Booze

From Wikishire
Jump to: navigation, search
Booze
Yorkshire
North Riding
Booze and Slei Gill.JPG
Booze with Fremington Edge behind
Location
Grid reference: NZ015025
Location: 54°25’5"N, 1°58’41"W
Data
Post town: Richmond
Postcode: DL11
Local Government
Council: Richmondshire
Parliamentary
constituency:
Richmondshire

Booze is a hamlet in Arkengarthdale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is about a mile east of Langthwaite and Arkle Town. There is a riding school nearby.

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 northern 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.[1]

The 1851 census counted 41 houses in Booze.[2]

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.[3]

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.[4][5] This has left local families to make a one-hour round-trip into Richmond and back to collect their mail.[6] Postal services to the hamlet were restored after North Yorkshire County Council made road improvements.[7][8]

Outside links

Commons-logo.svg
("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Booze)

References

  1. 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.
  2. Batty, Margaret (1982) A View of Akengarthdale. Teesdale Mercury Press. pp 14.
  3. Hardy. Page 42.
  4. Wainwright, Martin (2 August 2008). "'Too steep' hill sees Royal Mail end deliveries to remote hamlet". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/02/post.ruralaffairs. Retrieved 2008-08-03. 
  5. "Post workers banned from village". BBC News (BBC). 3 August 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7539742.stm. Retrieved 24 January 2012. 
  6. Brown, Jonathan (2 August 2008). "My cruise to Booze up the lane deemed too dangerous for postmen". London: The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/my-cruise-to-booze-up-the-lane-deemed-too-dangerous-for-postmen-883260.html. Retrieved 26 April 2010. 
  7. "Village to get post service back". BBC News (BBC). 12 August 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7555805.stm. Retrieved 24 January 2012. 
  8. "Postal service resumes in village". BBC News (BBC). 1 September 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7592033.stm. Retrieved 24 January 2012.