Thwing is a village 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

Yorkshire Wolds The Yorkshire Wolds are low hills in the counties of the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Yorkshire in north-eastern England. The name also applies to the district in which the hills lie. On the western edge, the Wolds rise to an escarpment wh ...

, in the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...

, England.

Description

Thwing is located in the

about west of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

coast at

Bridlington Bridlington is a coastal town and a civil parish on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is about north of Hull and east of York. The Gypsey Race enters the North Sea at its harbour. The 2011 Cen ...

.Ordnance Survey. 1:25000. 2009 The village has a 12th-century Norman Church (All Saints), and a pub known as ''The Falling Stone'', previously ''The Rampant Horse'', before 1976 the ''Raincliffe Arms''. It rises from about in the north-east corner of the parish to a high point of in the south-west. The parish covers an area of . The civil parish is sparsely populated, with, according to the

2011 UK census A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National ...

, a population of 203, the same as the

2001 UK census A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194. The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...

figure. The main settlements are the village of Thwing and the smaller

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

of Octon. There are farmsteads at Octon Grange, The Wold Cottage, and Willy Howe farm. Land use is almost entirely agricultural, predominately enclosed fields. There is a private crematorium, East Riding Crematorium, at Octon Crossroads, built in 1997. Between 1894 and 1974 it was a part of the

Bridlington Rural District Bridlington was a rural district in the East Riding of Yorkshire in England from 1894 to 1974. It covered a coastal area, and surrounded the municipal borough of Bridlington on its land borders. The district covered Flamborough and Flamborough H ...

, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Between 1974 and 1996 it was part of the Borough of North Wolds (later Borough of East Yorkshire), in the county of

Humberside Humberside () was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber Estuary, created from portions of the East Riding of Yorkshire, West ...

. Although the current civil parish is called "Thwing" its parish council is called "Thwing & Octon Parish Council". ''The Falling Stone'' pub name is a reference to the

Wold Cottage Meteorite The Wold Cottage meteorite (also called the Wold Newton meteorite) fell near Wold Cottage farm in 1795, a few miles away from the village of Wold Newton in Yorkshire, England. The meteorite The stone fell at around 3 o'clock, on 13 December 17 ...

, which fell nearby on 13 December 1795. A monument to its fall can be visited. The church, as well as the post office (1830s) and 'Pear Tree farmhouse' (late 18th century) are listed buildings. Thwing is the birthplace of

John Twenge John Twenge (Saint John of Bridlington, John Thwing, John of Thwing, John Thwing of Bridlington) (1320–1379) is an English saint of the 14th century. In his lifetime he enjoyed a reputation for great holiness and for miraculous powers. St&nb ...

History and archaeology

:''See also history of Octon'' Thwing is thought to mean 'narrow strip of land', deriving from ''thvengr'' ( Old Scandinavian) or ''thweng'' (

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 ...

). The village is recorded in ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

'' (1086) as ''Tuennc'', in the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

of Burton. There is evidence of significant human activity in the area beginning in at least the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

Era: at Paddock Hill north of Octon, evidence of a

henge There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ...

dating from the late Neolithic has been discovered from crop marks and by excavation. The same site also shows evidence of re-use and modification into a

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

during the Bronze Age, including artefacts typical of the

Urnfield culture The Urnfield culture ( 1300 BC – 750 BC) was a late Bronze Age culture of Central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and p ...

, and evidence of bronze metalworking. The site was re-used during the Anglo-Saxon period and contained houses including a

grubenhaus A pit-house (or ''pit house'', ''pithouse'') is a house built in the ground and used for shelter. Besides providing shelter from the most extreme of weather conditions, these structures may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a larder ...

and large rectangular hall; there was a cemetery with at least 130 inhumations east of the Bronze Age earthwork. During the 1200s a

post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. All p ...

was constructed., Paddock Hill The church of All Saints dates from the 12th century. A market and fair began in Thwing in 1257. Two

tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...

have been recorded and excavated in the northern part of the parish: the large mound named '

Willy Howe Willy Howe (also ''Willey-Hou'') is a tumulus in the Yorkshire Wolds, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. History and description Willy Howe is a large round barrow high, located between Wold Newton and Burton Fleming in the civil parish of ...

';, Willy Howe and another barrow, about to its west, in fields south of the village of Wold Newton. A

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

chapel was established in Thwing in the early 1800s. It was built around 1810, and rebuilt and enlarged around 1839. From the 1850s to the start of the 21st century the extent of building development in the village was practically unchanged. There are several other structures identified as barrows in the parish. Other evidence of pre-historic settlement and activity include polished stone axes and flint implements including arrowheads, chisels and knives, as well as flint cores,

tranchet axe A Tranchet axe is a lithic tool made by removing a flake, known, when using this method, as a tranchet flake, parallel to the final intended cutting edge of the tool which creates a single straight edge as wide as the tool itself. It is found in ...

s and

microlith A microlith is a small Rock (geology), stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia an ...

s; pebble maceheads; and bronze or Iron Age pottery. A late Bronze Age () penannular ring of pale and yellow gold applied on a base metal core was found by metal detection in 2004 near Thwing.Sources: * * Finds of Roman pottery, including

Samian ware Terra sigillata is a term with at least three distinct meanings: as a description of medieval medicinal earth; in archaeology, as a general term for some of the fine red Ancient Roman pottery with glossy surface slips made in specific areas of t ...

, provide evidence of occupation during the Roman era, and a potential

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...

settlement has been located about north-east of Thwing, with nearby rectilinear enclosures and trackways dating from the Iron Age or Roman period. A

monastic grange Monastic granges were outlying landholdings held by monasteries independent of the manorial system. The first granges were owned by the Cistercians and other orders followed. Wealthy monastic houses had many granges, most of which were largely a ...

associated with

Meaux Abbey Meaux Abbey (archaic, also referred to as ''Melsa'') was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1151 by William le Gros, 1st Earl of Albemarle (Count of Aumale), Earl of York and 4th Lord of Holderness, near Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Englan ...

was recorded at Octon Grange, north of Octon, in the 12th century. The

Wold Cottage meteorite The Wold Cottage meteorite (also called the Wold Newton meteorite) fell near Wold Cottage farm in 1795, a few miles away from the village of Wold Newton in Yorkshire, England. The meteorite The stone fell at around 3 o'clock, on 13 December 17 ...

fell in the parish in 1795, and is commemorated by a monument. In 1812 the parish's population was recorded as 268 persons in 37 houses; the predominant occupation was farming. According to Sheahan, in the 1850s the parish had a total population of 599, and an area of , the population had risen by a factor of two in the first half of the 19th century. It fell during the last decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century: by 1951 it was below the 1811 population level. By the 1961 census the population had been reduced to 244.

Notes

References

Map locations

Sources

* *

External links

{{authority control Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire Civil parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire Thwing and Octon