Danby
Danby at the turn of the fourteenth
century
Directions
Danby is
within the North York Moors. From Cleveland you can take the moor roads
southwards from the A171. From the Vale of York, head north from
Kirkbymoorside, passing through Hutton le Hol;e
and continue on the moorland road, following Blakey Ridge and Castleton Ridge,
to Castleton, and then take the road east to Danby.
Medieval
Danby
There is
abundant evidence of prehistoric habitation south of the modern village of
Danby. Prehistoric roads ascend the moors from the Vale of Pickering and north
of the River Esk, a road passed westward along the
ridge from Lythe over Danby Moor, and, from the number of tumuli in its course,
this ancient road thought to have been one of the most important roads in the
district. About 3 kilometres to the south of Danby, in the moors, is Danby
Rigg, with evidence of Bronze Age field systems. The evidence suggests
habitation from the bronze age until the fourteenth century. Boundary stones
mark ancient field boundaries and a ring cairn and standing stone date to the
Bronze Age. There are about three hundred small cairns in Danby Rigg.
Danby’s name
suggests Scandinavian influence after the ninth century, as it is likely to
derive from ‘the farm of the Dane’. The Victoria
History indicates that Canon Atkinson thought that a Danish village existed
in the fields called the Tofts and the Wandales,
north of the church.
By the time
of the Domesday Book, the only sizeable settlement in the moors was that of Danby in the Esk Valley, which like Kirkbymoorside and Farndale came into the hands
High Fitz Badric after the Conquest. It had formerly been part of the estates
of Orm Gamalson. It had probably
not been saved by its remoteness from the harrying of the north,
its post Conquest value being only 3s. It comprised five ploughlands with
woodland extending to three leagues square (about 10 miles square). The arable
land was probably open townfields and likely to have
been located at the northern end of Danby Dale near the remote church, and this
is consistent with the likelihood of previous Scandinavian settlement in that
same area.
Most of Hugh son of Baldric's lands passed to Nigel D’Aubigny and the Mowbrays.
Henry I defeated his elder brother and
rival Robert Curthose at the Battle of Tinchebrai in Normandy in 1106. After his
victory Henry visited York and Pickering. Henry I redistributed land from Robert Curtose’s
supporters, including Robert de Stuteville to his new men, including Nigel d’Albini, ancestor of the Mowbray family and Robert de Brus. From 1109 to 1114, he appears in
early charters in possession of a large number of
manors and lands in Yorkshire. He appears in the Lindsey Survey made 1115–1118
in possession of even further lands. There is a strong presumption that the
King had given Robert his Yorkshire fee soon after the battle of Tinchebrai. He was probably given about 80 manors in
Yorkshire. This included a large fiefdom in Cleveland. It was probably he who
built the castles at Yarm, Skelton and Danby.
The Bruce family thus came to hold
large estates based on Skelton, Danby and in Kildale.
When Robert de Brus, received the Danby
lands from Henry I, by then the lands included 12 carucates 2 oxgangs in
Eskdale, of which 6 were in Danby, 3 in Crunkley, 2
in 'the two Hanechetons' and 10 oxgangs in Lealholm in exchange for lands in the West Riding.
The original
castle of the post Conquest lord was on Castle Hill, Castleton.
Robert de
Brus founded Guisborough Priory between 1119 and 1124.
Whilst still
a minor, Adam II de Brus was dispossessed of his castle at Danby in about 1145
by his guardian and uncle, William d’Aumale, Earl of
York.
In 1180
Henry II seized the lands of Adam de Brus, including Danby and its forest.
Danby then remained in the Crown’s possession until 1200, when Peter de Brus, son of Adam, persuaded
King John by a present of £1,000 to take back the three manors in the West
Riding and restore Danby and its forest and 400 marks of the payment were
subsequently remitted. In 1207 he purchased the wapentake of Langbaurgh, near
Great Ayton.
Peter de
Brus became increasingly disillusioned of King John and in February 1216, he
had to flee Skelton Castle to avoid capture by the king. He became further
disillusioned by King John when he abrogated the Magna Carta, for in 1217, he
was in open rebellion with those who opposed the king. He fled Skelton Castle
shortly is was taken by the monarch's forces. After
King John's death, Peter had Skelton Castle and his
lands restored to him by the new King Henry III by 1219.
The remote church of St Hilda in Danby Dale, was probably first built in the
twelfth century, but it was entirely rebuilt in the early thirteenth century.
Peter de
Brus’, also called son Peter succeeded him in 1222, and was followed in 1240 by
his son a third Peter, who died childless in 1272. The estates were then
divided among his sisters and heirs, Alice the wife of Walter de Fauconberg; Lucy the wife of Marmaduke de Thweng of Kilton Castle;
Margaret the wife of Robert Roos of Wark; and Laderine the wife of John de Bellewe.
It was Marmaduke and Lucy who received that part of the estate which included
Danby and Lealholm. We know that Marmaduke de Thweng and Lucy, his wife, were living at Danby in 1275.
In 1242 the
lord of Danby granted to Guisborough
Priory the tithes of his hunting and hay in the park under Danby Castle, and in
the four 'launds' or clearings in the forest,
including Souresby, Eskebriggethwoyt,
Karlethwoyt and the 'laund' below Threwekeld or Threllekelde,
now Finkle House and Finkel Bottoms.
By 1272 the
cultivated land had grown significantly in size, with 56 bovates of land held
by serfs and 33 bovates by freemen. This would mean that there were about 90
bovates or 11 caracutes of land, something like 1,000
acres, in cultivation and probably by then extending up Danby Dale to Bramble
Carr.
Danby
Castle, the remains of which lie about 2 kilometres southeast of Danby, was first
recorded in 1242. The castle may have been the 'capital messuage' of the
manor which, together with a small park, was valued at 6s 8d in 1274. It was
referred to as a ‘ruined peel’ in January 1336. There is a traditional story
that it was destroyed by fire and its stone reused in constructing St Hilda's
Church in Danby, though the dates don’t really support this theory.
Marmaduke
and Lucy’s oldest son was Robert. His daughter was another Lucy. During her
minority, in 1285, Danby was granted to William le Latimer, Robert Fitz Walter
and William de Leyburn. By 1295 Lucy had married William le Latimer’s son, also
called William.
Itr was in
1301 that De
Willelmo de Farndale, was living in Danby, and
paid 3s in tax under the Yorkshire
Lay Subsidy collection.
However in
1304 poor Lucy abducted by Nicholas de Meynell of Whorlton.
Edward II
was in Danby on 26 August 1323.
William Le
Latimer, presumably not happy about Lucy’s abduction, obtained a divorce from
Lucy, In February 1311 the Danby manor had been settled on William le Latimer
for life with remainders to William his son by Lucy in fee and then to Lucy and
her heirs.
William, who
was at the battles of Bannockburn and Boroughbridge, died in about March 1327.
His son William died in 1335, when his son William, the fourth Lord Latimer,
was a minor.
Lucy however
lived until January 1347. She married a second husband, Robert de Everingham,
who died in 1316, and later Bartholomew de Fanacourt,
said to have been a retainer in the Latimer family.
William the
fourth Lord Latimer meantime was in the custody of Queen Philippa in 1348 and
he procured in February 1379 a confirmation of the grant of Henry I to Robert
de Brus.
William the
fourth died in 1381, leaving an only child Elizabeth, wife of John Lord Nevill
of Raby, father by a former wife of Ralph first Earl of Westmorland.
Elizabeth, Lady Latimer was living in Danby in her widowhood in 1388 and it is likely that by then there was a more significant castle at Danby than the old fortress at Castleton. The castle became the seat of the Latimers, and their successors, the Nevilles.
Danby Castle
is entirely without earthwork defences and was of a type of military
architecture in vogue in the north in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries, similar to Castle Bolton and Sheriff Hutton.
Plan of
Danby Castle from the 1923 Victoria History
In 1388
Thomas de Etton, and in 1404 George de Etton, on their appointment as master foresters of Danby,
were authorized to appoint foresters, parkers, warreners, pinders
and haywards in all the Yorkshire hunting grounds of the Nevilles, to take and
give 'courses of greyhounds and trysts of bows' to whom they chose, with
all beasts and birds of warren, and to fish where they would, to take timber
for building, and to give 'one or two' oaks to their friends.
Elizabeth
afterwards married Robert Lord Willoughby de Eresby.
She died in 1395, and was succeeded by her son John Nevill, Lord Latimer, a
minor, after his stepfather's death in the following year.
John died
childless in 1430, having settled his mother's estates on his half-brother
Ralph to the exclusion of her daughter. His widow Maud held the manor in dower
until her death in 1446 when the estate reverted to George, the son of Ralph
Earl of Westmorland.
George
Nevill, summoned to Parliament as Lord Latimer in 1432, died in 1469, leaving
an infant heir Richard. Richard was George’s grandson, the son of George’s son,
Henry. Richard died in 1530.
Later
History
The Lady of
the Manor in the 16th century was Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII.
There is a story that Henry came courting her and was caught in a storm in
Danby and had to shelter at a local farm which became known as Stormy Hall. The
story might be correct as Catherine Parr had previously married John Neville,
the third Baron Latimer, who died in 1543, the year before Catherine married
Henry.
Daniel Duck
(1743 to c1825) was the vicar of Danby from 1780. He often appears in Parish
records, including some of the Farndale records, as D Duck. There is a bridge
to the southeast of Danby called Duck bridge. This narrow humpback bridge bears the coat of arms of
the Neville family who owned the manor of Danby in the fifteenth century. The
original bridge was built in 1396, but the one which remains was re-built in
the eighteenth Century by George Duck.
or
Go Straight to Chapter 8 the Pathfinders
or
Read about De Willelmo de Farndale (c1265 to c1335) of Danby.