Little Driffield is a small village 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. It is situated on the western outskirts of Great Driffield, to the west of the A614 road and south of the

A166 road The A166 road is a trunk road between the outskirts of York and Driffield in the historic county of Yorkshire. The road used to terminate at the seaside town of Bridlington, until the opening of the Driffield by-pass caused the final section ...

. Little Driffield forms part of the

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 authorit ...

Driffield Driffield, also known as Great Driffield, is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The civil parish is formed by the town of Driffield and the village of Little Driffield. By road, it is north-east of Leeds ...

History

The village once had a large pond and green. The pond was reduced to about half its size when Brendan Green was built in the 1960s. The majority of the green is now walled in and privately owned, belonging to one of the most prominent houses in the village – Springfield House, (now Church House) which lost its iron railings, together with those from the churchyard, to help the

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

effort. A chapel built in 1878 was demolished recently and replaced by a house. The village school was demolished about 40 years ago. Horsefair Lane was for many years the home and factory of clothing manufacturers, Dewhirst's. The factory later became Arcadia Clothing which closed some years ago. The site is now occupied by an industrial unit and 6 new houses. The last horse fair was held in 1918. The A166 previously ran through the village until the construction of the town bypass (part of the A614), about 1982. Through traffic runs to the nearby Kelleythorpe Industrial Estate about half a mile south.

Landmarks

The Church of St Mary was designated 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 ...

in 1985 and is now recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

, maintained by

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

. King Aldfrith of

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

(685 – 705) is supposedly buried in the church. However, no evidence of this was found when the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

were rebuilt and the floor excavated in 1807 (the 14th-century tower remained untouched). The church was restored in the 1890s by architect Temple Moor. The village previously contained two

public houses A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

: The Rose & Crown and The Downe Arms, (named after the lady of the manor). The Downe Arms became a restaurant and is now a private house. The Rose and Crown remains in use. Elmswell Beck runs through the southern edge of the village and joins with Little Driffield Beck (from the pond). These are tributaries of the River Hull.

Housing

New housing has been built since the 1990s, particularly Londsborough Court, which was a milk tanker storage yard and before that an

abattoir A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

which adjoined Brendan Green, previously the site of a

tannery Tanning may refer to: *Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather *Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin **Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun **Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...

. There were two tanneries in the village in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Another development from the 1990s comprises nine homes on Church Walk. Six new houses were built in 2006 on Horsefair Lane.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire Driffield Burial sites of the Royal House of Northumbria