Egton
A Chronological History of Egton, North Yorkshire
|
Return to the Home Page of the Farndale Family
Website |
The story of one family’s journey through two
thousand years of British History |
The 83 family lines into which the family is divided.
Meet the whole family and how the wider family is related |
Members of the historical family ordered by date of
birth |
Links to other pages with historical research and
related material |
The story of the Bakers of Highfields, the Chapmans,
and other related families |
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to
other pages are in dark
blue.
Headlines of the
history of the Egton are in brown.
References and
citations are in turquoise.
Contextual
history is in purple.
Egton, an Overview
Egton is a
village and civil parish in Yorkshire, about 8 km west
of Whitby, and located within the North York Moors National Park. Egton
comprises the small market town of Egton and the
hamlet of Egton Bridge, which has a station on the North Yorkshire and
Cleveland branch of the North Eastern railway.
Egton
was variously called Ectune, Egetune (eleventh century); Eggeton
(twelfth to fifteenth centuries); Egintona, Eggenton (twelfth
century); Ecton, Eketon (thirteenth and fourteenth cventuries). Variously
written Oketun, Ayketon, Echetun, and in Domesday Book, Egetune
(villa quercuum) was probably so called from the
number of oak trees that it produced (Graves, John (1808),
The
Parish of Egton in The
History of Cleveland in the North Riding of the County of York, Carlisle:
F. Jollie and Sons, Republished by Patrick & Shotton, 1972, page
280). The modern name Egton evolves from early variants like Ectune and Egetune.
Etymologists have also proposed an Old English personal name Ecga combined with tun, meaning Ecga's farmstead or Ecga's
enclosure.
Egton is an
important local centre for family history. Prior to 1880, many Birth, Marriage
and Death records were administered from Egton parish. The church in Egton
holds detailed transcriptions of parish records. The cemetery is half a mile
west, at the old church site. After 1870 many parishioners were buried at
nearby Aislaby.
Egton timeline
Traces of an
ancient British village and early land use exist on the edges of the moors at
Egton Grange, showing that the high ground of the North York Moors was
inhabited long before formal Anglo-Saxon settlement.
The initial
founding of a settlement occurred during the Anglo-Saxon migration.
1060
Before the
Conquest Swein had 3 carucates at Egton as a manor. Sweyn was a substantial thegn, a noble landowner and
in addition to Egton, Domesday records show he held neighbouring manors in the
area, including Lythe and Hutton Mulgrave.
Prior to the
Norman Conquest, Egton consisted of a rural settlement heavily reliant on
foresting and small-scale livestock farming.
1086
The Domesday Book
recorded that the manor of Egetune in 1086
measured 4 leagues by 2 leagues, the pasturable woodland 3 leagues by 2 leagues.
In 1086 the Count of Mortain was overlord of Egton. Nigel Fossard was sub-tenant
in 1086. (Powell-Smith, Anna, Egton in Open
Domesday).
This woodland
district formed a forest appurtenant to the manor of Egton from the twelfth to
the sixteenth century, but no later mention of it has been found.
1134
Westonby,
Lealholm and Sletholm (the site of which is not known) were settlements within the
vicinity of Egton in the twelfth century.
During the civil
war known as the Anarchy, William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, seized
land by force and evicted the local populations, demolished their villages, and
converted the cultivated land into a private deer-hunting park. He usurped
royal authority in the north in the reign of Stephen, and
is said to have destroyed the vills of Westonby, Lealholm and Sletholm in making a chase. In medieval English law,
a chase was a large tract of privately owned, unenclosed wild land
reserved exclusively for hunting wild animals, primarily deer. While a Forest
was technically a hunting ground reserved strictly for the King, a Chase
was the equivalent playground held by a high-ranking noble or subject. To clear enough
contiguous land for a hunting preserve, the Earl forcibly depopulated the
settlements. He ordered the tenant farmers out, tore down their dwellings in Westonby, Lealholm, and Sletholm, and let the agricultural fields revert back to natural woodland and heath to provide an
ideal habitat for breeding and hunting game.
With royal
authority collapsed, powerful regional barons like the Earl of Albemarle ruled
the north like independent kings, seizing property and rewriting local
boundaries entirely for their own leisure and profit.
1169
William Fossard
was a young heir to a vast barony in Yorkshire (including Egton and Mulgrave).
Because he was a minor when his father died, he became a ward of the crown, and
the King assigned his guardianship to William le Gros, the formidable Earl of Albemarle
and Count of Aumale.
1180
While residing
under the Earl's roof, the youthful William Fossard grew intimately involved
with the Earl’s sister. Enraged by this immense insult to his family's honour,
William le Gros retaliated fiercely. He demolished Fossard's
castle and seized his lands, including the manor and forest of Egton.
Fearing for his
life or facing severe legal and physical retribution from one of the most
powerful barons in northern England, William Fossard was forced to flee the
country into self-imposed exile.
Following the
death of William le Gros in 1179, the lands did not immediately go back to the Fossard family. Instead, the estate (including Egton) was
taken into the hands of King Henry II and remained under royal control from
roughly 1180 to 1194.
1194
Egton was restored
by Richard II to Joan Fossard, daughter of William Fossard and wife of Robert
de Turnham.
1200 to
1204
Joan Fossard and
Robert de Turnham donated a mansion house and 200 acres of land within the
Forest of Egton to the Grandmontine Order. This
established Grosmont Priory, historically known as
the Priory of Eskdale, which became one of only three Grandmontine
monastic houses ever built in England. The gift included Egton’s watermill and
free fishing rights in the River Esk.
1214
The lordship of
Egton transfered to the powerful de Mauley family
following the marriage of Joan’s daughter, Isabel, to Peter de Mauley I.
Mulgrave Castle served as the seat of their barony, with Egton functioning as a
core parcel.
1222
Henry III in 1222
granted back to Peter de Mauley his forest of Egton, as his father-in-law
Robert de Turnham had held it in the reign of Richard I.
Around this time,
the de Mauleys establish a fortified medieval manor house known as St. Julian's
Castle, or Egton Lodge, protected by a 60 by 80 yard
water moat.
Sletholm was partly in
the forest in 1272.
1269
Egton transitioned
from a quiet agricultural community into a recognised market hub. Henry III
granted Peter de Mauley a charter to hold a weekly market every Wednesday. The
charter also permitted an annual eight day commercial
fair held on the eve of the winter feast of St. Hilda.
1284 to
1285
Feudal surveys
recorded that the hamlets of Westonby and Sletholm (previously destroyed in the mid-1100s) had been
successfully re-established and settled by tenants.
1294
Peter de Mauley
III drafted a new grant confirming the rights of the English brothers at Grosmont Priory, mandating the assignment of two extra
chaplains to celebrate daily Mass for the souls of his family.
1301
The Yorkshire Lay
Subsidy (a crown tax) assessed the area collectively under the designation Egton
with Leaserigg, and Westonby
and Cocket, highlighting the growth of its
integrated peripheral settlements.
1325–1326
Local landholder
William Lovell was pardoned by the King after acquiring 11 acres of meadowland
in Egton from the de Mauleys without the required royal license.
1360
A devastating
accidental fire swept through Grosmont Priory. A
papal petition from this year recorded that the majority of
the monastic complex, including its church and lodgings, was entirely
destroyed, forcing a prolonged period of rebuilding.
1394
Unable to fully
recover or adequately govern the remote English outpost from abroad, the Abbot
of Grandimont in France gained papal permission to
sell the priory. It was acquired by a private proprietor, John Hewitt,
transitioning the cell out of alien priory status into a denizen house.
1438
The
Lord of Egton recorded receiving a substantial £10 from the hamlet of Westonby.
In 1438–9 the lord of Egton received £10 from the hamlet of Westonby, no longer
in existence by 1538. The name survives in Westonby House, Lodge and Moor.
1544
The forest called
Egton Wood was mentioned in 1544.
1600s
Following the
Protestant Reformation, Egton and nearby Egton Bridge became prominent
strongholds for Roman Catholic recusancy, developing a resilient and enduring
covert Catholic faith community.
1642 to
1646
During the
English Civil War, the local region was heavily Royalist, though many local
farming families tried to avoid the crossfire.
Mid 1600s
Agricultural
common fields began to be systematically enclosed, giving rise to tenant
farming systems managed by prominent regional landowners.
c 1700
The original
weekly Wednesday market granted by Henry III in 1269 was replaced when William
III granted a new Tuesday-only market charter.
1801
The population,
notwithstanding the inhabitants are chiefly occupied in husbandry, will be
found to be considerable . The parish contains but one
township; and according to the return made under the population act in the year
1801, there were then 190 houses or families, and 971 inhabitants: viz 476
males and 495 females, giving, on an average, upwards of 5 to each family (Graves, John (1808), The
Parish of Egton in The
History of Cleveland in the North Riding of the County of York, Carlisle: F. Jollie and Sons, Republished by Patrick
& Shotton, 1972, page
285).
1807
The
ecclesiastical parish of Egton St Hilda was officially formed, splitting away
from its ancient parent parish of Lythe.
1852
Part
of Egton, including Newbiggin, and lands in the parishes of Whitby and
Pickering were formed in 1852 into the ecclesiastical parish of Grosmont.
The
physical remains of St Julian’s Castle, the thirteenth century hunting lodge
belonging to the de Mauley family, was completely excavated and brought under
agricultural cultivation by a tenant farmer.
1857
Egton
1857
1867
A dedicated Roman
Catholic church capable of seating 650 people was constructed in Egton Bridge,
serving the local population.
1878
The old church of
St Hilda stood on high ground on the road to Glaisdale. It was pulled down in 1878 and a cemetery chapel now occupies a portion of the
site. The churchyard continued to be used for burials.
A new St Hilda's
Church was erected closer to the main village in a Neo-Norman and Perpendicular
style, financed by the Foster family (Church of St
Hilda, Egton Village, Historic England 1316158).
1901
A clock was
installed in the south-west tower of St Hilda's Church by Abraham Foster to
commemorate the memory of Queen Victoria.
1913
Egton Manor was
heavily expanded and rebuilt with traditional herringbone-tooled sandstone
under the ownership of the Foster family.
1952
Egton Manor was
designated as a Grade II Listed Building for architectural preservation (Egton Manor,
Historic England 1173439).
1962–1996
The village's
distinctive local dialect was immortalised as part of the Survey
of English Dialects, later culminating in a dedicated monograph by
linguist Hans Tidholm.
1974
Under local
government reorganisation, Egton was officially moved from the Whitby Rural
District in the North Riding of Yorkshire to the newly established county of
North Yorkshire.
1979–1980
Egton Manor underwent
significant structural remodelling and partial demolition before opening up as a commercial operations estate.
1993
The historic
heart of Egton village was designated an official conservation area to protect
its unique moorland architectural identity.
The Farndales of Egton
As early as 1275
De Johanne de Farndale, 1275 (FAR00014)
moved out of Farndale to Egton.
The Farndale
family group mostly associated with Egton is the Whitby 5 Line. The following
Farndales lived at Egton or were otherwise associated with Egton: De Johanne de
Farndale (FAR00014)
was born in 1275 and was one of the early inhabitants of Farndale, who moved
further afield to Egton. William Farndale (FAR00257) was
an inn keeper and agricultural labourer in Egton. Others were Ann Farndale (FAR00354); Hannah
Farndale (FAR00372);
William Farndale (FAR00378);
John Farndale (FAR00387)
was a miner of Egton; Samuel Saunders Farndale (FAR00410);
Hannah Farndale (FAR00462);
Thomas William Farndale (FAR00587).
Bibliography
Atkinson, John Christopher (1874), History of Cleveland,
Ancient and Modern, Barrow-in-Furness: J. Richardson.
Graves, John (1808), The
Parish of Egton in The
History of Cleveland in the North Riding of the County of York,
Carlisle: F. Jollie and Sons, Republished by Patrick & Shotton, 1972.
Ord, John Walker (1846), The History and Antiquities of
Cleveland: Comprising the Wapentake of East and West Langbaurgh, North Riding,
County of York, London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co.
Page, William (1923), Parishes:
Egton, in A History of the County of York North Riding, Volume
2, London, British History Online
Egton, North Riding, in Vision
of Britain Through Time.