Place:Dunkeswick, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Dunkeswick from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"DUNKESWICK, a township in Harewood parish, [West Riding of] Yorkshire; on the river Wharfe, 6½ miles W of Wetherby. It contains Harewood-Bridge. Acres: 1,230. Real property: £2,057. Population: 210. Houses: 42."

Historically, Dunkeswick was in the ancient and ecclesiastical parish of Harewood in the Upper division of the Claro Wapentake. From 1894 until 1937, Dunkeswick was a separate civil parish in Wetherby Rural District. In 1937 the land was transferred to the neighbouring civil parish of Harewood. In 1974 the area became part of the Leeds Metropolitan Borough in West Yorkshire.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Dunkeswick. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Harewood provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Dunkeswick.
• 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.
• Ordnance Survey Southern part of the West Riding 1944 shows the southern part of the West Riding (including the southern part of Wetherby Rural District).