PROLOGUE OF EBBERSTON WITH YEDINGHAM & BICKLEY PARISH
The parish lands have been in continuous occupation since the Iron Age. The villages of Ebberston and Yedingham and the hamlet of Bickley were founded by Anglo-Saxon invaders sometime before 600AD. Yedingham’s name is derived from the Old English ‘homestead of Edda and his people’ and is the site of a 12th century nunnery.
Ebberston translates as ‘Aebba’s farmstead’ and Bickley as ‘Bicca’s forest clearing’. The Battle of Ebberston (704/705 AD) between invading Picts and the Northumbrian King Aelfred is commemorated by a folly, Aelfred’s Cave, in Chafer Wood.
Domesday Book (1086) witnesses to the Norman’s ‘harrowing of the North’. As a result, Ebberston had been reduced to little more than an impoverished farmstead. The village’s fine Church, dedicated to St Mary’s and founded in the 11th century, stands outside the village adjacent to Ebberston Hall.
The present-day Hall dates from the mid-18th century and is known as ‘the smallest stately home in England’.
Following the catastrophe of the Black Death (1394-51) each settlement slowly evolved as agricultural communities within local manorial estates. Agricultural enclosure in the 18th and 19th centuries largely gave rise to the local landscape we see today.
Bickley (population c. 20) is within the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and lies on the edge of Dalby Forest which has increasingly dominated the nearby landscape since planting began in 1919. Today Dalby, ‘The Great Yorkshire Forest’, attracts thousands of visitors annually from around the globe. There are many excellent footpaths, bridleways and cycle tracks.
Ebberston (population 505) is a lively village with a thriving community life that includes numerous working farms, Ebberston Sportsfield and a garden centre with nursery, a village hall, holiday cottages and caravan site accommodation, a sign maker, carpenter, guitar maker, handicraft studio and The Grapes Inn public house. North of the A170 Thirsk to Scarborough road is Chafer Wood Nature Reserve, managed by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. There are active Methodist and Anglican church communities.
Yedingham (population 127) sits beside the River Derwent and has a popular pub, The Providence and a fine church dedicated to St John the Baptist. The church was renovated in 1862-63 but contains elements of early 12th century stone moulding and a Norman tub font on an octagonal base.
A quarterly Newsletter provides an interesting and lively means of bringing the community and its many activities together. Ebberston Village Hub is accessible via its Facebook page. The Parish Council is proactive in its engagement with and involvement in the day-to-day life of the communities it is elected to serve.
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