Lodge, North Yorkshire
Lodge was a hamlet in upper Nidderdale, North Yorkshire, England. The hamlet was dedicated to farming and was a monastic grange owned by the monks of Byland Abbey. Lodge was east of Kettlewell, south of Leyburn, and north of Middlesmoor. The hamlet was depopulated after the Bradford Corporation, who were building the reservoirs in the area, bought the land and required the occupants to leave so that their farming activities would not pollute the water being gathered in Scar House Reservoir, which was built below the hamlet in the same valley.
History
The hamlet of Lodge was mentioned in 1198, along with the settlements of Angram, Westhouse and Haden Carr, as belonging to the monks of Byland Abbey. Before the arrival of the reservoir builders, the hamlet was on a busy packhorse route that connected Middlesmoor and Lodge in Nidderdale, with Horsehouse in Coverdale, and beyond into Wensleydale. The old packhorse route across the valley has now been lost under the waters of Scar House Reservoir. It is thought that the hamlet's name derived from the placement of a hunting lodge in the area when it was part of the forest of Nidderdale, although some older maps state the place name to be Lodge Howses, and it is also recorded in documents as Lodghouses in 1577. After the Dissolution of the monasteries, the farming rights of the area and the hamlet fell into private hands. These farmers kept their farms within their families, and records as far back as the 17th century show people gifting their farmsteads to relatives: " In 1623, Thos. Smith, of Lodge in Netherdale, bequeaths his property to his son, named after my own name."The hamlet was located on Carle Fell Road, an east/west running road that connected with the road to Coverdale just to the west of the hamlet, and also a road which went westwards the to Kettlewell. The road to Coverdale connected it with Leyburn, northwards, and Middlesmoor, southwards. It is thought that Lodge, along with other smaller settlements, were built on the north side of the valley as it afforded some protection from the elements having a large ridge behind them, but also they were facing south, and so could take advantage of the sun. A Methodist chapel was built in Lodge in 1858, although it only served twelve people, and the minister was located at Middlesmoor. The chapel building itself was an extension of a cart shed that already existed in the village. A map of the area from 1890 shows around ten buildings in the hamlet, with the Methodist chapel at the east end of the settlement. A description of the hamlet by Speight in 1906 details it as having "three farms and a cottage".
Lodge was abandoned in 1929 when the Bradford Corporation bought the land and asked the farmers to vacate the land to prevent the water entering the reservoir from becoming polluted; the corporation actually bought up all the land it needed, including at Lodge, in 1904. Until it was depopulated, Lodge had the highest farm workings in the valley, which were about above sea level, but the settlement itself was slightly lower at. Lodge was one of the few settlements in the upper Nidderdale valley which was not abandoned due to the reservoir's waters; Haden Carr, Angram, and West Houses were all flooded and so had to be evacuated. As the hamlet was depopulated within living memory and the relatives of the last known occupant still live in Nidderdale, the site of the settlement has been the subject of archaeological studies to provide more context on farming communities in upper Nidderdale.
Close to the hamlet on the north side of the valley is Dead Man's Hill. The hill is so named after the discovery of three headless bodies buried there in 1728. It is thought that they were Scottish pedlars who were robbed and murdered whilst travelling the packhorse route between Coverdale and Nidderdale. Previous to the discovery of the bodies, the hill was known as Nidderhow.