Place:Birstwith, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia Birstwith (#2 on the left side of map) is now a civil parish and a village in the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire, England. It is part of the Nidderdale valley, and is situated on the River Nidd. According to the 2001 UK census, the parish had a population of 756. This had increased to 868 at the 2011 UK Census. Birstwith Mill on Wreaks Road is run by Kerry Ingredients, a food products manufacturer. The River Nidd provided water for the mill, and although sluice gates and a mill race exist, the water wheel no longer turns. An existing weir provided the mill with a head of water. The mill race rejoins the river downstream. About 1 mile (1.6 km) upstream is a packhorse bridge. The village had a railway station on the NER line running between Harrogate and Pateley Bridge. This was closed by the Beeching cuts in the 1960s. A village primary school and a Reading Room, built and donated by the owner of the local Swarcliffe Hall in about 1880, still exist. In the mid-1970s Swarcliffe Hall was sold and the contents auctioned, the building becoming a private preparatory school for children under secondary school age.

Historically, Birstwith was in the ecclesiastical parish of Hampsthwaite in the Lower division of the Claro Wapentake. From 1894 until 1937, Birstwith was located in Pateley Bridge Rural District and from 1937 until 1974 in Ripon and Pateley Bridge Rural District. In 1974 the area covered by the rural district in the West Riding became part of the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Birstwith. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Hampsthwaite provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Birstwith.
• A Vision of Britain through Time also provides links to maps of the West Riding, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. Those listed here provide data for the part of the West Riding that transferred to North Yorkshire in 1974 plus the northern parts of Leeds and Bradford. These maps all blow up to a scale that will illustrate small villages and large farms or estates.

• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
• Ordnance Survey Northern part of the West Riding 1900 The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. (rural districts of Sedbergh, Settle, Skipton, Pateley Bridge, Ripon, Knaresborough, Great Ouseburn, Clitheroe, Wharfedale, Wetherby, York, Bishopthorpe, Keighley, the northern part of Bradford, the northern part of Leeds, the northern part of Hunslet Urban District, the northern part of Tadcaster Rural District, the northern part of Selby Rural District). [Note: this map appears to be no longer available on the Vision of Britain website. This is unfortunate because the equivalent map from 1931-44 was redrawn after the 1938 reorganization of the rural districts in the northern part of the West Riding.]
• Ordnance Survey Northern part of the West Riding 1944. The urban and rural districts of the northern part of the West Riding (mostly Settle, Skipton, Ripon and Pateley Bridge, and Nidderdale, with sections of Wharfedale and Wetherby) after the revisions of 1938.