Booze, North Yorkshire

Booze
Booze with Fremington Edge in the background
Booze is located in North Yorkshire
Booze
Booze
Location within North Yorkshire
OS grid referenceNZ015025
Civil parish
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townRichmond
Postcode districtDL11
PoliceNorth Yorkshire
FireNorth Yorkshire
AmbulanceYorkshire
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Yorkshire
54°25′05″N 1°58′41″W / 54.418°N 1.978°W / 54.418; -1.978

Booze is a hamlet in Arkengarthdale, in North Yorkshire, England. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Langthwaite. There are 11 households in the hamlet.[1] There is a riding school nearby.

Name

The earliest record of the name is from 1473, in the form Bowehous. The name is derived from the Old English boga 'bow' and hus 'house', and thus means 'house by the bow or curve'. The reference is possibly to the curved hill above Slei Gill and Arkle Beck, on which the hamlet is situated.[2]

History

The original community depended on hill farming and mining. The hamlet overlooks Slei Gill which contains several lead mining levels. Following the collapse of the lead mining industry in North Yorkshire at the end of the 19th century one of the mines, the Booze Wood Level, continued to be used as a slate mine until the beginning of the First World War. Chert was mined on Fremington Edge, south of Booze, until the beginning of the Second World War.[3]

The 1851 census counted 41 houses in Booze.[4]

A local tragedy occurred during the eighteenth century when a group of miners working underground near Boldershaw blasted into an underground lake. Twenty-four miners and two pit ponies were drowned in the flood that followed. Eighteen of the dead came from Booze. The vein became known as the Water Blast Vein.[5] Modern researchers have failed to find any record of this event in Parish records, though an accident involving the death of three miners may have been the origins of this story.[6]

Access

The only road access to Booze is by a steep and narrow single-track road from Langthwaite. In July 2008, Royal Mail announced it was withdrawing postal services from the hamlet on health and safety grounds because access to it involves an "excessively steep" rural track.[7][8] This left local families to make a one-hour round-trip into Richmond and back to collect their mail.[9] Postal services to the hamlet were restored after North Yorkshire County Council made road improvements.[1][10]

References

  1. ^ a b "Village to get post service back". BBC News. BBC. 12 August 2008. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
  2. ^ Smith, A. H. (1928). The Place-names of the North Riding of Yorkshire (PDF). Cambridge University Press. p. 295.
  3. ^ Hardy, John (No date, post 1982) The Hidden Side of Swaledale. The Life and Death of a Yorkshire Lead Mining Community. Frank Peters, Kendal. ISBN 0-948511-40-0. Pages 74, 75.
  4. ^ Batty, Margaret (1982) A View of Akengarthdale. Teesdale Mercury Press. pp 14.
  5. ^ Hardy. Page 42.
  6. ^ Exhibit at Swaledale Museum, Reeth. August 2022 [1]
  7. ^ Wainwright, Martin (2 August 2008). "'Too steep' hill sees Royal Mail end deliveries to remote hamlet". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 3 August 2008.
  8. ^ "Post workers banned from village". BBC News. BBC. 3 August 2008. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
  9. ^ Brown, Jonathan (2 August 2008). "My cruise to Booze up the lane deemed too dangerous for postmen". The Independent. London. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
  10. ^ "Postal service resumes in village". BBC News. BBC. 1 September 2008. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
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