Bramham - Snippets

... before the First World War the village cricket ground was where Lyndon Square now stands and the pavilion was in a corner of the field. From the 1920's to the 1980's the village team was allowed to use the pitch in front of Bramham Park (now the main ring at the Horse Trials) , it then played on the pitch at Bowcliffe Hall and in 1993 moved to a new ground off Clifford Moor Road. Also for a short time after the second World War there was a pitch opposite the windmill..

...before the First World War there used to be piles of rough rock lying at intervals along the Great North Road. Men, with a type of mallet, were employed to break up these rocks and and to fill any holes made by vehicles using the road...

...Mr Buxton came to the village from Tadcaster selling pots and pans and his sister came with parcels of basic clothing such as aprons, underwear and household linen...

...HMS Bramham, a Hunt Class destroyer adopted by the village in March 1942 saw service with Atlantic convoys and in the Mediterranean...

...fresh fish was taken round in a cart by Mr.Thompson and his son Claude; their cart was stored in the barn still on Vicarage Lane...

....during the Second World War there was a prisoner of war camp in Black Fen in Bramham Park. Some of the White Russian prisoners there used to come and give concerts in the Village Hall. Others used to try to persuade villagers to go into the public houses and off-licences to buy drink for them. They were willing to pay were not allowed to enter these premises themselves.
Some of the men used to make wooden moblie toys which they sold...

...the three coaching inns in the Square each had a building in their yards where the stage coaches were kept overnight. The coachmen slept in a room above known as a bothy...

...there were several quarries in Bramham, including a sand quarry near the brickyards and a limestone quarry on Clifford Lane. During the Second World War sand was taken by lorry to Hull and used to fill sand bags, while limestone was used to help build runways at Headley and Tockwith aerodromes. Later the quarries were playgrounds for local children....

....Mr Jo Woodruffe who lived in the 'Gas House' had a fox which he took for walks around the village on a lead...

... the base for the Home Guard during the Second World War was the village hall....

...Mr Harry Sanderson was at one time the grave‑digger at the church. In 1958 he found a twelfth century carved stone in the churchyard. It is now in a York museum. He worked on the Grimston Park Estate and caught over 500, 000 rabbits during his working life. He held the record for 27 years for catching the most rabbits (11,000) in nine weeks. He used to set 150 traps a day. In his opinion the old gin traps were more humane than the newer types of trap...

. . . there was a tradition in the village that when someone died the church bell was tolled; the number of times denoted whether it was a man, woman or child. This was discontinued at the start of the Second World War as the sounding of the bell was a signal of invasion...

... near New York Farm, on the Toulston Road, was Morris's bee-farm. Until closed in the mid-1980's this produced widely advertised Bramham Honey and Bramham Mead, as well as selling eggs and other produce...

.... Mr Spider Cass and then Mr John Miles Skinner were the night soil collectors in the village for many years....

... every year between about 1920 and 1930 an Annual Sports Day Event was held on the `The Croft', a field behind the Old Smithy on the Aberford Road. It was held on Whit Monday and Tuesday and was organised by a sports committee. The prizes were bought from Fattorini's and if you won a prize you could keep it or take it to Fattorini's for cash...

... during the Second World War a travelling theatre (ENSA) used to visit the village, and a weekly cinema was held on a Thursday in the village hall. A travelling circus used to visit the village before the Second World War, setting up in the field at the corner of Toulston Lane and Windmill Road. A travelling fairground came twice a year and set up in the wood yard...

. . . a "Penny Bank" used a room once a week in a cottage on Bowcliffe Hill. The Midland Bank used a room in `Rockleigh' on the Square, also once a week...

.... Mrs Dickinson and Mrs Robinson during the Second World War used to walk to Bramham Cross Roads every night to put shades over the traffic lights ...

... Miss Holmes was a dressmaker working from Windmill House , and she had several village girls as apprentices....

. . . Bramham sits on top of an underground lake which formerly supplied the village, and as far afield as South Wetherby, Collingham, Linton, Clifford and part of Boston  Spa. It also added to Bardsey reservoir. Four one‑hundred foot deep boreholes  (opened in 1937, the 1960's and 1974/9) drew up a hard, limestone water which was softened and sterilised at the control building at Clifford Road (the site of the Doctors' surgery). Around 1980 the fourth borehole became polluted, probably by sewerage from a leaking pipe, causing considerable sickness in the village. Some small amounts of compensation were paid, and the whole system closed down, with Bramham's  water linked to the Leeds system via Bardsey and Thorner...

... in the late 1930's some young men of the village formed a jazz band and played at venues around the area. The drummer wore a tiger skin given by Lord Bingley for a jumble sale. The head had been cut off as it frightened the mother of the young men...

... an ambulance station was built on the site of the stables and garages belonging to Bramham House. It was opened about 1948 and is still operational...

.... Bramham has always had a sporting history, but few know it produced the swiftest runner in England of his day, Levi Whitehead, who ran four miles in nineteen minutes. Even at age 96 he is recorded as having walked four miles in an hour. Levi died, aged 100, in 1797...

... Newton Kyme was the nearest railway station so that all goods, etc, had to be collected from there. In the 1920's for half a crown (121/2p) you could go on the train to Bridlington and back for the evening. To reach the station people would walk along Heygate...

.... in 1952 the village was equipped with electric street lighting. Before that there were two gas lamps, plus third 'courtesy' lamp near the village hall ....