Village of the Week: The lesser known Dales hamlet that looks the same as ever - but isn't

East Witton has connections to some of the most well known places and landmarks in this part of the county.

It is not far from Leyburn, the River Cover and the River Ure skirt around the top of the parish, while the western part is in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and most of the eastern part is in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

However, would it be fair to say, that as far as the villages that immediately spring to mind when someone says Yorkshire Dales heartland, East Witton isn’t one of them?

Possibly. It was a rural and farming village and a place where the people quietly went about their business.

However, as adult education tutor and local historian, Marion Moverley points out, “even in the most ordinary of rural villages there are tales to be told, and interesting characters to discover”.

When The Domesday Book was compiled, East Witton was then just called Witton. However, the East was added by the 12th century to distinguish it from West Witton which had established five miles away.

By 1307, East Witton acquired a town charter and a market but the Black Death was about to sweep through – and it did. The market was then moved to a hamlet nearby called Ulshaw Bridge but it never took off, nor did it resurrect in the same way at East Witton.

As a quick aside while we are here, Ulshaw Bridge, comes from having a bridge that was used as a Roman crossing point, and is now grade II listed. There was also a racehorse called Ulshaw Bridge who was trained at the nearby famous racing yards in Middleham. He raced from 2017 to 2019 and was happily rehomed after retiring from competition.

In her research, Marion Moverley also found that 17-year-old jockey, Thomas Chisholm of East Witton, was killed when he fell off his horse and hit a tree whilst riding in a race at the village.

That was in 1866 and comes after another tragedy where it was reported that in 1796, a fire almost destroyed the village. Most of the buildings were covered in thatch and a strong south westerly wind encouraged the flames with many houses completely burned down.

Most of East Witton was rebuilt in the 1800s by the then Earl of Ailesbury. He used an old estate map as a guide and the houses and gardens were built in the same place as they were in 1627. In 1809 a church was built by the road on the new site and replaced the old church of St Martin, the site of which is now covered in trees and contains the tombstone of conjoined twins.

Village life in East Witton from here kind of settled into something like you’d expect. There were two pubs, a village school, shopkeepers, tailors, shoemakers and butchers and the main source of employment was around farming.

But as Ms Moverley stated at the beginning of this piece, rural life has its moments – and for a small village (even to this day the population of East Witton is only around the 240 mark), East Witton certainly had its moments.

In her research, which included looking at wills, she found some engaging snippets of the people that made up the village.

Samuel Ascough was a collier and wrote his will in 1783 with the following provision for his wife, “And I do order to be given £5 of lawful money to the person that takes my wife to board on or at the time they take her. And if they do not take proper care of her so that she has to be removed the £5 to be returned to them that takes her next and the person that has her when she dies to enjoy it forever ......”

When Christopher Kinlosides wrote his will in 1725, his worldly goods amounted to £2 10s in his purse and one old bedstead and bedding, one old pannell chest, one chair and buffet stool, one iron pot and frying pan and one little old kettle.

One of East Witton’s local pubs, The Cover Bridge Inn, dates back to 1670, and records show that Christopher Dixon of Cover Bridge End, and his wife Mary and others from East Witton, were brought before the Court for Riotous Assembly and an affray upon Henry Aiscough in 1719.

Nearby is Braithwaite Hall, which was a 17th century farmhouse. It is owned by the National Trust and still tenanted. It is open at arranged dates during summer months for visitors to look at certain parts of it.

However, no account of East Witton could pass without looking at Jervaulx Abbey – said to be one of the greatest of the Cistercian abbeys in the region.

The origins of Jervaulx came more than 10 years before the abbey was built at its current location in the parish of East Witton.

It was previously further up Wensleydale but it was bleak and the monks struggled to survive, so they moved to the current site and from then life was thriving.

The Abbey owned half of the valley and was known for breeding horses, a tradition that may have been early links to the Middleham we know today. It was also the original home of Wensleydale cheese.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Jervaulx Abbey was passed down through numerous families and owners and eventually opened to the public as a visitor attraction.

It is now considered the largest privately owned abbey in the country and was purchased by Major William Burdon after he returned to Yorkshire from the Scottish Borders in 1971.

His son Ian took over the Abbey completely in 2001 and, with his family, maintain the remaining ruins of the Abbey and run a renovated tearoom and restaurant for visitors.

East Witton featured as a filming set location for an episode of All Creatures Great and Small, which was called “The Prodigal Returns” and aired in 1990.

The popular TV presenter and journalist, Richard Whiteley is buried here also.