Burtersett is a small village in the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of the Pennines in the Historic counties of England, historic county of Yorkshire, England, most of it in the Yorkshire Dales National Park created in 1954. The Dales comprise river valleys and the hills ri ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

, England. It lies approximately east from

Hawes Hawes is a market town and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England, at the head of Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales, and historically in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The River Ure north of the town is a touri ...

and

Gayle Gayle or Gayl may refer to: People * Gayle (given name), people with the given name * Gayle (surname), people with the surname * Gayle (singer) (born 2004), American singer-songwriter Places * Gayle, North Yorkshire, England * Gayle, Jamaica, a ...

. The village is known for its former quarrying industry and being the seat of the Hillary family, with one strand of the family emigrating to New Zealand and raising

Sir Edmund Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached t ...

, the famous mountaineer.

History

Whilst the village is not mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

, its name is recorded as far back as 1280 as ''Beutresate''. The village has also been called ''Birtresatte'' and ''Butterside'', with the derivation being ''Shieling near the alder tree''. It was known that the area surrounding Burtersett was a Royal Forest during the reign of

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

, but gradually the local industry gave way to sheep farming, then later quarrying and dairy produce. Other industries included knitted products and a candles. The candle factory, a four-story building, still exists today, but the operation is believed to have stopped in the early 20th century. Quarrying on the moor south of the village reached a peak in 1890, when two stone ''slate'' quarries were in operation; Burtersett and Seavy. Although the men referred to themselves as quarrymen, both sites were actually mines which operated gauge tramways to transport the stone into the village. The stone was called slate, but it was a sandstone, typically used as a flagstone, but thicker beds were used as a building stone in the area. When the Wensleydale Railway arrived in Hawes, the quarries were exporting per month via the

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

Hillary Hall

The late 17th/early 18th grade II listed building known as ''Hillary Hall'' was formerly the seat of Sir Henry Hillary, a landowner in Upper Wensleydale. The house was the birthplace of many in the Hillary family, including Sir Henry (1697–1763), who was known for his work on tropical diseases. His nephew,

Sir William Hillary Sir William Hillary, 1st Baronet (4 January 1771 – 5 January 1847) was a British militia officer, author and philanthropist, best known as the founder, in 1824, of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.. Life Hillary's background was Q ...

, who campaigned for the institution of the

RNLI The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways. It i ...

, was born in the village. The grandparents of the mountaineer

emigrated from Wensleydale to New Zealand in the 19th century.

Governance

Historically, Burtersett was in the Parish of Aysgarth and the

wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, C ...

Hang West Hang West was a Wapentake (Hundred) in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The Wapentake measured across (from west to east) and was from north to south. It was bordered on its eastern side by Hang East, the West Riding of Yorkshire on the southe ...

. Whilst it now belongs in the civil parish of Hawes which it is nearer, Aysgarth was the largest settlement around until the

Richmond to Lancaster Turnpike The Richmond to Lancaster Turnpike, was a road that was opened in the second half of the 18th century between Richmond, in the North Riding of Yorkshire and Lancaster in Lancashire, Northern England. The turnpike was built to allow goods to be ...

was diverted off Cam High Road (south of Burtersett) to go through Hawes and over

Widdale Widdale is a small side dale on the south side of Wensleydale in North Yorkshire, England. The dale lies to the east of Great Knoutberry Hill (also known as Widdale Fell) and is bounded on the west by Dentdale, south by Sleddale and north by M ...

References

External links

Map of the village
{{authority control Villages in North Yorkshire Hawes