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Kilham (All Saints)

KILHAM (All Saints), a parish, in the union of Driffield, wapentake of Dickering, E. riding of York, 5½ miles (N. N. E.) from Driffield; containing 1120 inhabitants. The parish comprises by survey 7877 acres, of which 7021 are arable, 500 pasture, and 350 woodland; the surface is varied, and the lower grounds are watered by a branch of the river Hull. Clay abounds, and considerable quantities of bricks and of draining and pan tiles are made; there is also a brewery on a large scale. The village, which is pleasantly situated on a declivity of the Wolds, now consists only of one irregular street, extending from east to west, but was once a much larger place, vestiges of foundations having been often discovered. It had anciently a market, which, from the vicinity and greater convenience of that at Driffield, has been long since discontinued. Fairs for cattle are held on August 21st and November 12th; the latter is also a statute-fair. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £6. 13. 4.; net income, £145; patron, the Dean of York. The tithes were commuted for land and a money payment in 1771. The church is a very ancient structure in the early English style, with a massive tower strengthened with angular buttresses. There are places of worship for Baptists, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists. A free grammar school was founded in the 9th of Charles I., by John, Lord D'Arcy, who endowed it with a rentcharge of £30. At Henpit Hole is a remarkable intermittent spring; another called the Gipsey, or Vipsey, occasionally breaks out after a wet season, and runs with considerable force into the branch of the Hull. Near the Rudston road is a fine mineral spring. Numerous intrenchments and tumuli are to be traced in the parish; the former are referred to the Danes, and the latter are perhaps anterior to the time of Cæsar. In the south-west corner of the lordship is a place called Danes' Graves, where are many little mounds of earth, on opening some of which human bones were found; and in the north-east corner, on the road to Rudston, when digging for sand, several human skulls were laid bare, around which were iron rings, brass clasps, amber beads, and fragments of weapons.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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