Place:Sawley (near Ripon), West Riding of Yorkshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia Sawley (near Ripon) is a village and civil parish in the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire, England. It is about 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Ripon. From this position, the Yorkshire Dales are to the west and the North Yorkshire Moors and coast are to the east. In the 1870s, John Marius Wilson, in his Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Sawley as "a township-chapelry, with a village and four hamlets, in Ripon parish, [West Riding of] Yorkshire." The township's four hamlets were Cowbush, Hungate, North Pastures, and Rispleth. (Source: "Ripon: Geographical and Historical information from the year 1868" from UK and Ireland Genealogy). For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Sawley, North Yorkshire. History and economic history are covered extensively. Historically, Sawley was in the ecclesiastical parish of Ripon in the Lower division of the Claro Wapentake. From 1894 until 1937, Sawley was located in Ripon Rural District and from 1937 until 1974 in Ripon and Pateley Bridge Rural District. In 1974 the area became part of the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Sawley. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Ripon provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Sawley.
• 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.