Kia Ora to all Funny how ghost subjects come out. My great aunt Catherine O'Brien was house caretaker of Bullatree farm at Stoughton Houghton (spelling?) working for a Mr Yardley who was a tenant farmer for the Earl of Scarborough. Apparently the manor was built from some of the remains of Roche Abbey after Ollie Cromwell ransacked it, so the story I was told goes. Don't know how true it is but it was a colourful story. Only visited the farm once yonks ago but I was shown a photo of then. Must have been a showpiece when in bloom Steven from Downunder NZ

Hi Steven, I think the name you are looking for is Laughton or as it should be Laughton-en-le-Morthen. There has always been a link between this village and Roche. I think that the original grant of land for the Abbey came from a resident of Laughton. As to the building at Laughton being from stones ransacked from the Abbey, this is indeed possible. The following is taken from the book "The Voices of Morbath" -if anyone has an interest in the Reformation I can recommend this book -..... "The attitudes of the man and woman in the pew towards the Dissolution are hard to assess, and must often have been ambivalent. But Morebath's acquisition of a window from the spoil of Barlinch should not be taken as a sign of approval. In the 1560's, a generation after the dissolution, a Yorkshire yeoman who had been part of a syndicate which had bought up the timber and bells from the steeple of Roche Abbey was asked by his son 'whether he thought well of the religious persons and the religion that was then used.' When he replied that he had indeed thought well of the monks, having had no occasion to think otherwise, his son asked 'then how came it to pass you was so ready to destroy and spoil the thing you thought well of? What could I do, he said: might I not as well as others have some profit of the Spoil of the Abbey? For I did see all would away: and therefore I did as others did." It would have to be a very early building if the abbey stones were used. It is quite common here abouts to say that anything that looks old 'was built with stones from Roche Abbey'. This mostly is not the case - I speak from experience as I live in a cottage built in 1754 - which everyone in the local areas presumes was built with these stones. Although the cottage does have flagstone floors they are not from the abbey - nor the stone used in the walls. Usually you can tell where the stone came from -there were numerous quarries in the area and the further west you go from the abbey the stone turns from white to cream and then to a reddish tinge. Although the quarry that was used for the abbey building is still there I doubt that any stones have been taken from it for many hundreds of years. Sandra. ----- Original Message ----- From: <steven.montgomery@xtra.co.nz> To: <ENG-ROTHERHAM-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 1:08 AM Subject: [ROTH] Roche Abbey > Kia Ora to all > > Funny how ghost subjects come out. My great aunt Catherine O'Brien was house caretaker of Bullatree farm at Stoughton Houghton (spelling?) working for a Mr Yardley who was a tenant farmer for the Earl of Scarborough. Apparently the manor was built from some of the remains of Roche Abbey after Ollie Cromwell ransacked it, so the story I was told goes. Don't know how true it is but it was a colourful story. Only visited the farm once yonks ago but I was shown a photo of then. > > Must have been a showpiece when in bloom > > Steven from Downunder NZ > > > ==== ENG-ROTHERHAM Mailing List ==== > The listowner for ENG-ROTHERHAM is Tracy, born and bred in Rotherham. > To contact me off list please use this address: > tlh@party7.fsnet.co.uk > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >