Roecliffe: The Yorkshire village which was a base for brickmaking - and the Roman army
However, with Brickyard Farm to the left and Brickyard Lane to the right, clues to Roecliffe’s history start to emerge.
Records highlight how the area east of the village centre boasted “clay of good quality for brick-making” and was a centre for the manufacture of bricks and tiles, stimulated by the opening of the Ripon Canal in 1770.
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Hide AdThe waterway allowed bricks and tiles to be transported by water to Ripon, York and on to many parts of the country. During the 20th century the clay pits were worked out and filled with water, leading to the brickyards being abandoned in 1964.


Some 1,700 years earlier the area was a permanent base for auxiliary units of the Roman Army.
It is believed the fort, identified by geophysical survey on a raised river terrace, south of a bend of the River Ure, was established established in the late first century AD to guard a crossing point of the river, probably when Petillius Cerealis began his push north into the territory of the native Brigantes.
It is thought a settlement which developed to serve the military site may have included important buildings such as a bath house and a temple.
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Hide AdAccording to Historic England, “the monument offers important scope for understanding the early years of the Roman occupation in northern England”.


The listed monument is just yards from another link with the ancient world, the Late Neolithic monument Devil’s Arrows, on the opposite side of the motorway. The 174m length of colossal standing stones are aligned on a north-north-west to south-south-east axis.
Further along Bar Lane, the character of Roecliffe, the name of which derives from the steep ‘red cliff’ above the Ure, is utterly different. Gnarled oak trees overhang the road, there’s a duck crossing warning sign alongside another, announcing the village name for a second time, as if to distinguish the area from its commercial neighbours.
Emerging from the trees on the meadow-bordered lane, the heart of village is just as green, with the route featured in the 170-mile Way of the Roses coast-to-coast cycle route, passing through an expanse of grass and trees overlooked by numerous properties.
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Hide AdThe lozenge-shaped green is so generous it doubles up as the school playing field, and includes a 400m track and a football pitch. Prominently overlooking the green, stands the red brick and tiled neo-Georgian and Jacobean school and schoolmasters house, which features an arcaded bellcote and spire.
In October a Yorkshire Post league table of state-funded primary schools in the North Yorkshire and York ranked Roecliffe Church of England Primary as second best.
In the 2022/23 school year, 91 per cent of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths, compared to a local average of 56 per cent.
Opposite the school is a sign featuring a white rose, a flagpole and the entrance to St Mary’s Church, which is just over 15 metres long and believed to be the only church in the country with an entirely vaulted roof.
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Hide AdConsecrated in 1844 on a site behind a large churchyard and an avenue of yew trees which is linked to a medieval chapel, the rectangular neo-Norman style building was declared redundant in 1983 before being vested in the Churches Conservation Trust.
While observers have highlighted its “architectural plainness”, inside and out, and others suggesting Yorkshire Museum architect Richard Hey Sharp based the church design of an Oxford College, the church has been given grade II* listed protection.
Mystery surrounds who amassed the unusual collection of furnishings in the church, such as the oak vestry door rescued from York Minster after the fire of 1829 above which there is wall panelling depicting scenes from the Nativity, the Flight into Egypt, David and Goliath, and Salome’s dance which is thought to date from the late 16th century.
Other treasures include an early 17th century box pew, a huge Jacobean-style oak table which makes up the altar and a pulpit and reading desk formed out of the pulpit of Holy Trinity church, Hull, from which Isaac Milner is thought to have preached as he played a key role in the religious conversion of slavery aboltionist William Wilberforce.
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Hide AdDespite having being made redundant, services are still held in the church and it is used as a concert venue.
At the Bishop Monkton side of the conservation area, amid numerous historic houses and cottages, stands The Crown, a 16th century coaching inn, on a site where an inn has been since the 14th century.
The inn has recently reopened, following concerns for its future that led to a parish council-led bid to get it listed as an asset of community value.
Until recent years it was known far and wide for Craig and Penelope, shop mannequins placed outside the pub with drinks by the owner to highlight the pub was open.
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Hide AdHowever, heading past the inn and west out of Roecliffe stands Wheatlands Farm, where the village’s most famous resident lived.
Racehorse trainer Anthony Gillam converted part of the farm into a stud, where two of his acquisitions were the particularly successful winners, The Brianstan, and Foggy Bell – one of the favourite Northern milers of the 1960s and 1970s.
He took on the string of horses which included three-time Grand National winner Red Rum, who Mr Gillam sold to Ginger McCain before the bay gelding became a champion thoroughbred steeplechaser.
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