Ilkley West Ramble #8: Plumb Tree Banks Lathe
This is the 8th in a series of 28 caches which will take you on a memorable ramble through some fine, varied West Yorkshire countryside immediately west of Ilkley and south of Addingham. The southern half of the ramble traverses Addingham Moorside.
See Ilkley West Ramble #1: Intro & Start for maps, background info on the trail, and parking waypoints.
From IWR #7, follow the path around the corner, down and across the footbridge or ford over Halls Gill Beck. Continue straight up the other side and around the brow of the hill to the ruins of PBTL and cache location . . . you are looking for a camo-taped 35mm film canister.
Regarding the name of the ruins, the Plumb part of the name appears on old maps (eg. OS 1853) but as Plum in contemporary documents. In Yorkshire dialect plumb means the steepest part of a hill but that may not apply here. It may simply be a mis-spelling of Plum.
Bank means a long, high mass or mound, eg. 'a grassy bank' which could apply here.
Lathe (laithe or leeath) is Yorkshire dialect for a barn or agricultural building derived from the Old Norse word hlatha and is often used in place names in the north of England, eg. New Laithe (nr Shipley).
Just below the beck crossing the water was harnessed - perhaps in the 14th century - to power a furnace and forge for smelting and working iron. The water - probably running an overshoot water wheel - was used to power the bellows to pump air into the furnace.
It may have also powered a trip hammer in the forge used to beat the hot iron into shape.
Ironstones, mined from nearby shales, were smelted using charcoal fuel produced from the surrounding woodland and waste (slag) from these workings can still be found in the area.
