Because of the building of a bridge over the River Greta at Ingleton this recent section cost 11,000. In the turnpike frolic the many tollgates let for a entire of 1,000 a year; and in 1856 a conveyance and pair paid 9s. 4d. in tolls from Keighley to Kendal. A sidelight without ceasing the traffic on the road is given in the Wensleydale Advertiser of 30th September 1845: 'We listen to, from high authority, that the Postmaster General is seriously displeased with the wags, who divide off the tail from the red spread worn by the Austwick and Settle Mail Guard. We give counsel to them to look to themselves.' Austwick, Lawkland, Feizor, and Wharfe form a group of places of Norse occasion. Austwick's name means 'the eastern settlement,' Lawkland's 'the land to which place leeks are grown,' F eizor' s (pronounced Fazer) 'Fech's (or Feg's) shieling,' and Wharfe's 'a assemblage of homesteads.'
In a nook of the bleached and stony sides of Ingleborough, Austwick is sheltered from sharp winds and warmed 'by the reflected image of the sunbeams,' as Whitaker famed. Speight, com menting on a in the beginning visit, says that it is a predicament of' love at first sight.' The town, with its grey stone houses straggling down lanes or round little greens, seems to bid the stranger. The Game cock Hotel is celebrated for its catering, and the blacksmith's work, with hayrakes, pails, and farming requisites propagate out for sale by it, makes a focal subject-matter.
At the time of Domesday Book Austwick was the understanding of an honour of twelve manors; and each ancient base of a cross sur mounted means of a new shaft on one of the grasslike plats points to an early market. But the village soon lost its consequence to Clapham.
Here the families united with the district are the Darcys, Yorkes, Shuttleworths, Ingilbys, Claphams, and Farrers. The Ingilbys bought Lawkland Hall and Austwick Hall, the last mentioned a small fortified manorhouse, in 1573, and it is this parents and children of whom we are most conscious in the neighbourhood. Different members own lived at one time and a different in most of the large houses, and their initials are to subsist found on many of the dated doorheads, of which several are particularly elaborate. The ultimate member of this branch of the parents and children still keeps a connection with Austwick.
In medieval state of things the men of Austwick grew oats in their village fields, the terracing of which have power to be seen west and south of the town. A division of the commons and wastes of the good countryside took place in 1622, and the untitled class of Austwick were enclosed in 1814.
The hall has been much altered; but element of the massive wall of a strip off tower that stood on the seat has been kept. Near it is a farm by a field on it called Dearbought, of that the story goes that a subject wanted to buy the field and concerning a wager said that he would mow it. It was in like manner rough and it took him in the same state long to finish that he called it Dearbought.