Thixendale Parish information from Bulmers' 1892.

THIXENDALE:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1892.

Wapentake of Buckrose - County Council Electoral Division of Huggate - Petty Sessional Division of Wilton Beacon - Poor Law Union and County Court District of Pocklington - Rural Deanery of Pocklington - Archdeaconry of the East Riding - Diocese of York.

This parish comprises the two townships of Thixendale and Raisthorpe and Burdale, formerly belonging to Wharram Percy, from which they were detached in 1872, and formed into a separate ecclesiastical parish. It is situated on the Wolds, which are here intersected by numerous narrow dales, presenting in many cases wild and picturesque scenery. Thixendale township contains 3,811 acres; its rateable value is £2,400, and the population in 1891 was 234. The soil is subsoil are chalk, and the chief crops are barley, oats, and turnips. Sir Tatton Sykes, Bart., Sledmere, who is lord of the manor, and John Creaker Fawcett, Esq., are the principal landowners.

The village is snugly seated in a deep dale, surrounded by hills, 10 miles south-south-east of Malton, 10 miles north-north-east of Pocklington, and two-and-a-quarter miles south-west from Burdale station, on the Malton and Driffield branch of the North-Eastern railway. The church, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, was built at the sole expense of Sir Tatton Sykes, Bart., in 1870, and consecrated the following year. It is a substantial and neat edifice of grey stone, in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, south aisle, north porch, organ chamber, and central turret, containing one bell. All the windows are filled with stained glass, and the roofs of the chancel and nave are beautifully decorated. The fittings are all of oak, and an oaken screen spans the chancel arch. The churchyard is entered through a lych gate of stone, and in the centre stands a beautiful cross, erected from designs by the late G. E. Street, Esq. The living is a vicarage, worth £200 a year, with residence, in the gift of Sir Tatton Sykes, Bart., and held by the Rev. William Henry Fox, M.A., of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. The tithe rent-charge is £96, and is impropriated.

The Wesleyan Methodists have had a chapel in the village since 1837. The parish school was built by the generous founder of the church, in 1876, for the accommodation of 70 children. There are about 50 names on the books.

There are two large barrows in a field, called in consequence Howe Field. These were opened in 1844, by the Yorkshire Antiquarian Club, when a British vase of sun-dried clay was discovered, deposited in a sort of circular pavement of chalk stone; and a very fine bronze celt has since been turned up by the plough.

RAISTHORPE is a township in this parish; it is in the Buckrose Division of the Riding, and in the Malton Union. Its acreage is returned at 2,112, and its rateable value at £1,301. The population in 1891 was 78. The whole township is comprised in two farms, Raisthorpe and Burdale. The former is owned and farmed by Thomas Bentley Locke, Esq., who is also lord of the manor; the latter belongs to Lord Middleton, and is farmed by Mr. Thomas Bower. The township is intersected by the Malton and Driffield railway, which is carried through the hills of Burdale by a tunnel, 1,774 yards in length. At the south end is Burdale station, situated in the most remarkable of all the chalk valleys of the Wolds.

[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.