Coxwold
Hambleton parish population estimate: 190 (2000)
Coxwold - today
One of Yorkshire's prettiest villages, Coxwold fits well into its surrounding hills, woods and streams. The main street slopes upward between neat varied cottages set well back from the road behind wide grass verges.
Today the village, winner of the 'Best Kept Village' competition in 1968,1978,1993 and 1998; sadly the villages shop and post office have gone, however the village still possesses an inn with a renowned restaurant, a pottery, a furniture maker, tennis courts, a children's play area newly refurbished for the millennium and two historic houses, Shandy Hall and Newburgh Priory which open during the season
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A Historical Tour of Coxwold
Past the hospital 'for ten poor persons' founded (1696) by Thomas, Earl Fauconberg, of Newburgh Priory, the village Post Office and the Inn, appropriately the Fauconberg Arms, stands the old Grammar School (1603) which resulted from the generosity of the local 'Dick Whittington, Sir John Harte from Kilburn, who became Lord Mayor of London.
Then we reach the 15th century church of St. Michael, with its octagonal tower dominating not only the village but also the surrounding countryside. Its pinnacle and buttresses invite the visitor inside to see the 15th century and later stained glass, a most unusual communion rail and four enormous funerary monuments to the Belasyse family which occupy almost the entire chancel. The descendants of this family, which obtained Newburgh Priory at the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, still hold the estate today.
At the western end of the village is Shandy Hall, home of Coxwold's most famous incumbent, Laurence Sterne, the 18th century author and wit, whose works Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey are still in print today, though his sermons are not. Sterne's remains were brought from London in 1969 and reburied by the south wall of the nave but his tombstone, now in the porch, bears an incorrect date of death - 'Shandean' to the last.
Moira Fulton
Coxwold 2000
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| Coxwold Village Website |
Listen to locals Jean Richardson and Dororthy Stevens:
describing life in the now dim and distant 1930's. (courtesy of Yorkshire Sounds)
| Schooldays in Coxwold |  |
| A girls party at the Church | |
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from Baine's Directory of the County of York 1823
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Or click here for a full size map (383Kb) Will require Adobe Reader to view |
Here is also a neat Hospital founded in 1696 by Thomas, Earl of Fauconberg, for ten poor men, who are provided with blue coats every two years, with an annual stipend, and £5 a year laid out in coals for their use; also another Hospital for eight poor women, who each receive 40s. and eight bushels of coals annually, and five yards of cloth every two years. This was also founded by one of the Fauconberg family, but at what time is unknown.
In 1760, the facetious Laurence Steme was presented to this curacy by Lord Fauconberg.
In the church are several monuments for the noble family of Belayse, the most elegant of which is that for the Right Honourable Thomas Belayse. Earl of Fauconberg, (in beautiful statuary) who died the 31st of December, 1710, aged 72; the most ancient, is one for Sir William Belayse, dated 14th of April, 1603, and at the bottom is wrote
Thomas Browne dud carve this tome
Himself alone of Hesselwood stone.
Population, 348.
In 1822, Birdforth, Byland, Newburgh, Oulston and Yearsley were included in the parish of Coxwold.
NEWBURGH,
in the parish of Coxwold, and wapentake of Birdforth; 5 miles NE. of Easingwold : was the estate of Robert de Mowbray, who was created Earl of Northumberland, by William II. in 1092: the, year following he defeated the Scots, at Alnwick, were Malcolm III. and his son Edward, were both slain; but revolting soon after from the King, he was apprehended, and kept a prisoner thirty years in Windsor Castle, where he died. His estate was given to Nigel de Albini, whose son, Roger, assumed the name of Mowbray, and founded a priory here, for Canons regular of the order of St. Augustine, in the year 1145. Newburgh, the famous monkish historian, was a canon regular in this priory about the year 1200. Population 162.
Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. honoured Newburgh with a visit, in 1503, on her road to Scotland, in order to, consummate her marriage with James IV. of Scotland, which had been solemnised by proxy.
