History of Marske in Swaledale

Really ancient history

Click to skip to Cuthbert, Conquest and Churches

The earliest history of Marske is traced through archaeology. The oldest “marks of man” around Marske are “cup-marked” stones. The photo below is the best of around two dozen such carvings in the Feldom Army ranges between Marske and Gayles (other similar carvings are also known in the area¹). Tim Laurie² speculated that ancient pathways, perhaps linking the Vale of York to Ireland, via the Eden Valley and Galloway, may account for the concentration of prehistoric sites on Feldom Moor. Typically these features are Late Neolithic or Early Bronze age, i.e. c 2500 BC³. Their purpose is a mystery, but the time taken to carve them must mean they were significant to someone!

Pre-conquest archaeology

The Marske area is also the site of a number of farmsteads, perhaps dating to 700 or 800AD. One of the best is at Dickey Edge, at an elevated position overlooking two principle tributaries at the head of Marske Beck (another is at Low Feldom). The site can be seen at a distance from the public footpath (the actual farmstead is on the Feldom Range army land and not open to public access). A diagram of the site is shown below. The farmstead had three buildings, and the area to the east of it was cleared of stones as a paddock or for growing crops. Tim Laurie notes that the site is one of only three similar sites in the North of England from the 8th or 9th centuries².

Were the farmers at this remote location missed by the surveyors of the Doomsday book 200 years later? Did their good vantage point allow them to escape being put to the torch during the post-conquest “Harrying of the North”? Or had they moved away before the conquest anyway? We will never know.

The first written history: Cuthbert, Conquest and Churches

Click to skip to Medieval Feudal Manors

The earliest reference to Marske is in connection with the peregrination (“wandering”) of the bones of St Cuthbert.  St Cuthbert was an early saint in the Celtic tradition, around whom a cult developed centred on his bones and tomb at Durham Cathedral⁴.  Monks protecting the relics of St Cuthbert removed them from Lindisfarne after the Danes (“Vikings”) sacked the abbey there in AD 793⁵.  As the monks fled they took the bones and other relics with them as they moved from church to church across the North.  They stopped at Marske after Cotherstone (in Teesdale), and from here went on to Forcett, Barton and Crayke (north of York).  The saint’s bones were later put to rest initially at Chester-le-Street, and then finally in Durham Cathedral⁶.  Curiously the 1854 Ordnance Survey map of Marske (see Old maps of Marske village) names the church in the village as St Cuthbert’s, not St Edmund’s as it is known to this day.

Marske cannot boast a mention in the Domesday book, which documented land use and ownership in England and Wales in 1086⁷.  However, the area surrounding Marske was under the control of “Tenant-in-Chief” Count Alan of Brittany⁸.  Count Alan (1040 to 1093), or Alan Rufus, controlled land at Reeth, Marrick, Barningham, Ravensworth, Richmond and Downholme – so it is safe to assume that land around Marske was also within his control.  Locally in 1086 Gospatrick was the Lord (the Lord has control over the population, but paid tax to Count Alan, the tenant-in-chief)⁷.

Count Alan held all of his land directly from the Crown, William the Conqueror.  His extensive holdings included lands in Yorkshire (previously owned by Edwin Earl of Mercia)⁹, Lincolnshire and East Anglia.  In Yorkshire his land ranged between Middleton-in-Teesdale, Bainbridge in Wensleydale, towards Yarm on the Tees, to the lower stetches of the Swale and Ure north of Ripon. 

Around 1069 King William had led his armies to York and the North in an episode known as the “Harrying of the North”¹⁰.  This was a brutal period of suppression of English rebellions in North Yorkshire and beyond¹⁰.  It has been described as a scorched earth policy, and a genocide, that laid waste to much of the North.  Indeed, lands at Reeth, Marrick, and Downholme are all recorded in 1086 in the Domesday Book⁷ as being “waste”.  Perhaps the same was true of any settlements and buildings around Marske? 

Alan began construction of Richmond Castle, probably following the Harrying of the North, from 1071^9,10.  At the time of the Domesday book in 1086 Richmond had 9 households, whereas Ravensworth had 21 – and so presumably both were important local centres.  The view of Richmond Castle from Marske is depicted in the nineteenth century painting below. Following the Harrying of the North the value of incomes from Count Alan’s lands had fallen by over 60% (from 1066 to 1086) as a consequences of the laying to waste of so many villages¹⁰.  By 1086 Count Alan was the third largest landowner in England.  He died in 1093 and is buried in Bury St Edmund’s Abbey.  One wonders if the name given to the church in Marske, St Edmund’s, is a reflection of this in some way? 

Count Alan’s land holdings in North Yorkshire subsequently became known as the Honour of Richmond, and the area appeared to remain a unified entity for several centuries, and in the three centuries after the Conquest passed through the hands of many Bretons(Victoria County History (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/north/vol1).  Various sections in North Riding, Volume 1, including The honour and castle of Richmond.  Parishes of Marske, Kirby Ravensworth, Arkengarthdale, Barningham.  Accessed 2023.  Published 1914.)).  Count Alan had been unusual amongst the noblemen who supported William during the Conquest in 1066 in that he came from Brittany, rather than Normandy like most of William’s other supporters.  The “long and troublesome connection of Brittany and Richmond”⁹was not broken until the beginning of the reign of Henry IV in 1399.  Henry IV was the first English ruler since the conquest whose mother tongue was English rather than French¹¹ – and this can be seen in the list of rectors of Marske church.

The church in Marske was founded in AD 1090⁵, although the records of the wandering of St Cuthbert’s bones indicated that an earlier church may have been present – potentially on the same site⁵.  The earliest parts of the church building include the Norman Arch over the entrance door, and the small arch in the North Wall^5,9.  The list of rectors goes back to 1225, and is displayed in the church⁵.  Major alterations to the church were made in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries¹².  The rare box pews date from about 1830.  A separate page on the church is found here.  There are no other buildings of this antiquity in Marske. 

Medieval: The Feudal Manors

Click to skip to Industry and Transport

The post-conquest landholdings in the area eventually became organised into “manors”.  A schematic plan of a typical English manor is shown below.  In a typical English manor some land was held directly for the Lord of the Manor’s use, some was held by the church, some was for the use of peasants on payment of taxes (typically farmed as strips), some was enclosed as “closes” for the rearing of sheep etc, and some was held in common.  Most of the farming was arranged in strips (often called “lynchett strips”).  The church lands were not just around the church building, but also included parts of the strip-farming system¹³. 

One can deduce possible similarities between this standard layout and the Marske area.  For example, strips of land farmed by peasants, and potentially held by either the Lord of the Manor or by the church, are seen in several parts of the area, including on the north side of the Marske-Clapgate road (photo below). Fieldhouse and Jennings speculate that these strips in Marske may date from Anglian times (around 500AD)¹⁴.  

The historic manors in the area included Marske itself, Skelton, Clints, Applegarth, Feldom and New Forest^9,15.  All but the area of New Forest has historically always been part of the Parish of Marske.  New Forest (at the head of Marske Beck, and including Helwith and Kexwith Farms) was historically part of manors in Arkengarthdale and Ravensworth⁹.

In the first five hundred years following the conquest a variety of family names dominated the ownership of these manor^9,16. The first recorded undertenants in the late twelth century, calling themselves “de Marske”, took their name from the village; they were followed by the “de Cleasby family” in the early fourteenth century. Other names associated with the village include Conyers (of Hornby), Darcy, (de) Layton, Metcalfe, Phillip, Roald (de Richmond), (de) Saperton and Scrope (of Bolton).  Applegarth and New Forest were also within the orbit of the FitzHugh family of Ravensworth⁹.   

Larger houses were built by the owners of many of these manors, of which the most prominent were Marske Hall and Clints Hall, both built initially in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century^17,14. Other manor houses included Skelton Hall (which is referred to for example in the 1841 census (see Population through time), and which was then re-created as a building in the later nineteenth century), Applegarth and Feldom.  Separate pages set out the history of Marske and Clints Estates – both also have a history that included race-horse breeding in the late nineteenth century, which is described separately here.

From the seventeenth century Marske Estate and Hall was owned by the Hutton family who bought it in 1597.  Matthew Hutton (1529-1606), who had come from the village of Priest Hutton near Lancaster, and was Archbishop of York from 1596 until his death.  A second Matthew Hutton (1693-1758) they served as Archbishops of both York and Canterbury.  The Hutton family also had land and property elsewhere Yorkshire and County Durham¹⁸.  Locally their estate covered land north of the River Swale around Marske itself, and towards Feldom, and south of the Swale around Welburn and Downholme (see Marske Estate page). 

Clints Hall was established in the seventeenth century¹⁴.  The series of owners seem to have been mainly Catholic.  They included the Willance family (of “Willance’s Leap” fame), and the Bathurst family (known today for the “CB Inn” in Arkengarthdale).  The last owners of Clints Hall, in the nineteenth century were the Errington family.  George Errington (1806-1886), who was Coadjutor Archbishop (lead administrator) of Westminster later in his later life (1855-60), and also curiously the titular Bishop of Trabzon (on the Turkish Black Sea Coast)^19,20. A small Catholic chapel at Clints was created after around 1829.  The Hutton family bought Clints Hall around 1840 and promptly demolished it.  Sometime thereafter the Catholic chapel then became a Wesleyan methodist chapel⁹.  (See pages on History of Clints.) 

Industry and transport:  Lead Mining, Road Building and Railways

Click to skip to Farming

Lead mining has had a long history in Swaledale – and more details are recorded here.  Although the lead mining was never as extensive as in areas to the west such as Hurst, Arkengarthdale and Gunnerside, both mining itself and smelting took place around Marske, Clints, Skelton and Feldom.  The earliest references are to a lead mill in Marske in 1590, and to tin and lead smelting at Skelton in 1653⁹.  Smelting continued at the smelt mills at Marrick (visible and accessible from the Marske-Reeth road) until the nineteenth century.

Many of the roads and tracks in the area were shaped as much by the needs of lead mining as by farming.  Tracks from lead mines to the west in Hurst, Arkengarthdale and Upper Swaledale would have connected those mines to lead traders in Richmond.  The bridge over Marske Beck in the village dates from Elizabethan times⁹.  The Packhorse Bridge upstream of Orgate Farm probably carried ores from Arkengarthdale to the smelting mills between Orgate and Clints.  The name of Orgate farm means “Ore Way”.

The road between Richmond and Reeth over the moors was the route used to transport ores and metals.  To the east of Marske it rises above Clapgate Beck, and in the west it followed over Hardstiles (serving the mining and smelting at Marrick) and Reels Head.  The current A road between Reeth and Richmond was not turnpiked until 1836²¹.  The turnpike trust would have levied charges to fund its upkeep.  At around the same time the Huttons rebuilt the road between the village and the new turnpike (including Downholme Bridge across the Swale, and Marske Bridge over the Beck). 

The railway reached Richmond in 1846 with a branch from Darlington²³. One lasting feature the railway brought to Marske and Swaledale was the use of slate, probably from Wales, as a roofing material. In Marske, slate clads the houses that make up School Terrace, as well as Bushy Park Farm, both of which were built in the mid-nineteenth century (see pages on old maps and censuses). Previous to the coming of the railway buildings had been roofed with large, cumbersome, and relatively hard-to-come-by, sandstone “slates”, and before that heather thatch. The railway closed for good in 1970.

Curiously a railway was planned later in the nineteenth century from Richmond to Reeth, and Hawes (some proposals included a tunnel under Buttertubs pass) to a connection with the Midland Railway’s Settle to Carlisle line at Garsdale Head.  The railway was to have been on the north side of the Swale, and if it had ever been built a station may well have been provided to serve Marske.  The plans alas came to naught but are described in detail here²⁴.  A last ditch attempt to build a railway to Reeth was then mooted again before the First World War.

Farming

Click to skip to Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries

Until the last century crops were grown extensively in much of the area: most likely including wheat, oats, barley and turnips.  There was a corn mill in Marske in 1294, and two watermills in 1599, all part of Marske Manor⁹.  The corn mill potentially operated until the mid-nineteenth century when the only (perhaps last) miller in the area was recorded in the 1841 census. 

Sheep and cattle have been farmed for hundreds of years.  It is not known when the system of lynchet strips (see above) was replaced by other field patterns but maps of the Marske and Skelton estates in the eighteenth century show few vestiges of this system.

Like most of England the Enclosures Acts would have changed the look of the land again.  Areas that were previously common land, or subject to farming communally in smaller fields or strips, were divided between individual farmers.  Separate Acts of Parliament were required for each enclosure.  For example, Marske Moor was “Inclosured” in 1842⁹.  In Marske for example this would have led to the Marske Estate enclosing common land to the benefit primarily of itself, and to a lesser extent to the benefit of the larger tenant farmers.  The larger tenant farmers typically had 300 to 500 acres (1 to 2 square km).  Some of the stone-walling that divides the landscape would have been built around this time, although maps of the Clints estate from 1759 indicate much of the walling we see today was in place in the eighteenth century²⁵. The main substantial common land in the area is in New Forest, and this, coupled with a historically larger number of land owners, and owner-occupiers, has led to a very patterns of farming in that area (see tithe map of New Forest).

Coinciding with the time when Timothy Hutton (b1779, d1863) took over the estate from his elder brother¹⁸ Marske Moor was enclosed (1842), Clints Hall was purchased and then demolished (see Clints pages), the railway to Richmond was opened, and substantial investment was made into Cordilleras and Jingle Pot Farms on the 300m plateau between Marske Beck and Clapgate Beck .  The latter included improving the drainage by installing land-drains built from pipes made by opening up a Tile Works in the high quality glacial clays near Marske village (see glaciation and old maps pages). In practical terms this drainage, when coupled with adding lime to the acid soils, promotes the growth of grasses that have been (and continue to be) more able to sustain sheep and cattle²⁶. Subsequent use of the Cordilleras area, as part of the army’s Feldom range, for tank driving practice in the Second World War and thereafter may have contributed to the land drains in that area being damaged²⁶!

More will be added to this site about the history of farming in due course. 

The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Click to skip to Swinging Sixties

In the nineteenth century a consolidation of land ownership in the area took place.  The Marske Estate (Hutton family) bought lands associated with Applegarth in 1814⁹, and land that had previously been part of the Clints and Skelton Estates (see History of Clints) in the early 1840s.  By the end of the nineteenth century the Marske Estate was around 50 sq. km (12,900 acres) and included large tracts of land around Marske, Marske Beck, Feldom, Wathgill and Stainton.  Whilst Marske had become dominated entirely by the Huttons, land ownership in New Forest was in more hands, and to this day also includes substantial areas of common land.

During the nineteenth century and early twentieth century Marske had a school (opened in 1841), a pub which was closed by Miss Hutton in the mid nineteenth century and replaced by the Temperance Hotel, a blacksmith, a post-office, a grocer, and a police house (see census pages).  Meanwhile the church oddly only had one single bell in its two-bell tower: the bell was re-cast in 1888⁹! 

During the nineteenth century Marske’s farming and “estate” economy was relatively stable when compared to those parts of Swaledale to the west which were more dependent on the boom and bust cycles of lead mining. Some emigration took place to industrial parts of England. The page on New Forest tells the story of emigration from Swaledale, including from Marske, to the Upper Mississippi valley in the mid-century.

From around the 1880s onwards the Hutton family were largely absent and the estate was administered by their estate agent (literally).  Apparently not a rabbit was hunted without his permission²⁷.  The expansion of Catterick Army Training area led to major changes to the Estate lands.  Large areas of the Marske Estate were compulsorily purchased by the Government in the 1920s (Wathgill/Stainton), and then again in the early 1940s (Feldom) as part of extensions of the British Army’s Catterick Training Area (see Feldom and Catterick Training Area page).  The Second World War had other impacts on Marske recorded here. Electricity came to Marske, Skelton, Clints and surrounding farms in around 1951 – this followed pressure from the local Parish Meeting to encourage the Electricity Board to “go beyond the confines of the village itself”²⁸. Many of the original electricity poles were replaced in 2023! The Hall itself remained in the ownership of the Hutton family until the 1950s when it was sold to a local builder. 

The swinging sixties:  the feudal age is finally cast off

Click to skip to the last few decades

Timothy Hutton III died in 1957 and his heirs set about disposing of the remainder of the estate shortly afterwards – ending the Hutton family’s formal connection with the area.  Hence, alongside the rest of Britain releasing itself from post-war frugality in the 1960s, Marske was also able to free itself of its feudal shadows.  Just about every building and field was sold in the early 1960s – a total of over 4000 acres. This included around a dozen farms of between 200 and 400 acres that had previously been tenanted ²⁹.  It was a time of enormous change.  The Estate and Hall had even had its own private water supply, which fed the village of Marske – on the sale of the estate plans were drawn up to convert the private supply to a municipal one. The total proceeds from these sales was about £130,000, which once invested may have yielded more than the annual rentals from tenancies of around £4000 per annum (roughly £1/acre). (The extent of the estate, before the compulsory acquisition of land for the Catterick military training area between 1925 and 1940 had been at least 12,900 acres (52 sq km) (see pages on Feldom)).

Before the great sell-off the blacksmiths and Temperance Hotel in Marske had closed.  The primary school also closed in 1960, although it still had around two-dozen pupils – the building was sold shortly thereafter as it had belonged to the Hutton’s.  The post office, the last shop in the village, closed in the early 2000s²⁷. 

In 1988 a second bell was installed in the gap in the church bell tower – completing the pair³⁰.

The last few decades

The beauty of the area has attracted attention for as long as it has been written about.  In the flowery sales documents accompanying the sale of the Clints Estate in 1841 (here) it is said that “Some who have not only traversed the United Kingdom, but who have rambled amongst the Alps, the Appenines, and the Pyrenees, have declared that a Spot of the same extent more favoured for beautiful Scenery never presented itself to their inquiring eyes”³¹!  In more recent times the Yorkshire Dales National Park was created in 1954 to balance the economic and human pressures on the area, with those of sustaining the natural environment and historical legacy³².  The National Park covers the Swale river valley as far north as the village of Marske.  The remainder of the village is a designated conservation area.  In 1973 Alfred Wainwright³³ published his book on “A Coast-to-Coast Walk”, and since that time walkers have passed through the village, often at lunchtime between overnight stops in Reeth and Richmond (see page on Coast to Coast walk). 

The housing in Marske, Clints and Skelton is today dominated by permanent residents, the majority of whom are actively involved in farming.  Most outlying farms along Marske Beck and its tributaries also remain as working farms.  Other residents are employed locally, work remotely in jobs elsewhere in the UK, or are retired.  Second homes and rental cottages are in the minority; and many of the second homes belong to households with long-standing associations with the area.  A balance between visitors and residents has been maintained. 

The Methodist Chapel at Clints closed in the early 2000s and is now a private home.  St Edmund’s Church’s lead roof was pockmarked by a terrific summer hailstorm in 2015.  Wi-fi was installed in the church in 2023.  The church has well attended services most Sundays, as it probably has for the last 800 years.  Both bells ring out.  

1. Swaledale and Arkengarthdale Archaeology Group. Website. Includes logs of various other stone age sites in the area. Accessed 2023[↩]
2. Catterick and Feldom Conservation Group. c1991. West Feldom. Unpublished booklet. A copy of the booklet is here.[↩][↩][↩]
3. Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society. Website pages on Bronze Age Yorkshire – rock art. Accessed 2023.[↩]
4. Wikipedia. Cuthbert. Accessed 2023.[↩]
5. Local contributor 1:  Information sheet in church on history.  2004.[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
6. Raine, J.  1828.  St Cuthbert: with an Account of the State in which his Remains were found on the opening of his Tomb.  Durham.  Retrieved from Google via books.google.com.[↩]
7. Domesday. www.opendomesday.org.  Website dedicated to Domesday Book, including maps and lists. Accessed 2023.[↩][↩][↩]
8. Wikipedia. Alan Rufus. Accessed 2023.[↩]
9. Victoria County History (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/north/vol1).  Various sections in North Riding, Volume 1, including The honour and castle of Richmond.  Parishes of Marske, Kirby Ravensworth, Arkengarthdale, Barningham.  Accessed 2023.  Published 1914.[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
10. Wikipedia. Harrying the North. Accessed 2023.[↩][↩][↩][↩]
11. Wikipedia. Henry IV of England. Accessed 2023.[↩]
12. Wikipedia. Marske. Accessed 2023.[↩]
13. Wikipedia. Manoralism. Accessed 2023.[↩]
14. Fieldhouse, R and Jennings, B. 1978. A History of Richmond and Swaledale. A very detailed history of the area – 500 pages.[↩][↩][↩]
15. National Archives: Manorial Documents Register. Accessed 2023.[↩]
16. Raine, James. 1860. Marske. A Small Contribution Towards Yorkshire Topography. On-demand reprint available from British Library.[↩]
17. Historic England.  Official listings of Marske Hall and Marske Stables. Marske Hall grade II* listing, and Marske Stables grade II listing.  Accessed 2023.[↩]
18. Hatcher, Jane. 2020. Timothy Hutton (1779-1863) of Clifton Castle and Marske in Swaledale.  2020.  A thoroughly well-written book about his life and surroundings. Taken in part from his diaries.[↩][↩]
19. James, Serenhedd. 2016. George Errington and Roman Catholic Identity in Nineteenth-Century England.[↩]
20. Wikipedia. George Errington (bishop). Accessed 2023.[↩]
21. Wright, G.N..  Roads and Trackways of The Yorkshire Dales.  Moorland Publishing Company. 1985.[↩]
22. Rees, David Morgan. 2000. In the Palm of the Dale. a portrait in words and pictures of a Yorkshire Dales village.[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
23. Wikipedia. Richmond branch. Accessed 2023.[↩]
24. The Chronicle.  25 Nov 1882.  Swaledale Railway.  Viewed at The British Newspaper Archive (BNA website).[↩]
25. Richardson, R. 1759. A Plan of the Clints Estate. Coloured estate plan in North Yorkshire County Archives, Ref ZAZ(M)3.[↩]
26. Local contributor 4:  Notes on farming on the plateau.  2023.[↩][↩]
27. Rees, David Morgan. 2000. In the Palm of the Dale.  A portrait of farm and village life written by a regular visitor to the village. The book contains a large number of photos of the village in the 1980s and 1990s.[↩][↩]
28. Local Contributor 15: Letters relating to provision of electricity to village.[↩]
29. NY County Records Office. Catalogue items ZAZ and ZAZ(M) 3. 2023.[↩]
30. St Edmund’s church. Brass plaque on west wall of church. 1988.[↩]
31. Yorkshire Gazette.  18 Sep 1841.  Clints and Skelton Estates, near Richmond, Yorkshire, to be sold by auction.  Viewed at The British Newspaper Archive (BNA website).[↩]
32. Wikipedia. Yorkshire Dales National Park. Accessed 2023.[↩]
33. Wainright, A. A Coast-to-Coast Walk. 1973.[↩]