The imposing gateway to Brackenley House is an imposing landmark on Skipton Road at the junction with Brackenley Lane. Within the gates, a driveway curves in towards a fine house of the early Victorian era.

The tithe map of 1846 does not mark its presence, but the land on which it was later built belonged to a Skipton lawyer, Thomas Baynes Preston (1813-1849). By 1839 he already owned several properties in Embsay, including the weaving shed in Millholme (Now known as Embsay Mills, where you will find the Clean Eats Kitchen and the gym). In 1841 he had purchased 6 acres of land, comprised of the two fields called Bracken Land and Bracken Ing. The tenant was William Anderson. By 1846 Thomas also owned Curlew Mew Meadow (on which Brackenley House now stands), the Sandbeds mill (also known as Blands Mill; now the Cavendish car park), and the mill-ponds (now the gardens of Cavendish View Terrace), plus a barn and garden behind the Rampant Lion Inn (now the Cavendish Arms).

Tithe Map 1846 – Bow Bridge House [213] can be seen bottom left – at this time it belonged to William Medcalfe, rented out to David Dale. Brackenley House did not yet exist, but an annotation later made in pencil, the letter ‘H’, shows where it was later located, opposite Bland’s Mill [272], which Thomas Preston rented out to William Bland.  254 was a barn, also owned by Thomas Baynes Preston, which he rented out to Matthew Procter.

Since he lived in Skipton, Thomas tenanted all these properties out. But his mother was Jane Baynes (1788-1875), the daughter of George Baynes, owner of Embsay Kirk. As a solicitor Thomas was an agent for his aunt, Elizabeth Baynes (1773-1846) of Embsay Kirk, so despite being an absentee landlord, he knew Embsay very well. He died in 1849, at the age of 36, still unmarried. So his estate (which also included property in Skipton, Keighley and Redmire) was acquired by Thomas Fletcher, a civil engineer and agent for the limestone quarry.

Thomas Fletcher (1816-1869) came from a distinguished family of canal engineers from Lancashire. His grandfather Samuel was a chief engineer on the construction of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal (designing the Gannow and Foulridge tunnels in the 1790s), as were his uncle, father, and Thomas himself (alongside his brother James).

By 1851, Thomas came to live in Embsay, with his widowed mother Jane, her unmarried sister, Martha Bentley, and Thomas’s brother, James. They moved into Bow Bridge House at Millholme, Embsay. Today this house (now divided into two cottages, 28 and 30 Skipton Road) looks relatively modern due to a newer frontage, but a mullioned window at the gable end is a clue to its much earlier origins.

The brothers jointly managed the limestone quarry. Sadly their mother, Jane, died within 2 years. Her death certificate of 1853 provides the first documentary record of the existence of Brackenley House.

James (1819-1864) suffered another tragedy – he was recently widowed, and had a young daughter, Jane, who was just two years old. It was unusual in the 19^th Century for widowers to raise their own young children, and Jane was soon sent to live with her unmarried maternal aunt on the Isle of Man. Meanwhile, back at Bow Bridge, James had a housekeeper, Millicent Edmondson. After 8 years together, James and Millicent married at Embsay church. They went on to have 3 daughters, but they were all still very young when James died aged 42 in 1864. He left his widow an annuity, and with her children Millicent moved to Skipton to live with her sister.

Meanwhile, Thomas, although a bachelor, had built himself the much grander “Bracklands House” and moved in with his spinster aunt, Martha, and one 50-year-old servant, Margaret Whitham.  

Margaret was a farmer’s daughter from Bolton Abbey. Before coming to work for the Fletchers, she had been a servant for a farmer’s family in Kildwick.

Thomas died in 1865, still unmarried at the age of 49. His gravestone can still be seen in Embsay churchyard. Aunt Martha moved back to Bow Bridge, with her faithful lady’s companion, Margaret Whitham, to look after her. When Martha died in 1873 she was buried with her nephew, and Margaret was allowed to stay in the house for another 15 years until she died in 1888. She was buried at Bolton Abbey.

The estate passed to Thomas’s brother-in-law, Miles Veevers, who had married Thomas’s younger sister, Sarah Jane.

Part two of the history of Brackenley House will follow soon.

Jane Lunnon, Embsay-with-Eastby Historical Research Group, April 2026.