Place:Castle Bolton, North Riding of Yorkshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia Castle Bolton (#8 on map) is a village in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire, England. It gets its name from the castle which looks over the village green. The population of the civil parish was less than 100 at the 2011 UK Census. Population data is combined with that of the neighbouring parish of Redmire (#27). The village was largely constructed after the nearby castle and the houses were used by the retinue of Mary, Queen of Scots during her imprisonment there (May 1568 until January 1569). (These dates differ from the period given in Wilson's Gazetteer. See below.) Prior to the nationwide municipal reorganization of 1974, Castle Bolton was located in Leyburn Rural District. Historically, it was a chapelry in the ancient or ecclesiastical parish of Wensley (#30) in the Hang West Wapentake. Castle Bolton was part of the civil parish formally and formerly known as "Castle Bolton with East and West Bolton". Neither East or West Bolton appears on OS maps within the parish. East Bolton may be the village with Bolton Castle overlooking the green and West Bolton is located over the parish border in Carperby cum Thoresby. Vision of Britain refers to this parish under discussion simply as "Castle Bolton".

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"BOLTON-CASTLE, or Castle-Bolton, a township-chapelry in Wensley parish, [North Riding of] Yorkshire; in Wensleydale, 5½ miles WNW of Leyburn [railway] station. Post Town: Leyburn, under Bedale. Acres: 5,160. Real property: £1,578. Population: 259. Houses: 54.

"Bolton Hall is the seat of Lord Bolton; and gives him his peerage title. Bolton Castle is the ruined seat of Lord Chancellor Scrope, built by him in the reign of Richard Il., at a cost of £12,000; forms a hollow quadrangle, with towers at the corners; was the prison of Mary Queen of Scots for two years before her removal to Tutbury; and sustained a siege by the parliamentarians near the end of the civil war.

"The living is a [perpetual] curacy, united with the [perpetual] curacy of Redmire, in the diocese of Ripon. Value: £115. Patron: the Rector of Wensley. The church is ancient."

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Castle Bolton.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Castle Bolton.
• the FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Wensley.