Defiant Monks

Henry VIII changed all that. In a time of huge upheaval he closed the monasteries, pensioned off the monks and took the properties and valuables. At Jervaulx his men destroyed the church with explosives after the abbot joined a revolution against him with an army which included 200 men from Masham.

Henry didn’t stop there. He seized the considerable assets of Masham and used them to endow Trinity College, Cambridge. Its current wealth of £1.3 billion is founded on Masham money. The Peculier court lives on in a group known as the Four and Twenty who administer a charitable fund and also in the name of Theakston’s Old Peculier Ale. The sheep sales continue at the annual Sheep Fair

Roman Occupation

Masham is where it is because the route down Wensleydale forded the river here (follow Millgate to the river to find the old ford) and crossed a Roman road running through the town. There’s a well preserved Roman camp on Roomer Common nearby.

The market cross is a type called a butter cross. Butter and cheese would keep cool on the stone steps on market days. The cross on the pillar is long gone – probably removed during the Commonwealth in the 17th century.

Taxes, Workhouse & Heather Thatches

Around the market place are several points of interest. On Millgate you can find the school (originally a Tudor grammar school) and next to it the old workhouse. Behind this is the lock up – Masham’s tiny jail. Border Teas is one of the few buildings to have retained the high gable of a thatched roof (they used heather in these parts) which all the original 13th houses would have had. The Kings Head was the excise office where you’d pay your tax and the chip shop is in what was the Lord Nelson hotel – where the post arrived and horse drawn coaches left.

Old Bones

Under the Little Market Place on Cockpit Hill is a graveyard which has been partly excavated. Burials found here are laid east/west indicating a Christian tradition and the bones have revealed an Anglo Scandinavian population was here from the Dark Ages. (Yorkshire was, for a long time, part of a Viking kingdom ruled from York, long before England existed.) Some of the bones were eventually reburied in the churchyard.

Castles & Kings

Masham’s lords have lived, for the most part, at Swinton – just out of town. They’ve had a chequered past. Lord Scrope of Masham was executed by Henry V on the eve of the campaign which climaxed at Agincourt for plotting treason. The estate was confiscated but eventually regained. More recently Swinton Castle was bought by mill owner Samuel Cunliffe Lister in the 19th century.

His heirs sold off but then reacquired the castle and it’s now a hotel. The other big landowners were Jervaulx Abbey. Their part of the town was given to the Bruce family (as in Robert Bruce, King of Scots) which is why there is a pub called the Bruce Arms.

Manufacturing in our Blood

Brewing became a major part of Masham life in the 19th century when Theakston’s (based at the Black Bull – now Corks and Cases) and Lightfoot’s (based at the White Bear yard) were rivals. The gypsum-filtered water here makes for a very fine, bright beer. Theakston took over Lightfoot’s but was later taken over by Scottish and Newcastle in 1987.

The family were divided and Paul Theakston set up the Black Sheep Brewery in 1992. The other Theakston’s got their brewery back in 2003 and rivalry between the two continues. Masham also has two rival animal feed mills – I’Anson’s and Jamesons.

Church As A Museum

Masham doesn’t have a museum, but the church is a treasure trove of relics and monuments. With stained glass by several notable designers including Harry Stammers, who revived the York Minster glass workshops, and monuments featuring the crab symbol of the Danby family there is much to see.

The big painting over the chancel arch is half the design for the windows of New College chapel in Oxford. Apparently, they chopped off half because it wouldn’t fit. In the chancel is the old parish chest where important documents were kept and on the Wyvill tomb, you can find Old Father Time and a bubble-blowing cherub.

On the tower wall is a Madonna and Child by John Blakey – donated by Theakston’s Brewery in lieu of many years payment for renting the Old Peculier trademark which belongs to the church.

Artistic Flair

Outside the graveyard holds the graves of three artists – Julius Caesar Ibbetson, George Cuitt and Reginald Brundritt RA – plus a tall memorial to Masham composer William Jackson. There are poems on many of the gravestones and, in the field adjoining the church, you can see the building platform of the Saxon watchtower which once stood on Gregory Hill.

In addition to sheep and beer, Masham has a long artistic history – Turner sketched the town in 1816, the church is featured on a painted dinner service in the Hermitage in St Petersburg and Brundrit’s painting from Roomer Common is in Tate Britain.

The area is home to several artists – glassblowers Tim and Maureen Simon, pencil artist Nolan Stacey, watercolourists Ian Scott Massie and Simon Palmer, collage artist and gallery owner Josie Beszant, potter Howard Charles and former residents have included illustrator Priscilla Warner and printmaker Hester Cox.