Kirkby Malzeard & Laverton

Laverton Trades

Obviously farming was the main occupation in the area, but every town and village needed to be as self sufficient as possible.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Laverton had a wide range of trades, and taking the census of 1871 as an example, Laverton had 2 grocers, shoemaker, innkeeper, 2 tailors, blacksmith and dressmaker, as well as stone masons, carpenters etc.

Mrs Hannah Pickles

In 1964 Mrs Hannah Pickles, who lived at ‘The Laurels’, remembers ‘Laverton had some life. Though it can boast no shops today, the village once had three grocers’ shops a draper, a cobbler, a blacksmith and a joiner. I remember when groceries were taken by wagonette to the Drovers Inn, about a mile above the village, to await collection by the people of Dallowgill.

INNS
The inn called The Spotted Cow was located across the lane near East Farm, and it’s understood that the inn was part on East Farm land. It seems odd that it doesn’t show up on the 1838 tithe map, but does show up on an 1850 map.
The Hope Inn, now Hope House, was owned by Thomas Shaw in 1838, and John Shaw was the innkeeper. On the 1891 census, Joseph Webb is innkeeper without a wife, but children ages 20,12,10,7,5 and 3. And he was only 39.

The pub finally closed at midday April 29th 1957. A shrinking population, down to 38, and the chapel congregation that refrained from drinking, it was never going to succeed on a few sweets and cigarette sales. Even Harry Devereux, drinking 2 pints a night couldn’t stop the inevitable!

By a Yorkshire Post Reporter
There were sad hearts in Laverton, seven miles from Ripon, last night, when hope was abandoned for the retention of the hamlet’s only hostelry, the 300 year-old Hope Inn.
Yesterday afternoon the West Riding County Confirming and Compensation Committee at Wakefield, confirmed the removal of the licence from the Hope Inn to the Coronation Hotel, 25 miles away at Horton, Gisburn.
Mrs Muriel Marlby, a native of Ripon, who has held the licence of the Hope Inn for the last two months had not been informed of the confirmation when I called in yesterday afternoon.
She was still hoping that the efforts of the local people – about 40 all told – would prevent the transfer. The signature of Mr Fred Ellis, Parish Councillor, and local preacher, was among the names on a petition before the Committee.
A Saturday Wake
“ I sell between 20 and 27 gallons of beer a week from my three 18 gallon barrels, and I sell bottled beer too”
said Mrs Marlby. “If the licence goes, there will be thirsty folk in the fields hereabouts at harvest time”. The Hope Inn can seat 30 people in its two public rooms. On Saturday night the rooms were full. “But”, said Mrs Marlby “nobody really enjoyed themselves. There was a feeling that it would be the last Saturday night they would spend at the Inn”.
Now that the licence has gone, Mrs Marlby and her husband, who is a farm traveller in seeds and veterinary medicines, will use the Inn as a private house until other licensed premises are found for them.
So simple
“It’s a quaint little set up here” Mrs Marlby told me, “All the water for the 18 or so houses in the hamlet has to be hand-drawn from the pump across the road.” She showed me the water heating system in her kitchen range. “I pour the water from a bucket into the boiler,” said Mrs Marlby, indicating a hole above the fire, “then when the water is ready I run it out of this tap – see, its marked ‘hot’ – into the bucket and empty the bucket into my electric washer.” Sardonically she added “It’s as simple as that.”
Can’t afford much
Mr Harry Devereux, who lives in the cottage next but one to the Inn and has been described in newspapers as the
“Hope Inn’s only regular customer”, was saying little yesterday. “I’m a pensioner” he said, “I can’t afford to drink much.”

BLACKSMITHS
Blacksmith’s work ranged from shoeing horses, repairing farm equipment, making gates and wheels etc.
William Atkinson was in Laverton in 1861, and in the 1890’s, John Robinson had a business in the village. Unfortunately, John’s business must have struggled as there was a distress sale in 1898.
By the turn of the century, Mat Cooper was blacksmith along with George Watson, a whitesmith who also shoed horses. Mat continued in business until about 1950, and his business was located just over the bridge, on the right – just past where the old chapel had stood.

Mrs Ellen Gill is sitting on her shop doorstep. An unknown person stands next to the blacksmith Matt Cooper with his apron on outside the smithy. The wagon is said to be Hammond’s meal wagon. Edward Metcalfe of Potter Lane is standing on the road next to the wagon, the centre figure appears to be going shopping and Police Constable Cookshaw from Kirkby completes the centre group. Thomas Gill the shoemaker and shopkeeper is standing on the right.

SHOPKEEPERS etc.
Between 1861 and 1871, the two grocers in Laverton were John Shaw and Richard Parker, and Parkers still had the shop in the 1890’s, and it was next to the Hope Inn. There was still two shops in 1917. John Pickles’s shop was at the front of The Laurels.

James Gill was a shoemaker who worked out of a hut just past Coopers blacksmiths. In 1899 a pair of new Sunday shoes were 16/6. The business was still there in 1909, but after his death it gradually became a shoe repair business run by his son Thomas and grandson Fred Gill. The business moved over the bridge near the water pump, and continued until 1940.