A history of
The Hermit Inn

By Nick Hooper

Although it has been claimed that the Hermit pub is 400 years old documentary support for this is lacking. The oldest part of the existing building may date from the mid-1700s and the inn was initially known as the Woolpack. Woodhead hamlet straggles along Moor Road, formerly known as Wood Head Lane, where it runs between the moorland and enclosed fields. The main occupation of the inhabitants was originally farming, but the quickening economy in the later 1700s brought work in wool processing, quarrying, delving for limestone boulders and working in the textile mills and bleach mill established along Carr Beck as it flowed off the moor. The packhorse routes linking Bingley with Otley and Pateley Bridge (via Greenholme Ford) and the cart route across Rombald’s Moor to the Aire Gap brought customers through Woodhead. There were plenty of thirsty people in the hamlet who needed the services of an inn, and the pub’s earliest name would reflect the trade in wool from Wharfedale and Airedale that passed by its door. Indeed, it is believed locally that a tunnel that ran from the cellar towards the cottages of Prospect Row was employed to spirit away wool from passing pack-horses that paused at the inn. On reflection, however, such larceny might not have been good for the pub’s reputation and trade, and certainly no charges were ever laid.

Evidence for the pub in the nineteenth century rests on firmer evidence, and for nearly a century the Hainsworth family dominated its recorded history. In the earliest known reference Timothy Hainsworth was listed as “Innkeeper” in the first detailed Census of 1841, although no pub name was stated. The 1830 Beerhouse Act had created a new type of drinking place permitted to sell beer and cider. If the pub which became the Hermit came into existence as a result of this law, it would explain why in the next known reference from 1848 local farmer John Metcalfe of the “Star Inn beer-house at Burley-Wood-Head” applied for a liquor license permitting him to sell spirits in addition to beer. Three years later in the next census Leonard Metcalf[e] was the publican and significantly his wife was Sarah Hainsworth. In 1855 Leonard was fined for opening during the prohibited hours on a Sunday. The earliest record that the pub was named the “Hermit” dates to 1856 when the license was transferred to a W. Walker. By 1861 there was a new licensee, John Edward Brumfitt. He was illegitimate, but when he married he appended “Hainsworth” to his name indicating that his father was of that family. He was followed by William Hainsworth who in 1867 was cautioned by the Otley magistrates regarding his conduct of the pub. It was probably as a consequence of this that he gave up the licence, but he soon returned and held it up to 1880/81. From at least 1872 the Hermit’s owner was John Hainsworth, Timothy’s nephew and Leonard’s brother-in-law. He ran a grocer’s shop a few doors away at 5 Prospect Row. The pub passed to his son James William Hainsworth and it was he who sold it to John Smith’s Brewery of Tadcaster, apparently in 1925.

A contemporary account describes how Job “used to hold high court, but the grand levée used to take place on Sundays, when numbers of persons from Bradford and Leeds used to assemble in front of his hut. There he gave them what he termed his “Blast”, which was a composition of his own, to represent sweet melody. The designing old man ... found that his loud chant brought him a large store of coppers [coins] as he lay singing on his bed of dried brackens and heather. When he made his ablutions I never heard, but there was plenty of pure water in Coldstone Beck. He had great compass of voice and his lowest notes were most powerful ... Going shooting on the moors at the break of day, we have stopped to listen to old Job, who then had no audience but was generally singing the 100th Psalm, and it was beautifully sung, his loud voice echoing amongst the rocks above, and sounding down far down in the valley” [Harry Speight, Upper Wharfedale, 1903). Senior became known as the “Hermit of Rombalds Moor” but not all accounts of his activities were positive. In an 1881 newspaper article, ‘A Rambler’ branded him a “lazy lout who would rather whine and beg for pence than keep his person clean and toil for his daily bread.” Senior was eventually taken into the workhouse at Carlton where he died in 1857 aged 77 and was buried in the churchyard at Burley in Wharfedale. Nevertheless, his fame was sufficient that the pub was named after him even before his death, and in 1872 the publican claimed to possess one of his ash walking sticks. In several different depictions Senior has been shown on the inn-sign.

Newspaper reports provide glimpses of the pub’s history. On several occasions (1868, 1877, 1892) the bodies of the dead were kept there, presumably in the cellars, to await the inquests held on the premises. In 1892 the Airedale Cycling Club’s Saturday afternoon rendez-vous was the Hermit. Four years later William Hainsworth was required to desist from keeping pigs under the house, while John Hainsworth was served notice to provide a cesspool and urinal for the building! The licensees were twice fined: William, landlord 1861-1880, for allowing drunkenness; and his daughter Mary Thompson (1881-1898) for selling below strength gin and whisky. Both brewed the beer they sold in the cellars, and the tunnel ‘discovered’ in 1933 (referred to above) which ran from above the cooler in the brewhouse was in reality probably a ventilation shaft. The Hermit ceased to brew its own beer after John Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery added it to their tied estate in the 1920s. In the twentieth century the Hermit had several long-serving landlords: John William Peel of Yeadon (1898-1910) was a ‘very good landlord’ according to the magistrates; John Arundale ran it 1910-1928, followed by James Crowe (1928-1939), and then Robert Foulger. Between the wars a pack of Beagles met annually at the Hermit to hunt over Rombald’s Moor, a photo of which can be seen in the pub. The telephone box stood in the car park which was established to the west of the pub. The Hermit was the favourite hostelry of Alfred John Brown (1894-1969), the famous Yorkshire author who popularised walking in the Yorkshire Dales during the 1930s while a resident of Burley village. A plaque recording his association with the pub was installed in 2019.

For most of its existence the premises were ‘cosy’, a single row of rooms extending away from the road with cellars built where the ground falls away sharply. An extension at right angles to the original building was added, perhaps in 1933. A blocked doorway shows that an original entrance opened directly onto the road. Possibly this was once a separate cottage, and before it became the pub kitchen it was the landlord’s sitting room. The earliest photo of 1930 shows customers entered from the Prospect Row side. Customers then took a right turn, past the stone-flagged tap room which was served through a small hatch, then proceeded down a few steps into the bar which can be seen as it was in 1983 in an episode of Yorkshire TV’s ‘Clegg’s People’ (available on the internet).

The greatest changes to the pub were made in the 1990s, after it survived the first challenge to its existence. John Smith’s Brewery decided it was not profitable enough and tried to close it. The lease to Robert Hewitt, a long-standing tenant who took a pride in his beer quality, was terminated but the locals fought back by enlisting the support of Yorkshire TV presenter Richard Whiteley, a regular customer who lived across the field. Yorkshire TV broadcast a full edition of ‘Calendar’ from the pub and an appeal on live TV forced a change of heart. New tenants David and Jane Dixon from the Owl at Rodley were the first to serve proper meals and built up a good clientele. But after Enterprise Inns’ acquisition the Dixons declined a twenty-year lease. Brian Frost, a former rugby league player and landlord of the Half Moon at Pool in Wharfedale, took over with his wife Christine. They built a small extension at the Prospect Row side in front of what was then the garage, and later incorporated the whole garage into this room. The Hermit became a popular ‘destination’ pub and so Enterprise built the large extension at the car park side giving a new entrance, turning the bar round and doubling the interior space to what it is today.

Brian and Christine decided to retire and around 2013 they sold the remainder of their lease to Gillian and Richard Kelly. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-21 caused them to announce that they did not intend to re-open the pub when the lock-down ended and at the start of 2021 they lodged an application for planning permission to convert the pub into housing. Once again local people rallied to oppose this threat and a campaign to ‘Save the Hermit’ culminated with the purchase of the pub by the Burley Woodhead Pub Company.

The Hermit has long been the social hub of the hamlet as well as attracting customers from Burley village, those using the road from Bradford to Ilkley and visitors from further afield. We hope that under new management the Hermit will return to its central place in the life of the hamlet, mid-Wharfedale and beyond.

Good health and cheers!

Nick Hooper © July 2021

Credits:

Family research and licensing records: Ancestry.co.uk

Newspaper research: findmypast British Newspaper library.

With thanks for their assistance to:

Peter Grinham, Burley Local History & Archives Group

John White, author of Alfred John Brown, Walker, Writer and Passionate Yorkshireman (2016, Smith Settle Ltd., Yeadon) - on 1st August 2018 (Yorkshire Day), a blue memorial plaque was installed at the main entrance to the Hermit Inn to commemorate the life and literary works of ‘AJB’ while he resided at Burley-in-Wharfedale.

Stuart Quarmby

Burley Woodhead neighbours.

John Grogan; Peter Down (Bradford CAMRA); Greg Mulholland; Dale Smith, Paul Griffin, Jamie Needle (Menston ); Burley Parish Council; and the owners of Burley Woodhead Pub Company. Without their support the campaign to Save the Hermit could not have succeeded.

For images:

https://theyorkshirejournal.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/yorkshirereview2019-1-1.pdf

http://www.yfanefa.com/record/11980

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/384158992790

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3580341

For more on Job Senior:

http://www.aireboroughhistoricalsociety.co.uk/people/senior.aspx

http://www.burley-in-wharfedale.org/history/06characters/job.html