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Old maps of Marske village
Extracts from old maps, principally Ordnance Survey maps at One Inch to Six Miles (1:10560) from 1852 to 1951, are shown below. What is perhaps most striking in this series of maps is just how little has changed in the one hundred years they represent. The 1911 below can be panned and zoomed – allowing an exploration of the whole area surrounding Marske on old maps.
1732 Marske Estate Map
An estate map was drawn in 1732 by John Gainford (John Hutton II had inherited the estate in 1731). The map is titled “Survey of the Lordship of Mannour of Marsk in the County of York the Estate of John Hutton Esq”. A copy of the area showing Marske vilage is included below (the original is difficult to read). Notable features include the representation of the Hall before it was remodelled from 1735, a watermill on the south side of Marske Beck, the circular frontage of the church grounds, and a very wide main street with many more buildings along it than today. John Hutton II also built the rectory, adjacent to the church, shortly after this map was drawn.
1854 Map
In the first map (1854) there is no sign of Clints Hall (see History of Clints), which had been demolished around 1842 – all that appears to remain are some laid out gardens, and the perhaps the vegetable gardens of the Orangery. The map shows a pump on the west side of the road through the village, an active Tile Works on the flat land to the east of the village, and oddly wrongly labels the church as St Cuthbert’s (it has always been St Edmunds). Jane Hatcher’s book, based on Timothy Hutton’s diaries (b1779, d1863), notes entries in the early 1840s that describe the setting up of a tileworks to make pipes for ground drains2. See also pages on farming history.
1892 Map
The 1892 map shows the line of three houses on School Terrace had been constructed, and the tile works appears to be no longer active. The School Terrace building has a slate roof – a type of roofing material only available once the railway had reached Richmond in 1845 (see page on transport).
1911 Maps (zoomable)
The 1911 map is zoomable map, and the area around Marske can also be explored. In zooming out on this map it also displays (i) 1 inch to a mile maps from 1885-1903, (ii) 1 inch to four mile maps from 1900-1906, and (iii) 1 inch to 16 mile maps from 1905. In Marske itself the map shows a small reservoir in the field between the school and Clints (the field known as “The Crofts”). This presumably replaced the pump that was shown on the 1854 map as the principle water supply to the village. The smithy is shown at the eastern end of School Terrace – it had a date carved over the window of 1907.
Zoomable historic maps from c 1885 to 1911. Detailed map of Marske is from 1911. {Use two fingers to zoom the map, and one to pan across the map to see adjacent areas.} Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.
1927 Map
Another 16 years later in 1927, if the map is to be believed, the Post Office is shown as moving 25 yards up the hill! Marske Lodge, the house opposite the church, has also been built by this time. This house was built for the Hutton family to stay in whilst Marske Hall was rented out to grouse hunting groups in the late summer/autumn.
1954 Map
By 1954, another 24 years later, little about the physical form of the village had changed! Curiously neither this map, nor any of the previous maps from 1732 onwards shows the ponds along the road to Clapgate – perhaps they were the result of extraction of clay workings in the 1950s or 1960s?
Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. These and other local maps can be viewed at NLS Map Index Page
Return to Landscape around Marske page.