A burtone was a fortified farmhouse, and it is from this that comes the name Bishop Burton. The former estate village could be described as delightful archetypal English - parish church, pub, geese on the tree-shaded green, and two ponds (the larger known as the Mere).
The houses predominantly feature whitewashed walls, red pantiles, dormers, and rustic porches supported by black-painted logs that retain the stumps of removed branches. The church houses a bust of Wesley, carved from the wood of a wych elm under which he is said to have preached. The carpenter who treated it for woodworm in 1898 completed his timesheet thus: "To rebaptizing John Wesley and curing him of worms, 25/-."
can you elaborate on how the house was fortified? Who was it fortified from?
ReplyDeleteHello Frank. Fortified farmhouses have especially thick stone walls, small windows set high in these, few entrances, and sometimes a keep-like tower - a domestic-scaled castle. In the Bishop Burton area the fortification was most likely against the Danes.
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