Melling-with-Wrayton is a
civil parish in the
City of Lancaster in the English county of
Lancashire. It includes the village of Melling and the
hamlet of Wrayton, to the northeast. The parish had a population of 290 recorded in the
2001 census, increasing slightly to 299 at the 2011 census.
Melling forms part of a cluster of sites along the
Lune Valley
The River Lune (archaically sometimes Loyne) is a river in length in Cumbria and Lancashire, England.
Etymology
Several elucidations for the origin of the name ''Lune'' exist. Firstly, it may be that the name is Brittonic in genesis and deriv ...
– the densest distribution of
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
s outside the
Welsh border
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
countryside. Each has evidence of a
motte – as with
Arkholme and
Whittington
Whittington may refer to:
Places
* Whittington, Victoria, Australia
* Whittington, Illinois, United States
England
* Old Whittington, Derbyshire
* New Whittington, Derbyshire
* Whittington Moor, Derbyshire
* Whittington, Gloucestershire
* Whitti ...
– but Melling has no surviving
bailey.
Railway lines
Until 1952
Melling railway station
Melling railway station is the terminal station on the single track Melling Line in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. The single platform station serves the suburb of Melling. The station is served by Metlink's electric multiple unit trains.
Hist ...
was served by the
Furness and Midland Joint Railway. The line continues in use for through traffic, although stopping trains ended on the branch in 1960. To the south-east, a tunnel takes the line to
Wennington, where it connects to the
Midland Railway; in the opposite direction, the next station was
Arkholme. The line is now used by trains travelling between
Morecambe
Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea.
Name
The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...
/
Lancaster and
Leeds, as the Midland Railway between Lancaster and Wennington closed in 1966.
Geographical and architectural features
On the edge of the first terrace 6m above the
flood plain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
– and within St Wilfrid's vicarage garden – the motte at Melling is located centrally in the village, some distance from the present course of the river. The mound has been damaged by landscaping activities, but former channels of the varied course of the Lune can still be detected – on the Melling side of the plain.
Locally attributed as, "The Cathedral of the Lune Valley",
St Wilfrid's Church, with a belfry of six bells appears, originally, to have formed the manorial chapel within the, now missing, castle bailey.
See also
*
Listed buildings in Melling-with-Wrayton
References
External links
Castles in the Lune ValleyLancaster Council Parish Plan for Melling-with-Wrayton, 2003
{{Lancashire
Civil parishes in Lancashire
Geography of the City of Lancaster