Imagine you're a member of Farnhill Parish Council in 1914. The council owns a small piece of land; it can sell it, but it's too small to do anything with. What to do ?
Many villages had pinfolds - fenced and gated plots of land where stray animals could be held. If the animals were not reclaimed within a defined period, usually a week, they would be sold off.
In Farnhill, the Pinfold is a narrow piece of land in High Farnhill, on Main Street, just up from the Shelly Well.
The photograph above, taken from where Craven Manor now stands. shows how the pinfold looked some time around 1914 (High Croft, the house shown, was built in 1912). By this time, with much of the local farming enclosed, the need for a pinfold which probably dated from Tudor times, had largely passed.
At their meeting on 26th March 1914, Farnhill Parish Council agreed a rather interesting alternative use for the land.
So the Farnhill pinfold was, for a short time, home to the Skipton Rural District Council steam-roller - at a cost of five shillings (25p) per year.
Here's a picture of a steam-roller of around the same vintage.
Posted: 26/03/2016