Ingleton, North Yorkshire

Ingleton is a village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The village is 17 miles (27 km) from Kendal and 17 miles (27 km) from Lancaster on the western side of the Pennines. It is 9 miles (14 km) from Settle. The River Doe and the River Twiss meet to form the source of the River Greta, a tributary of the River Lune. The village is on the A65 road and at the head of the A687. The B6255 takes the south bank of the River Doe to Ribblehead and Hawes. All that remains of the railway in the village is the landmark Ingleton Viaduct. Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular visitor to the area and was married locally, as his mother lived at Masongill from 1882 to 1917 (see notable people). It has been claimed that there is evidence that the inspiration for the name Sherlock Holmes came from here.

Whernside, 6 miles (9.7 km) north-north-east of the village, one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, is the highest point in the parish at 736 metres (2,415 ft).

There are major quarries within the parish. Ingleton Quarry is active, Meal Bank Quarry no longer is, but extracted Carboniferous limestone and possesses an early Hoffman kiln. There was a textile mill, and the coalfield supported twelve or more small collieries, but Ingleton is mostly known for its tourism, being partially in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, offering waterfalls in a SSSI, limestone caves and Karst landscape walking opportunities.

Ingleton and the surrounding area was settled in the Iron Age by the Brigantes who built a hill fort on top of Ingleborough with walls 0.6-mile (1 km) in circumference. It is thought that the Romans defeated the Brigantes in battle and built a fort alongside the hill fort. The valley was crossed by Roman roads as Ingleton was a strategic river crossing. By the 12th century the Normans had built a church in the village.

The name Ingleton derives from the Old English ingeltūn meaning 'settlement by a peak'.

Willian Lowther (1574–1641) of Ingleton Hall was Lord of the Manor, Justice of the Peace for the West Riding and had seven children. His son Richard (1602–1645) inherited the manor and two sons joined the church. His daughter Frances (1612–1665) married John Walker who leased the Ingleton Colleries, and Elizabeth (1615–?) married Anthony Bouch in 1633 and mortgaged Ingleton Manor.

Richard Lowther (Collonell [sic], governor of Pontefract) and his son Gerrard were on the losing Royalist side at the Civil War siege of Pontefract Castle in 1645, and later at Newark. The war ended and his father dead, Gerrard was fined by the new government for his delinquency, and entered into a series of agreements to pay the debt and court appearances to maintain the estate. The Lord of Manor title had passed to Anthony Bouch by 1665, and the coal rights passed to the Walker family after a settlement in the chancery court in 1678.

The Ingleton Coalfield was worked for 400 years. It is about 6 miles long by 4-mile wide and extends into the neighbouring parishes of Burton in Lonsdale and Thornton-in-Lonsdale. The coalfield terminates at the South Craven fault. The coal measures are shallow and represent the lowest layers in the Pennine coal measures sequence. The earliest coal mining occurred along the River Greta where Four Foot and Six Foot seams outcrop. Most deep mining was at New Ingleton Pit sunk in 1913. Its sinking led to the discovery of the Ten Foot seam (house and steam coal) at 127 yards, and the Nine Foot seam (steam and house coal) at 134 yards. Beneath them are the Four Foot seam (house, gas and coking coal) at 233 yards, the Three Foot seam (house and gas coal) at 236 yards and the Six Foot seam (steam and house coal) at 260 yards. Commercially viable deposits of fireclay lay under the Three Foot seam and pottery clay beneath the Six Foot seam used to make Ingleton Bricks. The Walkers achieved their legal victory through a son-in-Law William Knipe. Thomas Moore (?–1733) was the second husband of Marianne Walker and between 1702 and 1711 bought out other share holders in the collieries while building a successful medical practice in Wakefield. He left the collieries to be managed by an agent. His daughter Susannah married William Serjeantson- and his family ran the collieries from 1736 to 1828. Coal was delivered by horse and cart. Ingleton and Bentham Moors were enclosed in 1767. Plans were drawn up in 1780 to connect Ingleton to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal via Clapham, Settle and Foulridge, Colne but it never progressed. Boys and girls as young as four worked the collieries in the 1780, first as 'messengers' and from six, underground, as 'trailers', pulling coal tubs. The last mine was closed in 1940.