Blubberhouses

Blubberhouses is a small village and civil parish in the Washburn Valley in North Yorkshire, England. The population as at the 2011 Census was less than 100, so details were included in the civil parish of Fewston. In 2015, North Yorkshire County Council estimated the population of the village and parish to be 40. Blubberhouses is situated to the south of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and to the north of a Roman road and Fewston Reservoir on the A59 road linking Harrogate to Skipton.

Blubberhouses
St Andrew's Church
Blubberhouses is located in North Yorkshire
Blubberhouses
Blubberhouses
Location within North Yorkshire
Population40 (2015 NYCC)[1]
OS grid referenceSE167553
• London180 mi (290 km) SSE
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townOTLEY
Postcode districtLS21
Dialling code01943
PoliceNorth Yorkshire
FireNorth Yorkshire
AmbulanceYorkshire
UK Parliament

History

The name of the village derives from the Anglo-Saxon bluberhūs = "the house(s) which is/are at the bubbling stream",[2] with a later regularised plural; the -um form came from the Anglo-Saxon dative plural case æt bluberhūsum = "at the houses which ...". Later forms of the name on record include "Bluburgh", "Bluborrow", and "Bluburhouse".[3] A forge was recorded at Blubberhouses in 1227, and in the 16th century, the village had metal smelters for lead and iron ore. The lead was mined locally around Fewston.[4] The other major industry in the area was cloth-working with Westhouse mill being located just across the A59 road from the church. Westhouse opened in the 1790s to process flax, but closed in 1877 and the stone from the mill was used in the construction of the dam wall of Fewston Reservoir.[5]

The Anglican village church of St Andrew's was designed by Edward Buckton Lamb and was built in 1851. It is now a grade II listed building.[6] It is part of the ecclesiastical parish of Fewston, and is maintained by the Friends of Blubberhouses Church, after it was decided to keep the church open in 2015 in spite of the need to repair the church roof at quite a cost.[7][8] The village has a cricket team who play in the Theakston Nidderdale League, and their ground is alongside the River Washburn in the village.[9][10]

The road through Blubberhouses, which is now the A59, running in an east/west direction, was first turnpiked in the 1770s.[11] The section to the west of Blubberhouses towards Skipton goes over Blubberhouses Moor, and between 1823 and 1827, a new cut was made to the south with a gentler gradient, but following the contours of the hill.[12][13] The 19th century section has suffered many landslips, and so a new bypass, following the route of the original turnpike, is due to open in 2025.[14][15]

In July 2014, Stage 2 of the 2014 Tour de France from York to Sheffield, passed through the village. It was also the location of the first climb of the stage, the Category 4 Côte de Blubberhouses, at the 47 kilometres (29 mi) point. It was 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mi) long at an average gradient of 6.1%. The single point for the King of the Mountains competition was claimed by Frenchman, Cyril Lemoine of Cofidis.[16]

Blubberhouses is used as a key setting for local composer Andy Tillison's composition Le Sacre Du Travail,[17] a five movement electric sinfonia recorded by the progressive rock ensemble The Tangent. The work is, according to the CD sleeve notes, loosely based around Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rite Of Spring). One section of the second movement is named "Dawn At Blubberhouses" and the village is mentioned by name in the lyrics/libretto.[18] A short story in the CD sleeve describes the journey of a man travelling to work through the village in the small hours of the morning. The CD album was released in 2013 by the German record label Inside Out Music.[19]

Governance

There is no record of Blubberhouses in the Domesday Book, but it is recorded in 1172 as Bluberh(o)usum, being in the lower division of the wapentake of Claro in the West Riding of Yorkshire.[20] It is now in the county of North Yorkshire. At the 1901 census, the size of the parish was recorded as 3,736 acres (1,512 ha), and in 2021, it was listed as reaching to 3,770 acres (1,524 ha).[21] The village and parish is represented at Parliament as part of the Skipton and Ripon Constituency.[22] In 2011, the population was estimated to be 30, which by 2015, had risen to 40.[1]

Population of Blubberhouses 1801–2015
1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1951 1961 2001 2011 2015
120[21] 129[21] 126[21] 118[21] 99[21] 83[21] 87[21] 69[21] 77[21] 73[21] 64[21] 46[23] 45[23] 42[23] 37[23] 29[23] N/A[note 1] 30[note 2] 40[note 3]

Notes
  1. The population of Blubberhouses was included with the neighbouring parish of Fewston
  2. Estimated population.[1]
  3. Estimated population.[1]

References
  1. "2015 Population Estimates: Parishes" (PDF). northyorks.gov.uk. December 2016. p. 13. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 June 2022. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  2. Mills, A. D. (2011). A Dictionary of British Place Names. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199609086.001.0001. ISBN 9780199609086.
  3. Ekwall, Eilert (1947). The concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names (3 ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 47. OCLC 12542596.
  4. Jennings 1967, pp. 62, 67, 69.
  5. "Village Focus: Blubberhouses, North Yorkshire". The Yorkshire Post. 28 February 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  6. Historic England. "Church of St Andrew (Grade II) (1150451)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  7. "Blubberhouses: St Andrew". achurchnearyou.com. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  8. "Fewston with Blubberhouses | Friends of Blubberhouses Church". fewstonwithblubberhouses.org.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  9. "Blubberhouses Cricket Club". Retrieved 10 June 2008.
  10. Howell, Rhys (16 May 2022). "Theakston Nidderdale League: Blubberhouses CC end Killinghall's winning start". Harrogate Advertiser. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  11. Muir, Richard (1997). The Yorkshire countryside : a landscape history. Edinburgh: Keele University Press. p. 235. ISBN 1853311987.
  12. Jennings 1967, p. 195.
  13. "Blubberhouses Moor". getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  14. "Blubberhouses, North Yorkshire". bgs.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  15. Newton, Grace (23 February 2023). "A59 in North Yorkshire to be re-routed and new road built between Skipton and Harrogate to bypass landslip-prone Kex Gill". The Yorkshire Post. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  16. "Tour de France Stage 1". Archived from the original on 25 July 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  17. Tangent, The. Le Sacre Du Travail. 5052205065525 UPC.
  18. "Prog rock is alive and well in Otley". The Yorkshire Post. 28 February 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  19. Tillison, Andy (2013). Le Sacre Du Travail (Booklet). The Tangent. Inside Out Music. p. 3. ASIN B00D09B25A.
  20. "Blubberhouses :: Survey of English Place-Names". epns.nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  21. Page, William, ed. (1907). The Victoria history of the county of York. vol 3. London: Constable & Co. p. 528. OCLC 500092527.
  22. "Election Maps Blubberhouses". www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2023. Select the boundaryb option on the left hand side and then click on Civil Parish and Westminster Region to see the boundaries of the area
  23. "Administrative unit Blubberhouses CP/Tn Parish-level Unit". visionofbritain.org.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.

Sources
  • Jennings, Bernard (1967). A history of Nidderdale. Huddersfield: Advertiser Press. OCLC 18034728.
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