Granges grew up around abbeys

The name Grange, often referring to a large house or farm, occurs among many local villages. There is one near Ampleforth Abbey, for example, and another in Glaisdale, the village where I grew up. Generally they are large houses whose distant origins lie in agriculture and they also appeared in European countries including Ireland, France and Austria.

Originally, however, “grange” meant an outlying farmstead owned by a monastery and surrounded by farm buildings and arable land. Usually, the grange stood some distance, even several miles, from its parent community although in France there were smaller, secondary granges known as doyenne, these being under the control of a dean rather than an abbot.

Some granges specialised in wine making, cheese production and various mixed farming enterprises, with their continent counterparts being responsible for some of Europe’s finest vineyards and wine. They appeared to be very successful at animal husbandry and growing a wide range of crops. In some cases, mills were attached to the granges so they produced their own flour.

In its heyday, for example, the splendid Rievaulx Abbey possessed a large number of granges including Griff, West Newton, Newlaithes, Bilsdale, Sproxton and Blackamoor. Some developed into greater conurbations like Grangetown, Grangemouth, Grange-over-Sands and several others spread around this country but after the Reformation most survived as rather pleasing large houses.

Grange derives from the Latin grangia which suggests grain but it also meant an arable farm. Some granges functioned as tithe barns in addition to their established role. They stored a tenth of the produce or livestock bred on the farm. The products thus generated were later handed over to the church as a tithe, a form of tax. Tithe meant tenth. Tithe barns were necessarily huge and stored everything from grain to hay via livestock and food.

In some areas there were houses whose rent was paid in grain to the abbey that owned them, and they were also known as granges. Because granges were generally large busy places with huge storage facilities, they were established some distance from the parent abbey and appeared to function quite separately from the abbey’s busy daily routine. The abbey’s monks did not undertake the vital manual work at a grange – this was done by lay-brothers. These were men who probably lived at the grange or walked in from nearby homes or even from the parent abbey.

Whilst they may have taken the vows of their parent monastery, they were not ordained monks or priests. Nonetheless, they were expected to take part in the various festivals and holy days of the Catholic Church and it seems there were regular interchanges of lay brothers at the granges. There is no doubt they were hard-working and much was expected from them.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the deserted abbeys offered no further support for their abandoned granges and had no association with them, consequently the granges ceased to be administered by monks. With some of abbey ruins being sold to wealthy local landowners by Henry VIII, it is probable those buyers also took over the granges and maintained them or sold them as working farms.

Records do not show whether some or all granges survived but the term “grange” later became associated with a farm that was rather isolated. Indeed, many became known as Grange Farm, now privately owned.

When I was a child living in the North York Moors, one of the village houses was called The Grange but so far as I know it had little or no links with a monastery. It was merely the name of a large and important house because it had been built by a businessman who mined iron-ore – it was the home of the Ironmaster. In that way, particularly during Victorian times, grange became associated with large houses.

Following the demise of the abbeys, a farm known as a grange did not necessarily have to specialise in crops, sheep, cattle or indeed any other kind of produce. It could include industrial enterprises that dealt in iron-ore mining, coal and even salt-panning and so The Grange was a very apt name for that big house in our village.

In the nineteenth century, the term “Grange” was used for a secret organisation of farmers in America. Founded at Washington DC in 1867 originally as a social fraternity, it became a political organisation that sought to protect the farming communities.

Here in Britain grange is now found in several large communities. Grangetown on Teesside is a local example with others at Grange-over-Sands in Morecambe Bay and Grangemouth on the shores of the Firth of Forth. There are others and it is interesting that all may have begun life many years ago as small farms belonging to the local abbeys.

Dialect changes

I am occasionally contacted by people who express concern that our dialect speech is disappearing. Country people, widely regarded as its main users, are no longer speaking with those peculiar old words that are so rich and interesting. There are many reasons – the influence of radio and television, the extended use of mobile telephones, the need to be clear in writing and speech, the movement of people from one area to another and probably more.

The truth is, of course, that our speech is always changing. New words come into everyday speech and the present computer generation, along with all that can be heard and viewed on Ipads and mobile phones, is in effect creating a new language. But the old words remain out there on the moors, in the dales and across Co. Durham.

I was reminded of this when I heard a local man refer to a teeafit.

This is an old Yorkshire word for the peewit, more formally known as the green plover or lapwing. At this time of year, they may congregate in huge flocks, often heading south for warmer weather. In my younger days, they were common sights on ploughed fields where they were welcomed because they fed on pests like leather-jackets and wireworms.

On the topic of dialect names for birds, I am familiar with laverock as an alternative for a skylark and this name occurs quite frequently in place-names such as Laverock House or Laverock Farm. Other bird names in common use on the North York Moors when I was a child included cushat or sometimes stoggie meaning a wood pigeon whilst a cuddy was a hedge sparrow which is now formally known as a dunnock or hedge accentor. I seem to recall that cuddy was also used for house sparrow – which most of us would call a spuggy.

One peculiarity is that birds of the finch family were given alternative dialect names. One was spink, which is a means of recalling the alarm call of some finches, and the other was linney.

Goldspink was a goldfinch; bullspink, somewhat surprisingly was a chaffinch whilst, not surprisingly, a bullfinch was called a bully.