Spaunton is a hamlet and

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 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. At the 2011 the civil parish had a population of less than 100. Details are included in the civil parish of Lastingham. It is situated near

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 ...

and about north west of Pickering. The name Spaunton 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 ...

and means a farmstead or settlement which had shingle roofs. Spaunton is still the setting for a

Court Leet The court leet was a historical court baron (a type of manorial court) of England and Wales and Ireland that exercised the "view of frankpledge" and its attendant police jurisdiction, which was normally restricted to the hundred courts. Etym ...

. The court meets annually in October an decides on matters of encroachment onto the common land in the village and hands down fines to offenders. The full title of the court is the ''Manor of Spaunton Court Leet and Court Baron with View of Frankpledge''. Just after 9:00 pm on the 7 October 1943, a

Lancaster bomber The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirling ...

No. 408 Squadron RCAF The numero sign or numero symbol, №, (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no.), is a typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, t ...

from

RAF Linton-on-Ouse RAF Linton-on-Ouse was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station at Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire, England, north-west of York. It had satellite stations at RAF Topcliffe and Dishforth Airfield (British Army). The station opened in 1937. With the ...

crashed into the village with a full load of ordnance. One of the bombs exploded and killed a civilian from the village, George Strickland, as he went to see what the noise was about. He is buried in Lastingham graveyard.

References

External links

Details of Spaunton's Court Leet
Villages in North Yorkshire Civil parishes in North Yorkshire {{ryedale-geo-stub