Tyas Cottage

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Tyas Cottage, luxury self-catering for 6

Hidden in a secluded valley, and accessed via an ancient, cobbled pack horse road, Tyas Cottage is your perfect Yorkshire hideaway.
With wood-pellet underfloor heating and the log burner (free logs for your first fire) be assured of a cosy winter break.

The Restoration of Tyas Cottage
Both Tyas House and the barn that now forms part of Tyas Cottage are Grade 11 listed. Merrydale was used as a set in the television dramatization by ITV of “Inheritance”, a book by Phyllis Bentley that chronicled the growth, dominance and gradual decline of the textile industry in these parts through the work, imagination and inventiveness of a particular family, the Crowthers.

This was in the early 1970’s, before we came to live here. We have tried to preserve the integrity of the hamlet and have buried all the phone and electricity cables. By the time that we came to restore the barn and cottage in the year 2000, all that remained of the cottage was half of the south-facing wall, and the barn roof was on the verge of collapse. The huge queen truss in the living room was salvaged from a mill (under demolition) to replace the original queen truss that was, sadly, found to be beyond repair.

As the barn had been built without foundations and with a sloping floor, the restoration was an enormous undertaking and far more onerous than anticipated. We were pleased to be able to find local building materials, in particular, the chimney that we came across when walking in a nearby wood. This clearly pre-dates the Merrydale settlement and carving within it suggests that it may have been used by the Knights Templars (who in turn recycled Roman materials).

The uprights to either side of the kitchen fireplace are recycled from the cattle enclosures in the barn, hence the holes (that used to contain timber posts). The stone floor is from a nearby quarry and we hope that you enjoy the under floor heating as much as we did when we lived in the cottage for two years (while completing it).

The well known sculptor, Brian Fell, specially made the weather vane for us and has recently made the pods/swing seats next to the dam. There are cushions for these in the nearby stone shed, as well as a towel with which to dry them before positioning the cushions, if necessary.