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Barmoor was built in 1908 by William and Anna Maria Harvey, Quakers from
Leeds.
They had holidayed at the farmhouse next door and loved the area, so when the
fields known as The Barmers
came on the market they bought them and employed a Leeds architect to build a
large family house, as a second home. From the beginning Barmoor was enjoyed by
their seven already adult children and by a growing tribe of fourteen
grandchildren.
It was also a holiday haven for many other folk from Leeds and elsewhere
invited out to enjoy
peaceful times of recuperation or retreat. During the First World War it housed
a group of refugees from
Belgium.
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The eldest son, Ted Harvey, inherited the house and continued its use by family
and
friends, particularly by Quaker educational groups.
During the Second World War it
became for a time a training camp for the women’s section of the Friends
Ambulance Unit.
Having no children, in 1947 he set up a Family Trust to run the house as a
holiday place for
religious, educational and philanthropic groups. In 1982 a Charitable Trust
was established to
continue to manage Barmoor in this way. The Managers are drawn from members of
the family (now in the
third and fourth generations from the “founders”) and from Quakers
from the Kirkbymoorside and
York areas.
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Barmoor was built in 1908. A few years later an addition was made, comprising a
Nursery room
(now the Quiet Room) and the bedroom above. Until
the early 1950s the house had no electricity or mains water. Lighting was by
paraffin lamps and candles; water
had to be pumped by hand and the drinking water had to be fetched daily from a
pure spring on the moor.
Since the establishment of the Charity in 1982 gradual improvements have been
made to furniture and fittings to increase the comfort of visitors without
spoiling the atmosphere of a much loved family house. The garden and grounds
can no longer be kept as they used to be, but provide a welcome play area with
rough lawns and trees around. The house looks out over the Trust’s two
fields, now
farmed organically, to further views beyond.
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