Place:Thruscross, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

This village was originally listed as Thurcross following the data in the FamilySearch Library Catalog. Thruscross is the name found in 19th century gazetteers. A Vision of Britain through Time indexed it only as Thruscross but provides the following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72: "THURCROSS, or Thruscross, a township, with a village, in Fewston parish, [West Riding of] Yorkshire; 6½ miles N of Otley. Acres: 6,340, Real property: £3,966. Population: 363. Houses: 78. There are flaxmills, a chapel of ease, two Methodist chapels, and a national school." Historically, Thruscross (#13 on the left side of the map) was in the ancient or ecclesiastical parish of Fewston in the lower division of Claro Wapentake. From 1894 until 1937, Thruscross was located in Pateley Bridge 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. Wikipedia provides only an article on Thruscross Reservoir. The hamlet of West End was abandoned when the reservoir (completed in 1966) was built.

Research Tips

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