Reynard Ing - Together but Apart
The cache, a small click 'n' lock box and the 30th in the IWR series, is hidden close to this old small stone Grade II-listed farmhouse/holiday cottage, and near the start of a footpath running from Cocking Lane south to Cragg House on Moorside Lane or to Ramsgill and Netherwood House.
It can be done either:
a) as a 450m/10 minute round-trip detour from GC8X8C8 IWR #7: Reynard Ings - Old BeeVille by following the path along the north side of the wall then left (north) along the fence of the farmhouses or,
b) as a quick park 'n' grab, parking - carefully tucked in - across the road on the north side of Cocking Lane.
The name of the farm comes from Reynard = fox (from Old English) and Ings = water meadows or marshes (an old Norse word). It is a laithe house which is a building in which the house and the byre or mistal (the laithe) were under the same roof (ie. together in the same buidling) - but not internally connected (ie. apart).
They were common from c1650 in Pennine farms which were built after the enclosures, with most being built for poorer farmers in the 18th and 19th century. The oldest surviving in neighbouring Calderdale is Bank House, Luddenden which was built c1650.
Enclosures: the system of appropriating common land as private property – changing open field systems to enclosed fields – began in the 14th century and became widespread later, resulting in poverty, starvation, homelessness, and rural depopulation (see also here).
Laithe: a barn and/or mistal (from the Old Norse hlatha)
Byre: A building to house animals, a shippon (cow-house or cattle-shed)
Mistal: A cow-shed or barn, often with a hay-loft above derived from the words mist – a form of mixen, old English for a dung-hill, and stall
Mixen: used in place-names such as Mixenden – is comes from the Old English mixen [a dung-hill] and is also related to midden, muck and mistal
(Information taken from the fascinating Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion - see here which it is probably safe to assume will apply substantially to neighbouring Wharfedale.
In some parts of the country, these are known as long-houses.
The 2-storey house was built in the 2nd quarter of the C18. It was constructed of random rubble, rendered and partly pebble-dashed to the front, and has a stone slate roof.
It consists of a single-cell, double-depth cottage with attached barn which originally occupied 2/3 of the whole building. An extra cell taken out of barn c1912 and an extra room added to the rear c1968. For full details of the building see the Historic England listing here.
See GC8X8C8 IWR #7: Reynard Ings - Old BeeVille for details of the unusual and protected bee accommodation at the farm.