Stephen Moorhouse and Mike Spence

On the first (and perhaps only) warm weekend of the year we assembled in the stout Victorian village hall of Kirkby Malham, with its blazing radiators and fierce notices about the importance of not sleeping upstairs (just a short step from the church with 17th century stocks, metal fish and energetic bell-ringers) for a guided tour through time and space of the "twin villages" of Malham a mile or so to the north.

First Mike Spence talked on "Documentary evidence for the layout of the township of Malham". A documentary enthusiast he was careful to point out the partial (in both senses) evidence provided by documents, the uneven nature of their survival and condition, and the fact that (as 9th century coins from the reign of Eandred found in the area prove) they are not the whole of history. Nevertheless he demonstrated that much of interest can be found in - and deduced from - a wide range of manuscripts.

Malham (the "stony or gravelly place") appears in Domesday as Malgun, a soke of the manor of Bolton comprising 3 carucates (1 carucate being perhaps 100 acres), and later as a berewick of the manor of Swinden comprising 13½ carucates. This land was "waste" - unproductive. The arrival of the monks in the mid 12th century changed these fortunes. The abbot of Fountains Abbey was Lord of Malham, and it was this abbey and the priory at Bolton which held Malham and the surrounding land, that of Fountains primarily to the west and that of Bolton to the east.

Having examined the evidence for the existence of medieval Malham he turned to its extent. He has traced the boundaries of Malham common from a document of 1283. They run along watercourses to the south and west, dividing it from the townships of Kirkby Malham, Settle, Langcliffe and Hanlith; the north-eastern boundary was disputed with the Percy family and a number of misdemeanours were reported there: unlawful cutting of peat, straying livestock, meadow-ruining pigs, goats and geese and overstaying horses.

Finally he considered its size and makeup. A memorandum of c1360 (in stating 13 acres to a bovate) allows the calculation of the acreages of both east and west Malham (here "Malghom"): of a total of 637 acres 377 belonged to Fountains Abbey, 156 to Bolton Priory and 107 to three individuals: 325 in the west and 312 in the east. If areas to the east and west of the modern village are drawn within natural boundaries, such as watercourses and high ground, they work out as 384 acres to the west and 252 acres to the east, slightly different from the medieval numbers, but in all 636, very close to the medieval total. This calculation was indicated to be a work in progress, but one worth pursuing.

Another memorandum of 1259 records a complaint of overstocking of the 49 bovates (637 acres) of outfield pasture in Malham and suggests that an appropriate number of animals for such an area would be: 294 oxen or cows with calves, 196 mares with foals, 9800 sheep, 245 nanny goats, 19 sows with litters, 96 geese and 49 ganders - a thriving post-monastic economy in all its variety.

Laminated copies of all the documents were brought out for examination in the tea break and perfectly complemented the startling variety of cakes and other refreshments on offer.

Next Steve Moorhouse spoke on "The twin villages of medieval Malham: form and development". The two distinct parts of Malham, one on either side of the beck, arose from the pattern of medieval land-holding. The eastern part of the village was grouped irregularly around a green; the western part was developed by monastic effort in a linear fashion with a back lane skirting the tenements. Town Head and Town Head Farm at the northern end of the village refer to the earliest settlement where there was a mill.

A map of 1786 from the Bradfer-Lawrence collection in the YAS reflects the medieval pattern: in the main the land to the west of the beck was held by Fountains and that to the east by Bolton. (Bolton township comprised two territories, on centred on Skipton, and including Malham, the other separate and to the north-west, perhaps both fragments of a larger pre-Norman (Scandinavian) estate.) Analysis of stone walls in the area suggests that the boundaries on the map are inaccurate. Malham makes another rare appearance on a map of Thomas Jeffries dating from the 1760s (though not published until 1775 as part of a collection).

A number of other twin villages can be identified in the area: Pickhill with Roxby (the former around a green, the latter to the south of the green); Marton le Moor and Moxby (recorded on Jeffries' map as Morton-cum-Moxby); Beadlam and Morton (lying on either side of a township boundary).

Poll tax records indicate that Malham township (village and moor) had a population of around 80 in the 14th century (90 in 1377, 72 in 1379, roughly 3 times that of Kirkby Malham). The tenements within the village are recorded in two 15th century inventories, one relating to each part. The first of 1473, from Bolton, is very detailed and lists tenements to the north, south and east (truncated to the west by the drop down to the beck). The other of 1497, from Fountains, likewise itemises the tenements in the village. It lists many more than now survive, suggesting that considerable amalgamation has taken place.

Malham also existed within a network of communications. Mastiles Lane, linking Wharfedale to Fountains and the Fountains estates in the Lake District, runs to the north of Malham and is referred to as "the road of Malhum" in a grant of land by the Percy family to Fountains. Various cross bases, mentioned in the documents as marking a boundary or a way across open (unenclosed) ground, remain in the area (Ulfgill cross, for example).

Having thus considered both the community and context of the settlement Steve led the afternoon walk to illustrate them rather more physically. Clutching maps and dodging tractors we processed from the YDNP information centre, behind the car park, up Back Lane (past medieval walls - triangular in profile - and a barn dated 1700) to a snaking path leading down to Cove Road (the main thoroughfare), across the beck and over the grassed area in front of the Lister Arms hotel (date stone 1723) up Finkle Street to Malham Raikes and back past the old school to the beck once more.

This circle led first past the terraced barn platforms in the verge of the YNDP car park and then past other platforms in open land to the right of Back Lane, some tenement boundaries still clearly visible as earthworks. On the main road the old manor house (once used as an administrative centre by Fountains and now a cream-coloured late 17th century hall-house next to the modern village hall) was thoroughly investigated. While its stepped windows with drip mouldings, 17th century door to left and other doors to the right dating from its conversion to separate cottages in the 19th century were being admired, the present occupants came out and generously showed the details of their own and the neighbouring houses.

In the eastern part of the village many more platforms and earthworks could be seen in open land beside Finkle Street, enclosed on either side by further walls of triangular cross-section. Near the old school Mike Spence read out a deed of 1540 describing a strip of land in Malham sold in by John Lambert to Geoffrey Proctor; the strip ran up from the beck beside Dead Man's Lane and had space for a house and 3 tofts and is still identifiable.

Steve is hoping to lead a complete earthwork survey of Malham next winter which will only reveal more about this small but complex and fascinating settlement.

For further information on the area see the website of the Malhamdale local history society: kirkbymalham.info

Finally, many thanks (once again) to Celia Moorhouse for the teas - and the washing up! Many thanks, too, to Sue Alexander for the photographs.

Belinda Wassell