SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY
1857 ~ 1865


1857 - The Ordnance Survey map of this year shows the entrance to the castle was off Guisborough Rd with a lodge at the gateway. Opposite the lodge were the "Spring Gardens". The driveway crossed the Castle moat over a bridge. Two streams from Bag Dale and Lawn Gill ran either side of the Castle and these were dammed to form the moat, the water level of which appears to have been controlled by a sluice gate behind the Castle. The surplus water drained then towards Skelton Beck and helped fill the pond which was driving force for Skelton Corn Mill. The Corn Mill below the Castle was almost certainly the site mentioned way back in the De Brus times. The 1856 map clearly shows a rectangle of buildings there that have since been demolished. The only remaining building today is the Miller's house. The Nazi Germans did their best to destroy that too in the Second World War when it was hit by a bomb. But it still stands, showing its scars. The Mill was also supplied with water by a mill race that was diverted off Skelton Beck below Upleatham and is pictured top right. The water must have passed via a culvert under Marske Lane and driven the Mill wheel before being returned to the Beck.
[The photograph of the Mill Race was contributed, as have many on this site, by Alan Ward.]
John Gardiner. LL.D.
Rector of Skelton from 1857 to 1886 and the main mover of the building of the New Church in the High St.
The new priest at Skelton All Saints Old Church was John Gardiner.

1858 - Building of the parsonage house and school at Cross Green.

1859 - John Thomas Wharton of Skelton Castle made the gift of a font of carved Caen Stone to the Old church. This was moved to the new church in the High St in 1884.
It is inscribed:-

"A thank offering from John Thomas Wharton on the birth of his son William Henry Anthony AD 1859"

J T Wharton was especially grateful, as he was aged 51 years of age when his son was born and his wife Charlotte was 42.
Whether or not this was the first time Charlotte had given birth is not known.
To see the font in the new Church click here.

Charles Darwin's Origin of Species is published.

Skelton Story of Forbidden Love. - A new young Curate, the Rev Crawford Townsend Bowen, aged 25, came to Skelton in this year 1859.
He was from an aristocratic Norfolk family, and in these times people thought much of their ancestral position.
His branch of the family had not inherited the land that in those times brought in the wealth, but he enjoyed the patronage of those who had. He had received a privileged education in the Arts, being ,among other things, the composer of Bowen's Te Deum and a lecturer in the Astronomy of the day.
The elder clergyman at Skelton was the Rev John Gardner, who resided in the brand new Parsonage.


Hannah Bowen. [nee Tate].
Rev Crawford Townsend Bowen.
Crawford took lodgings with the Tate family a few houses further up North Terrace.
This was a small sandstone cottage occupied by John Tate, a labourer and carrier, his wife Mary and family.
What the sleeping arrangements were is left to the imagination.
The Tates had a beautiful 17 year old daughter, named Hannah, and for Crawford she proved irresistible.
Despite the social requirements of the time, the opposition of his family and the withdrawal of their patronage, Crawford and Hannah were married at Skelton Church in 1860.
Their first child was born in Skelton in 1861 and they went on to have five children in all.
Crawford gained a position in nearby Guisborough and then a "living" at Bolam in Co Durham.
He died in 1908 and must have had a strong attachment to the village, for his body was brought back here for burial. Hannah died in 1911 and she too lies in Skelton Churchyard.
[This information and the photographs of Crawford and Hannah, taken in later days, have been kindly contributed by Dr Tony Nicholson, Lecturer in History at the University of Teesside. On moving into an old house in the High St, Brotton, N Yorks he found in the attic a cache of old letters left by one of Crawford and Hannah's descendants that reveal this and many other fascinating stories. Tony is currently producing a book about them.]

1860 - Alum mining in Skelton ceased around this time.

30th May - The 1st Administrative Battalion, of the Yorkshire North Riding Rifle Volunteers was established at Richmond, N Yorks, for Home Defence.
Certain places in the Riding raised a Rifle Volunteer Corps, Local volunteers had formed at the beginning of the century to oppose Napoleon.
The Skelton section was the 18th North Riding Volunteer Corps.

1861 - The national census showed that Skelton including Lingdale, Boosbeck and N Skelton comprised 4623 acres and had a population of 1034 with 517 males and 517 females. Separate figures for each village were not registered until 1911.
There were 221 inhabited houses and one empty.
The national population was 20 million.

Guisborough Workhouse had only one person registered from Skelton, a little boy, Thomas Dunn, entered as a "scholar, aged 11".


Skelton Parsonage
Skelton Shaft Ironstone Mine

Skelton Primitive Methodists
 Opening of Skelton Shaft Mine by Bell brothers There was initially just a drift entrance on the hillside and later a 114 ft shaft was dug making it the first shaft mine in Cleveland. It was connected on the railway line which reached the area in this year. The line branched off from the Guisborough to Spawood link and crossed the Guisborough /Whitby road by a stone bridge [now demolished]. For more information on Skelton Shaft Mine, click here.

1862 - Skelton Shaft Mine. May 17. Robert Atterton, aged 22, was killed. The first [recorded] death of the many that would follow in the cause of raising iron in this area. Robert's wife gave birth to his daughter, Mary Elizabeth Atterton in the following November.

1864 - The Burials Act created Boards in each area, taking responsibility for churchyards and records from the church.

1865 - Building of the Skelton Primitive Methodist Church.

The Primitive Methodists in Skelton , had previously been meeting in local rooms, but the movement was by now 50 years old.

Primitive Methodism was started by a person called Hugh Bourne, who was born in 1772 at Stoke. He became a Wesleyan Methodist Lay Preacher and his radical ideas and Camp meetings caused him to be expelled from the Methodist Church in 1808. He built his own church 1811 and sent out evangelists. Within thirty years he had 100,000 followers and 1,000 churches.They were popularly known as the "Ranters". Primitive to them meant, original, getting back to the real beginnings of whatever they believed in.

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