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The Bowerley was built for William Foster, a
prominent member of a local landowning family, in
1854. Mr Foster was bankrupted and died shortly
after it was completed and the property was
auctioned on the 31st july in 1860 at the Lion Inn
in Settle. It was described in the Times property
section as “A Capital Messuage or Mansion House” and
boasted a Coach House, Harness Room, Shippon,
Carthouse and two Dog Kennels set in 3 acres of
Gardens, Lawns and Pleasure Grounds.
We do not know how much it went for but we do know
it was sold again many years later in the mid-1900s
for the princely sum of £7,500. The Chief Medical
Officer of Health for Craven District Council, a Dr.
Atkinson, lived here with his family in the early
19th century and was credited with bringing a supply
of fresh drinking water to the Parish of Langcliffe.
His son was killed in the First World War at
Passiondale and is remembered on the memorial in the
centre of Langcliffe Village. The son’s name was not
added to the memorial until long after the war as
his father objected to the fact that the memorial
formed part of a spring at which farm animals drank.
In the 1950s The Bowerley, as it has always been
known, was purchased by the prominent local
Giggleswick Public School and converted into
apartments for some of the school’s Masters.
In the late 1970s it was sold to a businessman and
converted into a Hotel and Conference Centre and as
well as being extended with extra bedrooms and new
bar and conference room it featured as a location in
a Victoria Wood situation comedy based on a Health
Farm.
The current owners purchased The Bowerley in 1998
and after continuing hotel operation for a further
four years applied for permission to return the
whole property to residential use. It is now a small
complex of 10 properties: a mixture of carefully
designed cottages, apartments and houses and enjoys
the same gardens and pleasure grounds envisaged by
Mr Foster in 1854 albeit somewhat matured. |
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