Denby Grange, Yorkshire;

THE SEAT OF

SIR JOHN LISTER KAYE, BART.

DENBY GRANGE is seated in a rich and fertile valley, through which winds the river Colne, and bounded by high hills, richly cultivated. This seat stands in the parish of Kirkheaton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and at the distance of seven miles from Wakefield.

Sir John Kaye, of Woodsome, Yorkshire, Knight, was advanced to the dignity of a Baronet by King Charles I., February 4, 1641. He served that unfortunate monarch as Colonel of Horse, and suffered much both in person and estate during the civil wars, but happily survived the usurpation of Cromwell, and witnessed the restoration of King Charles II. to the throne of his ancestors.

The second son of the second Baronet was George Kaye, Esq. of Denby Grange; he married Dorothy, daughter of Robert Saville, of Bryan Royd, in this county, and, dying in the year 1707, his son succeeded to the property of his two uncles, Christopher Lister, Esq. and Sir Arthur Kaye, Bart.; he assumed the name of Lister, in addition to his own, and became the fourth Baronet of this family; and upon the death of the late Sir Richard Kaye, LL.D. Dean of Lincoln, who was the sixth Baronet, without issue, the title became extinct, but was renewed, December 28, 1812, in the person of the present proprietor of Denby Grange, sole heir to the estates of the families of Lister and Kaye, by will.

Bowling Hall, Yorkshire;

THE SEAT OF

THOMAS MASON, ESQ.

BOWLING HALL is situated at the distance of one mile from Bradford, and nine from Halifax, in the midst of fine scenery, at the head of an extensive and fertile valley, deformed by a great profusion of worsted manufactories, with their attendant steamengines; but bounded by luxuriant hills, waving over each other, and overtopped, to the north, by the barren heights of Rumbles Moor, at the foot of which glides the river Aire, which has its source in the small lake of Malham-water, in Craven.

The House, a large majestic building, with a centre and two deep wings to the north, has been built at very different periods. The south front, opening to extensive gardens, is terminated by two square Towers of considerable but uncertain antiquity. The West Tower, decidedly the most ancient, the walls of which are five feet thick, has been, it is conjectured, originally the entrance to an inner Court, no traces of which now remain. The rest of the building may be safely assigned to the age of Elizabeth, or probably to that of her immediate successor, and was, doubtless, erected by one of the Tempest family, who held the estate at least a century and a half.

*

Within the Towers are two deep-embayed windows, one of which is of modern construction; the other is ancient, with an embattled parapet; and between them the Hall, containing one vast window, of many square-headed lights. The Hall is about thirty feet long, and twenty feet broad, and has a plain plastered ceiling. In the windows of this and other apartments, are a great many shields of arms, several of which are of the Tempest family, and their alliances; but there are to be found many armorial bearings of families unconnected with the former possessors of Bowling, which were collected by a gentleman related to one of the owners about the middle of the last century. From the circumstance of some of the coats belonging to the Stanley family, and one of them bearing the inscription, “Our Lady the Kinge's_Mother,”

known to have been obtained from a seat of the Ashetons, in Lancashire, one of whom was a principal commander at the siege of Latham House, which was demolished on its surrender, these stained coats of arms are conjectured to have been part of the spoil. Thomas, the first Earl of Derby, who built that magnificent House, was the husband of the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry the Seventh.

Bowling, after it became the property of the Tempests, was their residence during part of the year, where they sojourned, to consume the produce of the estate, as rents were then partly, if not wholly, paid in kind. § Bowling Hall, like most considerable houses in ancient times, had a Park attached to it.|| The Tempests, and probably their predecessors, possessed a Park for red deer, in a wild region, at the head of Bradford Dale, which, though long since disparked, retains the name of Denholme Park. Under that denomination, it appears in Saxton's Map, published in 1577.

The Earl of Newcastle, commander of the King's forces, made Bowling Hall his head-quarters in the year 1643, when he besieged and took the town of Bradford, which, like most of the trading towns in that part of the West-Riding, sided with the parliament.

Bolling, as it was originally spelled, was the manor and residence of a family bearing the same name, from the origin of local surnames to the reign of Henry VII.** when Rosamond, daughter and heiress of Tristram Bolling, married Sir Richard Tempest, of Bracewell, Knt. and thereby took into that family, not only Bowling, but the manors of Thornton and Denholme, with lands in Clayton and Oxenhope. In this line it continued, till the civil wars of the seventeenth century, when Richard Tempest, a weak, imprudent man, ruined partly by his own extravagancies, and partly by his attachment to the royal cause, sold the estate to Henry Savile, Esq. of Thornhill Green, near Wakefield, the immediate ancestor of the present family. In 1668, Mr. Savile disposed of it to Francis Lindley, Esq. of Gray's Inn, in whose name it continued till 1760, when, on failure of issue, it descended to Thomas Pigot, Esq. of Manchester, the heir-at-law, and was by him settled on Charles Wood, Esq. a Captain in the Royal Navy, who received a mortal wound, Sept. 3d, 1782, in an engagement between Sir Edward Hughes and a French squadron, in the East Indies. On his death, the manor of Bowling descended to his son, Sir Francis Lindley Wood, Bart.; who sold it, in 1815, to John Sturges, John Green Paley, and Thomas Mason, Esqrs; and on the division of the property, in 1821, that part of the estate on which the Hall is situated, along with the manor, and a chapel, or chantry, in Bradford Church, attached to the mansion, fell to the share of Mr. Mason. In one of the lodging-rooms in this part of the house, is the date 1615 over the fire-place. Though not so represented in the plate in Dr.Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete. I Not" concealing a fine coved oaken roof," as surmised by Dr. Whitaker. A tenant upon this estate, who died only a few years ago, had himself paid part of his rent in kind. Lands within the Manor still bear that name; and a field is still called the "Lodge Close," the probable site of the keeper's habitation, which is yet marked by several venerable sycamores.

** Stated by mistake, in Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete, to have been in the reign of Henry the Eighth.