Wetwang is a

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 ...

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 authorit ...

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, west of

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 ...

on 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 ...

. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 761, an increase on the 2001 census figure of 672.

Toponymy

There are two interpretations of the name. One is from the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

''vaett-vangr'', or 'field for the trial of a legal action'. Another theory is that it was the "Wet Field" compared to the nearby dry field at

. It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names; in some varieties of English ''wang'' is a slang term for

penis A penis (plural ''penises'' or ''penes'' () is the primary sexual organ that male animals use to inseminate females (or hermaphrodites) during copulation. Such organs occur in many animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, but males d ...

, although this sense of the word is not recorded in the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...

''.

History

St Nicholas' Church is 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 ...

origin and was restored between 1845 and 1902. In 1966, the church 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 ...

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 ...

. It is on the Sykes Churches Trail devised by the East Yorkshire Churches Group. The church has a ring of three bells (tenor in A), the oldest of which (the tenor) dates from . Wetwang Community Hall - geograph

The village is known for its

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

chariot burial cemetery at Wetwang Slack, and was previously known for its black swans after which the village pub, the Black Swan, is named. The village is mentioned twice in the ''

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 manus ...

'' as ''Wetuuangha''. The lesser mention simply records its existence: "In Wetwang the archbishop

carucates The carucate or carrucate ( lat-med, carrūcāta or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms ...

". The mention is under "Warter Hundred" on original folio 381V: East Riding. Earlier in the Domesday Book, there is a fuller description (Folio 302V: Yorkshire) within the listing of the land of the Archbishop of York: A

carucate The carucate or carrucate ( lat-med, carrūcāta or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms ...

is the area of land a man with 8 oxen can plough in a season, sometimes cited as around . In Wetwang there were of them available for the tax take ( "geld"). A "plough" was a carucate which was being ploughed, rather than grazed or fallow. Before the Norman Conquest ( TRE) Ealdraed held it, and it was worth £4 per year in rent, but after the conquest it was waste land held by Archbishop Thomas. A league is around . It has been hypothesised that the unlocated

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, ...

town of Delgovicia is located at Wetwang.

Public transport

Until 1950, the village was served by

Wetwang railway station Wetwang railway station () was a railway station on the Malton & Driffield Railway 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 ...

, on the Malton to Driffield Line, but this line has closed. The village is now served by an infrequent

East Yorkshire Motor Services East Yorkshire operates both local and regional bus services in the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Yorkshire, England. Prior to acquisition by the Go-Ahead Group in June 2018, the company was known as East Yorkshire Motor Services. History ...

bus.

Honorary mayor

Its name (defined in '' The Meaning of Liff'' as meaning "a moist penis") often attracts mirth, even from

Richard Whiteley John Richard Whiteley (28 December 1943 – 26 June 2005) was an English presenter, and journalist, best known for his twenty-three years as host of the game show ''Countdown''. ''Countdown'' was the launch programme for Channel 4 at 4:4 ...

of the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

quiz show ''

Countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...

''; he held the honorary title ''

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

of Wetwang'' from 1998 until his death in 2005. On 25 June 2006, local weather forecaster Paul Hudson from BBC Look North was invested as Whiteley's successor.

References

External links

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