Bamlett

I am standing in the churchyard of St Oswald’s, quite near the boundary with Front Street. The rain is dripping off the bare tree branches. In front of me is a large gravestone, old, slightly decayed, canted over a little, and out of line with the rows of much more modern stones. It records the names of Carlisle Bamlett, a farmer, and more to the point the name of his son, Adam Carlisle Bamlett, who was Thirsk’s 19th Century equivalent of Sir James Dyson and one of those men and women who put Thirsk on the map. Inside the church on the north wall is an even more magnificent memorial to Adam Bamlett, executed in mosaic.

Adam Bamlett was a remarkable personality, who created a world-renowned business and was involved in every level of local government. He was born in 1835 at Great Smeaton, into a family of six. This was the beginning of his connection with the land, and prophetically his parents named him after that first gardener in Eden….