Scawton is a village and former
civil parish in
Ryedale,
North Yorkshire, England. The hamlet lies just east of
Sutton Bank, north of the
A170 road, and west of Helmsley, in the
Hambleton Hills. The wider parish was the setting for the
Battle of Old Byland, on Scawton Moor to the south. The road through the village used to link the two abbeys at
Byland and
Rievaulx
Rievaulx ( ) is a small village and civil parish in Rye Dale within the North York Moors National Park near Helmsley in North Yorkshire, England and is located in what was the inner court of Rievaulx Abbey, close to the River Rye. The populat ...
, with the church, and possibly the village pub, being instigated by the monks for the use of travellers. In 1961 the parish had a population of 84.
History
Scawton was listed in the
Domesday Book as belonging to
Count Robert of Mortain. The name was recorded as ''Scaltun'' in the Domesday Book, and has been written in documents as ''Scalton'', ''Scaltona'', ''Skalton'' and ''Scaulton'', with ''Scawton'' first recorded in 1536. The name means ''farm in the hollow'', where the word ''Skál'' means ''hollow''. The soil was described as being poor, and sits on top of
Kimmeridge clay. Further down, the land sits atop ''Hambleton Oolite'', a white to grey fine
ooidal limestone that was used for building houses and drystone walls in the area. Several old quarries dot the landscape in and around Scawton. Some of the purer limestone quarried on Scawton Moor was burnt to provide lime and mortar.
One former occupation of the villagers was operating
bleachfields (open land for purify and whitening cloth by the action of sunlight) for a
beetling mill in
Crathorne. Bleachfields were common in the western
Hambleton Hills in the late 18th century, with records of this activity being at
Wass,
Byland and
Oldstead besides Scawton. The farm fields were used to dry out the cloth.
Originally in the
wapentake of
Ryedale in its own parish, the parish was merged with
Old Byland on 1 April 1986 to form
Old Byland and Scawton.
Scawton has a pub, ''The Hare'', and a 12th-century church, dedicated to St Mary. The church was built by the monks who later inhabited Byland Abbey and was renovated in 1892 by
C. Hodgson Fowler
Charles Hodgson Fowler (2 March 1840 – 14 December 1910) was a prolific English ecclesiology, ecclesiastical architect who specialised in building and, especially, Victorian restoration, restoring churches.
Life
He was born in Nottinghamshir ...
. The structure is now
grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
, and belongs to the ecclesiastical parish of Upper Ryedale. South of the village is a sawmill and woodworkers who use oak. There are no shopping amenities, and the hamlet has only a small number of properties, with some outlying farmsteads in the surrounding area. One of the few non-stone construction buildings in the hamlet is the village hall/reading room; this is made from corrugated green iron.
The road through the hamlet, known as ''Sperragate'', links the A170 with the village of
Old Byland and Rievaulx. This used to be the main route between Helmsley and Hambleton, before carrying on to Thirsk. The route is marked in Scawton with a
wayside cross. The route was used by, and possible built for, the monks who used it to travel between the abbeys of Rievaulx and Byland. Besides building the church, the monks are thought to have built the pub for the use of travellers. The nearest railway station used to be in , some to the south, but after the line closed, the nearest railway station is now in .
In August 1981, a well-spoken caller, rang the police at
Ripon to report a body on the road between Scawton and Rievaulx. The body was labelled as ''
Nude in the Nettles'' (despite actually being found in willow herb), and is a long-running unidentified murder case.
To the north of the village are several small valleys, including Flassen Dale and Nettle Dale, all of which feed water into the
River Rye at Rievaulx. Nettle Dale has several large ponds in the narrow valley which are believed to have been created as fishponds by the monks of Rievaulx. The long-distance footpath, the
Cleveland Way, runs through Nettle Dale from Helmsley towards Cold Kirby and Sutton Bank.
Scawton Moor
Within the parish, and south of the hamlet, lies Scawton Moor. An Iron Age burial mound was excavated here in the 1950s.
Scawton Moor was the actual location of the
Battle of Old Byland, a 14th-century battle between the English, under
Edward II
Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to t ...
, and the Scots under
Robert the Bruce. The English were routed and Edward had to flee nearby Rievaulx, where he was staying, with haste.
In the 1960s, over of Scawton Moor was planted with conifer trees by the
Forestry Commission.
Notable people
*
John Oxlee
John Oxlee (1779–1854) was an English cleric, philologist and writer on theology.
Biography
Oxlee, son of a well-to-do farmer in Yorkshire, was born at Guisborough in Yorkshire, on 25 September 1779, and was educated at Sunderland. After dev ...
, rector at Scawton, 1816–1826
*
Thomas Worsley, master of Downing College, Cambridge, was the rector at Scawton from 1828 until 1882.
References
{{reflist
External links
Listing for Scawton on getthedata.comMap of the villageParish map 1850
Villages in North Yorkshire
Former civil parishes in North Yorkshire
Ryedale