10/09/2026
The home of the Pork Pie 🥧 and much more, history of Number 6, enjoy the read 📖 and photos 📷
🌟 6 Market Place (East) 🌟
The Pork Butchers shop known as Appletons at No. 6 Market Place has a long and interesting history. In October 1619 a mercer called George Pulleine died, leaving his property in the Market Place to his elder daughter Alice, born in 1604. George Pulleine who had been Wakeman in 1600 and Mayor in 1608/9 had married William Battie’s daughter Alice in 1600. They had a son and two daughters, Alice who married William Underwood esquire, and Anne who inherited other property in the Market Place and married a Mr. Chaytor.
It is George Underwood, son of Alice and William, who claimed the above burgage in the 1675 Inquisition of Burgages, his wife’s inheritance. The claim is supported by Robert Atkinson who stated that he had seen the last will and testament or an authentic copy thereof made by George Pulleine in the ecclesiastical court at York where it was proved. Robert Atkinson was described as in possession of the burgage but in what capacity it is not clear. He had married Mary Roades on 27 September 1653 and they had 8 children but only two survived infancy, Elizabeth baptised in 1664 and Jane baptised in 1667. The 1672 Hearth Tax returns show Robert Atkinson responsible for the tax on 4 hearths while next door Mrs. Chaytor had 6. This could well be Anne, younger daughter of George Pulleine. Next door to her is Alderman Chambers and two or three doors further along is John Struther - both these names will appear later in this report.
There is a gap of 30 years before more information is available. During this period the property came into the joint ownership of John Aislabie of Studley Royal and Thomas Emson, gentleman of York. The Register of Deeds in Wakefield starts in 1704, so these two gentlemen must have been the owners until they sold it in Nov 1709 to Charles Oxley for the sum of £230.
An apothecary and surgeon, Charles Oxley was son of the Charles Oxley who was Master of the Grammar School from about 1668 to 1675. Two weeks before the sale in 1709, Charles Oxley bought a property and two shops adjoining for the sum of £90 from Henry Markingfield, a barber from Bedale, his wife Margaret and son Henry. The property was in the possession of Thomas Cant, the two shops in the possession of James Robinson, all situated in the Old Market Place. On Nov 24 Charles sold this property, but not I think the two shops, to Thomas Emson of York for £60. On the same day he bought the Market Place site from John Aislabie and Thomas Emson as stated above.
The site is described as being between that of Mr. Ridsdale on the north and Mr. Christopher Hunton on the south, and in the possession of George Palliser, ‘innholder and foreigner’, taken on as an apprentice mercer by John Strother when he was Mayor in 1697/8. As he is classed as a ‘foreigner’, in other words not from Ripon, he could be a son of the George Palliser from Bishop Thornton whose children Mary and Matthew were baptised in 1674 and 1676.
Mr. Charles Oxley, Mayor in 1720 and 1731, lived in Skellgarth, and his son Charles, also an apothecary and surgeon, and Mayor in 1738, owned the Market Place property between his father’s death in 1736 and his own in 1757. According to this will of 1755 he resided in his house in the Market Place and owned ‘the next two adjoining’, occupied by his sister Mrs. Judith Braithwaite and Mrs. Chambers. As he died without issue, the property passed to his younger brother’s son, Charles Oxley. He also died without issue in 1775 so the estate now passed to Christopher Braithwaite, son of Christopher Braithwaite and his wife Judith (nee Oxley), sister to the Charles Oxley who died in 1757.
Christopher Braithwaite, mercer and woollen draper, changed his name to Oxley on inheriting the estate. He was Mayor in 1752, 1766 and 1775. His first wife, Juliana Grainge, gave him two daughters, Frances and Juliana, before she died in 1769. In 1770 he married his cousin Elizabeth Braithwaite, daughter of his uncle Edmund, who bore him two children who died in infancy before she herself died in 1773. His third wife Dorothy Beckwith, daughter of William Beckwith of Lamb Hill, gave him a son Charles Oxley who inherited the estate on his father’s death in 1803 and retained it until he died in 1873. His son, Charles Christopher Oxley, sold No.6 Market Place to his tenant Richard Robinson Snow in 1877.
We now start the period of fully documented evidence of occupation up to the present day.
Baines Directory of 1822 lists Carter & Son, jeweller and watchmaker, trading at the address. Willey Edward Carter, son of Rev. John Carter Vicar of Aldborough, paid a fine in 1800 for admission as a Freeman to enable him to trade in Ripon. Born in 1760 he had married Frances James, niece of Mrs. Hardman of York, at St Botolph, Aldersgate St, London in 1785. They had a son, Henry, born in 1795 in Ripon. Willey Carter was Mayor in 1817 and 1829, living in Skellgarth in 1833 before he retired about 1837. He died of old age (82) in London, being buried at Camberwell church in 1842.
Slater’s Directory of 1848 shows Henry Carter trading there while the 1851 census shows that he lived there with his wife Ann, four years younger than himself and born at Norton Le Clay, and his daughter Frances, aged 18 and unmarried. On December 6 1856 Henry Carter advertised in the Ripon and Richmond Chronicle that he was having a sale at his shop prior to clearing out the whole stock by 1 May 1857. His retirement plans must have come slightly unstuck as it was not until 21 November 1857 that he was able to place a further notice in the Chronicle to say that on November 23 1857 he was handing over the shop and stock to Richard Robinson Snow.
The 1861 census shows that a considerable number of people were living at what was later to be known as No. 6 Market Place. Firstly there was Richard Robinson Snow, watchmaker and jeweller, aged 42, born at Harewood, with his wife Sarah, 34, from Kirby Overblow, and 7 children. The first 5 children - Elizabeth (13), William Stables (11), Charles Moses (10), Francis (8) and John Henry (5) had all been born at Harewood; Sarah Jane (3) and Emoth (5 months) had been born in Ripon. Then there were two apprentices, James Brooke from Kirby Overblow and John Richardson from Easingwold, together with two servants, Mary West (60) unmarried from Harewood and Elizabeth Scott (23) a widow from Laverton. There was also a visitor, Elizabeth Stubbs (23) from Kirby Overblow.
Ten years later the 1871 census shows that Richard Snow had prospered as he now employed two men and two boys. Family circumstances had changed somewhat. He had a new wife called Mary, born in Bedale and the same age as his previous wife. Son William was working for him as a qualified watchmaker and jeweller, Francis and Sarah were still at school, Charles and Elizabeth had left home, of Emoth there was no mention. Also living there were Henry Soppett (20), an unmarried apprentice from Northallerton and Dinah Ibbotson (24) an unmarried servant from Copt Hewick.
On 2 February 1877 Richard Snow purchased the property from Charles Christopher Oxley, as mentioned earlier. Samuel Wise, solicitor, was also a party. By 1881 Mr. Snow had taken his unmarried son William (31) into partnership as Snow & Son, and he retired to live at 16 Coltsgate Hill in 1893.
From the 1881 census it can be seen that his daughter Elizabeth (32) was now Principal of the Girls’ Boarding School at 10 Park Street and his younger daughter Sarah (22) was a teacher there. An aunt of the two girls, Mrs. Aslin, born in Harewood, was also here in some capacity with her children, one of whom, Miss Amy Aslin was Principal of the Girls Boarding School at 10 Park Street in the Directories of 1922, 1927 and 1936.
William Stables Snow had been born in 1850 and continued in the family business with his wife Florence. An agreement was signed in 1894 with the Bradford Old Bank, next door at No.7, concerning walls and drains. William Snow died in 1904 and in 1905 Frederick Mills was in business at No. 6 as Mills & Son, optician and jeweller, though he lived at 25 College Road.
Frederick Mills achieved some fame as he came fourth in the finals of the Yorkshire Amateur Skating Championships held at Carlton Ponds, Snaith, on 1 February 1911, even though he had recorded the fastest times in the heats.
Mr. Mills bought the property from Florence Snow, widow, and George Kendall of Harrogate, retired draper, in 1919 and continued trading there until he sold it to Joseph Angel, woollen merchant of 19 Hollins Road, Harrogate, on 5 March 1926.
What happened between this date and 25 January 1927, when Joseph Angel sold it to the Liverpool and Martins Banks Ltd. is unsure. The freehold purchase price was £2300 and the upper floors were let at a gross rental of £67. 1928 saw the name of the bank shortened to Martins Bank Ltd. About this time the mock Tudor facade was added, this being the common policy of the bank throughout the country. On 29 January 1935 the Directors resolved to close the Ripon branch, this taking place on 28 February.
The premises were put up for public auction but failed to reach the reserve. They remained vacant until purchased on 18 August 1936 by Jonas Gaunt, a pork butcher trading as Appletons. This was an expansion from their Kirkgate shop but the baking was still done there. On the following day, 19 August, Jonas sold part of the backyard to Croft and Blackburn Ltd at No. 5 next door, who in turn sold a small parcel of this land to Barclays Bank Ltd. at No .7 (14 Oct 1936). Appletons was inherited by Donald Gaunt on the death of his father in 1974 and remains in the Gaunt family to this day (this is no longer the case c2026)
The two upper stories were used as residential accommodation by the Carter and Snow families, but in 1903 were not occupied by anyone on the Electoral Register. Kelly’s Directory of 1912 lists a Charles Grundy dentist there, while the 1922, 1927 and 1936 directories show a dentist named J.H. Robson of Harrogate using the first floor as a surgery on Thursdays only. He is thought to have died about 1945 and his practice was taken over by a Mr. Kershaw for 4 or 5 years.
In April 1956 Moon & Mallett bought the practice from Mr. Kershaw and remained there until they moved to Finkle Street in 1963. From then it was used by Michael Benson, accountant, and by Miss Atkinson, accountant.
Finally since 1988 it has been used again as a dental surgery by Mr. M.B.S. Bradley. Mr. Donald Gaunt stated that from before 1937 to about 1945 Mrs. Tudor-James had the second floor flat, with her bedroom in the attic. These floors have remained vacant since that date.
Credit: Tony Place 📝
