Muscoates is a hamlet and former

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 ...

, now in the parish of

Nunnington Nunnington is a village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. The River Rye runs through. Its population, including Stonegrave, taken at the 2011 census was 361. It is rich in listed historic buildings. History ...

, in the

Ryedale Ryedale is a non-metropolitan district in North Yorkshire, England. It is in the Vale of Pickering, a low-lying flat area of land drained by the River Derwent. The Vale's landscape is rural with scattered villages and towns. It has been inha ...

district of

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 on the River Riccal, to the south of the town of

Kirkbymoorside Kirkbymoorside () is a market town and civil parish in the Ryedale district in North Yorkshire, England. It is north of York, It is also midway between Pickering and Helmsley, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park. It had a populat ...

Heritage

Muscoates is first mentioned in a 12th-century document. The name derives either from the

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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

''mūsa cotes'', meaning "mouse-ridden cottages", or from 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 ...

personal name ''Músi''. Muscoates was a

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

in the ancient parish of Kirkdale, and became a separate

in 1866. Muscoates was a small parish with an area of and a population of 23 in 1961. In 1974 it became part of the new district of Ryedale, and on 1 April 1986 the parish was abolished and merged with Nunnington.

Singular writer

Sir Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...

, the poet and art critic, was born at Muscoates in 1893, the son of a farmer. His fantasy novel ''

The Green Child ''The Green Child'' is the only completed novel by the English anarchist poet and critic Herbert Read. Written in 1934 and first published by Heinemann in 1935, the story is based on the 12th-century legend of two green children who mysterio ...

'' (1935) was described by the critic

Geoffrey Wheatcroft Geoffrey Albert Wheatcroft (born 23 December 1945) is a British journalist, author, and historian. Early life and education Wheatcroft is the son of Stephen Frederick Wheatcroft (1921–2016), OBE, and his first wife, Joyce (née Reed). He w ...

in 1993 as "singular, odd, completely original".

References

{{authority control Hamlets in North Yorkshire Former civil parishes in North Yorkshire Ryedale