Village of the Week: Hauntings, history and school registers from Appletreewick

The picturesque houses, some of which date from the 12th century with interesting architecture, mostly overlook the only through road, and are set on the hillside above the river with dramatic long distance views over the Dale with the fells in the background There’s even a classic British red telephone box.

However, it also has hauntings, history and some wonderful snapshots into real local life in the 1800s.

Overlooking the River Wharfe, Appletreewick - even though its parish also takes in the hamlet of Skyreholme and the village of Greenhow, where the grandfather of the writer Rudyard Kipling happened to be the Methodist minister - has a population that is probably little more than 200. The 2011 census had it at 218 but people come and go.

There are still locals that have lived here, married here, had children here who have gone to school here and made a living here but they fear for the future of the village as Appletreewick, like many other villages in the Yorkshire Dales has seen young, local people priced out and holiday home owners move in.

Even High Hall, a grade II listed Tudor property which was restored by Sir William Craven, the Lord Mayor of London in 1610, is a holiday home and there are no houses currently for sale, according to property website, Rightmove.

Just as an aside, its opposite in the village, Low Hall had reports during the 18th century of unearthly groans that would knock ornaments from their stands. Witnesses said noises came from underground. The disturbance was finally exorcised and the noise stopped. To date no explanation can be made.

The last property sold in the village was July 2022 when a semi-detached cottage went for £432,000, a 61 per cent increase in its previous sale price of £268,000 in 2018.

The nearest property listed for sale is around three miles away at Hebden and is an end terrace which is on the market for the first time in 37 years and priced at £599,950.

However, there is still a real passion for village life here.

There are cricket facilities, working farms, a campsite, parish council and what country village would be complete without a country pub.

David Aynesworth has been the landlord at The Craven Arms for a good 15 years or more now and took what is now the quite unusual step of ‘unmodernising’ the pub.

The Craven Arms dates back to the 16th century when it started life as a farmhouse. It kind of evolved into a pub over time. Farmers would sell ale from a kitchen window to supplement their income, then rooms became available, then it was available for a horse and coach stop and then it started to serve food.

However, between then and Mr Aynesworth taking on the pub there had been attempts to modernise The Craven Arms but, much to the delight of locals and regulars, it has been restored as an old-fashioned country pub.

There was never any planning permission, it just happened to become a pub and it is still gas lit today as it was in the first half of the 20th century.

Early records and registers show that there were, in addition to farming, many occupations in the village including blacksmiths, cobblers, weavers, tailors, schoolteachers, innkeepers, corn millers, carters, and miners.

Named in the Doomsday Book, the village flourished during the early part of the 14th century and was a key market location as well as an area for lead mining.

The old dialectal pronunciation of the village name is a shortened 'Ap-trick', which is sometimes still heard being used by the locals.

According to “The Yorkshire Dales”, a local website with visitor information, the Appletreewick lead mines, long abandoned, were a major source of employment in the area. Records show that there were 72 miners in 1865 and indeed many of the houses would not exist had it not been for lead mining.

The mines became uneconomical when cheap imports of lead started coming in from abroad. This closed all the mines in the dales, and often the villages became ghost villages due to the lack of employment.

The village was also well known for its annual Onion Fair, with a major trade in onions but also horse dealing, livestock dealing, and general produce.

A lane in the village is still known as Onion Lane and it is recorded that once a fight broke out at the fair between the feuding families of the Lord Clifford’s of Skipton Castle and the Nortons of Rylstone Manor.

There was historically a school at Appletreewick until the 1960s and the Airedale and Wharfedale Family History Society has some charming snippets from the Appletreewick Skyreholme Day School Logbook Extracts 1878 to 1880.

January 8, 1878: “Sent to enquire why Hannah A Whitford was away from school this afternoon and received word that her mother was going to keep her away half-day and send her to school the other half. She is 11 years of age and has no work other than what her mother finds her to do at home.”

April 4, 1878: “Sent to enquire the cause of absence of Bessy Whitford when a message came back that “I had no business to send after her at all.”

In 1880 the school, probably not unique in this either was beset by sickness.

On February 13 there were a number of children off due to chicken pox being prevalent in the district. On March 5 it was noted that attendance was poor due to measles, by March 12 it was measles and scarletina.

On March 26 the entry was, “Attendance worse, more children ill”. The school was closed for the week a week later.