The vicinity of Farndale in the Anglo Saxon Scandinavian Period (793 CE to 1066)

FAR00001

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BCE - Before the common or current era. The contemporary equivalent of BC.

CE - Common or current era. The contemporary equivalent of AD.

kya – abbreviation for a thousand years

YBP – Years before present

On 8 June 793 Vikings raided Lindisfarne, their first attack on the British Isles. The raid was devastating for the community of Lindisfarne, but had ominous implications for the wider religious and political world. By 875 CE monks at Lindisfarne decided to leave and they took St Cuthbert’s coffin with them to Chester le Street and then to Durham.

The Judgement Day Stone, Lindisfarne, c 800 to 825 CE

A representation of Farndale and its vicinity prior to 1066

Key 1 is a colour code for archaeological finds around Farndale and the period of time with which they are associated, giving an indication of settlement patterns around Farndale through time. Key 2 shows the possible extent of moorland, woodland up to the Bronze Age and woodland up to 1066 and beyond, and the area of cultivation at the edge of the Vale of Pickering.

This part of Yorkshire saw two phases of Viking settlements both fairly peaceful, with no evidence of armed conquest except for the taking of York, the political centre and market of the area. York fell to the Danes in 867 CE. The extent and range of settlement isn’t clear. In the early tenth century came a second wave of Scandinavian speakers, with Norwegian tongues into northern Yorkshire from Cumberland.

The place names of the pre Norman countryside provide glimpses of pastures, valleys, marshes, farms. The sculpture and churches in the tenth and eleventh centuries hint at a growth of population around the edges of the moorland and on the lowlands and the coast. Monuments suggest a framework of parishes along the tabular hills stretching into the low ground.

The deep slumber of the dale that would become known as Farndale had continued through the Saxon and Scandinavian periods, but by the eleventh century, Yorkshire’s Beowulf lord, Orm Gamalson, held lands across the region which included the estate of Kirkbymoorside, recorded as Chirchebi in the Domesday Book (Kirby [Moorside] in the Domesday Book, 1086, reproduced as Open Domesday by Anna Powell-Smith) which in turn included Kirkdale. The settled part of this estate was likely to have been limited to a small settlement at Kirkbymoorside; the seventh century minster at Kirkdale, and the ancient agricultural lands stretching from Kirkby Misperton to Nawton. Nevertheless, the forested northern dale lands, seem to have been nominally incorporated into the wider estate since it was described as having a depth of some 12 leagues (about 42 miles) (New Settlements in the North Yorkshire Moors 1086 to 1340, Barry Harrison in Medieval Settlement in North East England, Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland Research Report No 2, edited by B E Vyner, 1990, page 25). The nascent dale remained a wilderness as the new millennium began, but came to be a notional part of the land possessions of the elite class.

Before the Norman Conquest Kirby was in two manors, one of which belonged to Gamal, a noted Saxon who possessed a considerable deal of property in these parts and was Lord of the Manors of Lestingham, Spanton and other places; and was ranked among the Northumbrian Nobles. In the Doomsday survey we find it in the hands of Torbrand and Orm the son of Gamal. Orm was Lord of the Manors of Kirby, Danby and Lealholm, and being of noble descent, is said to have married Etheldreth daughter of Aldred, Earl of Northumberland. (History of Kirkdale and Vicinity, Part III, Kirkbymoorside, Tom Parker, Ryedale Historian, Volume 11, 1982, page 10).

The status of Kirby Moorside before the Conquest seems to have been that of a large Anglo-Saxon manor with numerous outlying berewicks (Darby & Maxwell, Domesday Geography of Northern England, 1962, page 82).

Orm Gamalson’s lands before the Norman Conquest

The Hundred of Manshou, part of Orm Gamalson’s lands

By the period immediately preceding the Norman Conquest, the lands to the south of Farndale were ancient agricultural settlements, focused on the small town of Kirkbymoorside and the minster at Kirkdale, and nestling into the edge of the dales as far as Gillamoor and Hutton le Hole and perhaps as far as Harland Moor. Incursions into the dale may also have occurred form the higher ground into the valley of West Gill and perhaps around Duck House to the east.

The metropolis to the south became Jorvik.

The Horn of Ulph is an eleventh-century oliphant (a horn carved from an elephant's tusk). It is two feet four inches long, and has a diameter at the mouth of five inches. Given its size and condition, it is a particularly good example of a medieval oliphant. Tradition holds that it is a horn of tenure, presented to York Minster by a Norse nobleman named Ulph sometime around 1030. This suggests that a powerful Scandinavian nobleman was willing to donate a very valuable object to the Christian church by this time.

Orm’s sundial at Kirkdale with the inscription, Orm the son of Gamel acquired St Gregory’s Church when it was completely ruined and collapsed, and he had it built anew from the ground to Christ and to St Gregory in the days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tostig (inscription on the Sundial at the Saxon Church of St Gregory) refers to Edward the Confessor and to Tostig, the son of Earl Godwin of Wessex and brother of Harold II, the last Anglo Saxon King of England. Tostig was the Earl of Northumbria between 1055 and 1065. It was therefore during that last peaceful decade, immediately before the Norman conquest, that Orm, son of Gamel rebuilt St Gregory’s Church at Kirkdale.

The North Yorks Moors was an appropriate area for the study of medieval agriculture, since it appears to have been largely empty of settlements in 1086. The only developed manor in the moorlands proper was in the Esk Valley where a 12 carucate holding was located at Danby, Crumbeclive (Crunkley Hill in Glaisdale) and Lealholm. This was an extensive area, said to measure seven leagues in length by three leagues in width, within which Danby (six carucates) was the major focus of settlement. The long valleys on the south side of the watershed appear to have functioned mainly as resources for woodland and pastures for settlements in the Vale of Pickering and although some settlements in the moors may have been subsumed into consolidated Domesday entries for lowland manors, the descriptions of moorland tracts granted to the new monasteries (Whitby, Guisborough, Rievaulx and Byland) in the early and mid 12th century contain very little evidence of functioning communities of any kind. New Settlements in the North Yorkshire Moors, 1086 to 1340 by Barry Harrison, in Medieval Rural Settlement in North East England, Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, Research Report No 2, Edited by BE Vyner, 1990

So we start with a clear palate, to understand how agriculture developed after the Norman Conquest.

Keysbeck and Knaysbeck. Knaresbeck is old Norse for twisting stream. These farmsteads suggest that the side valley of the West Gill which sits beside the main dale of Farndale may have been the first area to be cleared for cultivation, well before the clearance of the main dale in the thirteenth century.

Keysbeck, 2025 Knaysbeck, 2025

Midway up the eastern escarpment of Farndale lies Duck House. Farndale is fortunate to retain, still, several of its ancient dwellings. Duck House is a good example of a longhouse or coit of the Middle Ages. These houses have their origin in the Saxon or Viking longhouses, usually of wood, but were rebuilt in stone between 1500 to 1700 AD. The fireplace was in the centre, screened from the draughts of winter by projecting speer. The living room was here, and the parlour or best room, adjoining. At the end, now converted into living rooms, where the cattle stalls, humans and animals all lived under the same roof. Many records of this practise still exist even until the 19th century. Duck House is now much altered. It has lost its thatched roof. At the west end of the dwelling house there is a curious stone ring high up in the wall end. It is said to have been used for tying on the Green wooden wythies or saplings used for making bullock yokes. Ox bow stones in Farndale Head were used for this purpose. Probably the ring was for tying up bullocks with withies when not working. Bullocks were used for ploughing and as draft animals from the Bronze Age, or even earlier to within the present century. (Raymond Hayes, Farndale, 1961, unpublished, page 11).

Duck House, 1948, with sixteenth and eighteenth century renovations (Raymond Hayes, Farndale, 1961, unpublished, page 43). It was built in 1520, but perhaps replaced a homestead with much earlier origins.