Gowdall is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...

, England. It is situated approximately west of the town of

Snaith Snaith is a market town and parish in the civil parish of Snaith and Cowick in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The town is close to the River Aire and the M62 and M18 motorways. The town is located west of Goole, east of Knottingle ...

, 1 mile to the north of the

M62 motorway The M62 is a west–east trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting Liverpool and Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield; of the route is shared with the M60 orbital motorway around Manchester. The road is part of th ...

and the A645 road, and just south of the

River Aire The River Aire is a major river in Yorkshire, England, in length. The ''Handbook for Leeds and Airedale'' (1890) notes that the distance from Malham to Howden is direct, but the river's meanderings extend that to . Between Malham Tarn and Ai ...

. According to the 2011 UK Census, Gowdall parish had a population of 356, an increase on the

2001 UK Census A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194. The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...

figure of 318.

Toponymy

The name "Gowdall" originates from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

. It translates as "Nook of land where marigolds grow", and is composed of the elements ''golde'' ("marigold") and ''halh'' ("nook of land"). The village was 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 manus ...

'' but was recorded as ''Goldale'' sometime in the 12th century.

History

The parish was part of the

Goole Rural District Goole was a rural district in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England from 1894 to 1974. It was created under the Local Government Act 1894, based on most of the Goole rural sanitary district (two parishes of which in Lincolnshire became part of t ...

in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

from 1894 to 1974, then in

Boothferry Boothferry is a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire in England. It is situated on the north bank of the River Ouse where the A614 road crosses the river. It is about north-west of Goole. Boothferry is split between civil parishes; areas ...

district of

Humberside Humberside () was a Non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber Estuary, create ...

until 1996. In 2000 the village was severely flooded, and made national news. In February 2020, Gowdall along with other villages surrounding

suffered from further flooding after the

"over-topped". Each October, before 2017 when the annual festival permanently ceased to occur, Gowdall residents hosted a 'Scarecrow and Pumpkin Festival'. The village formerly had a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

called The Boot and Shoe Inn. It has been closed since 2018.

References

External links

Gowdall flood photographs
Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire Civil parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire {{EastRiding-geo-stub