The Norths in Almondbury

Norths in Almondbury

The village of Almondbury lies close to Huddersfield bridge in Yorkshire and there are intermittent North family name records there going back to the 13th century. 
John North was willed lands in Huddersfield, Almondbury and Dalton by his mother Joanna in 1520.  His descendants, the Norths of Fenay, resided at Almondbury until 1800.  With the death of Wiiliam North at that time the Fenay branch of the family then became extinct and their Fenay property passed by marriage to the Battys. 
It was the 18th century Benjamin North of this family, a lawyer by profession, who had an antiquarian interest and developed the genealogy of the family.  He and his immediate relatives were buried at Almondbury.  The inscription on their gravestone is no longer legible, but the following legend has survived: 
 
“The body of Mary Anne, daughter of Benjamin North the younger by Sarah his wife, which child died 4th June 1777 aged one year and seven months; and the body of Sarah his wife which died 4th February 1790 aged 55 years; also interred the body of Mr. Benjamin North junr. who died 13th May 1796 aged 75 years."
 
Just past the entrance to Woodsome Hall stop and look over to Fenay Hall on the right. Although the Fenays of Fenay have been extinct in the male line since 1710 the blood of this ancient family (although diluted) must flow in the veins of many local people, through the Fenay daughters marrying into several local families over the generations. The first reference to the family is found in an undated deed issued some time between 1199 and 1216. From that time the name is found in numerous deeds, in the Poll Tax of 1379 and in various manorial inquisitions, showing that the Fenays continued for four hundred years in the same parish, living on the family land and taking their place among the local gentry.
The builder of the oldest part of the present Fenay Hall was Nicholas Fenay who built in the timber and plaster style of the Tudor Age. This low wing is easily distinguished, even at this distance, from the later buildings. The old house continued as the home of the Fenays until about the time of the Civil War when they appear to have left it in the occupation of tenants.
The last male heir of the Fenays was another Nicholas who died in 1710. He left the estate to his only surviving child, Jane. Jane Fenay's story is a sad one. She had, at the age of twenty-three, become engaged to be married. On the eve of the wedding her betrothed fell into a well near the White Bear Inn at Wakefield and was drowned. Later, Jane, a substantial heiress, received several offers of marriage none of which she accepted. When she died in 1776 she left the Fenay property to her kinsman, Richard Thornton, who directed in his will that it should be sold for the benefit of his two natural children. This was done in 1792 when the North family, who had been tenants at Fenay Hall for fifty years, bought the house and land. The estate soon passed, through marriage, to the Batty family who added new wings to the house and who remained at Fenay until the mid nineteenth century.