Burley Local History Group
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A Brief History of Burley

_Lying in mid-Wharfedale between Ilkley and Otley, the village of Burley–in–Wharfedale and the associated hamlets of Burley Woodhead and Stead formed an eighteenth Century Township. The boundaries gave it a roughly lozenge shape. The longer axis running NE to SW from the river Wharfe to the boundary stone at Lanshaw Lad on the Burley Moor escarpment, is 5 Kms in length. The shorter axis running NW to SE is 2.5 Kms. At the riverbank the height above sea level is 60 metres and Burley Moor reaches over 380 metres.

The slope along the SW to NE axis, from the moor to the river, is not even. It is a step–like slope, which is a consequence of the layers of hard and soft Millstone Grits. The surface was also altered by glaciers flowing from the NW in the Pleistocene Ice Age. After the ice melted large volumes of material carried by the ice were dumped unevenly. Generally this is stony clay which forms the surface of the valley under the escarpment. Streams flowing from the moor towards the river Wharfe have created the gently undulating slope on which the main village is built.

Bronze Age settlers, some three to four thousand years ago, probably preferred the moor tops. Burial mounds (tumuli) from that time have been found there. By Roman times, two thousand years ago, settlements were mainly in the valley. The Bur in Burley and the bor in Scalebor (similar in origin to burgh and borough) are possibly reminders of a small Roman fortification. The place names in this part of the Wharfe valley dating from post Roman times are mainly Anglo–Saxon in origin, though Vikings passed this way. The Domesday Book of 1087AD mentions Burley (Burghelai) as part of the Manor of Otley.
By the medieval period an irregular field pattern typical of mixed farming in the Dales developed. Much of the present woodland is a consequence of plantations, and the creation of hedgerows and field boundaries at this time.

The moorland tops and the steepest slopes have remained beyond the limits of cultivation at least since this time and have become areas of peat accumulation and typical upland vegetation, used as rough pasture for sheep. Mixed farming with cattle and sheep on meadows and upland pastures and some cultivation of cereals in suitable fields nearer the valley bottom was carried on with little change for centuries. There were some supporting trades such as smiths, farriers and millers, and some domestic textile working.

The village of Burley was centred on a small chapel, which was part of the parish of Otley. Near it was a corn mill on the riverside powered by a water wheel driven by the damming of a small stream from the moors. A manor house (Burley Hall), a smithy and an inn (formerly The Malt Shovel and now, after two changes of name, The Original Malt Shovel) were the other main buildings. It lay on the route from Skipton to Otley, the nearest market towns.
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