Ulnaby is an

abandoned village An abandoned village is a village that has, for some reason, been deserted. In many countries, and throughout history, thousands of villages have been deserted for a variety of causes. Abandonment of villages is often related to epidemic, f ...

and

scheduled ancient monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

in the grounds of Ulnaby Hall Farm, near

High Coniscliffe High Coniscliffe is a parish and village in the borough of Darlington and ceremonial county of County Durham, England. The parish includes Carlbury and Low Coniscliffe. It is part of Heighington and Coniscliffe ward, and is situated approxima ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, England. The

toft village In England and Scotland, a toft village is a settlement comprising small and relatively closely packed farms (tofts) with the surrounding land owned and farmed by those who live in the village's buildings. Late Old English ''toft'', with Old English ...

was occupied from the late-13th to the 16th century and temporary buildings were erected in the 19th century. Ulnaby Hall farm appears to have been built in the late-16th century, supplanting a high status

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

manorial Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes forti ...

enclosure associated with the original village. It is thought that the village shrank because of the change from labour-intensive arable farming to pasture, before being abandoned and the site was subsumed into the farm as pasture.

Location

The site is 6.8 km north-west of Darlington, in the grounds of Ulnaby Hall Farm, between Ulnaby Lane and the B6279, near

, County Durham. The earthworks cover an area of 0.16 km² under pasture, with the actual village covering 6.6 hectares. There are

ridge and furrow Ridge and furrow is an archaeological pattern of ridges (Medieval Latin: ''sliones'') and troughs created by a system of ploughing used in Europe during the Middle Ages, typical of the open-field system. It is also known as rig (or rigg) and fu ...

areas to the north and west. There is visible evidence of two east–west rows of tofts either side of an east–west

hollow way A sunken lane (also hollow way or holloway) is a road or track that is significantly lower than the land on either side, not formed by the (recent) engineering of a road cutting but possibly of much greater age. Various mechanisms have been pro ...

, and on the north side of the hollow way is the

village green A village green is a commons, common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common pasture, grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for ...

. The site, which slopes gently to the south, is bounded by roads on the north and west sides, and a stream to the south. Beneath the pasture the archaeology is on

boulder clay Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists ...

overlying the

Magnesian Limestone The Magnesian Limestone is a suite of carbonate rocks in north-east England dating from the Permian period. The outcrop stretches from Nottingham northwards through Yorkshire and into County Durham where it is exposed along the coast between Ha ...

. Three fields make up the site: an 1841 document says that the western field was called Back Field, the eastern field was Garths and the southern field was New Acridge Carr. The fields immediately to the west of the site were called Kiln Field and Lime Kiln Field, and there is evidence of quarrying in Back Field. A ''garth'' in this context is an enclosed garden, yard or paddock, and would refer to the existing earthworks. ''Carr'' refers to marshland in the context of old pasture.

History

Context

The name, "Ulnaby", is possibly derived from the

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 ...

for ''Ulfhethin's farm'', which could imply that there was a pre-medieval settlement locally. Although archaeologists have not found reason to date the village itself before medieval times, there is local evidence of worked flints, a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

awl, three late

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 ...

or early Bronze Age bowl barrows and the

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

Dere Street Dere Street or Deere Street is a modern designation of a Roman road which ran north from Eboracum (York), crossing the Stanegate at Corbridge (Hadrian's Wall was crossed at the Portgate, just to the north) and continuing beyond into what is n ...

, all within 3 kilometres. Roman items have been found locally at High

Carlbury Carlbury is a hamlet (place), hamlet in the civil parishes in England, civil parish of High Coniscliffe in County Durham, in England. It is situated a few miles to the west of Darlington, on the north bank of the River Tees between Piercebridge ...

and Ulnaby farm itself.

Village and manor occupation

The village itself is believed to have been occupied from the late 13th to the 16th century; at first a few small tofts on the same

which still leads east–west through the lost village. In the mid-12th century the land belonged to the Greystoke family, and by the late 13th century it was the property of William de Somerville, who exchanged it for Scottish land held by the Marmadukes. In 1320 a Marmaduke widow gave the land to Sir Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and after Sir Thomas was executed in 1322 it reverted to the Neville family, at a time when the Carlbury and Ulnaby estates were jointly worth £20 per annum: quite profitable at that time. Before he died, it is thought possible that Lancaster redesigned the village around the

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

, and that he built the manor house in 1320 for a steward at the position now occupied by the southernmost farm buildings. The steward would have collected the peasants' dues for the absent landlord. Ulnaby and its associated manor belonged to the House of Neville from 1343 to 1573, and it is also possible that the original manor on the site, where Ulnaby Hall now stands, was built by Sir Ralph de Neville around 1354. Charles Neville forfeited it in 1571 for his part in the

Rising of the North The Rising of the North of 1569, also called the Revolt of the Northern Earls or Northern Rebellion, was an unsuccessful attempt by Catholic nobles from Northern England to depose Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of ...

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

granted it to the Tailboys family of Thornton Hall on 20 June 1573. Ulnaby 011

Documents of 1629 and 1654 indicate that the estate consisted of the manor, four tofts, three cottages, five barns, three gardens and orchards, a water cornmill and

dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot ( Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pige ...

, with each of arable and

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifi ...

, of

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...

and of

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

. It has been suggested that around 1573 the Tailboys family replaced the original manor with Ulnaby Hall and farm, possibly re-using material from the old manor house. The village dwindled in size until it became part of the farm; by 1629, three – not four – tofts remained, according to one source. Ulnaby Hall has been thought to date from 1609: this is possible as the earliest part of the hall dates from late 16th to early 17th century. Old maps show that Ulnaby village contained one last building of presumed medieval origin in 1855 beside the north-east corner of the present farm buildings, but that this was gone by 1896; it is said that it was used as a barn until the 1870s. Some farm cottages were then added, and these still exist. It is thought that the reduction in size of the village was in response to the success of the

cloth industry Broadcloth is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width but the fact that it was woven much wider (typically 50 to 75% wider than its finished width) and then hea ...

, which encouraged change from labour-intensive arable land to pasture.

Archaeological surveys and excavations

English Heritage and NDVA Group

A non-intrusive earthwork survey was done by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

's Archaeological Survey and Investigation team in 2007. This suggested that there had been a village there without a green, then a toft village consisting of two rows of small farmsteads around a green. After that, some tofts were added and some abandoned. Next to the village there was an enclosed area including a manor, fishpond, dovecote and orchard. At the same time as the English Heritage survey, the Northumberland and Durham Vernacular Architecture Group undertook a measured

survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...

of Ulnaby Hall. They thought that a raised rectangular earthwork in the old village green could possibly have been the earliest evidence of village habitation, perhaps indicating an earlier manor or even a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

building. They found possible

lynchet A lynchet or linchet is an Terrace (earthworks), earth terrace found on the side of a hill. Lynchets are a feature of ancient field systems of the British Isles. They are commonly found in vertical rows and more commonly referred to as "strip lyn ...

s on the north side of the old road as the hollow way enters the village from the east. Ulnaby 019

The manorial enclosure was at least 1.6 hectares, and is considered to have been fairly high status. It was bounded by a wall of dressed

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

blocks, and contained a fishpond and

. The fishpond was cut into an old

field, and the residence itself is believed to be underneath the present Ulnaby Hall. There is evidence of a succession of buildings on the site, terminating in the 19th century, but the village had shrunk by the 17th century, indicating the effect of the change from labour-intensive arable land to pasture. A survey of Ulnaby Hall shows a single-phase build in the late 16th century of a south-facing building of one large room over another and two wings at the back, with service rooms to the west. Two of the original gardens, to the south and east of the hall, still exist, and the third was probably the garth field or paddock to the south of the farm track. There was a smithy, five barns and orchards. One of the peasant houses was quite large, having three rooms. It is thought that the southern end of the site, around the water channel, was a marshy area that provided the village with various resources, and that it was drained in the 18th century.

''Time Team'' and Wessex Archaeology

In April 2008, archaeological television programme ''

Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned online in 2022 for two episodes released on YouTube. Created by television producer Tim ...

'' excavated the site. A total of eight trenches were dug, and the report was written by

Wessex Archaeology Wessex Archaeology is a British company that provides archaeological and heritage services, as well as being an educational charity. Apart from advice and consultancy, it also does fieldwork and publishes research on the sites it surveys. The comp ...

. Evidence was found of occupation from the late 13th or early 14th centuries until some time in the 15th century, when activity appears to have centred on the western tofts of the north row, and one or two tofts in the south row, until the 16th century. The double row of tofts with

appeared to be the original pattern, and there was no evidence of pre-medieval occupation. The hollow way was cobbled and continued in regular use until the 19th century. Earlier buildings were found to be

cruck A cruck or crook frame is a curved timber, one of a pair, which support the roof of a building, historically used in England and Wales. This type of timber framing consists of long, generally naturally curved, timber members that lean inwards and ...

-built with stone bases to the walls, and later ones probably stone-built. The manorial enclosure, early earthwork on the

and the

were not excavated.

Preservation

The site is now listed as scheduled ancient monument,

English Heritage Archive The Historic England Archive is the public archive of Historic England, located in The Engine House on Fire Fly Avenue in Swindon, formerly part of the Swindon Works of the Great Western Railway. It is a public archive of architectural and arch ...

number 20961. Ulnaby Hall survives as a Grade II

listed building 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 ...

with its farm. Some of its blocked-up windows are said to date back to the 16th or 17th century. An ancient sycamore tree and terrace in a field in front of the hall are survivors from one of the original gardens. Ulnaby Hall is surrounded by fields of earthworks under pasture, showing banks, ditches, walls and hollow ways. Possibly one of the fishponds was at the south end of the site, fed by the water channel. It is thought that it is the use of land as pasture which has preserved the site unchanged since the village was deserted. Around 2008, Ulnaby Hall Farm opened the site and farm as a visitor attraction. A reconstruction painting of the medieval village has been produced for visitors, along with a self-guided walk leaflet.

Stile A stile is a structure or opening that provides people passage over or through a boundary via steps, ladders, or narrow gaps. Stiles are often built in rural areas along footpaths, fences, walls, or hedges that enclose animals, allowing people ...

s, gates and bridges have been constructed for the use of visitors and to protect the earthworks, and guided walks were offered to local people by

. Wildlife at the site includes hares and owls. Ulnaby 010