Cawood, West Riding of Yorkshire

Historical Description

Cawood, a small town and a parish in W.R. Yorkshire. The town stands on the river Ouse, 3½ miles from Riccall station on the N.E.R., and 5 WNW of Selby. It was formerly a market-town, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Selby, and a fair for cattle, sheep, and horses on 12th May. Area of parish, 2891 acres; population, 1008. A castle was built here about 920 by King Athelstane; given to the see of York; rebuilt in a palatial style in the time of Henry IV. and Henry VI. by Archbishops Bowett and Kempe; held for two years by the Royalists in the wars of Charles I., and taken and dismantled by the Parliamentarians. Many of the archbishops used the castle as their chief residence; Archbishop Matthew, famed for extemporaneous preaching, and Archbishop Mountaigne, a native of Cawood, died in it, and Cardinal Wolsey retired to it after his fall, and was arrested in it by the Earl of Northumberland. The only remains of it are the gateway tower, square and buttressed, and a brick building, which seems to have been a chapel or dormitory, and some fragments of the outer walls. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of York; gross value, £300 with residence. Patron, the Archbishop of York. The church in character is Perpendicular, and was restored in 1887-88 at a cost of £1500; there are also Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels, and a cemetery of 1½ acre, opened in September, 1882. Bricks, tiles, and pottery are made. An hospital, built in 1723, has £84 per annum from endowment; six almshouses are endowed with £30 per annum; a school for girls has an endowment of £80 yearly and a house, and a Feoffment estate produces nearly £300 yearly, applied mainly under a recent scheme to the maintenance of the National School, in apprentice fees, fuel, and clothing.

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 Cawood:

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Cawood from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Cawood (All Saints))

Land and Property

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

Maps

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

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

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

• Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer
• Leeds Mercury
• Yorkshire Evening Post
• Huddersfield Chronicle
• Leeds Intelligencer
• Bradford Observer
• Bradford Daily Telegraph