Downholme, Yorkshire, England. Geographical and Historical information from 1835.

DOWNHOLME:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1835.

"DOWNHOLME, a parish in the western division of the wapentake of HANG, North riding of the county of YORK, comprising the townships of Downholme, Ellerton- Abbey, Stainton, and Walburn, and containing 251 inhabitants, of which number, 113 are in the township of Downholme, 4 miles W.S.W. from Richmond. The living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Richmond, and diocese of Chester, rated in the king's books at £5. 15. 10., endowed with £600 private benefaction, and £600 royal bounty. John Hutton, Esq. was patron in 1808. The church is dedicated to St. Michael. In a fertile part of this parish, near the river Swale, are situated the ruins of Ellerton nunnery, consisting principally of the shell of the chapel. Tradition refers its foundation to a person of the name of Wymer, or Wymor, in the reign of Henry II., for nuns of the Cistercian order: at the dissolution, its annual revenue was estimated only at £8."

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"ELLERTON ABBEY, a township in the parish of DOWNHOLME, western division of the wapentake of HANG, North riding of the county of YORK, 7 miles W.S.W. from Richmond, containing 47 inhabitants. Here was a small priory of Cistercian nuns, thought to have been founded by Warnerius, dapifer to the Earl of Richmond, in the time of Henry II., which, at the dissolution, was valued at £15. 10. 6."

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"STAINTON, a township in the parish of DOWNHOLME, western division of the wapentake of HANG, North riding of the county of YORK, 5 miles W.S.W. from Richmond, containing 54 inhabitants."

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"WALBURN, a township in the parish of DOWNHOLME, western division of the wapentake of HANG, North riding of the county of YORK, 5 miles S.W. from Richmond, containing 3? inhabitants."

[Transcribed by Mel Lockie © from
Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1835]