Henderskelfe is a
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 authority ...
in
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. The parish does not contain any villages, though it is named after a previous settlement and castle which occupied the land on which
Castle Howard
Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, within the civil parish of Henderskelfe, located north of York. It is a private residence and has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years. ...
is now built. Historically the area was a township in the
ecclesiastical parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish priest ...
of
Bulmer, however it has been its own civil parish since 1866.
History
Originally, the area had been called ''Hinderskelfe'', and the manor lands of Hinderskelfe stretched between
Stamford Bridge Stamford Bridge may refer to:
* Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire, a village in England
** Battle of Stamford Bridge, 25 September 1066
* Stamford Bridge (bridge), a bridge in the village of Stamford Bridge
* Stamford Bridge (stadium), in L ...
, what is now Castle Howard and
Lastingham
Lastingham is a village and civil parish which lies in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It is on the southern fringe of the North York Moors, north-east of Kirkbymoorside, and to the east of Hutton-le-Hole. It was home to th ...
. 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 ...
, the area was home to a village and a church, both now lost, with Castle Howard being built on top of the village, and Henderskelfe/Hinderskelfe Castle. As the church had been destroyed, no clergy were assigned to the area, and it became known as an
extra-parochial area
In England and Wales, an extra-parochial area, extra-parochial place or extra-parochial district was a geographically defined area considered to be outside any ecclesiastical or civil parish. Anomalies in the parochial system meant they had no chu ...
. The site of the rectory and the church now lie underneath the South Lake, and the garden respectively on the Castle Howard estate. In 1846, a private bill was passed in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
and the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
, which effectively swapped the two parcels of land in Henderskelfe, with land in
Sheriff Hutton
Sheriff Hutton is a village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It lies about north by north-east of York.
History
The village is mentioned twice in the Domesday Book of 1086, as ''Hotun'' in the Bulford hund ...
; the
Archbishop of York
The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...
owned the parcel of land beneath the lake, and no longer needed it. The township of Henderskelfe remained in the ecclesiastical parish of Bulmer for marriages births and baptisms after it had been created as a civil parish.
Henderskelfe Castle was built during the reign of
Edward III
Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring r ...
to a quadrangular design, though it was listed as being in ruins by 1359.
Leland states in ''Collectanea'', that in 1070, a Scottish raiding party under
King Malcolm, "...came to a place called Hinderskelfe and slew some English nobility." At the time of the Domesday survey, the land belonged to Berengar of Tosny, who died without issue and so it passed to his sister, Adeliza, who married
Roger Bigod. Henderskelfe passed to the monarchy in 1306, when Bigod died, and all his honours were transferred to the crown. The manor was owned by the Greystoke family in the 16th and 17th centuries. Henderskelfe Castle and village were rebuilt in 1683, but destroyed by fire in 1693. The building of Castle Howard started , and some of the external walls by the gate were built from stone sourced from the ruined castle. Henderskelfe Castle and village were both located immediately west of Ray Wood, which still exists today. A map of 1694, drawn a year after fire destroyed the castle, shows the layout of the village and castle.
The name of Henderskelfe has been suggested by Smith to be an
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
combination of ''Hildar'' and ''skjálf''; a female personal name and either ''shelf'' or ''seat''.
However, Morris suggests the name stems from ''Hundred-Hill'', as the site was the meeting place of the wapentakes of Ryedale and Bulmer. The remains of the village of Hinderskelfe/Henderskelfe were demolished when the current Castle Howard buildings were erected in 1699. A map of 1690 shows 24 houses present, though no document records what happened to the villagers. Beresford suggested that the vilagers were given houses in either
Coneysthorpe
Coneysthorpe is a small village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated near Castle Howard and west of Malton. The Centenary Way
The Centenary Way is a route devised to celebrate the 100th anniv ...
or
Welburn. The area was classified as a township until 1866, when it was redesignated as a civil parish.
Previous to this, the township of Henderskelfe was in the parish of Bulmer, and consisted of , most of which was given over to the Castle Howard estate. By 1872, the parish area was defined as being ,
which had grown to by 1890.
In 1987, the whole of the parish became part of the newly created
Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The
Centenary Way
The Centenary Way is a route devised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of North Yorkshire County Council.
It was opened by Chris Brasher in 1989 to mark the Centenary of the governance by County Councils.
The route runs across the Howardian H ...
long-distance footpath crosses the eastern side of the parish.
Governance
Henderskelfe was historically in the wapentake of Bulmer, and part of the Malton Rural District in the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is now in the shire district of Ryedale in North Yorkshire. The parish forms part of the
Thirsk and Malton Constituency for national government purposes.
In the 2001 census, the parish details were listed as being "below the Office for National Statistics threshold data" (the population was less than 100), so the details were contained within the adjacent parish of Coneysthorpe.
Notable residents
*
William Dacre, 3rd Baron Dacre
William Dacre, 7th Baron Greystock, later 3rd Baron Dacre of Gilsland (''ca.'' 1493 – 18 November 1563) was an English peer, a Cumberland landowner, and the holder of important offices under the Crown, including many years' service as Warden ...
, lived at Henderskelf
ic after having to surrender his other estates.
He had "embraced
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
", and so during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
, he was persecuted for his beliefs, and briefly imprisioned in the
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separa ...
.
Notes
References
Sources
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External links
{{commons category
Parish boundary map
Civil parishes in North Yorkshire
Ryedale