Thwing is a 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the Yorkshire Wolds, in the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, often abbreviated to the East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, S ...

, England.

Description

Thwing is located in the Yorkshire Wolds about west of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast at

Bridlington Bridlington (previously known as Burlington) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is on the Holderness part (Flamborough Head to the Humber estuary) of the Yorkshire Coast by the North Sea. The town is ...

.Ordnance Survey. 1:25000. 2009 The village has a 12th-century Norman Church (All Saints), and a pub known as ''The Falling Stone'', previously ''The Rampant Horse'', before 1976 the ''Raincliffe Arms''. It rises from about in the north-east corner of the parish to a high point of in the south-west. The parish covers an area of . The civil parish is sparsely populated, with, according to the

2011 UK census A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National ...

, a population of 203, the same as the 2001 UK census figure. The main settlements are the village of Thwing and the smaller

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

of Octon. There are farmsteads at Octon Grange, The Wold Cottage, and Willy Howe farm. Land use is almost entirely agricultural, predominately enclosed fields. There is a private crematorium, East Riding Crematorium, at Octon Crossroads, built in 1997. Between 1894 and 1974 it was a part of the Bridlington Rural District, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Between 1974 and 1996 it was part of the Borough of North Wolds (later Borough of East Yorkshire), in the county of Humberside. Although the current civil parish is called "Thwing" its parish council is called "Thwing & Octon Parish Council". ''The Falling Stone'' pub name is a reference to the Wold Cottage Meteorite, which fell nearby on 13 December 1795. A monument to its fall can be visited. The church, as well as the post office (1830s) and 'Pear Tree farmhouse' (late 18th century) are listed buildings. Thwing is the birthplace of John Twenge.

History and archaeology

:''See also history of Octon'' Thwing is thought to mean 'narrow strip of land', deriving from ''thvengr'' ( Old Scandinavian) or ''thweng'' (

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

). The village is recorded in ''

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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' (1086) as ''Tuennc'', in the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

of Burton. There is evidence of significant human activity in the area beginning in at least the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

Era: at Paddock Hill north of Octon, evidence of a

henge A henge can be one of three related types of Neolithic Earthworks (archaeology), earthwork. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches ...

dating from the late Neolithic has been discovered from crop marks and by excavation. The same site also shows evidence of re-use and modification into a

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

during the Bronze Age, including artefacts typical of the

Urnfield culture The Urnfield culture () was a late Bronze Age Europe, Bronze Age culture of Central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition. The name comes from the custom of cremation, cremating the dead and placin ...

, and evidence of bronze metalworking. The site was re-used during the Anglo-Saxon period and contained houses including a grubenhaus and large rectangular hall; there was a cemetery with at least 130 inhumations east of the Bronze Age earthwork. During the 1200s a

post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single central vertical post. The vertical post is supported by four quarter bars. These ar ...

was constructed., Paddock Hill The church of All Saints dates from the 12th century. A market and fair began in Thwing in 1257. Two

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

have been recorded and excavated in the northern part of the parish: the large mound named ' Willy Howe';, Willy Howe and another barrow, about to its west, in fields south of the village of Wold Newton. A Wesleyan chapel was established in Thwing in the early 1800s. It was built around 1810, and rebuilt and enlarged around 1839. From the 1850s to the start of the 21st century the extent of building development in the village was practically unchanged. There are several other structures identified as barrows in the parish. Other evidence of pre-historic settlement and activity include polished stone axes and flint implements including arrowheads, chisels and knives, as well as flint cores, tranchet axes and

microlith A microlith is a small Rock (geology), stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 60,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Austral ...

s; pebble maceheads; and bronze or Iron Age pottery. A late Bronze Age ()

penannular ring A ring is a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental Jewellery, jewelry. The term "ring" by itself denotes jewellery worn on the finger; when worn as an ornament elsewhere, the body part is specified within the term, e.g., earrings, ...

of pale and yellow gold applied on a base metal core was found by metal detection in 2004 near Thwing.Sources: * * Finds of Roman pottery, including Samian ware, provide evidence of occupation during the Roman era, and a potential

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, ...

settlement has been located about north-east of Thwing, with nearby rectilinear enclosures and trackways dating from the Iron Age or Roman period. A

monastic grange Monastic granges were outlying landholdings held by Monastery, monasteries independent of the Manorialism, manorial system. The first granges were owned by the Cistercians, and other orders followed. Wealthy monastic houses had many granges, mo ...

associated with Meaux Abbey was recorded at Octon Grange, north of Octon, in the 12th century. The Wold Cottage meteorite fell in the parish in 1795, and is commemorated by a monument. In 1812 the parish's population was recorded as 268 persons in 37 houses; the predominant occupation was farming. According to Sheahan, in the 1850s the parish had a total population of 599, and an area of , the population had risen by a factor of two in the first half of the 19th century. It fell during the last decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century: by 1951 it was below the 1811 population level. By the 1961 census the population had been reduced to 244.

Notes

References

Map locations

Sources

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External links

{{authority control Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire Civil parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire Thwing and Octon