Huttons Ambo

  

Historical and geographical information

 

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Introduction

 

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Contextual history is in purple.

 

This webpage about the Huttons Ambo has the following section headings:

 

·      Farndale family history and Huttons Ambo

·      Huttons Ambo, overview

·      Timeline of Hutton’s Ambo history

·      Bibliography

 

The Farndales of Sheriff Hutton

 

There is a significant branch of the Ampleforth Line, particularly descending from William Farndale (FAR00286) who lived in Huttons Ambo by 1871.

 

Huttons Ambo, overview

 

Huttons Ambo is a civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire. It is about 22 km north-east of York and 5 km) south-west of Malton. The civil parish of Huttons Ambo consists of the villages of High Hutton and Low Hutton.

 

Huttons Ambo is really two villages, High Hutton and Low Hutton. Ambo is latin for 'both', so Huttons Ambo means 'Both Huttons'.

 

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Hutton, the toponym, derives from the Old English hōh tūn, meaning settlement on or by the hill spur. Ambo, the suffix, is Latin indicating the combination of the two villages into the one parish.

 

In the Medieval times Huttons Ambo consisted of three settlements, Hutton Bardolf, Hutton Colswayn and Hutton Mynchon, which gradually evolved into the current two villages.

 

 

Timeline of Hutton’s Ambo history

 

Roman

 

Recent excavations in Huttons Ambo (2023–2025) by Ethos Heritage CIC uncovered significant Roman, Iron Age, and Medieval, finds, including thousands of pottery sherds and evidence of a Romano-British settlement. Key discoveries indicate a thriving rural site with high-status connections dating from 75 BCE to 300 CE, plus later 4th-century finds.

 

Excavations in the 1950s first identified Roman occupation at the South end of the village of Low Hutton near the river, in the form of a ditch containing sherds of Crambeck pottery and a coin of Constantine I, and structures such as ditches.

 

A geophysics survey carried out in Huttons Ambo in 2023 found a large ditch and bank, and a trench was placed inside it in July 2024. This uncovered large amounts of Iron Age and Roman pottery, dating from 75 BCE to 300 CE. In addition, large circular pits were also identified, suggesting that a Romano-British feature lies within this bank and ditch.

 

Excavators have now revisited the large medieval building uncovered the previous year and confirmed that it dates back to the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. The building reused Roman building stone, including what may be part of a Roman column ahead. Pottery and coins from the late 4th century were also found.

 

(Ryedale – somewhere a fort? Roman Yorkshire, newsletter of the Roman Antiquities Section, 2026)

 

1086

 

Huttons Ambo originally consisted of three manors Hutton Colswayn , Hutton Bardolf and Hutton Mynchon, eventually these evolved into the two villages existing today. It had been split into two main parts, even before the time of the Norman Conquest.

 

The villages of High and Low Hutton are mentioned in the Domesday book as Hotun in the Bulford hundred. The lands were divided between Cnut, son of Karli, Thorkil and Thorbrand son of Kalri.

 

After the Norman invasion, the lands were split between the King and Berengar of Tosny.

 

The Victoria County History – Yorkshire, A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 Parishes: Huttons Ambo, 1923: Two 'manors' in Hutton or Hutton-Upon-Derwent in the reign of Edward the Confessor were held by Cnut and Torchil, and together were assessed at 8½ carucates. In the Domesday Survey both are found among the lands of the Conqueror.  Five and a half carucates afterwards came 'by the gift of a certain King of England' either to Colswayn or an ancestor of Colswayn by the serjeanty of guarding the gate of York Castle.

 

The land at Low Hutton owned by the King, has been named Hutton Colswayn, whilst the land near Hutton Hill has been known as Hutton Mynchon. The land at High Hutton has been known as Hutton Bardolf. All these suffixes indicate the names of the landowners of those times.

 

The Colswayn family may have been given the land by the Crown for duties performed guarding York Castle. The titles passed on to the Bolton family.

 

The other lands came into the possession of the Gower family, some of whom held the office of High Sheriff of York, such as Sir Thomas Gower. Memorials to members of this family can seen in the Church.

 

Thirteenth century

 

The Victoria County History – Yorkshire, A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 Parishes: Huttons Ambo, 1923: In the 13th century Hutton fell into the three main divisions of Hutton-upon-Derwent (more often known as Colswayn Hutton), Hutton Bardolf and Hutton Mynchon.

 

Excavations in the 1950s revealed evidence of 12th- or 13th-century fortified buildings at the south end of the village of Low Hutton near the river.

 

The Victoria County History – Yorkshire, A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 Parishes: Huttons Ambo, 1923: The first tenant of whom any record has been preserved was the Colswayn, who held it by serjeanty in the 12th century, and may himself have been the original recipient of the royal gift. In 1261, when the serjeanty was claimed for his descendant John Bolton, Colswayn's tenure was declared to date from time immemorial. Possibly he was the heir of an earlier Colswayn, from whom both the serjeanty and Hutton-upon-Derwent were sometimes named. Alan de Hutton, his son and heir, alienated his inheritance to his cousin Ralph, son of Colswayn's brother Bernard, who held the serjeanty between 1210 and 1217. His elder daughter Alice brought it and some part of the land with which it was associated to her husband John Doget. In the meantime Alan de Hutton had been succeeded by a son and heir of the same name, who in the reign of Richard I retained a share of Colswayn's lands. This was probably the moiety of the vill of Hutton, which, after the death of Ralph son of Bernard, Ralph the second Alan's son and heir held of John Doget in accordance with the agreement made by his grandfather. From Ralph son of Alan, whose son, another Alan, seems to have died before his father, the rights of the descendants of Colswayn passed to his daughter Eleanor wife of Thomas de Bolton. In 1249 Thomas and Eleanor sued various persons, chief of whom were John Doget and his wife Alice and Muriel widow of Ralph son of Bernard, for certain tenements in Colswayn Hutton which Eleanor claimed as part of the fee of her grandfather Alan in the reign of Richard I.

 

Huttons Ambo lends its name to a specific type of Medieval pottery produced here in the 13th Century consisting of large, unglazed storage jars.

 

1848

 

Topographical Dictionaries, A Topographical Dictionary of England Hutton-Buscel – Huyton, 1848: Huttons Ambo (St. Margaret), a parish, in the union of Malton, wapentake of Bulmer, N. riding of York, 3 miles (N. E.) from Whitwell; consisting of High and Low Hutton, and containing 408 inhabitants. The parish is bounded on the east by the river Derwent, and comprises by computation 2300 acres, chiefly arable, with an intermixture of wood and meadow; the surface is undulated, the soil of various quality, and the scenery picturesque. The village of Low Hutton, or Hutton upon-Derwent, is on the banks of the river, and High Hutton stands near the road from York to Malton. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £93; patron, the Archbishop of York; impropriators, Lord Macdonald, the Earl of Carlisle, and others. The tithes were commuted for land in 1805. The church is small. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans.

 

1856

 

Miss Bilton of Huttons Ambo sent 72 pairs of warm stockings to soldiers fighting in the Crimean War (John Rushton, The History of Ryedale, 2003, 352).

1857

 

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1858

 

At a time of pressure for modesty in local traditions, the Huttons Ambo race for the bride’s garter, was adapted to become a chase for a ribbon (John Rushton, The History of Ryedale, 2003, 353).

1923

 

The Victoria County History – Yorkshire, A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 Parishes: Huttons Ambo, 1923: Huttons Ambo is bounded on the east and south by the Derwent, on the west by the little stream of the Cram Beck. Of its area of 2,898 acres on a subsoil of Corallian Beds and Inferior Oolite 1,285 acres are arable land, the chief crops being wheat, oats and barley, 1,371 acres permanent grass and 166 acres woods and plantations. The high road from York leads north-east through Huttons Ambo into New Malton, whilst the York and Scarborough branch of the North Eastern railway runs through the south of the parish. The land varies in height from 850 ft. above the ordnance datum at High Hutton to 50 ft. on the river banks.

 

Bibliography