Bramham House
Was built by a Vicar of Bramham, Rev Robert Bownas, in 1806, and later bought by James Lane Fox for his son, George the Gambler, on his marriage. His son, George the Squire, sold it in 1856 (when he was trying to settle the debts his father had left) to J R Gregson Esq. It was then sold to a Captain Preston who in turn sold it to a Mr C S Robson at about the turn of this century. Just before 1914 it was sold to Major Ingham and d later to G T Ramsden of Ramsden's Brewery. In 1947/8 it was sold to the West Riding Council who used it as a Children's Home until it was closed in the late 1980's.
Bramham Grange
Nestling beneath the Al by-pass on Tenter Hill, the Grange was a house of very considerable proportions lived in by various members of the gentry, and owned by the Bramham Park Estate who split it into its present three dwellings.
The Manor House
At the top of High Street, was built in the early nineteenth century as a farmhouse. It is said to have a secret passageway running down to the church. This is one of Bramham's two haunted houses! In living memory W Hick Thackwray, a mineral water manufacturer, lived there, but, on his death, the house was bought by Bramham Park Estate, and converted into two dwellings.
Wothersome Grange
On the site of an ancient Anglo-Saxon settlement to the west of the village, 'Squire George' Lane Fox built one of four identical houses for his children during the second half of the nineteenth century. The other three houses lie at Terry Lug (at the northern entrance to the Estate), Clifford Moor (on the Al about half a mile north of the village) and between Walton and Wighill.
Bramham Lodge
An early nineteenth century house, originally part of the Headley Estate, was lived in by a Mr Bigland, then the Wright family, and then J H Whittaker. Bramham Park Estate bought it and it was lived in by Mr Edmund Harrison, their steward. It became the home of Major Lipscombe, who was Estate Manager to the Lane Fox family, before going into private ownership in the late 1960's.
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