BRACEWELL MANOR
  

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BRACEWELL ENGLAND.  This link will take you to a Map Quest map of Bracewell.  Use the zoom feature to get an overall view of where Bracewell is then zoom in for a closer view.

BRACEWELL PARISH - ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH.

FROM AN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY PARISH GAZETEER:  (contributed by Carey Bracewell)

BRACEWELL. a par.(ish) in the eastern div.(ision) of the wap.(entake--an ancient subdivision in some northern England counties) of Staincliff and Ewcross, in the West Riding of the co.(ounty) of York, 9 miles to the W.(est) of Skipton, its post town. It is situated in a hilly country, and includes the hamlet of Stock. Limestone is quarried in the neighbourhood. The living is a vic.(arage) in the dioc.(ese) of Ripon, of the val.(ue) of L123, in the patron.(age) of J.T. Hopwood, Esq. The church is dedicated to St. Michael. Bracewell Hall, a mansion built in the reign of Henry VIII, and long in ruins, was the seat of the Tempest family. Near its site are some remains of a more ancient house, built of stone, containing a room called 'the King's parlour'. It was one of the retreats of Henry VI. There are traces of earthworks in the parish which are attributed to royalists during the civil war of the 17th century.

William F. Bracewell, Austerfield Manor, North Doncaster.  Personal letter.  March 18, 1960.  Contributed by Klute Braswell.  This letter was printed in the newsletter "BRASWELLIANA", Carey O. Brazil, editor.
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The name BRACEWELL is variously spelt in old books and maps, BRASEWELL, BRAISEWELL AND BRAZEWELL.  At one time, the "F" and "S" were more or less interchangeable in English, and in some old maps, BRACEWELL is spelt BRAFWELL.  In the Doomsday Book, it is spelt BRAUCILLE in Norman French. 

The name BRACEWELL is a pure Saxon or Scandinavian name, meaning we well on the bray, or hill, and this feature is found in BRACEWELL where the water is derived from a well on the hillside above the village.

There are quite a few references to the BRACEWELL family in the Court Rolls of the Duchy of Lancaster at Lancaster Castle.  Although Bracewell is in Yorkshire, the Duchy of Lancaster seems to have had some jurisdiction there in the past.

Bracewell was originally a Saxon manor.  After the Norman Conquest in the reign of Henry I, the family there were dispossed by the Normans and replaced by a family named TEMPEST, WILLIAM LE TEMPEST having come over with the Conquerer.  There were two families of TEMPEST, one at Bracewell and the other at Broughton, a little nearer to Skipton.  The Broughton TEMPESTS are still living at Broughton Hall when not in the south of France, and they are one of the leading Roman Catholic families in England.

The Bracewell TEMPESTS went to reside in France after the flight of James II, and they remained at the Court of the Pretender to the English Throne at St. Germaine, and the last one who I believe was a Catholic Bishop, died there or in Paris during the lifetime of the Pretender James III.  After his death, the Manor at Bracewell passed into various hands, among them was Earl GREY the Reformer, but the Manor House as by that time in ruins and the Manor was subsequently bought by a Cotton Manufacturer from Blackburn, named HOPWOOD who on the ruins of the original Norman Manor House, built a horrible looking Mansion in the Scottish Baronial style.  This would be about the 1850's.

HOPWOOD went bankrupt, and the Manor was then bought by a family named RILEY, but they did not live in the house, which at one time was a Boarding School for small boys.  Later on it became a Road House and during the last war was used as offices for the Rover Motor company who moved part of their Aircraft Engine Factory from the Midlands to Barnoldswick.

After the War, the house fell altogether out of use, and now has been demolished.

When the Saxon family was dispossed by the Normans, they moved into the surrounding districts and references to the Bracewells are to be found in the Parish Records of the adjoining Parishes Thorton-in-Craven, Barnoldswick, Salterforth and a little further in Colne and Burnley, where the name is quite common . . .

WM. F. BRACEWELL