From Widheris to Wether House: A Farmstead’s History

On Wetherhouse Moor, nature is quietly concealing the remains of a post-medieval farmstead beneath the watchful eye of a solitary sycamore. Of the original three ranges, little can be discerned now, save for a crumbling gable end of a barn.¹NYMNPA HER No: 10754 Farmstead at Wether House It has, for more than a century, since the last tenants left, been steadily yielding to the wind and the rain of the North York Moors at 315 metres above sea level. Nettles and thistles stand in proud defiance where once the merry cries of children filled the air.

There is talk that Wether House was once an inn, though the Census records remain stubbornly silent on the matter. Instead, we know that in 1881 and 1891, William Atkinson, along with his family, tended this land, farming some 69 acres. Another tale tells of the Atkinson children driving cows across the moor to fields at Fangdale Beck, managing both their schooling and their herding with the efficiency only children can muster, bringing the cows back for milking once lessons were done.²Cowley, Bill. “Snilesworth”. Page 96. Turker Books 1993.

The roots of this farmstead reach back into the medieval past, when a farm called Widheris was granted to Rievaulx Abbey.³NYMNPA HER No: 4952 Widheris Farm In the grand reshuffling of land that followed the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it passed through the hands of the Manners family by way of a fortunate marriage into the de Ros family, who had ties to Helmsley Castle.

Come 1640, another marriage saw the farm transfer into the Villiers family, and thus to the Dukes of Buckingham. By 1695, George, Duke of Buckingham, deemed it time to part with his Bilsdale Estate, Wetherhouse Moor included, selling it to Charles Duncombe, whose descendants, in time, would become the Earls of Feversham. Five surveys conducted between 1637 and 1826 give us glimpses into the lives of those who worked this land, and the rents they paid for the privilege. Nature holds her secrets close, revealing only small hints to those who happen to stumble upon them.

• 1
  NYMNPA HER No: 10754 Farmstead at Wether House
• 2
  Cowley, Bill. “Snilesworth”. Page 96. Turker Books 1993.
• 3
  NYMNPA HER No: 4952 Widheris Farm