Memories of Musgrave Hall 

Louise Lee shares some of her memories of Musgrave Hall, now her family home, which is next door to The Chestnuts on Burras Lane

Recognise Musgrave Hall from its doors, the funny chimney, the gate and the weird cobbled drive leading to the house? Passers-by watch aghast as we negotiate the rather precarious driveway in the car!

Musgrave Hall is situated just 50 yards to the west of Otley Parish Church in Burras Lane. It’s a Grade 2 Listed Building. Ever wondered what it was before it became a home?

Your Memories
Do you have memories of Otley Collegiate School, Sunday School, Boy Scouts, Men’s Christian Fellowship Meetings, the Church Bookstall or even having fun jumping off the edge of the strange wedge-shaped cobbled drive? Maybe you remember a meeting there with the local MP and Councillor to fight Leeds City. Council’s proposals to raze nearby Mount Pisgah to the ground for a car park? Do you remember seeing Ken Pollard outside in his colourful garden?

My Memories
Teaching Sunday School at Musgrave Hall and Newall Hall (Newall Carr Road) in the early 1970s and under the auspices of Margaret Proctor.

Back row: Revd. Pat Ashe (left), Ken Pollard (right). In front of Ken is Barbara Pollard with baby son John whose christening it is (2nd August 1964). On the extreme right is Louise Pollard, baby John’s sister, aged 12.

In 1964 my brother was born and his christening in the Parish Church was followed by a Christening Tea at Musgrave Memorial Hall.
My Dad, Ken Pollard, who was Vicar’s Warden for many years, applied for planning permission on behalf of the Parochial Church Council to convert the Hall into a private dwelling. It was originally a school – Otley Collegiate School. The church needed to raise funds for the upkeep of their other building, Burras Lane School. It took many years and 4 costly attempts after employing various architects to achieve Listed Buildings and Conservation approval through Leeds City Council. It was thanks to Mary Wells, a church architect who finally succeeded with the approval.

Then, the building went for Public Auction but as my father always believed, the Lord was in control. My parents won the auction and sold their family home in Queens Terrace. While the conversion and restoration work to a bungalow with a minstrel’s gallery was being carried out, they lived in a caravan at the front of the Hall throughout a very cold winter.
My parents and brother John moved into the property in July 1978. Pat Ashe, the vicar at the time, conducted a dedication of the new house.

The original cross from within the Memorial Hall is now in our hallway as a memory of the Christian nature of the building. My Mum died in 1994 and my Dad continued to live in the house on his own until he passed away in 2009.

My Dad was a totally committed Christian – “a sinner saved by grace” is inscribed on his headstone. I will never forget his longing gaze out of the lounge window up the Chevin as he left the house for the very last time to be admitted to the Marie Curie Hospice.

Between his death and funeral some unexplained occurrences happened. The Otley Life magazine landed on the doormat; we had no idea that a photo of Dad’s house had been taken and would be put on the front cover. Just two days after his death I was in the hall when I had an amazing vision of how to further turn the house into an even more liveable home. To cut a very long story short we had tremendous problems lasting a year or so to get Listed Building Planning Permission to totally alter the interior but retain all the historic features. Some of you may remember my husband, Richard, project managing every day with some brilliant tradesmen. I clearly remember one craftsman telling us it was “an honour to work on such a beautiful building.”

Major renovation work to Musgrave Hall in 2010

Neighbours will no doubt remember the dust and noise when contractors sandblasted the stone mullions and beams which had been overpainted in brown gloss, but consequently well preserved.

We have to say “thank you” to our neighbours for being long-suffering throughout 2010 while the building was being restored.


From private school to private home  – and what happened in between

When my parents moved into their home in 1978, they had the name Musgrave Hall carved on the right-hand side of the front door and the date of 1834 was placed over the doorway. However, as I began to look further into the history of our home, conflicting details emerged and I began a more detailed piece of research which has provided a fascinating look at the history of our home and some of the people who have passed through its doors.

I wondered where my father, Ken Pollard, got the date of 1834 from as the Leeds Listed Buildings record for Otley gave it the date of c1830…mind you, they did describe it as a private school built by Dr Kirk! Not true – Dr Kerr was the teacher, not the builder; we don’t know who the builder was! Elise Brumfitt, a local historian writing in her book, “Old Otley” also records that in 1834 a small school known as “Collegiate School” was built on Burras Lane. A survey, conducted in 1971 by the Otley Urban District Council on Buildings of Architectural and Historical interest, also quotes this date of 1834 and it is from this record that my father chose the date.

However, a search of the “Tracks in Time” Leeds Tithe map dated 1836-1851 shows only All Saints Parish Church in this area and a map of 1842 shows the church, the graveyard and the old vicarage on Church Lane, surrounded by fruit trees.

Margaret Parkin had a chance meeting with Paul Wood, the former curator of Otley Museum, and things changed again. He told her that the Otley Collegiate School was built on College Hill, its present site, in 1867 as reported in both the Bradford Observer of Thursday 31st October of that year and the Otley and Wharfedale News dated November 1st of the same year. Copies of these records can be found in the Leeds Reference Library. So that is the date we now go with.

Who was Dr Kerr and how did his school become established?

In the 1840s a group of Otley citizens, including William Musgrave, uncle of Peter Musgrave, (more of him later) wished to establish a private school. Samuel Hyslop Kerr, aged 24 years, was chosen to be the teacher. He came to Otley in 1848 from Sanquhar in Scotland where he had been employed as an assistant teacher and described as being a teacher of English and Latin.

The Salem Chapel, Bridge Street, Otley. This was demolished in approx. 1898/99

The 1851 census shows S.H. Kerr as teaching in a school room on West Terrace, Beech Hill. In 1855 he opened the ‘Otley Classical School’ in a room in the old Congregational Sunday School, in the old Salem Chapel on Bridge Street. He became a deacon of the church, retiring as the Senior Deacon in 1885.

When Samuel Kerr’s 15 pupils grew to 30, with classes running from 8am to 5.30pm, he moved to a room above the old Courthouse. This was in 1857 – but which ‘courthouse’? There have been several of them over the years, one of them being in the Old Grammar School in Manor Square, once used by the Manor Club.

Other possibilities included the Court and Session house established in 1757 in the top storey of the Assembly Rooms on Bondgate. This building became the Bowling Green Inn and is now part of the Wetherspoon chain. And of course, we have the Courthouse and Police Station in the street of the same name, built in 1874. The consensus of opinion is that Samuel Kerr’s original school was in the courthouse in the Old Grammar School.

Trades Directories can be a useful tool when researching local history, and Slaters Commercial directory of Durham, Northumberland and Yorkshire, dated 1855, tells us that Samuel Kerr was master at the Otley Classical School on Bridge Street – the Salem Chapel referred to earlier.

The Post Office directory dated 1861 describes his school as being ‘the Academy on Westgate’. The census records for 1851/1861 and 1871 record Dr Kerr as living in a house in West Terrace, off Beech Hill and built for him by Mr William Dawson, the founding proprietor of the printing trade in Otley. In 1866 he was teaching from a cellar under his house in West Terrace, and in addition to being a school master he held the post of Superintendent Registrar.

In the next year he at last moved into his own school on Burras Lane which we now know as Musgrave Hall but was then called the Otley Collegiate School.

In addition to educating many local children, Samuel Kerr’s own education continued – he had arrived in Otley as an assistant teacher – gained a B.A. in 1870, then an M.A. and finally in 1875 acquired a Ph.D.

Mr Kerr was now Dr Kerr and locally the Collegiate school was called Dr Kerr’s School. He stayed there until his retirement in 1887 when he moved to Devon where he died on January 1st, 1918 aged 92. Mr James Etchells became the school master.

A scholarship in Dr Kerr’s name was established after his death for the ‘highest attaining student of the year’ and a memorial board in the Main Hall at Prince Henry’s Grammar School displays their names.

Many of those who made Otley famous in the commercial, manufacturing and professional world were taught by Dr Kerr. Their names and contributions are still remembered today – Dacre, Walker, Newstead, Duncan, and more.

As I mentioned earlier, between 1974 and 1975, my father, Ken Pollard, vicar’s warden, made four failed planning applications at his own expense, on behalf of the Parish Church Council, for conversion of Musgrave Hall to residential property.

The property was then left for four years with no decision on how to sell it. In 1978 it was offered for public auction and Ken’s offer was accepted. My mother had not dared to attend the auction knowing how much it had already cost my father. Renovation of the building commenced in 1978 with my parents and brother living in a caravan on the site.

Musgrave Hall became my parent’s home until Ken died in 2009. My husband, Richard, and I now enjoy their legacy and have a few more stories to uncover and a few more questions to answer.

How did Otley Collegiate School, also known as Dr Kerr’s School, become Musgrave Hall?

When Dr Samuel Kerr, School Master, retired in 1887, he was succeeded by James Etchells. The school continued for a few years until its closure in 1897 when the building was sold to William Wratmell, then later to Peter Musgrave.

Peter William Musgrave walking along Boroughgate in 1911, taking part in what was probably a Whit Sunday walk

Peter was a former pupil of Dr Kerr and a churchwarden at Otley Parish Church. He was also Superintendent of the Parish Church morning Sunday School.

In 1898 he paid £445 by deed of gift to the church and Dr Kerr’s school building then came into use as a Sunday School. It is said that on Sunday mornings he marched his scholars to the church service and sat with them, armed with a billiard cue which he used to tap the heads of talkative youngsters!

In later years, the building was used by several local groups. For example, in 1937 the large room became a club for unemployed men and in the late 1960s Bethel Church used it for worship. In 1958, a reader of the Wharfedale Observer wrote a letter asking that it should be given its full title of Musgrave Memorial School, reminding readers that it was really a monument to the memory of Peter William Musgrave, and  ‘it is only right that we should not forget it is a memorial’. The letter says that Peter Musgrave presented Dr Kerr’s school to Otley Parish Church for use as a Sunday School in memory of his daughter Henrietta who was killed in a horse-riding accident.

A very interesting artefact in the entrance hall of our home is this brass plaque. We are told that in 1904 a ceremony took place at the Burras Lane School to unveil a tablet in memory of the late Henrietta Musgrave who was a superintendent of the Girls’ Sunday School. This plaque was later moved to the Parish Church and we are indebted to the Otley Parish Church Council for gifting it back to us.

Plaque:
Otley 27th July 1898
MUSGRAVE MEMORIAL SCHOOL
In Affectionate Remembrance of
HENRIETTA Wife of Peter William Musgrave
of Manby House, Otley

The inscription on the plaque needs some explanation. It clearly indicates that it is a memorial to his wife Henrietta, who died on 26th May 1890 and not his daughter Henrietta, as suggested by the reader of the Wharfedale Observer. His daughhter did not die until  18th May 1904 and of Tuberculosis, not  a riding accident as previously reported. The plaque itself was not unveiled until 1904, some months after his daughter died. The date in the bottom left hand corner of the tablet of 27th July 1898 is the date when Dr Kerr’s school became the Parish Church Sunday School.

Peter Musgrave, who described himself as a wool-buyer, with his wife Henrietta set up their first home in West Bradford. Nine children were born while they lived there. In 1875 they moved to Manby House on East Chevin where a further three children were born. Of their twelve children, two sadly died in infancy. In addition to his involvement in the church Peter also served as a magistrate. He died in 1913, aged 75.

From the start of our Musgrave Hall history trail several coincidences have occurred. From the unexpected return of the plaque to its original home, to the casual meeting in Otley’s market place between Paul Wood, local historian, and Margaret Parkin which led to the date of Musgrave Hall being established. Paul also confirmed dates and places of Samuel Kerr’s teaching history. Then, Judith Boardman came to the church Friday coffee morning, and told us that she was the great-granddaughter of Peter Musgrave. Margaret Parkin put her in touch with Richard and me. She visited us and gave us a copy of “The Musgrave Family of Otley”, a family history document produced by her niece Dr Gillian Overend. This provided much of the above information about Peter Musgrave.

Dr Samuel Kerr

The next coincidence came this year on February 14th, when the Wharfedale Observer carried an item about the forthcoming celebrations at Prince Henry’s Grammar School to celebrate the centenary of its reopening. Among their archives the school had found an original oil painting of Dr Kerr. Stephen Clarkson, the assistant headteacher co-ordinating the event, has very kindly taken this photograph of Dr Kerr from the oil painting. In his memory an annual scholarship is presented to the highest attaining students at the school.

Prince Henry’s is keen to collate the stories of as many former winners as is possible and has been appealing for information. We intend sharing the information we have acquired with the school and look forward to visiting the exhibition planned for the end of June his year.

The latest coincidence occurred very recently when Otley Methodist Church provided a copy of a historical booklet produced by Reg Rawling some years ago following the development of Methodism in Otley. This was intended to clarify a query that Margaret Parkin had raised with them about John Wesley and his horse but when reading through the booklet she came across the following information:

‘A purpose-built meeting house was built in 1771 on Nelson Street and was intended to seat 500 persons. It became necessary to build a new and larger building and this one was vacated as a chapel in 1826 but continued to be used as a Wesleyan Day School for the education of young people. We have a record of quills being bought to help the youngsters in the art of writing. One of the teachers being Dr Kerr’.

Who knows what else we are going to find out about Musgrave Hall, our home? That is where you come in – what memories do you have of times spent there when in use as the church Sunday school or for other events? What photographs might you have?  We would love to hear from you.

Our thanks go to Otley museum for access to their archive records and to all those who have contributed in any way to help us put together this fascinating story so far.

We are grateful to Margaret Parkin of Otley Parish Church and a volunteer at Otley Museum, for her passion in this research and her meticulous documentation.

My parents would have been so thrilled, as Richard and I indeed are. We are honoured to live in such a special part of old Otley.

Legacy of Louise’s parents Barbara & Ken Pollard and recently husband Richard Lee who project managed the renovation of the Grade 2 Listed Building between 2010-2012. Richard sadly died 11-7-2022.