Index:
30 Ramsgill house, barn and
premises
31 Ramsgill cottage and garden
10 Low pasture
15 Road
16 High meadow
32 New field
38 Intake
39 Intake
Notes:
1. Beyond low pasture (on the north side of the main road) there was also part
of a small wood which belonged to the farm.
2. Ramsgill house (alongside Ramsgill beck) has evidently since been
demolished, and the barn is now a house called Oak tree barn.
3. Ramsgill cottage remains but has been extended on the east side. This
probably belonged to "Woodhouse" rather than "Ramsgill".
4. William Greenwood owned Netherwood House (26) and fields 17, 17a, 20, 21,
22, 23, 24, 26, 27a, 27, 28a, 28, 29 (plantation), 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37.
5. William Bolling Trustees (overseas) owned fields 12, 18, 19, 25 (pig croft),
40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, and the lane (47).
6. The portion of Ramsgill farm land in Ilkley Parish on the east side of
Ramsgill beck was 27 acres whereas the entire farm, which included land in
Addingham Parish on the west side of Ramsgill beck, totalled 45 acres. The
farmland was evidently all grassland apart from the small wood.
7. The Rushworth's are known from Ilkley Parish Church records to have farmed
Ramsgill for at least 3 generations:
i. Thomas Rushworth (or
Rishworth) (1704-1771) [my great5grandfather] was a yeoman (i.e. farm owner)
and carrier of Ramsgill and Little or Lower Woodhouse. He was churchwarden in
1735 and an overseer in 1749. He voted in 1741 as a landowner in Ilkley.
ii. Thomas's son, John
Rushworth (1734-1820) was a yeoman farmer and grazier of Ramsgill, Woodhouse
and/or Crayshaw.
iii. John's son, Thomas
Rushworth (1779-1869) was a yeoman farmer of Ramsgill and/or Crayshaw. In 1838
White's Yorkshire Directory listed him as "of Ramsgill" amongst other
"resident gentelmen and yeomen" including William Greenwood of Nether
Woodhouse. In the 1851 census John Rushworth described himself as
"proprietor of 45 acres", in contrast to the 1861 census where he
described himself as "farmer of 42 acres" with the occupation of
"labourer". It is interesting to note that Thomas's daughter-in-law
was Isabella Holmes, and one wonders if she was a descendant of the John Holmes
who first established Ramsgill from waste land in 1598.
8. According to Collyer and Turner in "Ilkley:Ancient and Modern"
(1885), Woodhouse was sometimes called Crawshay after Richard Crawshay (?-1676)
of Woodhouse. His son Richard (?-1721) was yeoman of Nether Woodhouse, and his
son John (?-1716) was yeoman of Woodhouse. Are Crawshay or Crayshaw, Ramsgill,
Nether (or Little or Lower) Woodhouse and Woodhouse different farm houses in
essentially the one complex and sometimes referred to differently? Kate Mason
says that the present big house at Nether Woodhouse was built in about 1780 by
William Middleton.
Incidentally "Ilkley Ancient and Modern" gives a family tree of the
RUSHWORTHs at page 235, but the Ramsgill Title Deeds show this to be wrong.
Return to Ramsgill Estate Title Deeds.