Chris,

Interesting place is Cold Hill. To look at it, it just screams 'PRE-ROMAN!!'  If the Brigantii didn't have a farm or settlement there then their estate agent wasn't in touch with the mood of the people.

The name itself only seems to have come into use during the Victorian age - perhaps their puritan views found it hard to deal with 'Bare Arse'. If you look on the main site under 'The Area of Elmet' you will find the map by Jeffries (1770) - you can't miss it, it's the third one down from the top of the page and the only one without a description - oh, oops!

It show the original name and the confusion of roads/tracks to that site. Jeffries accuracy on the placing of roads was never too defined so we must allow a certain leeway. But the small area above the present-day pond is shown as an open area with roads approaching from various directions. Certainly a place of import. The lane heading due East is not the present day road but a track way that is still quite obvious on the ground, north of the pond-stream line, and leads to Barkston Ash (on Oldgate Lane - 'old road' Lane) where it joins the main north-south road just below the Ash Tree Inn. The lane to Huddleston is now totally ploughed out as is the one that eventually made its way to Micklefield-in-Elmet. The Huddleston road continued north of todays site and ended up passing the Crooked Billet at Lead and thence to Hazlewood Castle. Its general route is marked by a footpath right-of-way. As I say, it was certainly an important road junction in its time.

But it would seem, if Jeffries' map is all we have to go on, that the pond wasn't there as such in 1770. I must repeat my personal doubts when it comes to the accuracy of friend Jeffries and his maps, but it would seem that Coldhill Lane and its route to Sherburn did not cross the stream at Coldhill prior to the late 1700's.

.