Place:Richmondshire District, North Yorkshire, England

Watchers
NameRichmondshire District
TypeDistrict municipality
Coordinates54.33°N 2.012°W
Located inNorth Yorkshire, England     (1974 - )
Also located inYorkshire, England    
See alsoAysgarth Rural, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district making up Richmondshire in 1974
Leyburn Rural, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district making up Richmondshire in 1974
Reeth Rural, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district making up Richmondshire in 1974
Richmond Rural, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district making up Richmondshire in 1974
Croft Rural, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district making up Richmondshire in 1974
NOTE: In common parlance, the Richmondshire District is spoken of as "Richmondshire" or the "Richmondshire Borough". In order to differentiate Yorkshire local government districts formed in 1974 from other types of districts employed earlier in the county and from smaller places still in existence, here in WeRelate the word "District" has been added to all modern govenment districts outside a metropolitan borough.


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Richmondshire is a local government district of North Yorkshire, England. It covers a large northern area of the Yorkshire Dales including Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, Wensleydale and Coverdale, with the prominent Scot's Dyke and Scotch Corner along the centre. Teesdale lies to the north. With a total area of 1,319 km2, it is larger than seven of the English ceremonial counties (namely, in decreasing order of size, the West Midlands, Merseyside, Tyne & Wear, Rutland, the Isle of Wight, Bristol, and the City of London).

Modern Local Area

The current district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was a merger of

Richmondshire presently includes the major settlements of:

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Richmondshire. The section entitled "History" is extensive.

It has been announced that all the administrative districts of North Yorkshire will be abolished in 2023 when the whole of North Yorkshire becomes a single unitary authority.

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.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Richmondshire. 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.