Place:Bishopthorpe, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Bishopthorpe is a village and civil parish three miles south of the centre of York in the City of York unitary authority and ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. It is close to the River Ouse, and had a population of 3,174 at the 2001 UK census, increasing to 3,237 at the 2011 Census.

Bishopthorpe was originally an ancient parish in the Ainsty Wapentake. From 1894 until 1937 it was a parish in the Bishopthorpe Rural District in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1937 it was absorbed into the county borough of York. From 1974 until 1996 it was part of the Selby District of North Yorkshire.

Bishopthorpe has been a traditional farming community, though nowadays it serves as a commuter base for workers in nearby York and Leeds.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Bishopthorpe.

Research Tips

• GENUKIl on Bishopthorpe. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Bishopthorpe provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Bishopthorpe.
• A Vision of Britain through Time 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. The location of individual settlements within the parishes is also shown. These maps all expand to a very large scale.

• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
• Ordnance Survey West Riding North 1900 and Ordnance Survey West Riding South 1900. The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. NOTE: In 2022 the map of the southern section is not available through the Vision of Britain website. It is unknown if this omission is accidental or if the copy used by the university has been damaged in some way.
• Yorkshire West Riding South and Yorkshire West Riding North revised_1944. These two maps illustrate the urban and rural districts of the whole of the West Riding after the revisions of 1935.
• A further useful map on A Vision of Britain through Time is a boundary map dated 1917. This shows all the boundaries of villages, townships and parishes in the Holmfirth area.