Swainby is a village in the

Hambleton District Hambleton is a local government district in North Yorkshire, England. The administrative centre is Northallerton, and the district includes the outlying towns and villages of Bedale, Thirsk, Great Ayton, Stokesley, and Easingwold. The dist ...

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 is situated on the A172 road, north-east from

Northallerton Northallerton ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Hambleton District of North Yorkshire, England. It lies in the Vale of Mowbray and at the northern end of the Vale of York. It had a population of 16,832 in the 2011 census, an increase ...

and south-east from the small market town of

Stokesley Stokesley is a market town and civil parish in the Hambleton District of North Yorkshire, England, formerly a part of the historic North Riding of Yorkshire. It lies on the River Leven. An electoral ward, of the same name, stretches north to ...

Geography

Swainby is located at the north-western corner of the

North York Moors The North York Moors is an upland area in north-eastern Yorkshire, England. It contains one of the largest expanses of Calluna, heather moorland in the United Kingdom. The area was designated as a national parks of England and Wales, National P ...

National Park. The characteristics of the village and the surrounding area consist of traditional Yorkshire

dry stone wall Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction me ...

s, hills, sheep, heather and moorland. The name of the village derives from

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 ...

, ''Sveins'' and ''by'' which means the village next to the swans or the land of Svein's people. The village is close to the ruins of Whorlton Castle; Swainby appears to have been built after its abandonment, possibly due to the Black Death (or some other disease) leaving the inhabitants of the castle low in number in 1428. Holy Cross Church, Swainby - geograph

Holy Cross Church (Church of England) was designed by T. H. Wyatt; he was commissioned to do it by the

Marquess of Ailesbury Marquess of Ailesbury (later styled Aylesbury), in the County of Buckingham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 17 July 1821 for Charles Brudenell-Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury. On 18 March 1664, Robert Bruce, 2 ...

. It is in the Early English style and constructed of locally quarried stone. The

grade II 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 ...

church was consecrated on 4 October 1877. In the 19th century the housing of miners who worked the nearby hills for

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...

and jet led to an expansion of the village. High Street and Scugdale Beck, Swainby (geograph 6564528)

Scugdale Beck, a tributary of the River Leven, cuts northwards through the village with two roads either side of the water and houses built on both sides. Swainby contains two

public houses 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 was ...

, "The Blacksmiths Arms" and "The Black Horse", and a

caravan park Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals *Convoy, a group of veh ...

with farm house.

Governance

Swainby is in Whorlton civil parish, the village is presently larger than the parish's namesake therefore the

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to t ...

is under Swainby's name. The ward's population was 1,820 at the 2011 census.

Transport

Swainby was the site where an old drover's road entered the

. The road continued south to

Sutton Bank Sutton Bank is a hill in the Hambleton District of the North York Moors National Park, North Yorkshire in England. It is a high point on the Hambleton Hills with extensive views over the Vale of York and the Vale of Mowbray. At the foot of Sut ...

where it fed into the prehistoric road that is now the A170. Cattle from

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 ...

were brought up to Swainby to be sold in the village. The village is just south of the A172 road which connects the

A19 road The A19 is a major road in England running approximately parallel to and east of the A1 road. Although the two roads meet at the northern end of the A19, the two roads originally met at the southern end of the A19 in Doncaster, but the old ...

with Middlesbrough bypassing

. The village lies on the Northallerton to Stokesley bus route. A railway ran through the village between 1857 and 1899. It connected with railway station on the Picton–Battersby line but it was not open to passenger traffic, being used to move ironstone from Whorlton to the smelters on

Teesside Teesside () is a built-up area around the River Tees in the north of England, split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name was initially used as a county borough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Historically a hub for heavy manu ...

only.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in North Yorkshire

Geography

Governance

Transport

See also

References

External links