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Market Weighton Parish information from Bulmers' 1892.

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MARKET WEIGHTON:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1892.

Wapentake of Harthill (Holme Beacon Division) - County Council Electoral Division of Market Weighton - Petty Sessional Division of Holme Beacon - Poor Law Union and County Court District of Pocklington - Rural Deanery of Weighton - Archdeaconry of the East Riding - Diocese of York.

This parish, which formerly included the chapelry of Shipton, is situated on the western fringe of the Wolds, and presents generally a level unpicturesque surface. The soil is sandy in places, clayey in others, and the subsoil chalk and gravel; wheat, barley, oats, and turnips are the crops chiefly under cultivation. The total area of the parish, including the hamlet of Arras, is 5,880 acres, of which the rateable value is £10,206. The population in 1891 was 1,867, and at the previous decennial census, 1,881. The Earl of Londesborough is lord of the manor, and that nobleman and Thomas William Preston Rivis, Esq., of Malton; the Right Hon. Lord Herries, of Everingham Park; and Charles Langdale, Esq., of Houghton Hall, are the principal landowners.

Market Weighton, or simply Weighton, as it was originally called, stands on or near the Roman road, hence, probably, its name Weg-tun, or town on the way or road, and is supposed by Camden, Gale, Stukely, and Horsley, to be the site of the Roman Delgovitia, but no remains of buildings have heen met with to show that the Romans had any permanent station here. A few Roman coins have been found, but these only indicate the presence of Roman soldiers here, and cannot be accepted as proof of a permanent settlement. At Goodmanham, about a-mile-and-a-half distant, the site of a Roman camp was discovered whilst excavating the railway cutting through Rose Hill, and it is highly probable that there may have been an outpost at Market Weighton. British remains of an interesting character have been frequently turned up in the neighbouring hamlet of Arras.

Wighton was held in the time of the Confessor by Morcar, Earl of Northumbria. It passed sometime after the Conquest to the Fitz Peters, and in 1280 it was held by Joan de Vinonia, with market, infangentheof, and gallows, in dowry of John Fitz-Reginald Fitz-Peter, as his ancestors had done from time immemorial by the gift of King John. In the reign of Henry VI. the manor belonged to. Henry de Bromflete, who obtained a grant of a market weekly, on Wednesday, and two fairs, to be held on the festivals of the Finding and Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

The town of Market Weighton stands on the road from York to Hull, 19 miles south-east of the former place, and 18 miles north-west of the latter. The Selby and Market Weighton railway here converges into the York, Market. Weighton, and Beverley branch, and the station stands in close proximity to the town. Another line, connecting the town with Scarborough, was opened for traffic on the 1st of May, 1890. Leland, who visited the place in the reign of Henry VIII., calls it Weighton, and describes it as "a great uplandish village." But the town has greatly improved since Leland's time; the mean thatch-covered houses, which prevailed till the latter years of last century, have disappeared, and well-built houses have taken their place. The market is held on Wednesday, but does not commence till late in the afternoon. It was formerly of considerable importance as a corn market, many thousand quarters being disposed of by sample; and the construction of the Market Weighton canal increased, for a time, the trade of the town. This was constructed under power of an Act of Parliament, obtained in 1772, and extends from the Humber, at Faxfleet, to a point two miles south-west of the town. It is about 10 miles in length, and contains four locks. The canal is throughout its length extra-parochial. A market, for the sale of cattle, sheep, and pigs, is held on alternate Tuesdays. Fairs are held on the 14th of May, for cattle and sheep, and on the 26th of September, for sheep. The latter was formerly one of the largest in the county, and frequently as many as 70,000 sheep were shown on the day. The Market Weighton Agricultural Society was established in 1869, and a show is held annually, at which a handsome silver cup is presented by the president for the year, to the owner of the best hunter.

The church (All Saints) was founded in Saxon times, but no part of the present building is older than the Norman era. It is an edifice of stone, in the Gothic style, with a Transition-Norman tower, containing a clock and six bells. This tower is built of rough stone, and had formerly a wooden spire, which was taken down in 1785, and an addition of brickwork made to the tower. The church was restored in 1871, at a cost of £1,500, which was derived from the rent of 84 acres of land, awarded at the enclosure for the repairs of the church. The chancel is spacious, and has an aisle, now converted into vestry and organ chamber, on the north side, separated from it by two pointed arches. The nave has north and south aisles, from which it is separated by arcades of three pointed arches, springing from octagonal pillars and supporting a clerestory ahove. A stained-glass window has been recently placed in the east end of the south aisle, in memory of Drs. Matthew and Alfred Jackson. A new organ, by Jones & Sons, of South Kensington, was erected in 1883. The church is fitted with open benches to seat 500. There are no memorials or architectural features possessing particular interest.

The living is a vicarage, in the Peculiar Jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of York, valued in the Liber Regis at £4 13s. 9d., and now returned at £300 per annum, including 71 acres of glebe with residence, in the gift of the Archbishop of York, and held by the Rev. Robert Digby French, M.A., of Dublin University. The great tithes were redeemed by Lord Londesborough about 20 years ago, and the vicar's tithes are only on the old enclosure. The other small tithes are commuted for a rent-charge of £100.

A new cemetery, containing about three acres, was formed in 1883, and is under the control of a Burial Board of nine members. Amongst others who lie in the old churchyard are William Draper, Esq., of Beswick, the "Nimrod of the North," who died in 1746, and his daughter Diana, as ardent a lover of the chase, and as fearless a rider as her celebrated father. She had many a narrow escape of breaking her neck, and at last died peaceably in her bed at York, in 1772.

The Wesleyan chapel, built in 1868, at a cost of £2,000, is a handsome building of brick, with freestone dressings, capable of seating 400 persons. The old chapel, built in 1786, is now used as a Sunday school. The Congregational church was rebuilt on an enlarged plan in 1881, and the Primitive Methodist chapel in 1860.

The Boys' National school, in Northgate, was erected in 1842, for the accommodation of 200 children, and there are 140 names on the books. The Girls' and Infants' schools are situated in Hungate, and were built in 1878, and enlarged by the addition of a class-room in 1891. There is accommodation for 120 girls, and the same number of infants. The Temperance Hall, erected in 1841, now belongs to the Primitive Methodist Society. It is let for public entertainments, lectures, &c.

Gas Works were erected in 1847, and were tranferred to the Market Weighton Gas Light and Coke Co., Ltd., about 20 years ago. There is one gas holder with a capacity of 14,000 cubic feet. There are fifty public lamps, and about two million cubic feet of gas are consumed in the year. Water Works were constructed in 1885, at Springwells, on the east side of the town, by another limited company. The reservoir is capable of storing 120,000 gallons. A new drainage scheme was completed in 1891, at a cost of £3,000, by the sanitary authority.

A court-leet and baron is held at the Londesborough Arms Hotel, in the first week in December yearly, by Mr. Arthur Ivison, steward to the lord of the manor.

The Police station was erected in 1843, and has been enlarged since. Petty sessions are held here on the first Wednesday in every month, and at other times when necessary.

Charities - An annual amount of £42, left by an nnknown donor, and secured on land at South Cave, is distributed in doles at midsummer and Christmas. Sir Marmaduke Constable's charity, left by will dated 1486, amounts to £17 10s. yearly, derived from land, houses, and garden in Market Weighton is divided between the poor of that place and those of Holme-on-Spalding Moor. Thomas Brighton, William Smithson, and another person unknown, left in 1790, the sum of £258 4s. in consols, the interest thereof (£7 15s.) to be distributed in 30 fourpenny loaves after the evening service for six months each year, beginning wth November. Miss Dorothy Barker, who died in 1801, bequeathed the sum of £600, the interest thereof to be applied in the purchase of 30 fourpenny loaves, to be given fortnightly, after Divine service, and the residue to he distributed amongst the poor of Market Weighton and Shipton at Easter and Christmas yearly for ever. Mrs. Tucker, in 1838, left £1 12s. 4d. yearly for 12 poor widows, and Mrs. Pulleine, in 1859, invested £104 Os. 8d., the interest (£3 2s. 4d.) to be given in bread and coals in seasons of scarcity; and £5 5s. 2d., the interest of £175 5s. invested by Mr. Blackburn in 1866, is given in doles yearly. There are also four rent-charges amounting to £2 10s. yearly.

Market Weighton has produced one of the tallest Englishmen of modern times. William Bradley, better known as the Yorkshire Giant, measured 7 feet 9 inches in height, and weighed 27 stones. His shoe, still preserved in the Hull Literary and Philosophical Museum, is 15 inches long and 5½ inches broad, and his walking stick was 5 feet 10 inches in length. He died here in 1820, at the age of 33 years.

ARRAS is a hamlet in this parish, situated three miles east of Market Weighton. It is comprised in one farm, the property of Lord Herries, of Everingham. The rectorial tithe, amounting to £138, is assigned to the prebend of Market Weighton in York cathedral. The early Britons have left many traces of their presence here, and in the immediate neighbourhood. Their barrows or burial mounds, both the long and the round, have been numerous, but they are now fast disappearing since the land was brought into cultivation. About 200 of these tumuli were examined by the Rev. Edward W. Stillingfleet and B. Clarkson, Esq., in the year 1817, and in almost every one they opened a human skeleton was found, some very perfect, and others in every stage of decay. With the skeletons were found numerous personal ormaments of jet, amber, and bronze. One tumulus contained the skeleton of a horse, two large bridle bits - one brass, neatly wrought, and the other iron - and two chariot wheels about three feet in diameter and two inches wide.

On the chalk hills, on the neigbouring farm of Hessleskew, is a pit about 200 yards in circumference, which appears to have been ten or twelve feet in uniform depth. Two Roman roads pass within a little distance, and it is quite within the range of probability, as suggested by Mr. M. Foster, a local archæologist, that this pit may have been an amphitheatre, where the Roman soldiers practised their games. The above gentleman has explored a considerable portion of the district, and has accumulated quite a little museum of pre-historic, British, Romano-British, and Saxon antiquities.

So thickly scattered about are the evidences of interments, that it would appear as if the place had been the burial ground of a populous settlement. Mr. Foster, in an article on "Sancton and its Relics," published in "Old Yorkshire," 1882, says :- " About a mile north of the village, a portion of ground, about 150 yards in length by about 60 yards in breadth, has been nearly filled with urns, but being near the surface most of them have been destroyed by cultivation. In a space of three yards I counted eleven urns, all broken to fragments. In a bank by the side of a hedge several were found entire; some, very plain, hand-made, and rudely marked; others, lathe turned and elaborately finished. In one place I found one broken in pieces, and in searching the bottom of the hole, I found the upper rim of another. Further excavations revealed a complete urn, which I succeeded in taking out entire. This was full of burnt bones, amongst which were two bone needles about four inches long. In others, several articles of bronze, flint, and bones were found."

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

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