The Domesday record for Appleton Roebuck shows that it was already well settled before the Norman Conquest.  It is a large township and today covers an area of around 2,900 acres, much of it good agricultural land.   In the 12th century a nunnery was established at Nun Appleton, a short distance from the village, and after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the site was acquired by the Fairfax family. 

A magnificent house was built there which later became the home of Thomas, the third Lord Fairfax, famous parliamentary commander during the Civil War. After the death of Mary Fairfax, Duchess of Buckingham, Nun Appleton was eventually sold c1711 to Alderman Milner of Leeds who carried out many alterations to the house. Nun Appleton,
and the Milner family, remained the focus for the social and economic life of Appleton Roebuck until the late 19th century.

The village today, although absorbing a lot of modern development, is fortunate in having kept its shape and form.  This is mainly because of the greens; Chapel Green and Bell Green, along with some surviving older houses, add a great deal to its character.  Outside the village, the common land on Broad Lane also adds interest to the landscape and reminds us that common grazing was once part of the rural economy.  The moated site in the Daffy field – the finest in the Ainsty – is part of our medieval heritage.

We need a starting point to give a backdrop to the history of the village from 1875 to 2000 and local directories, giving brief descriptions of the gentry, local trades & crafts as well as information about the places themselves are useful for this purpose.

Extract from Kelly’s Post Office Directory for the West Riding of Yorkshire 1877

By 1875, the start date for this project, an agricultural depression had taken hold and was affecting local communities.  The Milner family at Nun Appleton were in financial trouble and the population of Appleton had fallen to to 477.  In a letter written  to America from Holme Green in 1871, James Pannett says “Appleton has been a very poor place a long time.  There has been a deal of labouring men left it.  I think there will be 14 or 16 houses empty”.  Another letter written in 1873 talks of between 20 and 30 houses empty and men leaving to work in Leeds and other places, and significantly “there is nobody at the Hall”.

Nun Appleton was at the heart of a large estate and hundreds of people depended on it for their daily living in one way or another. In 1875, the owner, Sir William Mordaunt Milner, was a young man more interested in gambling than looking after his tenants. The family fortunes were based on the Aire Calder Navigation (a canal giving access from the West Riding industrial areas to the Humber). This had been severely affected by the coming of the railways earlier in the century. In normal times these losses might be offset by income from agriculture but that was falling rapidly due to the depression.

By 1877, Nun Appleton had been leased to William Beckett Denison (he later became known as William Beckett), a wealthy Leeds banker. After the death of Sir William Milner, who died unmarried in Cairo in 1881, his brother Frederick (known as Sir Fred) inherited the estate and in 1882 he married Adeline, eldest daughter of William Beckett. Sir Fred battled valiantly to keep the estate going and his father-in law undoubtedly was a great benefactor.   Unfortunately, Beckett was killed by a train en route to visit his mistress in 1897 and shortly after, the Hall and estate were sold to Angus Holden, (later Lord Holden) a woolen manufacturer from Bradford.  His ownership was short lived; he died in 1912 and the estate was put up for auction in 1914, and again, in 1917.  The Hall was empty; this is noted in the school log book as children were leaving because their families were moving away to find work.  Many of the farms were sold individually and Nun Appleton, with the surrounding land, was bought by a private company who felled many of the trees; by 1919 it had gone into liquidation.  The Estate was then bought by Benjamin Dawson, another Bradford textile manufacturer.

The Dawson family had a long and happy association with Nun Appleton until 1985, when Miss Joan Dawson moved into a house in Appleton Roebuck after the estate was sold.