Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

On June 13, 1709, an ordinance or rule was made at Whitby for burying their dead at three in the afternoon; which rule was signed by his Grace, the Archbishop of York, by Hugh Cholmeley and John Cholmeley, Esqrs; and by twenty eight more of the principal inhabitants; and it hath been adhered to ever since, with this variation only, that five in the afternoon is now the stated hour for burying from Lady-day till Michaelmas.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Tags

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• Burial (12) W/G ·
• John Sharp (bishop) (1) W/G ·
• Lady Day (1), Feast of the Annunciation, celebrated 25 March, commemorates the visit of the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary to tell her that she would be the mother of Jesus Christ W/G ·
• Michaelmas (6), feast principally of St. Michael on 29 September, one of the four quarter days of the financial, judicial, and academic year, in medieval England the beginning and end of the husbandman's year, hence hiring fairs at this time W/G ·
• St Mary’s Church, Whitby (2) W/G ·
• 📌Whitby (22), town, port and parish on the east coast of North Yorkshire/the North Riding at the mouth of the River Esk W/G ·

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Similar

10 December 1710: A Whitby puppeteer tries to take revenge on a delinquent spectator

12 September 1680: Francis and Mary Huntrodes are buried together at St. Mary’s, Whitby with a poetic epitaph

29 September 1684: It being Michaelmas, the Jolly Pinder of Wakefield (in song) deserts his beasts and pound and joins Robin Hood in the greenwood

25 May 1870: An Ascension Eve performance for tourists of the Whitby Penny Hedge ritual

20 January 1536: Thomas Cromwell’s dissolvers of monasteries, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, report allegations of whoring and theft by William Thirsk, Abbot of Fountains

30 May 1836: Albinia Chaloner becomes the last person to be interred in York Minster

7 June 1703: A list of shares in ship-owning partnerships held by Samuel Pinder of Whitby on this date

3 May 1641: On the day of the discovery of the True Cross, Driffield folk start moving their livestock out of town to high summer pasture, endangering crops

6 February 1906: A reporter gains exclusive access to the entombment of Horatio Bright, a Sheffield steel merchant and lapsed Jew, alongside his first wife and only son

22 November 1884: The railway will not revive lead mining at Grassington, but may bring tourism to the Dales

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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William Wheater interpolates the following near the beginning:

At that period the town was an ancient market town. In 1292 Robert de Plumpton was summoned before the Judges at York to answer for free warren in all his domain lands in Nestefield, Gersington, and Idel, and for having a market and fair, amends of the assize of bread and malt of all his tenants in Gersington, which belong to the dignity of the Crown. Robert claimed the liberties by Charter of Edward, then King, given in 1280, which he produced, granting to him and his heirs for ever a weekly market on the Friday at his manor of Gersington, and a yearly fair there of three days duration, viz., in the vigil, the day and the morrow of St. Michael, except the market and fair be to the harm of the neighbouring markets and fairs; and free warren in all his domain lands of Nestefield, Gersington and Idel so long as these lands are not within the metes of the King’s forest. It would appear to be safe to assume that this prosperity had some connexion with a local occupation beyond that of agriculture. On the 12th Nov., 1465, the King granted letters patent to Sir William Stanley, Kt., and Joan his wife, the widow of Sir John Lovell, Lord Lovell, and to their lawful issue of the Castle Manor and Lordship of Skipton-in-Craven, the Manor of Marton-inCraven, with all the towns, townships, &c., thereto belonging, and also the Mines of Coles and Leede and all other possessions and other appurtenances to the same Castell, Manors and Lordships belonging, with all the other towns, townships, hamletts, &c., veynes of Coles and Leede, and all other possessions in Craven, which came to oure handes and possession by strength and virtue of an Acte of Atteyndre of John Clyfford Knyght, late Lord Clyfford.” This early prominence is a fact highly illustrative of the ancient importance of the now decayed town, once a Roman outpost and garrison, afterwards a Saxon clan-station and a main point in their subjugation of Wharfedale. There is evidence in the Roman encampment at Grassington that lead ore has been smelted (Wheater 1885).

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