Middleton by Youlgrave

It may look as if nothing much has ever happened in this attractive sleepy village but you would be surprised - it has several tales to tell. Middleton offers access to matchless scenic walks, one of which follows the river Bradford with its secretive remains of old mills. During the Civil War an outcrop on the riverbank, Fulwood’s Rock, was the last hiding place of a wounded Cavalier. Alas, he was discovered and marched away to his death. Grassy mounds in a nearby field are all that remains of his home, Fulwood Castle, razed to the ground on the orders of Sir John Gell, a vengeful Roundhead captain with a personal axe to grind. Also in Middleton, in a corner of the field behind a former chapel, is the grave of Thomas Bateman, a famous early archaeologist and ‘barrow digger’. His ne’er do well son blackened the family name and has gone down in history as ‘Bateman the Wastrel’.