Pocklington

Pocklington is a market town and civil parish situated at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The 2011 Census recorded its population as 8,337. It is east of York and northwest of Hull.

The town's skyline is marked by the 15th-century west tower of All Saints' parish church.

Pocklington is at the centre of the ecclesiastical Parish of Pocklington, which also includes the hamlet of Kilnwick Percy and outlying farms and houses.

History

Pocklington gets its name via the Old English "Poclintun" from the Anglian settlement of Pocel's (or Pocela's) people and the Old English word "tun" meaning farm or settlement, but though the town's name can only be traced back to around 650 AD, the inhabitation of Pocklington as a site is thought to extend back a further 1,000 years or more to the Bronze Age. Pocklington appears on the 14th-century Gough Map, the oldest route map in Great Britain.

In the Iron Age Pocklington was a major town of the Parisi tribe. In 2017, a Celtic warrior's grave, dated to about BC 320 to 174, was discovered at a housing development under construction. After archeologists had completed a very long excavation project, the site was found to include a bronze shield, remains of a chariot and the skeletons of ponies. The shield's boss bears a resemblance to the Wandsworth shield boss (circa BC 350 to 150), in the British Museum. One design element on the extremely well preserved Pocklington shield, a scalloped border, "is not comparable to any other Iron Age finds across Europe, adding to its valuable uniqueness", commented Paula Ware, managing director at MAP Archaeological Practice Ltd, in late 2019. Horses were rarely included in Iron Age burials, making the find particularly significant. "The discoveries are set to widen our understanding of the Arras (Middle Iron Age) culture and the dating of artefacts to secure contexts is exceptional," according to Paula Ware.

By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, it was the second largest settlement in Yorkshire after York itself.

Pocklington developed through the Middle Ages while many similar places fell into dramatic decline. Pocklington owed much of its prosperity in the Middle Ages to the fact that it was a local centre for the trading of wool and lay on the main road to York, an important national centre for the export of wool to the continent. Wool was England's main export in the earlier Middle Ages.

Town heraldry

The town's coat of arms shield is based on that of the Dolman family, founders of Pocklington School. The arms were granted to the town council in 1980. The crown at the base of the shield is the emblem of the saints, and along with the gold cross, symbolises the town's historic connection with Paulinus of York and the Archbishop of York.

The town's motto is "Service with Freedom".

Governance

Pocklington is under East Riding of Yorkshire Council, a unitary authority. The town is part of the ''Pocklington Provincial Ward'' and returns three councillors to the council.

Since 2001, Pocklington has been part of the East Yorkshire Parliamentary Constituency. The seat is currently held by Greg Knight for the Conservative Party.

Pocklington's Town Council consists of thirteen elected councillors and is responsible for the cemetery, allotments, the Croft play-park and the Arts Centre. The Mayor of Pocklington is elected annually by the members of the town council.

The town council has a policy of naming all new streets using the surnames of the war dead who served at RAF Pocklington. This has given rise to the names Strother Close, Waite Close, Garrick Drive, Turnbull Close and Harper Close. There is some controversy surrounding the policy as a local resident believes that war heroes from Pocklington and nearby Barmby Moor should also be honoured in this way.

Town twinning

Pocklington is twinned with:

* Le Pays de Racan, France (Official)
* Trendelburg, Germany (unofficial)

Geography

Pocklington is a spring line settlement at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds. The rocks underlying this area were deposited on the bed of a tropical ocean. When the land rose, the chalk wolds were formed from the exoskeletons of micro-organisms covering the sea floor. The landscape around Pocklington therefore varies from flat arable land primarily devoted to agriculture to the south and west, and grassy, chalk hills and dry valleys to the north and east. A lot of the more level farming country was, from the Middle Ages onwards, reclaimed from marshland.
Pocklington is bisected by the largely culverted Pocklington Beck, a small brook that feeds into the Pocklington Canal. The beck and canal are usually good fishing grounds but a sewerage overflow in 2003 killed thousands of fish and severely damaged the ecosystem, from which it is now recovered.

Demography

According to the 2011 UK census, Pocklington parish had a population of 8,337, an increase on the 2001 UK census figure of 7,632.

The civil parish is not very ethnically diverse, with the 2001 UK census reporting 98.4% of the 7,632 inhabitants being white.

The East Riding of Yorkshire has a higher than average level of Christian belief and a much lower rate of observance for other faiths and those of no faith. This can be attributed to the aforementioned lack of ethnic diversity in the area.

Entertainment and culture

Pocklington Arts Centre (formerly the Oak House Cinema) opened in 2000 and offers "a mixed programme of film, music, drama, dance, lectures, workshops and exhibitions". Previous performers at the arts centre include the comedians Jenny Eclair, Clive James

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