Kirkleatham and Wilton

The place where our family probably first settled in Cleveland and the Kirkleatham Museum

The place where our family first arrived in Cleveland in the mid sixteenth century.

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Directions

You will find Kirkleatham on the A174 heading towards Redcar. Today you can park by the turn off at the roundabout beside the Walled Garden, which is great to see, and good for a coffee, but has nothing to do with the family history.

From there it is a short walk into the centre of town. It is really worth visiting the Kirkleatham Museum, which has some excellent displays in galleries which tell the prehistoric and later story of Cleveland and will bring you into contact with the family’s past. It includes the outstanding relics of the Saxon Burial at Street House, and amongst other things explores the history of mining in Cleveland.

After visiting the museum, you can visit the church in the centre of the village, which was built after Nicholas and Agnes were buried there and Jean was married there, but is worth visiting.

You will also see the Turner Almshouses.

Kirkleatham’s History

It is thought there has been a church at Kirkleatham since the ninth century CE. It has been suggested that it was a location where the body of Saint Cuthbert rested while carried monks before it was taken to Durham.

The settlement was apparently laid to waste during The Harrying of the North.

The village is mentioned in the Domesday book when there were 4 landowners.

One and a half ploughlands and a meadow of 4 acres; valued at 10s in 1066 was part of the Anglo Saxon lands of Leysing but passed to the Crown after the Conquest.

A much larger area of thirty four ploughlands, one villager and one plough team, with eight acres of meadow, woodland 1 league by 2 furlongs and a church, with an annual value of £48, was in the ownership of Earl Siward of Northumberland before the Conquest. After the Conquest it passed to Earl Hugh of Chester.

Another area of five ploughlands and 14 acres of meadow with an annual value to lord of 16s in 1066 was owned by Uhtred before the Conquest and Count Robert of Mortain by 1086.

The fourth area comprised two ploughlands with one men’s plough team, six acres of meadow and a church. There was one freeman, seven small holders and 1 priest. Its annual value was 10s but reduced to 5s 2d after the Conquest. It was owned by ‘northmann’ in 1066 and William of Percy after the Conquest.

It was probably this fourth area, which passed into the ownership of the Percy family, which was modern Kirkleatham.

The northern magnates, the Percy family, arch rivals to the Nevilles of Sheriff Hutton, held the most of the land in Kirkleatham from 1086 to 1608.

Towards the end of the 12th century Ilger de Kilton held a knight's fee in Kirkleatham and from the time of Sir William de Kilton the manor of Kirkleatham was closely associated with the interest of Kilton Castle

In 1232 the advowson (ecclesiastical right) of Kirkleatham parish was at the centre of a dispute that saw local knight Sir Robert de Thweng of Kilton Castle, who styled himself "Will Wither", take arms in a struggle against papal taxation. He raided their properties and redistributed their wealth to the poor.

The parish church is named Saint Cuthberts from the ninth century connection. There has been a church on the site of the current since the eleventh century, though the modern church was built in 1763. The parish records begin in 1559. A fine fourteenth century oak chest, now very dilapidated, was still preserved in the tower in 1923, five feet long, with an elaborately carved front and traceried patterns and figures of beasts at the ends. In the vestry was also an old iron chest.

Nicholas Farndale was buried at Kirkleatham on 6 August 1572.

Agnes Farndale was buried at Kirkleatham on 23 January 1586. 

Jean Farndale married Richard Fairley, on 16 October 1567.

Kirkleatham was acquired by the Turner family around 1624.

Kirkleatham is the birthplace of Sir William Turner who was Lord Mayor of London in 1669.

Sir William Turner gave most of his fortune to found the Sir William Turner's Hospital in June 1676, which today is an independent almshouse. It was remodelled and enlarged in 1742 by his great-nephew Cholmley Turner.

William Turner bequeathed a substantial amount of money to Cholmley Turner, later a member of parliament for Yorkshire between 1727 and 1741, to establish a Free School, built in 1709, that now houses the local museum. His estate established for the care of 40 people: ten old men, ten old women, ten boys, and ten girls. The office of governor or governess falls upon the owner of the estate. Management of the estate was the responsibility of a chaplain, a master, and a mistress.

Cholmley Turner added other Grade I listed buildings, the most notable being the Turner Mausoleum, in memory of his son, and adjoining the Church of St Cuthbert. It is a Grade I listed building on Kirkleatham Lane. The mausoleum was built in 1739–40 by James Gibbs, and restored with added internal cladding in 1839. Entered from the church, it is of Baroque style and of an octagonal plan with south and south-west sides that adjoin the church. It is a single storey with a basement burial chamber. The exterior is heavily rusticated, with an unusually large area vermiculated. It contains the inscription, "This mausoleum was erected 1740 to the memory of Marwood William Turner Esquire the best of sons."

Cholmley Turner's nephew Sir Charles Turner, 1st Baronet, of Kirkleatham, MP for York from 1768 to 1783, continued building upon the estate. His achievement included remodelling Kirkleatham Hall, as well as providing for the further development of the hospital, school, and a library. He also built the adjoining village of Yearby.

George Farndale was witness to a marriage in Kirkleatham in 1773.

Kirkleatham Hall about 1923 Kirkleatham in Jeffrey’s map of 1771 1857

By 1831 the parish included the townships of Kirkleatham and Wilton and with East Coatham it extended to 6,748 acres, of which 34 acres were covered by inland water, 1,699 were foreshore, with 1,966 acres of arable land, 1,617 of pasture and 159 woods and plantations. Wheat, barley, beans and turnips were the main crops grown. Much of the northern portion of the parish was salt marsh.

John Farndale was a farm worker at Kirkleatham in 1854.

Wilton’s History

It seems likely that when the Farndales first arrived in Cleveland, they actually lived in Wilton, the home of the Atkinson family.

Wilton was a significant settlement at the time of the Norman Conquest comprising three landholdings.

The first was an area of two ploughlands and 6 acres of meadow, with 2 smallholders, which reduced in value from 162 to 1s 2d after the Conquest, in the possession of the Northmann before the Conquest and then passing to Count Robert of Mortain with Nigel Fossard as the tenant in chief. It was probably wasteland after the Conquest and its reduction in value reflects the Harrying of the North.

The second area comprised two ploughland with a lord’s plough team and three men’s plough teams, 6 acres of meadow, eight villagers and 10 smallholders. Its ownership passed from Haldor to Maldred.

The third area was half an acre of ploughland which also passed from Haldor to Maldred.

Interestingly the Bulmers, who also had an interest in Sheriff Hutton, took possession, probably at tenant in chief level and by the end of the eleventh century they had built a wooden manor house on the land. In 1170 Sir Ralph de Bulmer obtained a royal charter confirming his ownership.

King John granted William de Bulmer a licence to fortify their manor house in 1210. The manor house was then fortified in stone and the original castle started to develop as a fortified residence. In 1310 a later Ralph de Bulmer obtained a charter of his desmesne from King Edward III acknowledging his ownership of the estate. Sir Ralph carried out further alterations to the building.

It was the same Bulmer family who had married into the Neville family, which led to the Neville’s interests at Sheriff Hutton. In 1283 Ralph de Nevill had a mesne lordship at Wilton, which was held from Peter de Mauley. This level lordship seems then to have followed the descent of Sheriff Hutton, of which the manor of Wilton was held.

In 1536, the estate of Kilton was lost by the Bulmers to the Crown, after Sir John Bulmer had joined the Pilgrimage of Grace. Sir John and Lady Bulmer were executed on 25 May 1537 for high treason under the Act of Supremacy 1534. The lands at Wilton were later restored to another Ralph Bulmer by Edward VI in 1547.

In 1558, during the reign the Catholic Bloody Mary (1553 to 1558), the Wilton lands passed to Sir Thomas Cornwallis. His grandson, Lord Charles Cornwallis, sold the estate to Sir Stephen Fox who was later Lord Holland. Sir Stephen's son by his second marriage was created Earl of Ilchester in 1747 and sold the estate the next year.

The castle had decayed and was in ruins by 1805. In 806 the estate was purchased by Sir John Lowther who demolished the remains of the medieval castle and built an imposing mansion House.

Wilton Castle from John Walker Ord’s History and Antiquities of Cleveland, 1846

The iron industry was developed in Middlesbrough by Bolckow and Vaughan following the discovery in 1850 of iron ore in the Eston hills on land that the Lowthers owned.

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You might also be interested in John Walker Ord’s History and Antiquities of Cleveland, 1846. You can get a copy from Yorkshire CD Books.

There is also the History of Cleveland Ancient and Modern by Rev J C Atkinson, Vicar of Danby, 1874, to be found in many libraries.

The History of Cleveland by Rev John Graves, 1808.

A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2, originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1923.

There is another webpage on Kirkleatham which includes a chronology and reference to sources.