Foxholes Parish information from Bulmers' 1892.

FOXHOLES:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1892.

Wapentake and Petty Sessional Division of Dickering - County Council Electoral Division of Sledmere - Poor Law Union and County Court District of Driffield - Rural Deanery of Buckrose - Archdeaconery of the East Riding - Diocese of York.

This parish comprises the township of its own name and the hamlet of Boythorpe, containing in all 2,526 acres. The township and chapelry of Butterwick was formerly included, but this was detached in 1858, and constituted a separate parish, Lieut.-Col. John Philip Osbaldeston-Mitford, J.P., of Mitford Castle, Northumberland, who is lord of the manor; Colonel Thornton Wodehouse, Chas. Percy Sykes, Esq., J.P., of Kirk Ella; Mr. Ringrose Hudson, yeoman; Mr. Davison Foster, and the rector of the parish in right of his church, are the principal landowners. The soil is a variable mixture of loam and clay; the subsoil is chalk and gravel, and the chief crops are wheat, oats, barley, turnips, rape, and seeds. The low grounds are watered by the Gypsey Race. The land under assessment is estimated at 2,436 acres; the rateable value is £2,141 ; the populalation in 18811 was 312, and in 1891, 252.

The village is situated in a valley on the Scarborough and Driffield Road, about 12 miles south-west of the former place, and 10½ north of the latter. The nearest station is Ganton, on the York and Scarborough branch of the NorthEastern railway, four and a half miles distant. The church (St. Mary) is a handsome cut-stone structure in the Norman style, erected in 1866, near the site of an earlier one. The plan comprises chancel, nave, north aisle, vestry, south porch, and tower at the south-west corner, containing three bells. The chancel is divided from the nave by a massive Norman arch resting on cylindrical columns. Circumscribing the arch are the words of our Lord, "Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath eternal life." The chancel forms an apse, and around the walls runs a dado of beautiful tile-work. Above this the space is richly decorated. The floor is a tesselated pavement. There are four stained glass windows in the chancel, all memorial, and one at the west end. Behind the altar is a stone reredos, elaborately carved and painted in gold and colour. The nave is separated from the aisles by a Norman arcade of three bays. At the west end stands the font, of Caen stone, richly carved. The registers date from the year 1654. The living is a rectory which was given, says Torre, by Goiffrid Bainard to the Abbey of St. Mary, York, and it continued in the patronage of the abbot and monks of that convent till the Reformation, when it reverted to the crown. In the first year of James I. Francis Jackson presented; the patronage afterwards passed to the Gees, and now belongs to Chas. Percy Sykes, Esq. The tithes were commuted in 1771; tithe rent-charge £389. The nett value of the living is £581, with residence, derived chiefly from 418 acres of glebe. The Rev. Richd. Henry Foord, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, is the present rector, and the fourth of the Foord family that has held the living since 1736.

The Wesleyan chapel is a neat structure of brick with freestone dressings, in the pointed style of architecture, built in 1872, at a cost of about £600, for the accommodation of 200 persons. This edifice superseded an older chapel.

The parochial school is a plain brick building, erected in 1887, for 90 children. It is mixed, and under the care of a mistress.

Iron and brass founding and machine making are carried on in the village.

BOYTHORPE, (from Bui, a Scandinavian personal name) is a hamlet containing 976 acres of good loam land divided into two farms. There was formerly a hall here but it disappeared long ago.

[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.