1) In many early inventories, the ‘brandreth’ was an iron grid or frame, used to support cooking pots, listed in the kitchen.
1452 j brandreth ferri et dim. dos. vasorum de pewter garness’, Scarborough
1528 a chymnay, a pair brigges, a brandereth, Ledstone
1563 a gyrdiron, with 2 brandrethes, 2 frying pans, Elmswell
1581 j landyarne, j brandrethe, 2 payre of tonges, 3 spetes, Anston. It was also used for a wooden platform, of the kind that supported a hay-rick or barrels, and one reference in 1483 has been taken to mean that it was a substructure of wooden piles which supported a house. In bridge building it was used in connection with the foundations of the pillars and was probably the wooden frame described by David Harrison as ‘a grille of square timbers with openings into which piles were driven’. As early as 1422 the builders of Catterick bridge were responsible for alle manere of tymbir-werke … that is to say, the branderethes of the pilers and the landstathes and the seentrees. In 1586, the workmen who inspected Greta Bridge found it in great decay for that both the pillars are underminded with the water, the one underminded thre yards and the other two yards under the brandreth, besides other great dacayes of pilinge.