Orientation
Moors, Dales and Vales
An introduction to the Farndale Story
The
Farndale Story
This is the
story of one family’s journey through two thousand years of British history.
The modern
Farndale family descends from the original inhabitants who first cultivated
Farndale from the early thirteenth century. The family linkage to this
relatively small, rural valley in North Yorkshire provides a beacon which makes
it possible to navigate the medieval records. We’ve found significant records
of individuals back to the thirteenth century, who themselves were descended
from the first inhabitants of the dale.
Farndale was
itself part of the large medieval estate of Chirchebi or Kirkbymoorside.
Whilst much of that estate including Farndale remained a wild place until well
after the Norman Conquest, there was a smaller region, only a few kilometres
south of Farndale which was a known area of stability and settlement. So we’re able to tell our deeper ancestral history through
the story of the people of that antique place which takes us through Anglo
Saxon back to Roman times.
Work on the
story of the Farndale family was started by Martin Farndale in the 1950s.
After about
1500, when parish records started, we have detailed records of all, or nearly
all those who were or are called Farndale. All modern Farndales, or anyone
descended from Farndales, are part of the same wider family, and can trace
their ancestry back to the families who lived around Skelton north of the North
York Moors from the mid sixteenth century.
We therefore
all share the same deeper ancestral history of the period before 1500, of which
the early chapters of the Farndale Story will tell.
This is as
much the story of those who still use the name Farndale, as anyone who has a
Farndale ancestor.
Before the
thirteenth century, the place that came to be known as Farndale was an unknown
place, a forest flowing down through the valley from the high moors. By the Anglo Saxon period, Farndale formed part of the great estate
known as Chirchebi, which is called Kirkbymoorside today.
The Venerable
Bede described the area around Farndale in the early eighth century:
among
steep and distant mountains, which looked more like lurking-places for robbers
and dens of wild beasts, than dwellings of men.
It was a
place where nobles sometimes hunted, a small section of enormous lands, which
would be passed about from unfaithful nobleman to faithful nobleman, across the
giant chessboard of England of the Middle Ages where the Kings and the
aristocracy played out their game of thrones.
To the south
of Farndale, along the Hodge Beck as it flows out of Bransdale, the dale which
runs parallel to Farndale, lies Kirkdale which is located at the edge of the
wild lands of the dales and the moors, but at the northwest corner of vast
agricultural lands, long settled, the Vale of York which sweeps south towards
York and the Vale of Pickering, once a prehistoric lake, which sweeps east
towards Pickering and beyond.
We know from
the Domesday Book survey that Kirkdale was at the centre of a smaller northwest
section of these flat agricultural lands. This smaller region stretched from
Kirkby Misperton and Muscoates to the south and up to
Gillamoor at the approach to the dales in the north.
The River Dove and the Hodge Beck flowed out of the dales and through Kirkdale
and Chirchebi (Kirkbymoorside) and met at a confluence in these lands.
Kirkdale was
therefore the centre of the Anglo Saxon, and before that Roman, community that
would, in the early thirteenth century, extend its lands of cultivation into
Farndale, as the wooded dales were slashed and burned (a practice called
assarting) to provide extensions of the farmed land, into Farndale and
Bransdale.
Therefore,
knowing that the modern Farndale family is descended from those who once eeked out their survival in Farndale in the mid thirteenth
century, it is probable that those villeins or serfs from Farndale from whom we
descend, themselves had their ancestral roots amongst the folk of Kirkdale and
its agricultural surroundings.
It’s
therefore probable that our distant ancestors are those people who inhabited
the region around Kirkdale in Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and early Norman
times.
The Stage
for our Story
The geographical
setting of our story should be imagined in three distinct landscapes.
The moors
are the windswept and barren heights which have always been a harsh and bitter
place.
The dales
were probably largely impenetrable and heavily forested for much of their
ancient history. They are relatively steeply sided valleys, with Bransdale
following the Hodge Beck and Farndale running parallel and following the River
Dove.
The vales
are ancient agricultural lands of two vast vales, of
York and Pickering.
Nestled at
the edge of the dales, as they pour out into the flat agricultural lands, is
Kirkdale, the original cradle of our family. And it turns out that Kirkdale has
quite a story to tell.
Glossary
As you start
exploring our history, in the box immediately below this Orientation you will
find a glossary, which might help if you encounter some medieval language or
words from time to time with which you need some assistance.
The beginning
of one family’s story
A genealogy
is the assembly of a multiplicity of related stories, of struggle, initiative,
tragedy, achievement, ambition, of following calls to battle, taming our own
lands, and travelling to new ones.
All the
world’s a stage,
And all
the men and women merely players;
They have
their exits and their entrances;
And one
man in his time plays many parts,
His acts
being seven ages.
|
At
first the infant, Mewling
and puking in the nurse’s arms; |
And
then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And
shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly
to school. |
And
then the lover, Sighing
like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to
his mistress’ eyebrow. |
Then a
soldier, Full of
strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous
in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking
the bubble reputation Even in
the cannon’s mouth. |
And
then the justice, In fair
round belly with good capon lin’d, With
eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of
wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. |
The
sixth age shifts Into
the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With
spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His
youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide For his
shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning
again toward childish treble, pipes And
whistles in his sound. |
Last
scene of all, That
ends this strange eventful history, Is
second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans
teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything |
(William Shakespeare, As You Like It)
The Farndale story will tell of puking infants, whining schoolboys, sighing lovers, bearded soldiers, wise lawyers and law makers, slippered sexagenerians, and includes the final scenes of many of our ancestors.
The matrix is your portal into these
multiple and ancient worlds, though many of them might not be so very different
to our own.
or
Go Straight to Chapter 1 –
The Family Cradle