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Kilnwick (or Kilnwick-on-the-Wolds) is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Beswick, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated in the Yorkshire Wolds approximately south of Driffield town centre and north of Beverley town centre. It lies west of the
A164 road List of A roads in zone 1 in Great Britain beginning north of the River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is ...
, and east of
Middleton on the Wolds Middleton on the Wolds is a village and civil parish on the Yorkshire Wolds in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the A614 road midway between Driffield and Market Weighton. According to the 2011 UK census, Middleton on ...
. In 1931 the parish had a population of 180.


History

Kilnwick Village Kilnwick a small, seemingly unremarkable village, first called Chilewic in the Domesday Book (1086), has existed as a rural agricultural settlement for well over a thousand years, The foundation of Kilnwick as a settlement most likely began in the mid to late 9th century - the late period of the Kingdom of Northumbria, an area of land that extended from the north bank of the Humber estuary to the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Its inhabitants were known as the Norpan-hymb (the people or province north of the Humber). The Kilnwick estate has over the centuries been in the hands of many people. The Domesday Book informs us that ''Mula-Grimr'' and ''Ealdwif'' – the first known names of villagers, had land which they farmed here in Kilnwick well before 1086. By the end of the 12th century, a good deal of Kilnwick land lay in the hands of the Gilbertine Priory of Watton, a double religious house (men & women). The priory had a sizable farm, or Grange in Kilnwick, the foundations of which may still lie beneath the remnants of Kilnwick hall. The priory also had Granges in nearby Swinkeld, Cawkeld and Burnbutts. From at least the thirteenth century, an important Kilnwick family appears to have been that of the Normanvilles. The Normanvilles were a branch of the family Basset of Normandy and may well have arrived in England with William the Conqueror in 1066. The Normanville family are recorded by the Surtees Society as being the “…ancient family of Normanville of Kilnwick” On 1 April 1935 the parish was abolished and merged with Beswick.


Kilnwick House

Kilnwick House is thought to have been developed on the site of a medieval farm that was under the control of the
Gilbertine Canons The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely English religious order and came to an end in the 16th century at the ...
of nearby
Watton Priory Watton Priory was a priory of the Gilbertine Order at Watton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The double monastery was founded in 1150 by Eustace fitz John. The present building dates mainly from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuri ...
. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536 and 1539, the Kilnwick
estate Estate or The Estate may refer to: Law * Estate (law), a term in common law for a person's property, entitlements and obligations * Estates of the realm, a broad social category in the histories of certain countries. ** The Estates, representat ...
was granted to
Robert Holgate Robert Holgate (1481/1482 – 1555) was Bishop of Llandaff from 1537 and then Archbishop of York (from 1545 to 1554). He recognised Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. Although a protege of Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, Holga ...
, who later became Archbishop of York, and passed on his death to the Earl of Warwick. At the time of the sale and break-up of the Kilnwick Estate in 1951, the oldest part of the house was Jacobean, having likely been built in the early years of the 17th century by
Richard Thekestone Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Frankish language, Old Frankish and is a Compound (linguistics), compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' an ...
who held the manor in 1599, or
Nicholas Stringer Nicholas is a male given name and a surname. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglican Churches celebrate Saint Nicholas every year on December 6, which is the name day for "Nicholas". In Greece, the name and its ...
, owner from 1614. The house was vastly extended in the 18th century by
Thomas Grimston Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...
, who had been bequeathed the property by Vice-Admiral Medley in 1747. It was during the period 1740–80 that the
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
south and east frontages were built. But it would seem that Kilnwick House was occupied only seasonally by the family and its entourage during the 18th century, and there is diary evidence that the journey would be made to Kilnwick from
Grimston Garth Grimston may refer to: Places *Grimston, East Riding of Yorkshire, England *Grimston, Leicestershire, England *Grimston, Norfolk, England *Grimston, Nottinghamshire, England * Grimston, Selby, England, the location of Grimston Park, North Yorkshire ...
in the autumn of each year. The estate remained in the hands of the Grimston family until 1943 when, on the death of
Captain Luttrell Grimston Byrom Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
, it was sold.


Kilnwick Bricks

A walled garden is located south of the church. The wall is over one metre thick and four metres high and was built entirely of
brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
s topped by coping flags. It encloses an area of more than half a hectare and has built into it, at its western end, a two-storey
cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a Cotter (farmer), cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager ...
. The walled garden must have served Kilnwick House, primarily for the purpose of supplying vegetables, though seasonal occupation of the house by the Grimston family raises the question why such a large enclosure was required. Today the magnificence of the structure is partially concealed by an overgrown holly hedge along the C59 road to the south, and by growth of ivy, which mounts the walls. The church continues the theme of brick construction in that, while the nave is built of Jurassic limestone, the diminutive tower is made of brick, making it unusual in character. The Church is simple: there is no transept and there are no lady chapels. It is of mixed period construction, the oldest part being the Norman arch at the North Door. The church, dedicated to All Saints, was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1968 and is now recorded in the National Heritage List for England, maintained by Historic England. Brick also figures in the ha-ha that lies to the north of the C59 immediately west of the village, now forming the side of the road ditch. This is in a state of poor repair, since the construction was dry stone, involving no mortar, and expansion and contraction of the clay
subsoil Subsoil is the layer of soil under the topsoil on the surface of the ground. Like topsoil, it is composed of a variable mixture of small particles such as sand, silt and clay, but with a much lower percentage of organic matter and humus, and it ...
over the years has led to bulges and the loosening of bricks. Brick is (as in Holderness, in general) also the building material of the cottages and
farmhouse FarmHouse (FH) is a social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate ch ...
s that make up the village buildings that were constructed before the 20th century, and there was a brick kiln in the village. In 1820, records show that 68,000 bricks were made, attracting an
excise tax file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...
of £17 1 s. 3 d. A walk northwards along the footpath from the corner of Church Lane and Main Street – what is now part of the Minster Way – takes one through 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 ...
of Kilnwick Beck. Here, on the north side of the beck, the unnaturally uneven ground is testimony to the shallow clay workings that must have been the source of one of the raw materials used by the kiln workers. This readily available, local source of bricks is a likely explanation for the size and extent of the walled garden and the interesting, but seemingly casual, construction of the dry-brick ha-ha. It explains why the church tower is built of brick rather than limestone carted at great expense from the quarries along the Jurassic outcrop beyond the Wolds at e.g. South Newbald and South Cave or on the Howardian Hills, north-west of Malton. It might also reflect the (dis)interest and (lack of) wealth of successive owners of the Estate.


Prehistory

The clays that are the major constituent of Holderness, upon which Kilnwick is situated, are glacial in origin. Successive Pleistocene ice sheets swept south on a broad
front Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music * The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
from Northumbria, the
Arctic Sea The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
, and Scandinavia. The last advance – the Devensian glaciation (circa 60,000 to 20,000 years before present) – was diminutive by comparison with its predecessors, but was responsible for building not only Holderness as it extends today, but a plain of greater west–east extent that has been trimmed in post-glacial times – roughly the last 10,000 years – by cliff erosion as sea level has risen about 90 metres to restore the North Sea. Indeed, pre-glacial Kilnwick (had it existed) would have been on a re-entrant of the North Sea. The re-entrant was one of many along a crenulated coastline. The re-entrant was the drowned lower reach of a valley that had been created by
runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...
from the
Wolds The Wolds is a term used in England to describe a range of hills which consists of open country overlying a base of limestone or chalk. Geography The Wolds comprise a series of low hills and steep valleys that are in the main underlain by calcare ...
along what are now the
headwater The headwaters of a river or stream is the farthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or downstream confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. It is also known as a river's source. Definition The ...
dry valleys around and west of Middleton. The pre-glacial coastline is most marked in the neighbouring village of Beswick, which sits on a degraded chalk cliff. A sense of the slope of the old cliff-line can be experienced by following the unclassified road that runs from
Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...
to Beswick; the comparative steepness of the last 100 metres that fall towards Little Beswick is unusual for the area. The same sense of steepness is gained when taking the
Rotsea Rotsea is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the parish of Hutton Cranswick, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately south-east of Driffield and south-west of North Frodingham. In 1931 the parish had a pop ...
road out of Hutton. ‘Beswick-on-Sea’ and ‘Hutton-on-Sea’ were promontories that protected
bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...
such as Kilnwick and Lockington. It is uncertain whether the site of present-day Kilnwick would have been
subaerial In natural science, subaerial (literally "under the air"), has been used since 1833,Subaerial
in the Merriam ...
or submarine. Almost certainly, the lower level of the neighbouring village of Lockington would mean that it would have been submerged. The Devensian glaciation was deflected in its southward advance by the northern buttress 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 ...
. Because of this, the ice sheet was divided, one arm flowing southward down the Vale of York, the other curling around the Moors and Wolds to deposit Holderness. The Wolds were free of over-riding ice but would have been subjected to intense periglacial conditions like those of modern
Lapland Lapland may refer to: Places *Lapland or Sápmi, an ethno-cultural region stretching over northern Fennoscandia (parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia) **Lapland (Finland) (''Lappi''/''Lappland''), a Finnish region *** Lapland (former pr ...
. The till left by the ice (a mixture of clay with
cobbles Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Setts, also called Belgian blocks, are often casually referred to as "cobbles", although a sett is distinct fro ...
and
boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...
s and, occasionally, outwash sands and
gravel Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classifi ...
s) feathers out westward of Kilnwick. At Lund and Middleton, there is none. Villages such as Kilnwick, Beswick, Watton and Lockington sit at the transition between Holderness and the Wold.


Present day


Modern landscape

The landscape of Kilnwick owes much to its history as an Estate, having been described, at the time of its sale in 1951, as 'one of the finest shoots in Yorkshire'. The 1951 sales brochure drew attention particularly to the ‘bag’ of game that had been got over the six years since the end of the Second World War. Because of its history, it is exceptionally well endowed with woodland, which stems from the use of coverts for rearing game birds. Within a mile of the village centre, there are six sizeable linear plantations: Wedding Wood, West Belt, High Wood, East Belt, Low Wood and Stonybroke, each of which serve to give the impression of a well-wooded landscape. Given its low-lying position, and its diminutive church tower, Kilnwick is not easy to spot until a visitor is within the ring of woodland that surrounds it, and the density of trees is in stark contrast to the oft-treeless arable land of the Wolds to the north and west and Holderness to the east. Unlike Lockington, which lies directly alongside its beck (much to its cost in the floods of July 2007), Kilnwick sits on a low river terrace and so avoids overbank floods that emanate from its own highly regulated beck. Despite this, the suffix ‘wick’ probably denotes the
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
for ‘village’ rather than its other meaning ‘ marsh’.


Village

Older houses lie on the west side of the village, between Church Lane and School Lane, while farms such as Highthorpe and Townend stood nearby, separated by fields. Developments since 1950 have filled the eastward extension of Main Street towards Highthorpe, while in-fill or the replacement of houses in School Lane, the extension of housing for a along High Road (the C59 to Middleton), and the refurbishment of the barns along Church Road remove the sense of ''strassedörfer'' (a village street). Somewhat distant, the out-buildings of Kilnwick House have been developed separately for residential use, while the Georgian part of the house was demolished, leaving the Jacobean wing and the butler's and servants’ quarters (now named ‘The Old Hall’). The first mention of a post office in Kilnwick is when a type of postmark known as an undated circle was issued in 1847. In 1963, the village sub-postmistress was Mrs. Ann Baston.''Yorkshire Post'', 20 March 1963. The post office had closed by 1995. Kilnwick currently has no shop or public house; the nearest are found in Middleton on the Wolds, Hutton Cranswick and
Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...
, while Lockington still clings to the provision of a post office). This has not always been the case, though trading seems to have taken place from what were residential properties. Similarly, as part of a rationalisation, the school in School Lane ceased to function in this capacity and primary-level pupils attend Beswick & Watton School, to the east on the A164.


References

* Much of the historical information is derived from the Sales Catalogue of Jackson-Stops, Estate Agents, 15 Bond Street, Leeds, printed by The Waverley Press, Leeds 6, in 1951. ** Historical photographs have been scanned from the Sales Catalogue (''ibid''). *


External links

* * {{authority control Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire Former civil parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire