Bedale, North Riding of Yorkshire

Historical Description

Bedale, a market-town, a township, and a parish in the N.R. Yorkshire. The town stands on a small tributary of the Swale, adjacent to the Northallerton and Leyburn railway, near the Leeming Roman way, 8 miles SW by W of Northallerton. It consists chiefly of one street, and has a head post office, a railway station, two banks, two chief inns, petty sessions, court-house, and assembly rooms, a reading room and free library, a parish church, a Wesleyan chapel, two endowed schools, almshouses, a workhouse, and several charities. The church is Early English and large; has a square embattled tower, so strong as to have been used for defence in the Border forays; it contains monuments to the Earl of Arundel and others, and was renovated in 1855. A weekly market is held on Tuesday, and fairs on Easter Tuesday, Whit Tuesday, 6 July, 11 Oct., and on Monday week before Christmas. The circumjacent country is highly cultivated, and has a character for producing excellent riding-horses. Bedale Hall, an elegant mansion, and Bedale Grange, another chief residence, are adjacent. A castle was built by Brian Fitzallan, Earl of Arundel, on a spot now within the grounds of Bedale Hall, but has disappeared. The township includes the town, and comprises 1682 acres; population, 1090. The parish contains also the townships of Firby, Crakchall, Aiskew, Langthorne, East Brompton, and Rands-Grange in the district of Bedale, and the townships of Burrill-cum-Cowling and Hutton-Hang in the district of Leyburn. Population of the ecclesiastical parish with Burrill, 2204. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Ripon; gross value, £2200 with residence. Patron, Sir H. Monson de la Poer Beresford-Peirse, Bart.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

Findmypast, in conjunction with various Archives, Local Studies, and Family History Societies have the following parish records online for Bedale:

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Bedale from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Bedale (St. Gregory))

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for the North Riding of Yorkshire is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Bedale are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following North Riding newspapers online:

• York Herald
• Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough
• Yorkshire Gazette
• Yorkshire Evening Press
• Whitby Gazette