Spotlight
Lady Lumley's Almshouses
By Jon Cosson · Last checked
At the eastern end of the village, where Chestnut Avenue meets Brook Lane, a long low row of limestone cottages runs back from the road. These are Lady Lumley's Almshouses, founded under a trust deed Lady Elizabeth Lumley signed in 1657 and built in 1670, and twelve people still live in them today.
At a glance
- Where
- Chestnut Avenue at Brook Lane, at the eastern end of the village, beside the Old Grammar School and a short walk from Thornton Bridge.
- Listed
- Grade II, Historic England list entry 1074192, listed 10 November 1953.
- Built
- 1670, under a trust deed of 1657; restored in the nineteenth century and modernised in the twentieth.
- Today
- twelve one-bedroom homes, run by the almshouse charity. They are private homes: look from the road.
What to look for
Twenty-four bays for twelve homes, a door and a window each, so paired doors alternate with two-light diamond-lattice windows topped with five-lobed cinquefoil heads. Seven chimney stacks run along the ridge, and a nineteenth-century tablet in the middle records the charity's origins. The school at the end of the row is sandstone; the almshouses are limestone. Same founder, same year, different stone.
Remembrance week
Remembrance Sunday falls on 8 November. The parish council's minutes record a Remembrance parade in November 2025, but no 2026 time had been published when we checked, so look for it on the parish council's website and noticeboards nearer the day.
Links
Sources: Historic England, list entries 1074192 and 1361319; our almshouses page and its sources (location, residents, the school); Thornton-le-Dale Parish Council, minutes of 14 October 2025. Checked 11 October 2026.
Spotlight features are chosen by the editor. Nobody pays to be featured.