Place:Howden, East 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

Howden is a small historic market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies north of the M62 motorway, on the A614 road about 17 miles (27 km) southeast of York and 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Goole, which lies across the River Ouse. The population, according to the UK census of 2011, was 4,142.

Howden is surrounded by largely flat land and in some places marshland, often separated by drainage dykes.

William the Conqueror gave the town to the Bishops of Durham in 1080. The wapentake of Howdenshire was named after the town.

The bounds of Howden as an ecclesiastical parish stretched far beyond the town. It had thirteen townships which became individual civil parishes at least for the 1894-1935 period, some extending to 1974.

Nineteenth century descriptions

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Howden from John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles of 1887:

"Howden, market town, par., and township, with ry. sta., East-Riding Yorkshire, 21 miles W. of Hull by rail - par., 14,946 ac. (994 water), pop. 4080; township, 3098 ac. (178 water), pop. 2198; [post office], [telegraph office], 2 Banks. Market-day, Saturday. The principal attraction of Howden is its 13th century church, containing many ancient monuments. A noted horse fair held herc attracts dealers from all parts of the country. Howden has corn mills, a tannery. and brickworks."

A Vision of Britain through Time also provides a much longer description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72. Wikipedia also has a long article on the history of the town.

Humberside 1974-1996

In 1974 most of what had been the East Riding of Yorkshire was joined with the northern part of Lincolnshire to became a new English county named Humberside. The urban and rural districts of the former counties were abolished and Humberside was divided into non-metropolitan districts. The new organization did not meet with the pleasure of the local citizenry and Humberside was wound up in 1996. The area north of the River Humber was separated into two "unitary authorities"—Kingston upon Hull covering the former City of Hull and its closest environs, and the less urban section to the west and to the north which, once again, named itself the East Riding of Yorkshire.

The phrase "Yorkshire and the Humber" serves no purpose in WeRelate. It refers to one of a series of basically economic regions established in 1994 and abolished for most purposes in 2011. See the Wikipedia article entited "Regions of England").

Research Tips

• An inspection of the area around the town of Howden on the Ordnance Survey map of 1900 brings up a number places indicated by letters and the phrase "Det.". An index for the letters can be found on the right of the map. At this point Howden appears not to be one entity, but a group of separate parts. The same could be said for its townships. The reason for these separate blocks probably reflects the need to have a river frontage by various land owners over cenutries past. In 1935 many of the parishes were consolidated into fewer larger ones. Depression may have brought about many sales of large estates during the first third of the twentieth century. This, in turn, would have enabled the alteration in parish boundaries.