Butterwick Parish information from Bulmers' 1892.

BUTTERWICK:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1892.

Wapentake and Petty Sessional Division of Dickering - County Council Electoral Division of Sledmere - Poor Law Union and County Court District of Driffield - Rural Deanery of Buckrose - Archdeaconry of the East Riding - Diocese of York.

This parish and township comprises an area of 1,779 acres, belonging chiefly to Viscountess Downe, who is also the lady of the manor. There are 298 acres of glebe belonging to the rector of Foxholes. The soil is loam and gravel, the subsoil chalk, and the chief crops are wheat, oats, barley, and turnips. The rateable value is £1,273, and the population 92. Butterwick.was formerly a chapelry under Foxholes, from which it was severed in 1858, and constituted a separate parish.

The manor, according to Torre, contained 12 carucates of land, and was held by the Greystocks under the Mauleys, who held it of the King in capite, by a rent of 7s. per annum. There was a chapel here in those early times, the advowson of which was given by Robert de Butterwyk to the Abbey of St. Mary, York. Durand de Butterwyk, his father, whose ancestors had been settled here since the Conquest, gave half a carucate of land with a toft and a croft to the monks of St. Mary's Abbey and the mother church of Foxholes, for the perpetual maintenance of a priest to celebrate mass and the Divine offices in the said chapel.

The village stands on the York and Bridlington road, 13 miles from the latter place, and nearly two miles from Weaverthorpe. The church (St. Nicholas) is a plain building of stone, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch, and a western turret of brick, containing two bells. The fabric was restored in 1883 at a cost of £600. During the progress of the work the effigy of a knight in armour was discovered, and also a stone coffin containing some human remains. The coffin is covered by an Early English slab bearing a sword and shield in the centre surrounded by foliage. The shield is charged with a fess between three crescents - the arms of Langley of Wykeham Abbey. The effigy may represent one of the same family, or more probably one of the Butterwick family, the founders of the church, whose ancestor, Sir Roger de Butterwyk, is mentioned in Domesday Book as having had a grant of land here. In the north wall, almost hidden by the chancel furniture, is a recess, the original purpose of which is a matter of conjecture. In it are some grotesque sculptured stones, evidently fragments of an east wall corbel table of the original church. The ancient piscina and an aumbry remain in the south wall. The font is massive and circular, and of Norman workmanship. The east window is a memorial of Edward Henry and Fanny Bayly, and was inserted in 1883 at the expense of the Rev. Thomas Bayly. The register dates from the year 1691. The living is a vicarage, worth £65 a year, derived chiefly from the interest of a grant from Queen Anne's Bounty, and an endowment of £10 yearly left by a late rector. It is in the gift of the rector of foxholes, and held by the Rev. Thomas Bayly, B.A., of Hertford College, Oxford, who is also vicar of Weaverthorpe, at which place he resides.

There is no school in the parish; the children attend those in Foxholes and Weaverthorpe.

[Description(s) from Bulmer's History and Directory of East Yorkshire (1892)]

Directories

• Transcript of the entry for the Post Office, professions and trades in Bulmer's Directory of 1892.

Scan, OCR and html by Colin Hinson. Checking and correction by Peter Nelson.