FLAXBY HISTORY MEETING - 28TH OCT 2014 Kath White
Recap history from last year’s meeting.
This area has been inhabited at least since Neolithic times, that is from around 3,000 BC. The Devils Arrows near Boroughbridge were part of a Neolithic complex which included the Thornborough henges. Iron age and Bronze age items have been found in a number of places – the remains of a Bronze age urn found near Ten Low Hill and within the past few weeks a Bronze age spearhead and a Roman coin were found in fields between Flaxby and Conythorpe by metal detectors. There must be treasures still to be found !
Remains of several Iron age settlements have been identified in our area. The one in Flaxby, situated to the east of Ten Low Hill. It was excavated in 1994 and the report concludes that it was a farmstead of 7th- 6th centures BC. It has a field system and tracks and traces of burial. It was abandoned until the late Roman period when it was replaced by a Roman farmstead in the mid 2nd to late 4th century AD.
In preRoman times much of northern England was occupied by the Brigantes, a group of Celtic tribes. One of their tribal capitals was Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum) near Boroughbridge which remained an important town during Roman times.
After the Roman armies left in the early 5th century there came the Anglo Saxons and Danish Vikings when Flaxby acquired its name – ‘by’ being Scandinavian for homestead, and the first part thought to be from the name of someone called Flatt. Variations of the name since then Flatesbi, Flasbie, Flaresbie, Faskby etc. before the current spelling was settled.
Little still survives from this period, but just to the north of Flaxby is Claro Hill, near Clareton. Here in Saxon times the gemote or assembly of the people of this Wapentake, was held. The Wapentakes were administrative areas in the north of England and this area was in the Burghshire wapentake. It was so named in the Domesday Book but had a name change to Claro in the 12th century, presumably from Claro Hill.
Also dating from this period is the Goldsborough hoard of silver pieces, Viking brooches, arm rings and coins which is now in the British Museum. South east of the church In Goldsborough are the remains of steps and a cross, probably 9th century in origin.
1066. Battle of Hastings, Norman rule and a few years of rebellion leading in 1069 to the ‘harrying of the north’ – the destruction of many towns and villages, followed by a winter of death from cold and starvation.
Domesday Book 1086-7. A survey of England by the King’s commissioners. Our area was owned by Erneis who came with the Norman army and fought at the battle of Hastings. He was given parcels of land in several parts of the country. Flaxby land before the conquest was worth 30s, but had reduced to 25s by the time of the survey.
We have, as yet, no information relating specifically to Flaxby in the next few centuries, but events occurred which must have had an impact on the village. The 12th and 13th centuries were a time of recovery. In the 14th century there were changes in climate, raids by the Scots (Northallerton was burned as was much of Knaresborough) and in 1349 the Black Death killed about a third of the population of England. 15th century came the Wars of the Roses. Knaresborough had links to the Lancastrians. The castle is still part of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Yorkshire recovered somewhat in the 16th c, agriculture flourished and the population grew, though there was the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, largely based in York , but airing grievances from the North. Then came Civil War and battle of Marston Moor (1644).
We don’t know how much the village and its people were affected by these events happening nearby.
Now to Flaxby village. For most of the time since 1066 the village has been owned by 2 large estates: Allerton Mauleverer and Goldsborough. Allerton owned the village itself and surrounding fields at the end of the 18th C but the area west of York Rd was sold to Lascelles about 1849 and became part of the Goldsborough estate. More of this later. The village has been part of Goldsborough parish at least since the early 17th century.
Goldsborough. Named Godensburg in the Domesday Book . Some years later it was owned by John de Busey who granted it to Richard afterwards named De Goldsborough. The Goldsborough family kept the estate until 1547 when it was sold to Sir Richard Hutton. Through marriage it passed to the Byerley family and in 1756 it was bought by Daniel Lascelles, the vicar of Goldsborough. His brother Edwin owned the Harewood estate and when Daniel died the estate became part of the Harewood estate. The Lascelles family owned the Goldsborough estate until 1952 when it was sold to pay death duties.
Allerton Mauleverer. The Mauleverers owned the estate until 1713 when Richard, the last of the line died aged 26, unmarried. His mother remarried into the Arundell family and left Allerton to Richard Arundell, her son from her 2nd marriage. He had no children so the estate passed to a cousin by marriage, William Monkton, 4th Viscount Galway who sold it in 1786 to HRH the Duke of York. In 1791 it was sold again to Colonel William Thornton. The estate was 4,525 acres sold for £110,000. It was sold again in 1805 to the 17th Baron Stourton. The Stourtons kept the estate until the death in 1965 of William Marmaduke, 25th Baron Mowbray, 26th Baron Seagrave, 22nd Baron Stourton. Contents of the house were sold in 1965, the house itself being sold to the present owner Dr Gerald Rolfe in 1983.Other parts of the estate were sold in 1967 including those in Flaxby : Pond Cottage (now Lilliel Cottage), Grange Farm and Grange Cottage, but the rest of the estate remained in the ownership of Charles Stourton. On his death in 2006 the remaining estate passed to his son Edward Stourton, the 27th Baron Mowbray.
Land in Flaxby and surrounding area has been used largely for arable farming corn such as wheat and barley and some animal husbandry. Many of the inhabitants of the village worked for the Allerton estate.
From the late 18th C, maps show the land divided into tenanted fields. There were areas of glebe land belonging to the church or vicar on which rent was paid to him. One such was Spring Bank Farm, earlier called Glebe Farm. Outside the village were areas of common land at Shortsill and Flaxby Moor, accessible to everyone for grazing until the Enclosure Acts. of 1772. Land enclosed on High and Low Shortsill was 60 acres.
The New Inn opened in 1813. It was marked on the 1853 OS map but not on 1889-99 and was sited on the west side of York Road, where Pump Cottage now is.
Flasby Free School was set up in 1640 by the Rev. Richard Hodgshon of Ilkley. It’s not known of any connection Hodgshon had with Flaxby, though there were Hodgshon families living in the area. The school was originally sited on the west side of Shortsill Lane at the north end of the village. In 1810 the school was rebuilt, set back from the road and roughly on the boundary between Nos. 3 and 4 Shortsill Lane. In 1857 the new National School was built. After the school closed the building continued to be used for village activities, as a youth club venue and for gatherings after village carol singing. It became in a very poor condition, was sold in 2008 and has now been converted into a house.
The Flaxby Free School Trust was formed after the closure of the school and this still helps children from Flaxby and Goldsborough with costs for secondary and further education.
There are only a few buildings in the village which predate the estate sales. Early maps are concerned with the fields and tenant names, but give little indication of where the tenants lived. Hillside Cottage (Police Cottage?), Lilliel Cottage (Pond Cottage), Woodmans Cottages, Grange Cottage, The Grange (house), Farm buildings (converted and extended into houses) are obviously older but It is difficult to determin when these houses were built. All do appear on the 1846-63 map so are probably late 18th/early 19th Century. Hopefully in due course we’ll find something about the buildings of Flaxby. The houses 1-4 York Rd date from the early 1920’s. Other houses in the village were built since 1960’s.
Transport : The rough tracks from village to village became a main thoroughfare giving access to the Great North Rd. for tourists and visitors to Harrogate Spa and which by the early 18th century was becoming unfit for the traffic it was bearing. The 1752 Act which established Turnpike Roads, including Knaresborough- Green Hammerton, meant that the old road which led a circuitous route via Ferrensby, Arkendale and Whixley was replaced by the more direct Longflatt Lane (now York Road), Gouldesbrough Fields, Flaxby, Allerton Mauleverer and Scate Moor to Green Hammerton. A Toll bar and cottage was put in Flaxby, sited where ‘Magnolia’ now is. In 1969 the A59 was extended from the old railway station to the A1, taking through traffic away from Flaxby.
The other road which in the past must have affected life in Flaxby is the Great North Road (A1M). Thought to follow the ancient pre Roman track to Aldborough on which the Romans built their road. In the I7th & 18th Centuries it was an important coaching thoroughfare, mailcoaches & cattle droves, sometimes 1,000 head. The A1 became dual carriageway in the 1940’s-50’s and the 13 mile stretch from Walshford to Dishforth was upgraded to motorway in 1995.
Railway: July 1846 an Act was passed to build the Knaresborough to York railway. The East & West Yorkshire Junction Railway was created to build the railway, but not operate it. Land purchased from the Goldsborough and Allerton estates. 1849 Goldsborough Station House built by North Eastern Railway and 1853 regular passenger services were introduced between Knaresborough & York . Harrogate to York was completed in 1862. In 1923 &24, Goldsborough station was used by royalty visiting Goldsborough Hall the home of the future Earl of Harewood and his wife Princess Alice, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. In Sept 1958 Golds. Station was closed to passengers. 1969 the road bridge carrying the re routed A59 replaced the level crossing at Golds. Station. 1973 parts of the line including Knaresb to Cattal was reduced to single track and 1995 another bridge was built to carry the A1 over the railway.
People of Flaxby: We know little so far about the lives of Flaxby people before the 1700’s. Parish records in the form of Bishops Transcripts , for Goldsborough date back to 1674. The early ones are hand written and hardly decipherable. The Garbut family seem to have had a sad time: 1677, Charles Garbut buried his daughter Jane, 1680 his son Charles and his wife Ann . He must have married again though as his daughter Dorrity was baptised in 1694. 18th and particularly 19th Cent ones become easier to read and give more information. By the end of the 17th century several families are established in the village: the Tate, the Cross and the Mawson families appear regularly and from 1800 occupations of the men are given. So in 1800 Richard, son of Edwin & Mary Hastings (Schoolmaster) was baptised. Other occupations include Farmer s: Tate, Wheatley; labourers, Harrison, Wise, Busey ; shoemaker, Simpson. In 1823 Elizabeth was baptised, the illegitimate daughter of Thomas Emsley, labourer and Mary Barker, Inn Keeper (of the New Inn Flaxby). Illegitimacy seems fairly common: Mary Deighton, a servant had a daughter in 1800, In 1826 Ann Deighton also a servant had a son, Hannah and Jane Tate had sons in 1822 and 1828. Parish records for Allerton from 1565 have been transcribed into printed form so are easier to read, they give us 16th C baptism records such as Richard, son of Thomas Warde who was baptised 8th May 1567. The Warde family seem to have been a large family who lived in Flaxby for several generations . One Lancelot Herrington (Errington) had 6 children baptised between 1576 and 1598.
Hearth Tax was a government tax levied 1662 and 1689 on each householder according to the number of hearths in his or her dwelling. The 1672 Hearth Tax for Allerton cum Flaxby shows a total of 72 hearths (24 of which are for Sir Richard Malliverer). Familiar names having one hearth are Lawson, Garbutt, Calvert, Akers, Cundall etc.
Maps: Maps of both estates at various times tell us how the land was divided and the names of some of the tenants who worked it. The earliest (and one of the most interesting) maps we have seen of the Allerton Estate is that of 1734 made for Richard Arundell. The estate includes land to the west of York Road and the present Shortsill Lane. An 1849 map shows these lands as belonging to Christopher Earnshaw Esq. which were later sold to Lascelles as part of the Goldsb. Estate. The large fields between York Road and the Great North Road, named Tenley field (perhaps later Ten Low Hill), Middle Field and Turpitt Field are shown divided into numbered strips. Other fields are shown and tenants named: Christopher Hudson, John Gowland, Walter Manson, Henry Hudson, Robert Wood, Roger Foster, John Lowson and William Cross. Coneythorpe is not named, though in that area there is a field strip marked ‘poor of Goldsborough’ and other fields are shown as freehold named for George Beecroft, W. Herrington, and Widdow Askwith. There is no Shortsill Lane, just an area of land named Shortsill. The track from Flaxby to Coneythorpe and on to Arkendale is almost straight, seeming to follow the present foot path to the right of Hillside Cottage. By 1790 which is the next Allerton estate map we have seen, the road has been reorganised and shows the bends apparent today.
The medieval village of Newton near Flaxby has intrigued us. It is referred to in a 1906 book by Harry Speight with reference to a document of 1491 and elsewhere mentioned as only remaining in a field name but not identifying where the field was. The 1734 map shows fields marked Newton, High Newton, Low Newton to the west of York Rd, and a 1758 Goldsborough estate map shows Newton Pasture on the other side of York Rd. roughly where Magnolia and Nos 1-4 York Rd. now are.
We have the populations returns for Flaxby every 10 years from 1801-1901. They vary from 53 people in 1901 and 117 in 1851. In 1881 there were 15 inhabited houses (81 people), in 1891, 13 inhabited houses ( 53 people). 1991, 108 people; 2000, 110 people (40 houses); 2013, 107 people (44 houses). We don’t know how accurate the pre 2000 figures are: if they include the Station House, Flaxby Moor farm, or children.
Allerton Rental Accounts 1888-1912: details of ½ yearly rents due 1st May and 1st Oct . 1888 Thomas Salmon Flaxby Moor Farm £70, Brickyard Field £1: William Kay £2; William Ward £7; John Tate £200, £1, £11( grazing); Matthew Young £3; W.S. Ellison £1.10. In 1891 Charles Kendall had taken over Flaxby Moor Farm and Brickyard. Some names remain over a few years – Tate, Ward, Young, others have many changes, cottages are sometimes reported ‘empty’. William Page lived in Flaxby Wood Cottage rent free in 1889 as he was a ‘game watcher’. Flaxby Moor Cottage was also free for game watcher Thomas Johnson in 1893 and for Allerton Grange farm labourer H Plaxton. 1910 Chief Constable WR (name not given)rented cottage & garden for £4.5s (police house thought to be Hillside). 1910 also George Hewson has Flaxby Wood Cottage free as under keeper and Adam Hodgson has Grange Farm House (Flaxby Grange?) free as foreman home farm.
Allerton Account books: Account book 1847-55 and 1893-97: Detailed accounts of expenditure on the estate – including Farm stock eg. From Andrew o’Brien 10 Irish Heifers £46. 10s., 87 sheep killed for house value £129.14.6.
Publick Taxes: eg 1848 Poor rate Flaxby Township, £4. 4. 8; 1850 Property tax for cottages in Allerton & Flaxby £2.1.7
Wages: Wm Mawson 4 weeks assisting in stables £1.12.; William Young ½ years wage to assist gamekeeper £35; John Parsons ½ years wage £15; 1847, Mr Hastings, schoolmaster £8
Miscellaneous payments: 1849 T Mr L Ellison for gravel got in Hopperton gravel pit for the York & Wetherby Turnpike Roads at 1/- per superficial yard; to John Tate for straw £3.18.9. By 1896 the price of straw from John Tate was £5 14. In 1897 C. Young supplied a new pony cart for general purposes £13. Included are expenses for work on the house, ironmongery, cleaning out chickens and repairing leak in fish pond etc.
There are many documents still to be explored, particularly relating to the Allerton Estate. Many are housed in the Leeds archive centre in Morley, but there are some in Nottingham Univ. Archives : the Galway Collection which should tell us more about the estate from 1629 – about 1738.