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Thwing Parish information from Bulmers' 1892.

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THWING:
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 Bridlington - Rural Deanery of Scarborough - Archdeaconry of the East Riding - Diocese of York.

This parish includes the joint hamlet of Octon-cum-Octon Grange, and comprises a total area of 4,023 acres. The rateable value is £3,867. The population in 1881 was 439, and in 1891, 367. The soil is wold land, the subsoil chalk, and the chief crops are wheat oats, and barley. The Earl of Londesborough, who is lord of the manor, Colonel Mitford, of Mitford Castle, Northumberland, and Mrs. Nelson, of Wold Cottage, are the principal landowners.

The lordship of Thweng was held at an early period by a family that took its name from the place. Subsequently, by marriage with the Bruces, they obtained the lordship and castle of Kilton, which place thenceforth became their chief residence. The family was amongst the most distinguished in Yorkshire. The first of the name of whom we have any record is Sir Robert de Thwenge, who, in the reign of Henry III., was deputed by the other barons to repair to Rome, there to lay at the foot of the pope a complaint from the nobles of England, regarding an encroachment upon their ecclesiastical immunities by the holy see. His descendant, Marmaduke de Thwenge, distinguished himself in the Scottish wars of Edward I., and was by that king summoned to parliament as a baron. He obtained a charter of free warren in this and other manors; at the same time he received the grant of a weekly market here, on Wednesday, and a fair yearly, "on the eve, day, and morrow of St. Thomas the Martyr." Thomas, the last Baron Thweng of this family, died about the middle of the 14th century. He was rector of the church of Lythe, and inherited the barony on the death of Robert, Baron de Thweng, his brother, also a priest, vicar of Thweng. William, the eldest brother and previous baron, died unmarried. Male issue thus failing, the estates were divided amongst the heirs of their three sisters. Lucia married Sir Robert de Lumley, of Lumley Castle, Durham, and Sir Marmaduke, their son, who inherited Kilton and Thwing in right of his mother, assumed the arms of the Barons of Thwing.

Sir Ralph de Lumley, his second son and eventual heir, was summoned to parliament as a baron in 1384. He fought under the Percy standard in the Scottish wars of Richard II., and was twice Governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed. After the usurpation of the throne by Henry IV., he joined the Earl of Kent in an insurrection for the restoration of the deposed King Richard, and was slain in a skirmish near Cirencester in 1400. He, with Thomas, his eldest son, was attainted, and his manors and castles were confiscated, but 11 years later the family honours and estates were restored in Sir John, a younger son. Marmaduke, the youngest son of Sir Ralph, is perhaps the most illustrious name in the family. He was educated at Cambridge and became a priest. Church preferments literally poured upon him. He was Chancellor of the University in 1417-18; Master of Trinity Hall, from 1429 to 1443; Precentor of Lincoln, 1425-27; Rector of Stepney, London, 1427, and Archdeacon of Northumberland in the same year. He was Bishop of Carlisle from 1429 to 1450, when he was advanced to the bishopric of Lincoln, but died the same year. He was also for some time Treasurer of England.

Thweng remained in the possession of the Lumleys till the reign of Henry VIII. John, Lord Lumley, was one of the chief actors in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and was one of the deputation to treat with the Duke of Norfolk on the banks of the Don. He was included in the list of insurgents to whom pardon was granted; but shortly afterwards, in consequence of the non-fulfilment of the king's promises, George, his only son, engaged in a second conspiracy, with Sir Francis Bigod, Lord Darcy, Sir Thomas Percy, and others, was executed for high treason at Tyburn. Sir George left a son, John, who was born at Thwing, and succeeded his grandfather in 1609, hut the barony was forfeited by the attainder of his father.

The village of Thwing, which contains many well-built houses, stands on high ground about eight-and-a-half miles west-by-north from Bridlington, and four miles from Hunmanby. The church (All Saints) is an ancient edifice of stone, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch, and a small embattled western tower containing a clock and two bells. Four pointed arches springing from octagonal pillars separate the nave from the aisle. The chancel arch is semicircular, and rests on piers with beautifully carved capitals. The church was re-pewed in 1814, by the parishioners, and thoroughly repaired in 1836, at the expense of the late Robert Prickett, Esq., of Octon Lodge, who was then lord of the manor. The east window consisting of five lights and oriel of 24 lights, was erected by the late Mr. Prickett, and exhibits the arms of the Archiepiscopal see of York, the ancient barons of Thwing, the noble house of Lumley, and the donor himself, who died in 1844, and to whom there is a marble tablet on the north wall of the chancel. On the opposite wall is a large and handsome marble monument, erected by Mr. Prickett, commemorating the learning and virtues of Thomas Lamplugh, Archbishop of York, who was born at Octon Grange in this parish, and died in 1691. Within the altar rails is a monument with a full sized recumbent effigy, supposed to be that of Thomas, last Baron de Thwing, and Rector of Lythe, who died in 1374, when the barony fell into abeyance. Affixed to the wall on the north side of "My Ladie's Aisle" is a small brass, commemorating Robert Stafford, Esq., "a Servant of the Lord." There are also tablets to various members of the families of Lowish, Vickerman, and Topham. The communion service was presented by Archbishop Lamplugh and is still in use. The font is ancient. Within the porch above the doorway is an ancient piece of sculpture representing the Agnes Dei or Lamb of God. The living is an ancient rectory which was formerly held in separate medieties called Thwing and Octon, each valued in the Liber Regis at £8 12s. 1d. The patronage of the former mediety belonged to the Barons Thwing, afterwards to the Lords Lumley; and the patronage of the latter to the Prior and Convent of Bridlington, to whom it was given by John, son of John de Harpham. In the reign of Henry VIII. both medieties reverted to the Crown, - Thwing by the attainder of Sir George Lumley, and Octon by the dissolution of Bridlington Priory. They continued to be held by separate rectors until 1667, when Robert Constable was appointed to both medieties. In 1748 the two were consolidated and so remain. It is in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, who presented the Rev. William Felton, M.A., of St. Aidans, the present rector, in 1883. The net value is £650, with residence, which is derived chiefly from 556 acres of glebe. The tithe rent-charge is £53. "There was" says Torre, "a chapel in this church of Thweng, dedicated to the honour of St. Thomas the Martyr, in which was a chantry founded by Thomas de Thweng, rector of the Church of Lytham."

The parish registers commence in 1691, and under the date 7th May, 1809, record the burial of "Elizabeth Dawson, widow, of Kilham, aged 105."

There are chapels in the village belonging to the Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists. They are both small brick buildings, erected in 1639 and 1840 respectively. The latter cost £101, and was but very recently cleared of debt.

The scholastic affairs of the parish are managed by a School Board of five members, formed in 1883. The following year a Board school was erected, at a cost of £620, for 70 children. The average attendance is 38. The old parochial school, built, in 1835, by the late R. Prickett, Esq., has been converted into a mission room.

WOLD COTTAGE is about two miles north of the village, formerly the residence of Major Topham, a well-known writer, and for several years editor of a newspaper called The World. Here, on the 13th of December, 1795, was observed a most extraordinary natural phenomenon - the fall of an unusually large meteoric stone. Major Topham has given the following account of it : - " It was on Sunday, about five o'clock, the 13th of December, 1795, that the stone in question fell two fields from my house. The weather was misty, and at times inclined to rain; and, though there was some thunder and lightening at a distance, it was not till the falling of the stone that the explosion took place, which alarmed the surrounding country, and which created so distinctly the sensation that something very singular had happened. When the stone fell, a shepherd of mine, who was returning from the sheep, was about one hundred and fifty yards from the spot; George Sawden, a carpenter, was passing within sixty yards; and John Shipley, one of my farming servants, was so near the spot where it fell that he was struck very forcibly by some of the mud and earth raised by the stone dashing into the earth, which it penetrated to the depth of 19 inches from the surface. While the stone was passing through the air, which it did in a north-east direction from the sea coast, numbers of persons distinguished a body moving in the clouds, though not able to ascertain what it was; and two sons of the clergyman of Wold Newton, a village very near me, saw it pass so distinctly by them that they immediately ran to my house to know if anything extraordinary had happened. The stone, in its fall, excavated a place of the depth before mentioned, and of something more than a yard in diameter. It was fixed so strongly in the chalk rock that it required some labour to dig it out. The breadth of the stone was 28 inches, and the length 30 inches, and the weight 56lb." To commemorate the event, Major Topham erected a column with the following inscription : - " Here, on this spot, Dec. 13th, 1795, fell from the atmosphere an extraordinary stone, in breadth 28 inches, in length 30 inches, and whose weight was 561bs. This column was erected by Edward Topham in 1799." The stone, or rather a portion of it, is in the British Museum.

OCTON and Octon Grange form a joint hamlet, containing about half-a-dozen farmhouses, about one mile west from Thwing. The hamlet, with its manor, belonged to the Thwengs, one of whom, Robert de Thweng, married the widow of Sir John de Oketon. Sir William de Thwenge, Knt., in 1327 founded a chantry here, in the chapel of St. Michael, wherein mass was to be offered up for ever for the soul of Sir Marmaduke Thwenge, his father, his own soul, and the souls of his ancestors. The endowment consisted of four oxgangs and three acres of land, and the chaplain received, in addition, two marks per annum from the rectors of Thwing.

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

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  • 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.