Lost hamlet of Lodge
Lodge is a former medieval grange farm for the Cistercian Abbey of Byland that was sold into private ownership following the dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-16th century. The settlement is recorded on Saxton’s map of 1577 as ‘Lodge howses’, and appears on Ordnance Survey maps from the mid-18th century onwards. It was continually occupied up to abandonment in the 1920s.
It has not been modified since abandonment and is a typical upland settlement from the 17th century made up of five building complexes based on the traditional Yorkshire longhouse of domestic accommodation at one end and livestock at the other. Currently buildings are visible as footprints with several courses of stone work still standing. A survey of the settlement was carried out in 2011 and the report can be downloaded from the Resources section.
Historical records from the 17th century onwards reveal some of the inhabitants of Lodge. Speight’s 1894 book entitled ‘Nidderdale and the garden of the Nidd: A Yorkshire Rhineland’ notes two wills of Lodge inhabitants: ‘in 1623 “Thomas Smith, of Lodge, in Netherdale,” bequeaths his property to his son, “named after my own name.’ Ann Horner, of Lodge, by will dated 1656, gave Mr Smith, minister of the chapel at Middlesmoor, 40s., also 10s to be paid yearly for ever to the poor within the said chapelry ; likewise 8s. to be paid yearly for ever towards the hiring and maintenance of a preaching minister at Middlesmoor Chapel.’