Cherry Burton Parish information from Bulmers' 1892.

CHERRY BURTON:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1892.

Wapentake of liarthill (Hunsley Beacon Division) - County Council Electoral Division of Walkington Petty Sessional Division of North Hunsley Beacon - Poor Law Union, County Court District, and Rural Deanery of Beverley - Archdeaconry of the East Riding - Diocese of York.

This parish, containing 3,661 acres, lies about three miles W.N.W. of Beverley. The soil is clayey resting on chalk, and yields excellent crops of wheat and other cereals. The parish is intersected by the York, Market Weighton, and Beverley branch of the North-Eastern railway, on which there is a station about a mile from the village. The line was opened between Beverley and Market Weighton in May, 1865. David Fowler Burton, Esq. (lord of the manor), Cherry Burton Hall; Lord Hotham, Dalton Hall, and Lord Leconfield are the chief landowners. For rating purposes the parish is valued at £5,121; the population in 1881 was 458, and in 1891, 429.

Cherry Burton village stands a little west of the Beverley and Malton road, about three miles from the former place. It was anciently distinguished as North Burton, but was known by its present name as early as the time of Henry VIII., as appears from a presentation to the rectory in Henry's reign. In the early part of the eighth century North Burton was the seat of Addi, a Saxon earl, for whom St. John of Beverley, Archbishop of York, consecrated a church here, and the noble proprietor granted the advowson of it to the abbey of Beverley. The Archbishop after the ceremony of consecration healed, by his prayers, one of the earl's servants who had lost the use of his limbs, and was so near the point of death, that a coffin had been prepared for his interment.*

* Bede, Book 5, chap. 6

At the time of the Conquest, Morcar had lands in Burton. These soon afterwards were conferred on the Percys, and in 1201, Sybilla de Valoniis, relict of the third Lord Percy, gave the manor of North Burton to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1289, Peter de Lyndayle, chaplain at North Burton, did fealty at the provost's court at Beverley, for two messuages and six oxgangs of land. Subsequently, about the middle of the 14th century, John de Beverley and others held, for the benefit of a chantry priest, 40 acres of land in North Burton and Ravensthorpe. At the dissolution of religious houses, the manor was seized by the Crown, and Edward VI., in 1553, assigned it to John, Duke of Northumberland, from whom it was alienated in the following reign. The present owner is the grandson of David Robinson, Esq., whose ancestors are mentioned among the copyhold tenants of the manor as early as the reign of Edward III. Mr. Robinson assumed the name of Burton in pursuance of the will of his maternal uncle, David Burton Fowler, Esq., of Cherry Burton, whom he succeeded in 1828, and died in 1854. His son, the late David Fowler Burton, Esq., J.P., D.L., and first chairman of the East Riding County Council, died in 1890, and was succeeded by his eldest son.

The church of St. Michael is a handsome structure in the Early Decorated style, rebuilt in 1852-3, at a cost of about £2,000. It consists of chancel, nave, north and south aisles, porch, and embattled western tower containing a clock and three bells. The foundation stone was laid by Miss Burton, and the last stone of the tower by the late Mr. Robert Vickers, of Cherry Burton, whose initials it bears. The pulpit and font are of carved stone, and several of the windows are of stained glass, three of which are memorials. The interior was thoroughly restored in 1890, and a brass eagle lectern added by the patron in memory of his wife. There was formerly a chantry here, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and endowed with 40 acres of land as before stated. The oldest register dates from 1647, but it contains entries copied from older books extending as far back as 1561. The living is a rectory, gross value about £1,000, including 26 acres of glebe with residence. At the Reformation the patronage was transferred from the college of Beverley to the Crown, with which it remained till the reign of James I. It has since passed through several families and belongs to D. Burton, Esq., the lord of the manor, whose son, the Rev. Bramwell Charles Burton, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge, is the present rector. The Rectory House is a large handsome residence built in 1877 by the late rector, with money borrowed from Queen Anne's bounty.

There are chapels in the village belonging to the Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists, the former built in 1824, and the latter in 1850. The parish school is a building of white brick, erected in 1872, to supersede an older one, now converted into a joiner's shop. It has accommodation for 108 children and is attended by about 70. It is mixed, and under the care of Mr. Albert Edward Dove.

Cherry Burton Hall., the residence of D, Burton, Esq., B.A., J.P., D.L., is a large mansion, pleasantly situated in a lawn near the church; and Cherry Burton House is another pleasantly situated residence occupied by John George Bowes Thoroton Hildyard esq., J.P., C.C.

An old superstitious custom long prevailed, and probably still survives in the parish. When the master of the house dies the beehives are clothed in mourning to secure their future prosperity. This custom, which was once common all over the country, and still prevails in a few out-of-the-way places in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Oxford, Surrey, and Devonshire, had its origin in a supposed sympathy between bees and their owners. Hence it was a common belief that the bees would desert their hives on the death of the owner, unless some one went, and with certain formalities, informed the bees what had taken place, and then trimmed the hive with crape.

CHARITIES. - The poor of the parish have a yearly rent-charge of 40s., left by Hodgson Johnson, M.D., in 1722; and the interest of £40, bequeathed by Ann Johnson, in 1740. The income is distributed yearly amongst four poor widows and four poor families. Each of the former receives 10s., and each of the latter 8s.

Edmund Bonner was presented to this rectory by the canons of Beverley in 1530. He was afterwards Bishop of London, and was imprisoned for his opposition to the Reformation in the reign of Edward VI. He was released by Queen Mary, and much of the persecution and bloodshed of her unhappy reign is attributed to him.

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

Directories

• 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.