Yorkshire - General Volumes

Volume I

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1907.

The volume contains the following entries:

  • Natural History
  • Early Man
  • Schools
  • Forestry

This volume is not available online.

 

Volume II

Edited by William Page this volume was published in 1912.

The volume includes the following entries:

  • Ancient Earthworks
  • Anglo-Saxon Remains
  • Introduction to the Yorkshire Domesday
  • Translation of the Yorkshire Domesday
  • Industries
  • Agriculture
  • Sport Ancient and Modern

This volume is not available online.

Volume III

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1913.

The volume contains the following entries:

  • Ecclesiastical History
  • Religious Houses
  • Political History
  • Social and Economic History

The entries describing the medieval religious houses are on British History Online.

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Index to volumes I-III (1925)

This index volume was published in 1924. 

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Yorkshire: City of York

The City of York

Edited by P M Tillott, this volume was published in 1961.

The volume takes both a chronological and a thematic approach to the history of the City of York from before the Norman Conquest to the twentieth century.

This volume is on British History Online.

Red Book Publications, East Riding

Volume I - The City of Kingston Upon Hull

Edited by K J Allison, this volume was published in 1969.

The volume contains a chronological and thematic account of the history of the city of Hull, along with topographical accounts of several outlying villages.

This volume is on British History Online.

Volume II - Dickering Wapentake

Edited by K.J. Allison, this volume was published in 1974.

York East Riding II This volume contains the history of the 30 parishes that formed the wapentake of Dickering. The area lies largely upon the chalk hills of the Yorkshire Wolds, which here meet the sea in the impressive cliffs around Flamborough Head, but the wapentake also extended into the Vale of Pickering and the Plain of Holderness. There is thus a variety of landscape and agricultural history to describe. Much of the rolling wold land was occupied by open fields and sheep- walks until inclosure in the later 18th and earlier 19th centuries opened the way to improvement; on the lower ground much early inclosure took place, too. A dozen villages in the wapentake were depopulated in the Middle Ages. Most of the settlements are relatively small, but they include the one-time market town of Kilham and the seaside resorts of Bridlington and Filey. In the Middle Ages the 'old town' of Bridlington, with its priory and market-place, and the fishing village beside the harbour were quite separate, but with the growth of the resort of 'Bridlington Quay' from the late 18th century onwards they have been absorbed into a wide-spreading town. Bridlington has also had an interesting coastal and oversea trade and still supports a fishing fleet. The resort of 'New Filey' was established later, laid out near the old fishing village from c.1840 onwards, and its physical growth and commercial development have been more restrained than those of Bridlington. Fishing also forms part of the story of Flamborough. The wapentake contains a wide variety of ecclesiastical and domestic architecture, but there are two outstanding buildings: the great priory church at Bridlington, which survived the Dissolution with the loss of its chancel and tower, and the early-17th-century red-brick mansion of Burton Agnes Hall, replacing an old manor-house but retaining its 12th-century undercroft.

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Volume III - Ouse and Derwent Wapentake, and Part of Harthill Wapentake

Edited by K.J. Allison with contributions from A.P. Baggs, G.H.R. Kent and J.D. Purdy, this volume was published in 1976.

The volume covers a large area in the Vale of York, lying to the south and east of the city. It is concerned with the history of the twelve parishes in Ouse and Derwent wapentake and of eight parishes in the western half of the Wilton Beacon division of Harthill wapentake. Ouse and Derwent wapentake is largely bounded by those two rivers, and the Wilton Beacon division lies immediately east of the river Derwent. The land is low-lying and relatively flat. Its dominant physical features are the two large rivers and two ridges of glacial moraine which traverse the vale. The mor-aines provided early routes across the marshy land and the sites for several villages. Other settlements stand by the Ouse and the Derwent at places where meanders take the rivers close to the firm valley sides. The terrain was once well wooded, and the way in which the wood-land was cleared resulted in a landscape characterized by small open fields and large tracts of early inclosures and common grazing. Particularly in the north-east part of the area the number of large country houses reflects the proximity of York and the interest of its citizens in landed estates; the houses include Escrick Hall, Moreby Hall, and Heslington Hall, in recent years the centre of the University of York. There has been some suburban development, notably in Gate Fulford. Most of the villages consist of brick houses built in the 18th century and later. The most considerable ecclesiastical building is the church of Hemingbrough, made collegiate in 1427 by the prior of Durham. Of many bridges mentioned in the volume that at Stamford Bridge is notable for its part in the battle in which King Harold defeated the Danes before marching to his death at Hastings.

This volume is on British History Online.

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Volume IV - Harthill Wapentake, Hunsley Beacon division

Edited by K.J. Allison, this volume was published in 1979.

The volume covers a large area at the southern end of the Yorkshire Welds, lying west of the city of Hull and the town of Beverley. It is concerned with the history of fourteen parishes which comprise the greater part of the Hunsley Beacon division of Harthill wapentake. Though the rolling chalk hills of the wolds dominate the area, several of the parishes extend into the low- lying ground of the Hull valley to the east and the Vale of York to the west. In South Cave parish the reclamation of Broomfleet Island from the river Humber adds further variety to the agricultural history of the area. There are several deserted medieval villages. Much of the countryside described here is still wholly rural in character, but some of the settlements lying on the eastern slopes of the welds, like Cherry Burton and Skidby, have become commuter villages for the near-by towns. The large medieval village of Cottingham became a popular place of residence for Hull merchants in the late 18th century, and much of the parish has since been absorbed within the city; the village now houses many of the students of the University of Hull. Notable country houses described in the volume include Dalton Hall and Houghton Hall, and the churches include an outstanding Norman building at Newbald. Many of the villages consist of brick houses of the 18th century and later, but 17th-century timber-framed houses survive at South Dalton and Cottingham. In other villages, however, much use is made of the local Jurassic limestone which outcrops below the wolds escarpment. At Leconfield there survives the moated site of a seat of the Percy family, earls of Northumberland, and it was from Rowley that the rector emigrated in the 17th century to found a town of the same name in Massachusetts.

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Volume V - Holderness: Southern Part

Edited by K.J. Allison, this volume was published in 1984.

The volume tells the stories of eighteen parishes in the southern part of Holderness wapentake, the wedge of Yorkshire between the North Sea and the Humber. The low-lying landscape has changed repeatedly during the historical period, with lands along the north bank of the Humber being washed away or growing, lesser watercourses silting up, new drains being made, the steady erosion of the cliff along the sea coast, and the cyclical breaching, destruction, and redeposit of the long spit of land at Spurn Head. The church of Kilnsea and several small settlements have gone with the receding cliff. Sunk Island, which forms part of the Crown Estate, is a parish consisting entirely of new ground thrown up by the Humber. In the Middle Ages the land comprised the liberty of Holderness, with a centre at Burstwick manor house, and belonged to the counts of Aumale before passing to the Crown. The counts' extensive privileges in Holderness included the right to exclude the royal sheriff. Within the parish of Preston a medieval borough was established by the count at Hedon, but access for ships from the Humber was difficult and the town later decayed; it is noteworthy for its magnificent church, dubbed 'the king of Holderness'. Another borough and port established by the count was Ravenser Odd, at Spurn head, but that was later destroyed by the sea. There was a haven also at Patrington, a large village distinguished by its fine 14th-century church, 'the queen of Holderness'. In the part of the area near Hull, Thorngumbald, in Paull parish, and Keyingham have grown into large dormitory villages. Withernsea, in Hollym and Owthorne parishes, was developed from the 1850s as a seaside resort used mainly by residents of Hull. Other places of which the volume contains accounts are Easington, Halsham, Holmpton, Ottringham, Skeffling, Welwick, and Winestead.

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Volume VI - The Borough and Liberties of Beverley

Edited by K.J. Allison, this volume was published in 1986.

Beverley stood high among the provincial towns of medieval England, with the great minster church and the college of St. John. Linked with the port of Hull and the Humber by a canalized beck and the navigable river Hull, it had a thriving trade in cloth and wool. Around the town lay large common pastures which are still a prominent feature of the landscape, and beyond the borough half a dozen townships were within the liberties of Beverley. The decline of trade in the 15th century and the suppression of the college in 1548 reduced the town's prosperity, and its role in the 16th and 17th centuries was little more than that of a market town. The 16th century, however, brought freedom from the lordship of the archbishop and eventually full self-government with the granting of a charter of incorporation in 1573. From the late 17th century Beverley became the administrative and social centre of the East Riding. A wealth of Georgian buildings still bears witness to its renewed prosperity. Industry expanded and diversified in the 19th century, and ironworks, mills, tanneries, and shipyards provided employment. Beverley was designated as the county town of the East Riding in 1892, and it became the administrative centre of the county of Humberside created in 1974 and of the district later known as the East Yorkshire Borough of Beverley, albeit with the loss to the town of its ancient borough status. Industrial decline in the later 20th century was partly balanced by development as a residential area and as a centre for tourism. Meanwhile the appearance of Beverley was being transformed: an outer bypass and inner relief roads changed old patterns, and the building of new houses went on in and around the town.

This volume is on British History Online.

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Volume VII -

Edited by G.H.R. Kent with contributions from K.J. Allison, A.P. Baggs, T.N. Cooper, Carol Davidson-Cragoe and John Walker, this volume was published in 2002.

The volume covers the area of the East Riding between the north sea to the east and the the river Hull to the west, bordering the borough of Kingston-upon-Hull.

This volume is on British History Online.

Volume VIII - East Buckrose: Sledmere and the Northern Wolds

Edited by David and Susan Neave, this volume was published in 2008.

This volume covers seven parishes and some sixteen ancient settlements on the eastern dip-slope of the Yorkshire Wolds. Its rich and varied past extends from the important Iron Age settlements with their well-known chariot burials to the great estate - at its high point one of the largest in England - built up by the Sykes family in the 18th and 19th centuries and centred upon the village of Sledmere. The volume includes a substantial introduction covering the history and archaeology of the area as a whole and analysing the impact of the Sledmere estate on local villages, churches and farmsteads. There are also detailed sections on the landscape and topography, economic, social and religious history of the parishes and their settlements.

The villages covered by the volume are Cowlam, Duggleby, Fimber, Fridaythorpe, Helperthorpe, Kirby Grindalythe, East and West Lutton, Sledmere, Weaverthorpe and Wetwang.

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Volume IX - Harthill Wapentake, Bainton Beacon Division. Great Driffield and its Townships

Edited by Graham Kent with contributions from David and Susan Neave, this volume was published in 2012.

Great Driffield, a thriving market town serving an extensive agricultural hinterland, stands at the junction of the Yorkshire Wolds and Holderness. The centre of an important Anglo-Saxon manor, in royal hands in the early middle ages, the main settlement was transformed from a large village into a boom town following the opening of a canal in 1770 that linked it to the expanding markets of Hull and the West Riding; its social, religious and political life flourished in the Victorian period particularly. This volume covers its history and that of its adjoining rural townships of Little Driffield, Elmswell and Kelleythorpe, from the Neolithic period to the beginning of the twenty-first century; it provides the first detailed account of the town's trades and industries, as well as exploring landownership, local government, and social, religious and political life.

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Volume X (part 1) - Howdenshire: the Townships

Edited by David Crouch, this volume was published in 2019.

This is the first part to be published of a two-part volume on the East Riding liberty and wapentake of Howdenshire. It deals with the nineteen civil parishes and townships which made up the liberty outside the town of Howden itself. Until 1836 Howdenshire was one of the bishop of Durham's exempt franchises in Yorkshire, enclaves which survived the Reformation and Civil War. Its special nature, which is mostly ancient wetland reclaimed in the twelfth century, is explored via in-depth sections on drainage and river defence, with a reconstruction of the unique medieval and early modern scheme developed to contain the River Ouse and empty the drainage dykes.

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Volume X (part 2) - Howden: Town and Liberty

Edited by David Crouch, this volume was published in 2021.

Howden  and  Howdenshire  is  one  of  the  most  complex  regions  of  England  the  Victoria  Histories  has  yet  dealt  with.  In  jurisdictional  terms  it  included  till  1836  one  of  the  two  liberties  of  the  bishop  of  Durham  in  Yorkshire,  the  other  being  Allertonshire  in  the  North  Riding.  Though not part of the bishop’s palatinate in the north, the bishop was still the chief actor in local politics and justice  in  Howdenshire  till  Elizabeth’s  reign,  and  until  the  1550s  he  maintained  a  palatial  mansion  in  the  town of Howden and a large hunting park to its north. Howdenshire  was  however  not  just  the  core  area  of  lordship dealt with in the two parts of this volume. Any land the bishop held in the East Riding was within his liberty, so it comprehended an area of scattered estates stretching  from  Melton  and  Walkington  in  Harthill  wapentake  in  the  east,  to  Riccall  on  the  Ouse  in  the  west.  The  liberty  of  Howdenshire  was  not  therefore  a  discrete  block  of  territory,  but  from  the  12th  to  the  19th  century  it  was  a  jurisdiction  overlaid  on  the  two  wapentakes  of  Harthill  and  Ouse  &  Derwent.  Its  core  area,  where  only  the  bishop  had  lordship,  was  the  manor  of  Howden  and  the  common  of  Bishopsoil,  between  the  Ouse  to  the  south,  the  Derwent  to  the  west, the Foulness to the north, with the great common of Wallingfen to its east.

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Red Book Publications, North Riding

Volume I

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1914.

The volume covers the six wapentakes in the western half of the North Riding. It includes an account of the borough of Richmond.

This volume is on British History Online.

Volume II

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1923.

The volume describes five wapentakes, mainly in the north and east of the North Riding. It includes accounts of the borough of Scarborough and the liberty of Whitby, as well as the North Yorkshire moors and parts of Cleveland.

This volume is on British History Online.

West Riding in Progress

Barlow

The only township in the West Riding so far treated by the VCH is Barlow which can be read here.