Place:Yearsley, North Riding of Yorkshire, England

Watchers
NameYearsley
TypeTownship, Civil parish
Coordinates54.163°N 1.101°W
Located inNorth Riding of Yorkshire, England     ( - 1974)
Also located inNorth Yorkshire, England     (1974 - )
Yorkshire, England    
See alsoCoxwold, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandancient parish in which it was a township
Birdforth Wapentake, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandwapentake in which it was located
Easingwold Rural, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district in which the parish was located 1894-1974
Hambleton District, North Yorkshire, Englandadministrative district in which it is now located

Yearsley (#34 on map) was originally a township in the ancient parish of Coxwold (#8) in the Birdforth Wapentake of the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Yearsley was made a civil parish in 1866 and in 1894 it became part of the Easingwold Rural District. Since 1974 it has been in North Yorkshire, specifically within the Hambleton District.

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Yearsley is now a civil parish and a village in the Hambleton District of North Yorkshire, England. The population of the civil parish was less than 100 at the 2011 UK census. Data for the parish is included with that of the neighbouring civil parish of Brandsby cum Stearsby (#6). Yearsley is situated between the market towns of Easingwold (#11) and Helmsley (not on map).

The entire parish was, and remains, a predominantly agricultural village with significant forestry on the moors to the north of the village.

Following the Norman invasion of 1066, the lands of Yearsley fell into the hands of a Norman knight, Roger de Mowbray, who, by 1160, passed the estates to another Norman nobleman, Thomas Colville (from Collville-Sur-Mer on the Normandy coast). The heirs of Thomas Colville (also all called Thomas) owned the lands of Yearsley until 1398 when the next heir, William Colville, took the step of calling himself by the name of his English, rather than erstwhile Norman lands, and became William Yearsley. The manorial estates of Yearsley passed to Sir William Yearsley (who was Clerk of the Wardrobe to Henry VI) and, in 1482, to a third heir, Thomas Yearsley, who died without male heirs in 1497. Through marriage, the estates of Yearsley then passed (by Thomas Yearsley's daughter, Thomasin) to William Wildon of Fryton.

Yearsley was the site of the pottery of William Wedgewood, a relation of the famous Staffordshire Wedgwood family of potters. (The Wikipedia contains a five-generation family tree of this family, together with very brief biographies of its many members.)

The village was part of the Newburgh Priory estate of the Wombwell family until 1944. The local church is dedicated to St Hilda.

Image:Easingwold_complete.png

Research Tips

This is by far the most complete history of the parishes of the North Riding to be found online. The volumes are divided into sections by wapentake (early divisions of the county) and the parishes within each wapentake follow in alphabetical order. The links above open to the indexes covering all the wapentakes in the volume.
  • GENUKI has a page on all three ridings of Yorkshire and pages for each of the ancient or ecclesiastical parishes in the county. Under each ancient parish there is a list of the settlements (townships and chapelries) within it and brief description of each. Many of these secondary settlements became civil parishes during the latter half of the 19th century.
These notes are based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and there may have been a number of alterations to the parish setup since then. However, it is worthwhile information for the pre civil registration era. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and the submitter is very firm about his copyright, but this should not stop anyone from reading the material.
  • The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time, Yorkshire North Riding, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions which also include historical population and area statistics. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72.
  • Map of the North Riding divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
  • Map of North Riding divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
  • Another provider of maps is the National Library of Scotland. In this index the Scottish provision precedes the English one, but the choice of maps for England is still quite vast.
  • Yorkshire has a large number of family history and genealogical societies. A list of the societies will be found on the Yorkshire, England page.
  • In March 2018 Ancestry announced that its file entitled "Yorkshire, England: Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1873" has been expanded to include another 94 parishes (across the three ridings) and expected it to be expanded further during the year. The entries are taken from previously printed parish registers.
  • The chapter of the Victoria County History, published 1923, dealing with Coxwold parish.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Yearsley. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.