Thorpe Triangle Trust

The Bull Agreement, 1622

In 1622 Sir Stephen Tempest, Lord of the Manor of Thorpe, leased several pieces of land in the village for six thousand years, at a rent of fourteen pence a year payable on St Martin's Day, to Henry Robinson and eighteen other men of Thorpe, for the keeping and maintaining of a common bull. Twenty-one names appear on the deed.

The agreement put Thorpe in the vanguard of agricultural improvement. Until then bulls and cows roamed the open land and bred haphazardly. By choosing a common bull with good characteristics to cover their cows, the farmers could be sure those characteristics were passed on. It was more than two hundred years later that Robert Bakewell, a Leicestershire tenant farmer, advocated what became known as selective breeding.

One of the pieces of land mentioned in the 1622 lease was known as Bulltaile, half a rood — 605 square yards. That is mostly what is now the triangle, and the Bull Laith on Kirshaw's plan is likely where the common bull was kept.

The open space, 1768

The land at the centre of Thorpe has been the focal point of the village for centuries. The piece we call the triangle has gone by various names and served different purposes over the years.

It was first documented in a plan drawn by the surveyor John Kirshaw in 1768.

Jefferys' map of the district, 1771

The enclosure award, 1789

The maypole, 1804

For generations a prized maypole stood on the village green at Burnsall. In 1804 the cobblers of Thorpe, for a lark, stole it. Under cover of darkness a raiding party went over, uprooted the pole and planted it on the triangle.

When Burnsall woke to find it gone they searched Hartlington, Hebden and Appletreewick before discovering it re-erected at Thorpe. Not being in sufficient numbers to confront the cobblers, they enlisted help from neighbouring villages and returned, and after a sharp physical encounter carried the maypole home in triumph.

Rev Henry Wigglesworth, 1838

The tithe map, 1848

The open space at the centre of the village appears on several maps. One of the earliest is the tithe map of 1848, which shows it unenclosed, with the Bull Laith still standing to the west of the coach house and south of Manor House Cottage and Simon's Shippon.

The Plantation, 1853 to 1909

The Ordnance Survey maps of 1853 and 1891 both show the land without boundary walls. The 1853 map still shows a building where the Bull Laith had stood. By 1891 it has gone, and the map shows trees on the site — which is how the land came to be called the Plantation.

At that time most of the property and land in Thorpe belonged to the Procter family of Eshton. By 1909 the Plantation is shown with its trees and a wall around it.

Wesley Newton Rhodes, 1918 and 1920

In 1918 Wesley Newton Rhodes, a Bradford wool merchant, bought a large part of Thorpe from Nicholas Yeats of the Rookery for £3,550 — the Rookery, the stable barn, Rookery Cottage and 160 acres.

Two years later he bought almost all the rest of the village. The indenture is dated 14 December 1920 and was registered at the West Riding Registry of Deeds three days later. The vendor was Mary Procter of Eshton House, Gargrave, widow of Robert Procter of Croft House, Hetton, who had died in 1901; the land was sold by trustees appointed by order of the High Court that July. Rhodes paid £15,250, and the stamp duty was £152 10s.

The deed covers the townships of Thorpe, Linton and Burnsall, and the land is shown on the attached plan coloured pink within a red boundary line.

Little Triangle, 1963

Rhodes had three daughters: Dorothy, Susie and Marjorie. He died in 1942, but his estate took a further twenty-one years to settle. Dorothy, who had married Fred Moulson Clayton, inherited most of the land west of Thorpe Beck including the Rookery. Susie, who had married her husband, took the houses and land mostly east of the beck, including the Manor House and Kail Farms.

The Deed of Partition of 19 August 1963 lists the land by Ordnance Survey number. Parcel 120, one tenth of an acre, is described simply as Little Triangle. It went to Dorothy Clayton, then to her husband Fred, and then to their daughter, who married into the family that holds it now.

The land is held today by trustees for the estate of the late F M Clayton.

Twelve trees, 1987

In 1987 Fred Clayton of Stable Barn, who was chair of the parish meeting from 1942 to 1989, arranged for twelve trees to be planted in the Plantation with money from the St John Ambulance Fund. There were thought to be twelve inhabited houses in the village at the time.

A year later seven of the trees were reported to have died. They were replaced, and most of them are still standing.

The first attempt, 1989

As a foretaste of things to come, a resident proposed to the 1989 parish meeting that the relatives of the late Fred Clayton be approached with a view to leasing the Plantation to the village for, say, ninety-nine years. It was agreed unanimously.

That was the first of three attempts to bring the triangle into public ownership. There is no record of the Clayton family's response, but when a dead lime had to be felled in 2018 the owner contributed towards the cost.

The maypole again, 1991

The rivalry stayed a footnote in local folklore until April 1991.

On 28 April, just before the May celebrations, Burnsall woke to find its 66 foot maypole gone. The pole had cost £150, raised by the community to replace one blown down in high winds, and had been cleaned and stripped for May Day and left lying on the ground.

A mile and a half away, Thorpe woke to find a remarkably similar maypole concreted into the triangle and flying the Union flag. Villagers remained tight-lipped, and nobody admitted to seeing or hearing anything.

The chairman of Burnsall Parish Meeting told the press that it had not been entirely unexpected, that he had not thought they would actually put it up, and that it was taken in the spirit intended provided it came back. In Thorpe the chairman of the parish meeting said the village was growing rather fond of it, that he had seen nothing while seeing to sheep at about ten o'clock, that he had no idea how it got there, and that whoever had done it had put it up straight as a die and planted daffodils round the foot.

Three weeks later ten villagers from Burnsall arrived with ropes, ladders, spades and a tractor digger. A structural engineer climbed the pole and fixed a rope so it could be lowered safely. Four hours later it came down unharmed and went home with one end on a trolley and the other in the back of a Land Rover.

What had begun as a joke turned sour, with residents of both villages growing tired of tourists arriving to look for it.

Daffodils, clean-ups and a rota

The villagers went on looking after the land. In 1989 a resident planted daffodil bulbs in what was still called the Plantation.

Annual village clean-ups began in 1998, and a lawnmower was bought to cut the grass on the triangle and the verges around the village. A rota was organised by the chair of the parish meeting.

Celebrations

In more recent times the triangle has been the focal point for village celebrations, and a place for walkers and cyclists to rest.

The first of these in the twenty-first century was a St George's Day barbecue in April 2007, followed by barbecues each summer after it. In 2011 one was held in honour of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, and the triangle was decorated with bunting made by two residents.

Most noteworthy was the Diamond Jubilee in 2012. A street barbecue on the triangle was followed by sports and children's games — egg throwing, horseshoe throwing and welly wanging. Seven children were presented with commemorative mugs by the chair of the parish meeting. The villagers then held a torchlight procession to the summit of Elbolton Hill, where a beacon was lit.

In 2015 the first of many village summer barbecues was held on the triangle.

The Thorpe Triangle Project, 2016

In 2016 the Thorpe Triangle Project, coordinated by a resident, raised over £2,000 to replace the ageing village mower and buy two new park benches for residents and visitors.

The principal donors were the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and Craven District Council. Residents, donors and friends celebrated the completion of the project on the triangle.

The second attempt, 2018

At the annual parish meeting in October 2018 a resident was asked to contact the family to see whether they would be prepared to pass the ownership of the land to the village. This second attempt met with no decision, though a contribution towards the tree felling was made.

In November 2018 the villagers again gathered on the triangle and formed a procession to the top of Elbolton Hill to light a beacon marking a hundred years since the end of the First World War. On returning, the torches were planted in the wall of the triangle and left to burn out.

Jubilee, coronation and carols

The barbecue held in September 2021 raised £222 for parish funds.

The Platinum Jubilee in June 2022 was marked by a village party, and commemorative mugs were presented to the children by the chair of the parish meeting.

The Coronation of King Charles III in 2023 was celebrated with a grand tea in a resident's barn, cleaned and decorated by the villagers for the occasion. Every child was given a commemorative fifty pence coin by a resident.

There is also carol singing at Christmas.

The Sue Ryder walk

The triangle is a refreshment stop on the annual Sue Ryder Wharfedale Pub Walk, a ten mile sponsored walk in aid of Manorlands Hospice. Villagers provide a barbecue and a cake stall.

It also lies on the walking route between Linton and Burnsall, and every rider on all three routes of the White Rose Classic passes it.

The third attempt, 2026

In 2026 a resident passed to the chair of the parish meeting, a letter from the family's agent saying that the land entrusted to the family was to be sold.

Andy called a meeting of the village, which agreed unanimously to buy the triangle. A meeting of the civil parish was held a few days later, and it was agreed to set up Thorpe Triangle Trust, a registered charity, to hold the land in perpetuity.

The third attempt to bring the triangle into the ownership of the community appears to be succeeding.

Nothing else in Thorpe is shared. There is no pub, no shop, no village hall and no church. The only other public amenity is a postbox.