Sandy Wade-Gery Bedford
Reply from Richard
Dear
Sandy
Your
contact has prompted me to revise the Dymond family notes in my on
line booklet 'Brereley a History of Brierley'.
This
is a copy of the revised notes. I would welcome your comments
"Another
early family was the Dymond family as can be seen from the Manor
records and the rental lists. James ‘Dimond’ paid a ‘Freerent’
(Freehold?) of 1s. 8d.
for property in Brierley plus 4d. for land called Mortenland in a 1662
rental. This same James is listed as living in Brierley on the 1665
Court Baron records. Also in
1665, Thomas? Dymond a freeholder of Brierley was summoned to attend
at Ringstone Hill with the militia, to prepare for the Dutch Invasion,
Widow Dymond paid £10-15-00 rent to Brierley Manor in 1701. Joseph
Dymond was born on 5th. December. 1746. He was an
astronomer and mathematician. He accompanied the Prince of Wales on a
trip to Hudson Bay in 1766 and died at
Blyth
on 10th December. 1796.
James
'Dimond' is named as a Brierley farmer aged 22 on the Staincross
Militia List dated 1806. In 1813.
The Wesleyan Methodists bought £5, a plot of land in South Croft from
Mrs. Dymond. On the tithe award survey of 1840 John Dymond
occupied a farm on the north of what
is now Church Street Brierley where he lived with his wife Mary three
children and two servants. This was owned by the Manor. John Dymond
also owned a farm of 33 acres further west on the same street.
By
1861 the family had moved to what is now Elms Farm on Common Road
Brierley. Here Mary Dymond aged 54 lived with her son Thomas who was a
land surveyor, James who worked the 102 acre farm, and her daughter
Elizabeth. The family built a row of cottages opposite this farm. By
1881 Mary Dymond was living on
Church Street
. James Dymond now aged 46 and a Coal Owner, was living with his wife
Mary and three children
at Elms Farm. Thomas Dymond aged 48 also a Coal Owner was living at
Burntwood Hall with his wife Anne (nee Tomasson), and two children.
Thomas
Dymond was born in 1833 and lived to be sixty-seven years old. He was
the manager of the Barnsley Main Colliery Company. He was married
twice and his first wife.
Elizabeth
. died in 1866, at the age of only twenty-eight. His second wife,
named Anne, outlived him; dying in 1923. Thomas Dymond bought
Burntwood Hall about 1868 and it then stayed with the Dymond family
for almost a century. Burntwood has always been part of Great Houghton
but Thomas, being a Brierley man, had close connections with the
village. He was church warden for Felkirk and in 1876 gave three bells
to
Felkirk
Church
when the tower was restored. Anne Dymond who was born at Penistone,
was the aunt of Beatrice Tomasson. Beatrice was born at Barnby Moor
Nottinghamshire and lived for many years in Gortnamona House
Clontuskert
Ireland
, she came to live at Burntwood Hall as governess to Anne's daughter
Catherine. She later became known as leading lady a mountaineer.
On
the death of Roger Dymond in 1960, the Dymond estate was sold off.
Burnt Wood Hall is now the property of Mr. Douglas Ross-Gardner, the
son of a well remembered local doctor. Howell Wood is now the property
of the new West Yorkshire County Council.
Extra
note.
There
is a family tradition that Thomas Dymond owned a colliery where there
was a disaster that deeply upset him and that his hair went grey
overnight. He is known to have been Managing Director of Barnsley Main
Colliery. Oaks Colliery was on the site of the later Barnsley Main.
There was a disaster at Oaks Colliery that claimed several hundred
lives on the 12th. -13th. December 1866. This
made national headlines at the time. It does seem possible that Thomas
Dymond could have been Managing Director 1866, it is the year his
first wife died. There is a memorial to the disaster at the top of a
hill on Doncaster Road Barnsley."
Reply
from Sandy
Dear Richard,
Thanks for this ....most impressed.
My knowledge is a bit hazy and I will
print this out and show my Mother Mrs Margaret Francis Wade-Gery
(nee Dymond) who lived there with her father Robert Dymond.
I have difficulty remembering my own
fathers family history which has been centred here at Bushmead
Priory since the 15thC
The sunken garden she tells me the
family called the Fairy garden and her father kept Bees there. The
locals were frightened to visit because of a particularly vicious
stinging Italian Queen Bee.
The secret underground passage used to
partly fill with water and then freeze in Winter making it difficult
to walk through. During the war one of the workers used to hide
there with his family when the air raid sirens sounded. (this amused
the family as they considered the Germans hardly likely to bomb
a remote part of Yorkshire.
She also remembered they made their own
gas in a plant situated on the right hand side of the driveway. The
main garden stone wall needed constant annual maintenance because of
the soft stone!
Her father John Dymond created a written
work called Dymond on Death Duties which is known by all Legal firms
who have an updated copy in their libraries....his eyesight
suffered during this work and she helped him to finish it.
They used 5 watt bulbs in the hallway
which seems incredibly poor lighting
The Forester known as Heaton worked
across the Estate and the Woodlands, Ice House and Lakes....he sadly
committed suicide after the Dymonds left and somehow tied his feet
together so this would facilitate his removal from the Lake!
Lots of snippets some rather morose but
nevertheless interesting!
Regards
Sandy