The Story of Farndale to 1500

The story of the dale of Farndale told by those who still bear its name

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The Farndale Podcast

This is a new experiment. Using Google’s Notebook LM, listen to an AI powered podcast summarising this page. This should only be treated as an introduction, and the AI generation sometimes gets the nuance a bit wrong. It makes an error in suggesting that stone tools were made 20,000 years ago above Farndale, as this could not have been earlier than 10,000 years ago and Joan of Kent was Edward I’s granddaughter and was not killed in the Black Death. However it does provide an introduction to the themes of this page, which are dealt with in more depth below. Listen to the podcast for an overview, but it doesn’t replace the text below, which provides the accurate historical record.

The dale comes to life

Until the early thirteenth century the area that came to be known as Farndale was a wild and remote forested location, occasionally used for hunting, from which small parcels had been granted to monks as a source of timber. An organised campaign of slashing and burning the land for cultivation began in the thirteenth century.

Over time, people started to adopt names which described them by place or occupation. The villeins of Farndale were our earliest ancestors, and included individuals such as Nicholas de Farndale, the first personal name linked to Farndale, Peter de Farndale, Gilbert de Farndale, William the Smith of Farndale, John the Shepherd of Farndale, Roger milne (miller) of Farndale and Simon the miller of Farndale.

That process signalled the start of a spread of our ancestors out of Farndale to the surrounding lands. At that time, such movements were no doubt as bold and significant as later family migrations to Australia, Canada and New Zealand. We know for instance that De Willelmo de Farndale moved to Danby and De Johanne de Farndale moved further afield to Egton.

In this genealogical exploration of the Farndale family, we are therefore most interested in Farndale the place before about 1400. After that, those who chose to define themselves as of Farndale were generally those who had moved on to live in other places. By the fifteenth century there were no members of the family still living in Farndale, and none have returned.

Nevertheless an exploration of the earliest history of Farndale the place is integral to our family story. It is our beginnings. It is the cradle of the Farndale family. It is where it all started.

The name Farndale seems to come from the Celtic farn, or fearn meaning fern and the Norwegian dalr, meaning dale. It was the dale where the ferns grew.

Of course whilst Farndale is today dominated by moorland bracken and ferns, ferns are naturally a woodland plant, so it must have been the ferns of the forested Farndale which gave rise to its name, which it had adopted by 1154. Perhaps it was Edmund the Hermit who roamed Farndale in the early twelfth century and must have known the valley intricately, who first chose its name.

Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age Farndale

Neolithic microlith sites have been found on the moors at Bransdale and Farndale including flint and stone chippings and basic tools. The area between the heads of Farndale and Westerdale is one of the richest series of flint sites in Britain. Large collections have been made at Common Stone, near Ash House, and at Blakey Howe. Petit tranchet microliths or arrowheads, have been found at the Farndale sites.

Sander van der Leeuw has identified the real significance of the evolution of neolithic tool making in expressing the new cognitive ability of the human brain. The simplest early tools had natural points and edges. Our Palaeolithic ancestors then learned to create a sharp edge, by flaking off part of the stone by hitting it against another surface. They then started to create tools with multiple flaked edges. By 20,000 YPB on a global scale, with the new technology spreading more recently in places like the moors, they mastered tool making in three dimensions, by removing flakes at specific angles to create sharpened points, involving the intersection of three planes. Early stone tool making found its ultimate expression in the Levallois Technique, which involved a mental reasoning and understanding of multiple stages in making a tool. This ability emerged from the increased cranial capacity of the human brain from about two million years ago, which in turn expressed a new uniquely human ability for planning and long term thinking. Van der Leeuw found advances in stone knapping techniques reflected a step change in the human mind.

In other words these very earliest expressions of human activity on the edge of Farndale, are representative of a global evolution of humans into thinking, reasoning and forward thinking people.

There are also barrows on the high ground around Farndale. Blakey Howe is a round barrow which includes buried and earthwork remains of a prehistoric burial mound, also known as Cockpit Hill, topped by an eighteenth century boundary stone. It is located eighty metres from the Lion Inn. It survives in an area which was later extensively worked for coal, an activity which has left behind several spoil heaps along the ridge. Referred to as Blakenhow in a Charter of Gisborough Priory in 1200, the round barrow sits on a natural rise on the spine of Blakey Ridge and has line of sight to other prominently located barrows in the area. Constructed of earth with some stone, it is just over twenty metres in diameter and stands two metres high with an ancient excavation hollow six metres in diameter and up to one and a half metres deep. This hollow is thought to have been later used for staging cockfights, explaining the barrow's alternative name.

On the rim of this hollow, on the southern side, there is a one and a half metre high boundary stone which tapers towards its top. On its west face it is inscribed with the initials TD above four more weathered characters. This is a reference to Thomas Duncombe who owned the Duncombe Estate west of Helmsley in the early eighteenth century. It is possible that this stone is a redressed and reset prehistoric standing stone.

These sites are all on the high moorland ground which surrounds Farndale. So it seems likely that early habitation from Neolithic through the Bronze and Iron ages was on the high ground overlooking an impenetrable wooded valley. There is no reason to suppose that the valley itself was a place of settlement, even on a small scale.

Roman Farndale

One day in the second or third century CE, a Roman soldier dropped his arm purse, close to a prehistoric cairn, above and overlooking Farndale. It was later found in 1849 and is currently to be seen displayed in the British Museum. When the Roman legionary looked over Farndale it remained a wild forested place.

As it was found above Farndale, it doesn’t evidence Roman activity within the dale, but it does suggest patrolling across high moorland tracks, overlooking the dale.

Close to the entrance to Farndale, but to its south, between Hutton-le-Hole and Spaunton and Lastingham, Roman remains suggest that Romano British people were living in a clearing between tracts of forest and moorland, on a site which may have been occupied in Neolithic through to Iron Age periods. The site was discovered in 1962 when pot sherds were found. There was evidence of a domestic hearth or oven and animals bones of ox, pig, horse, goat and red deer. There were some similarities to finds at a villa at Langton.  These were likely to have been smallholder farmers producing for themselves, but subject to Roman tax levies in corn or hides. A larger farmstead was found nearby, which included primitive hypocausts. In all there were four isolated farms. These were probably small families of native Britons in touch with Roman culture, but whose daily life probably varied little, if at all, from that of their early Celtic ancestors.

The nearby Roman military fortification at Cawthorn was built for practice rather than for operational military use and there were certainly military routes which passed over the moors.

The wild lands of the Anglo Saxon world

During the chaos of the post Roman years, the wooded dale slept quietly, a place known only to the wild forest animals who made it their home.

When Cedd established the early Celtic monastery at Lastingham in 653 CE, only a few miles south from the entrance to Farndale, he deliberately chose a place at the edge of civilisation. The Venerable Bede when he recorded the event a century later described the area where Farndale lay, vel bestiae commorari vel hommines bestialiter vivere conserverant, ‘a land fit only for wild beasts, and men who live like wild beasts.’ These early monks must have gazed across the wild Spaunton Moor in the direction of the wooded valley that would become Farndale, and felt they had reached a place at the end of the world.

By the eleventh century, on the eve of the Norman Conquest, the lands which would come to be known as Farndale were still a remote place, but fell within the great estate of Chirchebi (later Kirkbymoorside), extending to some twelve by seven leagues (about forty two miles by seven), part of the multiple lands across Ryedale and beyond, which belonged to the Anglo-Saxon-Scandinavian overlord, Orm Gamalson.

Except for the tiny farmsteads around Lastingham, settlement was focused to the south within the protection of the edge of the high ground, but extending into the rich fertile lands of the Vales of Pickering and York. The centres of civilisation were the small urban settlement at Kirkbymoorside and the ancient minster dedicated to Pope Gregory the Great, at Kirkdale. These were the lands where the ancestors of those who would one day extend their area of cultivation into the dales still lived.

The Norman Conquest saw regime change and the harrying of the north brought the northern lands firmly under the Norman yoke.

The nascent dale remained a deep forest during these tumultuous years, but came to be included within possessions of land which the elite class would rely upon as signs of their wealth, and trading stakes for secular enrichment or for immortality. The dales might occasionally have been used for hunting, or for collecting wood and other resources in their more accessible peripheral regions.

As early as the reign of Henry I (1068 to 1135), the woodland in the vicinity of the River Dove was a preserve of hunting. l order that the abbot and monks of York may hold in peace and with honour all their woodland, and the land from the water of Dove to the water which is called Seven, as once they held it before the forest was made. I also grant to the abbot and his successors the whole of my forestry, and he shall cause to be preserved all my needful things, the hart and the hind, the wild boar and the hawk, in the same land. Between the waters of the Dove and the waters of the Seven' is a phrase which often occurs in charters granted to St Mary’s Abbey at York, but it probably refers to the lower reaches of the river Dove and not to that part of it which flows through Farndale.

The lands of Chirchebi were the arena for a game of thrones between the House Mowbray and the House Stuteville.

Farndale blinks into the sunlight

In 1154 Roger de Mowbray, lord of the lands of Kirkbymoorside, gave land in perpetual alms to the brothers of Rievaulx Abbey. The lands included Midelhovet where Edmund the Hermit used to dwell and another meadow known as Duvanesthuat, lands in the valley of Farndale, together with common pasture rights and permission to take building timber and wood for those who stay there. Duvanesthuat is an Irish Norse personal name, but there is nothing to suggest that it was a functioning settlement by the mid Twelfth century. The whole area was regarded as a private forest of the Mowbrays. The grant was made saving Roger’s wild beasts, and it seems to have been anticipated that the monks would want to build a new dwelling there, probably to use as a grange or cote.

A prior grant had been made to the Rievaulx brothers, during Roger’s minority, by his mother Gundreda, which was probably in about 1135. This earlier grant, whilst not referring to Farndale by name, did include land in Bransdale and in Middelhoved. There is a suggestion that some of these lands were already cultivated, or under pasture. This might suggest that there was some early cultivation of these remote places from the twelfth century, but this was probably on a small scale, and may not have extended into Farndale.

Both grants appear in the Chartulary of Rievaulx Abbey, so it is in the records of the Cistercian monastery, founded only a few years previously, that the name Farndale first appears in the historical record.

Midelhovet is almost certainly the area in Farndale known today as Middle Head. Duvanesthuat is probably the place where the Duffin Stone lies today. They both still appear on the Ordnance Survey map of Farndale.

We’re also introduced to the first individual who roamed the lands of Farndale, who used to live at Midelhovet some years prior to 1154. Edmund the hermit of Farndale was a legendary figure who lived in a cave in the North York Moors in the twelfth century.

Edmund has been associated with Hob Hole north of Farndale in Westerdale moor.

Hob Hole

However the Rievaulx record places him firmly in the craggy area of Middle Head, at the northern moorland reaches of Farndale, a perfect place for a hermit.

Middle Head

He was said to be a holy man who performed miracles and healed the sick. He was also reputed to have been a descendant of King Alfred the Great and a cousin of King Stephen. I don’t suppose he was our ancestor, since he was a hermit, but this is our first introduction to a character roaming the place.

In 1154 those living in the communities of the Kirkdale lands would have wondered in awe at the Elven halls of the Cistercians of Rievaulx Abbey, which had risen out of the soil on a vast scale in a nearby valley on the Rye in only twenty years since the Cistercian monks had first arrived there. This was a Lord of the Rings world of strange lands of a Middle Earth, which included such places as Midelhovet and Duvanesthuat, dimly known to the folk of the shires around Kirkdale, where strange monks had so recently arrived, bringing French Cistercian traditions and constructing wondrous towering halls.

Tolkein’s Rivendell Rievaulx

The taming of the lands of monsters and wild beasts

The Stutevilles, who came into possession of the Kirkbymoorside estate, favoured the Benedictine monks of Saint Mary's Abbey, York, and their own small House of nuns founded by them at Keldholme, just to the east of Kirkbymoorside. Rievaulx Abbey therefore went out of favour in its claim to Farndale. In about 1166 Robert de Stuteville granted to Keldholme Priory the timber and wood in Farndale.

In 1209 the Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of St Mary’s in York obtained rights in the forest of Farndale from King John. By 1225 there was reference to pastures in Farndale.

The accumulation of lands and rights by the monasteries was rapid. At Rievaulx, for example, the greater parts of the lands were acquired and a very large number of granges established by the end of the twelfth century. Even by 1170 the monks had acquired all Bilsdale, Pickering Marshes, the parts of Farndale and Bransdale, the vills of Griff, Tileson, Stainton, Welburn, Hoveton, and the lands of Hummanby, Crosby, Morton, Wedbury, Allerston, Heslerton, Folkton, Willerby, Reighton. Some donors had apparently not bargained on such a rapid increase in monastic possessions. It came as a shock to find that the monks were not all that was simple and submissive; no greed, no self-interest. The result was that men like Roger de Mowbray, Robert de Stuteville, Everard de Ros and other men of the nobility, formerly significant donors and founders, began to attempt to evict the monks from some of these lands, though monastic expansion continued.

The monastery at Rievaulx accepted gifts of land to farm sheep for wool and grow food, or from which to extract minerals, quarry stone and retrieve timber for building and repairs. Initially they would accept only undeveloped land because managing tenanted land would entail an engagement with the secular world which strict Cistercian monastic doctrine was designed to avoid. This changed over time. Gundreda’s grant at Skiplam, which lies south of Farndale and a short distance north from Kirkdale, for instance, had never been settled for or tilled. Elsewhere though, there is evidence that the monks began to work some areas which had already, perhaps recently, been cultivated since grants included de culta terra, “of cultivated land”, as well as a grant ubi culta terra deficit versus aquilonem, “where the cultivated land declines towards the north”. So the Cistercians, whilst solitaries, seem to have benefitted to some extent from previous lay efforts. It was often the success or failure of lay farmers in a particular area which helped the monks to see the potential it offered them. They received saltum or rough pasture at Farndale Head on the higher ground and common pasture in Farndale and Bransdale. The subsequent work of the monks in all these places must have resulted in the extension of any previously cultivated land. The Cistercians became active farmers. During the twelfth century one of the gifts to Rievaulx was a pasture with sixty mares and their foals. As well as sheep, they were engaged in rearing pigs. Aelred’s letters suggest that the monks grew flax which they made into linen at Rievaulx. There may have been a tannery during Aelred’s abbacy

The Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx established granges or farms which they owned and managed themselves, where they grew food and raised sheep, cattle and horses, as well as producing various raw materials. Beyond supplying the monastic community at the mother house with its needs, the granges were also expected to produce a surplus which could then be marketed to yield an income. The monks and lay brothers tended to site their granges away from villages. Monastic farms became an independent economic force. The sheep grange was dominant in Yorkshire with many examples, including at Farndale, of donations of rights to pasture a fixed number of sheep.

These were the days of the early evolution of a wool industry that in time would provide Britain with its primary economic power source. Our family story has taken us to the powerhouse that would guide the national progression.

So we can imagine that small clearings emerged in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century in the dales which included Farndale, and perhaps pathways were cleared through the woods for access. It seems likely that this early clearance would have been at the periphery. There might have been some limited pastural grazing and there was certainly removal of timber, though this must have been on a relatively small scale.

In 1229 Henry III decreed that the forest of Galtres, the forest between the Ouse and the Derwent, and the forest of Farndale, were ancient forests and the forest should be guarded, there being no right of passage. The forest of Farndale had become part of the royal forests, reserved for the King.

The Close Rolls in the thirteenth regnal year of 13 Henry III, in 1229 declared that it should be remembered that the walkers of the forest of the county of York came runt and recognized before the King that the whole forest of Gautric and the forest between Usam and Derewent and the forest of Farendal are ancient forest, and that they had been deceived in the perambulation of the forest other times in which it was recognized that certain parts of those forests had been reforested , which they just brought back to the forest; and thence they brought forth the finished writing, which was sealed with their seals.

However in 1233, the Abbot of St Mary’s came to an agreement with the Stuteville family granting free passage through the wood and pasture of Farndale. The Abbot granted that if the cattle of Nicholas or of his heirs or of his men at Kikby, Fademor, Gillingmor or Farndale, hereafter enter upon the common of the said wood and pasture of Houton, Spaunton and Farendale, they shall have free way in and out without ward set; provided they do not tarry in the said pasture.

The feudal lord of the Kirkbymoorside estate, William de Stuteville was succeeded by his brother Nicholas I de Stuteville, the Lord of Liddell. Nicholas was one of the barons who met at Stamford in 1216 and fought against King John at the Second Battle of Lincoln on 20 May 1217 and he was taken prisoner there by William Marshall. The manors of Kirkbymoorside and Liddell were required to pay 1,000 marks as his ransom. His son Nicholas II de Stuteville in 1232 quitclaimed, or relinquished, common of pasture in Farndale to the Abbot of St. Mary's, York.

His son, Nicholas II de Stuteville, gave to St Mary’s Abbey, who held the nearby manor of Spaunton, as much timber and wood as they required together with pasture and pannage of pigs in Farndale. The contemporaneous documents suggest that Farndale was regarded primarily as a resource for timber and pasture in the mid twelfth century, with little evidence of settlement. References to the Botine Wood and the Swinesheved suggests that cattle and pigs were being grazed there. The Abbot grants that if the cattle of Nicholas or of his heirs or of his men at Kikby, Fademor, Gillingmor or Farndale, hereafter enter upon the common of the said wood and pasture of Houton, Spaunton and Farendale, they shall have free way in and out without ward set; provided they do not tarry in the said pasture.

Since 1154 the Cistercians had interests in Farndale and may have used it first to supply wood to their monastic empires and might also have used meadows as pasture for the sheep which would give them their wealth.

Settlement

By about 1230, perhaps a little earlier, the House Stuteville, were putting villeins into their land holdings in Farndale, to clear the land, and then for all time coming, or so they hoped, to allow them to eek out a desperate living from the land, whilst more importantly paying rent, agreeing to loyalty, and providing service when required, to the Stutevilles for the right to do so. Thereby, in a clever rouse, the Stutevilles turned the areas of their landholdings that had provided them with little benefit into a profitable enterprise.

We might suppose that the clearing of Farndale was undertaken by the villeins who were then put onto the land to work it, compelled to pay rents of 1s per acre for tiny holdings of marginal land. The evidence of rents being applied in Farndale by 1276 suggest a campaign on a large scale. The villeins who were relocated into Farndale were likely to have been Anglo-Saxon-Scandinavian agriculturalists of the lands around Kirkdale reduced to serfdom by the Norman yolk.

In 1233, Nicholas II de Stuteville died, and the estate passed to his daughter Joan, the wife of Hugh Wake, who became the Lady of Liddell and to his other daughter Margaret, wife of William de Mastac.

By 1241, Joan’s first husband was dead and she married Hugh le Bigod. When her sister Margaret died in 1255, Joan inherited Margaret’s lands too.

Regarding the royal forests, in 1253, The King committed to Hugh le Bigod the whole forest of Farnedala, which the king had lately recovered by consideration of the court against the abbot of St. Marie Ebor, to be kept until the return of the King from Vasconi, or as long as it pleased the king. This was confirmed in 1255, for a payment of 500 marks. The Close Rolls of 1255 confirmed For Hugh le Bygod. It was ordered to John de Lexinton, justiciar of the King's forest beyond Trent, that the charter which the king caused to be made to Hugh le Bygod concerning the forestry of the forest of Farendale he shall make a law before him, and that grant shall be held according to what is contained in the same charter: and he shall admit the foresters, greenkeepers and other ministers of the forest for whom the same Hugh is willing to answer for his presentation in the aforesaid forest.

The Calendar of the Liberate Rolls for 1255 also ordered Allocate to Hugh le Bygot, in his fine of 500 marks for the forestership of Farndale, paid at Westminster to Ernald de Mone Pesaz. The associated index entries: Farndale, Farendale, foresterhip of, Forests, chaces, hays, parks, warrens and woods named … Farndale … forestership of Farndale.

The Close Rolls at this time suggests a dearth of deer in the area to the south of Farndale. The Keeper of the Royal Forests reported the forest of Spaunton between the Dove and the Seven is so confined that deer do not oft repair thither. The Stutevilles’ attention was starting to turn from hunting to cultivation.

So Joan, the Lady of Liddell, through husbands Hugh Wake and Hugh le Bigod, held the primary interest in the lands which included Farndale by 1233. The King withheld the forests, including the Farndale forests, from 1229 as royal hunting grounds, but this did not appear to stop the Stutevilles starting to clear areas of land for agriculture, whilst the deeper forested areas had become royal hunting grounds. By 1253 the Farndale forests passed back into Stuteville hands for payment of a significant sum of money.

In the mid thirteenth century, Lady Joan de Stuteville successfully prosecuted the Abbot of St Mary’s York, for exceeding his rights taking wood from Farndale by assarting 100 acres of land, perhaps clearing the offending area of its trees. Joan de Stuteville was also said to be afforesting her woods here in the reign of Edward I (1239 to 1307). So this suggests a pattern of clearance and reforesting across the dale. It must have been a busy place.

An Inquisition in 1249 recorded holdings at Farndale. Tuesday the eve of the Annunciation, 10 Edward I: Kerkeby Moresheved. The manor (full extent given with names of tenants), including the park a league in circuit with 140 deer (ferarum), a wood called Westwode a league in length, a messuage and great close in Braunsedale held by Nicholas son of Robert Nussaunt rendering an arrow at Easter, rents of nuts and woodhens, 'gersume,' marchet and the tenth pig, a messuage called La Wodehouse, waste places called Coteflat, Loftischo, Godefreeruding, Harlonde, and beneath Gillemore Clif, dales called Farndale and Brauncedale, and waste places called Arkeners and Sweneklis, held of Roger de Munbray. Knights' fees pertaining to the manor.

There is an undated Yorkshire Deed from about this time: Grant by Nicholas Devias, being in good health and lawful power (in mea bona sanitate et ligia potestafe) to Alice his wife, for life, of an annual rent of 10 li, which lady Joan de Stotevile gave him for his service, namely, 20s. from the land in Farndale, held of him by Adam de Ellerschae, and eleven marcs from his two water-mills in Famedale, and two and a half marcs from his water-mill in Brauncedale, payable half-yearly at Michaelmas and Easter. Paying yearly at Christmas one silver penny for all service, etc. Witnesses, Sir Richard Foliot, Sir Adam Newmarch [de Novo mercato), Sir Henry Biset, Sir Thomas de Hetun, William de Pligt Peter de Giptun, Clement de Nortun, Robert de Slucropt, Colin de Nortun and many others.

The location of the now disused High Mill, now known better for the Daffy Café.

By the mid thirteenth century Farndale was a thriving community of two watermills and we can meet Simon the Miller of Farndale, who was clearly a substantial figure. We can also meet Nicholas de Farndale, who might be the first to have adopted the name Farndale, and who must have been one of the earliest pioneers of the dale.

The River Dove would have provided an optimal source of power for milling. There was a nineteenth century watermill at High Mill on Mill Lane south of Church Houses, Farndale, which is almost certainly the site of an earlier mill. The hamlet of Low Mill was also the site of an earlier mill on the River Dove and is located where the fast flowing West Gill Beck flows down from the high ground to meet the River Dove. Both these mills were located centrally within the valley. There are also remains of a watermill at Low Elm House in neighbouring Bransdale.

Our understanding of the thirteenth century dale is greatly improved by medieval records which provide us with three remarkable snapshots of life in Farndale in 1276, 1282 and 1301.

The Inquisition Post Mortem taken in 1276 after the death of Joan de Stuteville, the Lady of Liddell, reveals cultivation on a grand scale. In Farndale, bonded tenants were paying a standard rent of 1s for each acre. This produced total income of £27 5s, suggesting a cultivated acreage in Farndale of 545 acres (for those who like the maths, 27 x 20s in the pound plus 5s). There were seven cottars or small scale farmers recorded, and one of the two watermills we know to have existed by 1249. The tenants of Duthethwayt, which presumably is Duvanesthuat of the 1154 Rievaulx grant, further up the dale, was recorded separately.

The Inquisition Post Mortem of Joan’s Son, Baldwin Wake, taken only six years later in 1282, shows a considerable increase over that of 1276. The Farndale rents then amounted £38 8s 8d together with a nut rent and a few boon works so if the rate of 1s per acre still applied, this would give a total acreage held in bondage of 768 acres. For the first time the number of villeins were given. There were twenty five in neighbouring East Bransdale and ninety in Farndale. Amongst these folk must have been our ancestors.

Baldwin’s son, John Wake enfeoffed the King of his lands in 1298. In other words he bent the knee. The lands were regranted to him and his wife Joan in fee simple in the same year.

Now this is where it gets a little complicated because there are a lot of Joans. We have already met Joan de Stuteville, the Lady of Liddell who was the daughter of Nicholas and the sister of Margaret. She married Hugh Wake. It was at this point that the Stuteville inheritance became that of the Wake family. Joan later married Hugh le Bigod.

We have also already met Baldwin Wake, Joan’s son, who took homage from the King in 1276. Baldwin’s son was Sir John Wake, the first Baron Wake of Liddell who inherited the estate in 1282 but for some reason did not take homage from the King until 1298 (or perhaps this was a refreshed bending of the knee to Edward I Longshanks, who reigned 1272 to 1307). Sir John Wake married another Joan, Joan de Fiennes. Sir John died in 1300 and his son, Thomas Wake, inherited before he had come of age.

Joan de Fiennes outlived her husband, Sir John, when he died in 1300, and became another Lady of Liddell during the minority of her son Thomas Wake. The custody of the boy was granted to Henry de Percy, who transferred it to the Society of the Ballardi of Lucca. The Society of Bellardi Merchants of Lucca, with interests in London and Paris, were money lenders to the Kings of England and France.

The young Thomas’ minority interests were ratified by the King, but later, not recollecting his confirmation of the grant, he caused the manor, then in the hands of the merchants, to be taken into his hands, and he delivered it with its fees &c. to the said Thomas, a minor and in his custody, who since he has held the said manor has received £340 out of the issues thereof, for which Henry de Percy has made supplication to the king to cause satisfaction to be made to the merchants for his exoneration. The King promised to make payment of the sums taken on the estate to Thomas.

Sir John also had a daughter, Margaret Wake, who married Edmund, the sixth son of Edward I, with whom she had four children, including another Joan, who we will meet again soon.

The Stuteville history will continue to provide an exotic subplot to lives of the ordinary folk of Farndale.

In 1301 Edward I levied a tax of one fifteenth of the value of every person's goods, to pay for his war against the Scots. Collectors were appointed for various parts of the country, and the returns for the North Riding of Yorkshire still exist in their entirety in the Public Record Office. The lay subsidy assessments of 1301, imposed by Edward I to fund his wars with Scotland, give us another detailed picture of the settlement pattern in Farndale, listing the contributors and bearing the names of the farms which are still to be found at Farndale today and which are scattered all around the dale.

The list of thirty five tax payers showed that they paid varying amounts from 3d to 7s 9d paid by Simon the Miller of Farndale. By comparison at that time a cart horse and a cow each would cost 5s; a sheep 12d; a bullock 2s; a bed 4s; a pound of wool 3s and a poor robe about 4s. In Farndale, thirty-four men and one woman, a widow, contributed a total of £3 7s 33d. This compared to £2 3s 83d paid by twenty seven inhabitants of Kirkbymoorside (in addition to which the lord of the manor, John Wake, himself paid over two pounds), and £3 8s 43d paid by thirty six villagers of Helmsley. Farndale was clearly a thriving community.

Since the tax was a fifteenth of the value of each person’s wealth, the wealth of these individuals can be calculated by multiplying the tax by fifteen. Simon the Miller had a wealth of about £5 16s 3d, perhaps about £4,500 in today’s money, the value of about six horses or 12 cows. Simon the Miller’s tax payment of 7s 9d in 1301 was almost as much as that paid by all ten of the Bransdale contributors and greatly in excess of what the majority of the individual inhabitants of Ryedale paid.

That Edward intended to tax even the very poor is shown by the fact that some of the amounts paid by individuals in other parts of Ryedale were as low as one and a half pennies, meaning that their entire goods were valued at less than half a crown. The record of the subsidy imposed on Farndale is therefore likely to have been a record of the whole working population of the dale. The record also evidences the range of wealth in the dale at the turn of the fourteenth century.

We are also provided with a glimpse of the settlement pattern, listing several contributors bearing the names of the farms which is still to be found at Farndale. For instance Wakelevedy is known as Wake Lady Green today.

Monkegate today provides modern accommodation at Monket House.

Ellerscaye and Ellrischaye is called Eller House today.

Westgille and Westgil’ is the West Gill Beck which flows rapidly down from the high lands to Low Mill, where it joins the river Dove.

It has also been suggested that Almeheved is probably a reference to the property which is known as Elm House today, at the northern extent of the east daleside road.

Other individuals such as John de Brannordale, Godfrey de Hoton and William de Fademore, were clearly inhabitants of the dale who had come originally from outside Farndale, and took the names of their places of origin.

So during the thirteenth century, we have a picture of serfs, who together formed a body of folk who must have included our ancestors, toiling the soil at first in a dreadful battle of survival, but who by the end of that century seem to have acquired a degree of wealth, sufficient to be tapped for relatively significant royal taxes.

Those individuals who came to be the first inhabitants of Farndale had been plucked from the primeval sludge of Bronze Age Beaker Folk, Iron Age Settlers, Brigantes and Deirans who had roamed the moors, dales and vales of Yorkshire since about 9,000 years BCE, most likely settling by Roman times in the cultivated lands around Kirkdale, a place of even greater antiquity, which has left us the remains of interglacial age hippopotami.

There are a large number of individuals from Farndale at this time who can be individually identified. I have assembled those who were most likely to have been ancestors of the modern Farndale family into a probable genealogical tree. We are introduced to the hard working agriculturalists who first cleared the land and started working the virgin soil in the thirteenth century. The second generation included a large number of their wayward offspring who regularly participated in poaching expeditions, though to be fair to them, they might have been driven to supplement their diets in desperate times of poor harvests and plague. By the end of the thirteenth century the pioneers then left Farndale to start lives in new lands, establishing our family as they did so.

The Eyre Court of 1334, in the eighth regnal year of Edward III, on the pleas of the forest of Henry, earl of Lancaster, of Pikeryng, held at Pickering before Richard de Wylughby [Willoughby], Robert de Hungerford and John de Hambury, justices itinerant on this occasion assigned to take pleas of the said forest in Yorkshire, recorded that in 1310 to 1311 (the fourth regnal year of Edward II), one oxen and two stirks [a stirk is a yearly bullock or heifer], which were of Robert the smith of Farndale, worth 7s 4d; and 5 oxen, which were of Walter, son of the same Robert, of the same, worth 20s; and 3 oxen, which were of John son of Simon of the same, worth 12s; and one cow and one stirk, worth 4s 8d, which were of Hugh Leverok of the same; and 4 oxen and 3 stirks, which were of Simon Cundy of Kirkeby Morset [Kirkbymoorside], worth 21s; and 6 oxen, which were of William Stibbyng of Farnedale, worth 24s; and 5 oxen, 4 cows and 4 stirks, which were of William de Waldehus of the same, worth 38s 8d; and 4 oxen and one stirk, which were of John, son of Walter of the same, worth 17s 8d; and one cow which was of Alice daughter of Roger, worth 3s; and 6 oxen, 2 bullocks and 2 beasts of burden, which were of Henry, son of Hugh of the same, worth 38s; and 6 oxen and one cow, which were of Nicholas, son of Adam of the same, worth 27s; and 6 oxen, which were of Hugh del Radmire of the same, worth 24s; and 5 oxen, which were of William ad Portam [literally means ‘of the gate’] of the same, worth 20s; and 9 oxen, one cow and one stirk, which were of John the shepherd of the same, worth 41s 8d; and one bullock, which was of Roger, his groom, worth 4s; and one ox and one bullock, which were of Nicholas de Harland of the same, worth 7s; and 4 oxen and two cows, which were of Alan de Wrelton of the same, worth 19s; and 2 bullocks and one ox, which were of Stephen son of William, worth 12s … were found in the said forest [of Pickering] there by the watch, and they were forfeited to the lord at the said price. Therefore each of them is to answer for the price of his beasts. Sum total forfeited, £30.

The list is of a large number of Farndale folk by 1334 and suggests they were heavily penalised for allowing their animals to stray into the royal forest. Although the reference is to Pickering Forest, it must have referred to the parts of Farndale which were subsumed into the great royal forest of Pickering. It suggests a tension between the new farming folk of Farndale, who had by then been cultivating its land for a century, with the forest laws of the ancient royal forests.

In 1315, one of Britain's worst storms halved the crop yield and half a million died as a result. Thus, the price of crops increased driving many to hunt illegally. Folk took to hunting but where they did so in royal forests, such as Pickering, it was a significant risk. Such men must have been skilled bowmen, potentially also those who might be called upon to fight for their king. However, when they hunted in the royal forests they were criminals. The hunters were chased by the king's foresters and were often caught and hauled up at Pickering Castle to answer for their crimes. Such exploits later sparked the legend of Robin Hood, a Yorkshire legend before its association with Nottingham. It was also these skilled bowmen who in time would form the backbone of the successful armies at Crecy and Agincourt. The story of the many folk of Farndale whose lives were recorded because they were summoned for poaching offences is told on another website page.

A petition of 1325 related to Thomas Wake’s costs for his service with the King with foot soldiers at Berwick and Edinburgh. It also asked the King to order that the Earls of Leicester and Richmond and Arundel be ordered to accept one homage for Kirkby in the fee of Mowbray to pay off their demand for homage. Thomas Wake was John Wake’s son, and Lord of the Stuteville-Wake estates between 1300 and 1349, but, it will be recalled, in his minority until about 1318. The Stutevilles continued to hold the primary interest in the estates as tenant in chief, but strictly the feudal overlordship was still held by the Mowbrays.

The 1325 petition also asked that the justice of the forest should be commanded to deliver his wood of Farndale. It seems that the Wakes were in a dispute with the forest administration regarding rights in Farndale. The King seems to have replied that he should deliver a writ to the justice of the forest to certify the reason for taking the wood. The King (Edward II, 1307 to 1327) was asking for the case for the defence, before making his judgement.

In a subsequent document, Thomas Wake then asked that the justice of the forest should be commanded to deliver his wood of Farndale and added that he seized it without reason. Thomas also asked in the document that the burgesses of Hull should be ordered not to build any new road on his land and to destroy the roads they had made during the period when Thomas had been underage, as Thomas argued that he was entitled to his inheritance in full.

A few years after he had taken full control of his estates, he seems to have been asserting control over interests that were perhaps exploited during his minority.

Thomas Wake requests that the king command his Justice of the Forest north of the Trent to deliver to him his wood of Farndale, which he has seized into the king's hand for no reason. He also asks him to order the burgesses of Hull not to build any new road on his land, and to destroy the roads they made when he was under age, as the king is obliged to render him his inheritance in full. Coram rege. With regard to the wood, the Justice of the Forest is to be ordered to do justice to him, according to the law and usage of the forest. With regard to the roads, he is to have recourse to common law. Date given on the evidence of Rot. Parl. JRS Phillips.

It seems that the justice of the forest was then ordered to do justice to Thomas Wake, according to the usage and law of the forest. However with regard to the roads, Thomas should resort to the common law. The King seems to have fudged his decision, as judges so often do.

Friars, Plague and a Fair

The different orders of friars were well represented in the area by the fourteenth century. In York itself there were houses of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Austins, and of the short-lived Order of the Sack. In 1257 Walter de Kirkham, Bishop of Durham, granted four acres of land at Osmotherley for the establishment of a priory of Crutched Friars, and on 30 July 1345 Thomas Lord Wake of Liddell had royal licence to grant a toft and 10 acres in Blakehowe Moor in Farndale for the foundation of a house of the same order. It is generally assumed that these Friars never established themselves in Farndale, but therein lies a mystery.

The Patent Rolls recorded that at Reading. Licence for the alienation in Frank Almoin by Thomas Wake of Lyde to the friers of the Holy Order of the Holy Cross of a toft and 10 acres of land in the moor of Blakenhowe in Farndale, for them to found a house of the Order there and to build an Oratory and dwelling houses.

The Friars of the Holy Cross, also called the Crutched, Crouched, or Crossed Friars, were not one of the four principal Mendicant Orders of Friars and they struggled in their bid for recognition. They began to settle in York at the beginning of the reign of Edward II but were discountenanced by the Archbishop of York.

However four years later, in the Inquisition Post Mortem on the death of Thomas Wake in 1349, Farndal. A house with a chapel of the brethren of Charity (de sancta Caritate)(“of holy charity”) was of the avowson of the said Thomas (referring to Thomas Marcand of Aton) and the said brethren hold their tenements there of the said Thomas in frank almoin.

The Brethren of Charity, de Sancte Caritate, "of Holy Charity”, do not appear elsewhere in the medieval records. The Charters and Patent Rolls of this period do not refer to any grant of land in Farndale to a religious community other than these references. Religious bodies were often granted land for building which they never in fact occupied. It was partly in an attempt to prevent abortive grants of land that Edward I passed the Statute of Mortmain in 1279. Yet these Brethren of Holy Charity do seem to have had a chapel at Farndale.

The 1345 record indicates that the chapel was to have been built in the moor of Blackhowe in Farndale. This suggests that the chapel was not built in the valley, but on Blakey Howe. It has been surmised that the Lion Inn at Blakey might have been built on the same site as the friars’ chapel.

The Inquisition post mortem on John's estates recorded 'Advowson of the chapel of the brethren of the Holy Trinity in Farndale. Trinity for Charity may have been a scribe's error. In the later Middle Ages there was some confusion between the Trinitarians and the Friars of the Holy Cross. It is therefore possible that the Brethren of Holy Charity who had their house and chapel in Farndale, were the same people as the Crutched Friars to whom Thomas Wake gave land in 1347.

There was therefore likely to have been a friary established above Farndale at the windy Blakey Howe in about 1345.

By 1349, merchant ships transported rats carrying the black death to Britain. The black death soon swept through the villages in the south and then the north of Britain. Soon it swept through most villages in Britain.

Plantagenet Farndale

Thomas Wake died childless in 1349 as the Black Death swept across the country. Presumably the date was not a coincidence.

His sister was Margaret Wake.

Margaret’s first husband, John Comyn, had been killed at Bannockburn in 1314. A decade later in 1325 Margaret had married Edmund of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward I. So Margaret Wake of Stuteville descent, had married into the Plantagenet royal dynastic line. In modern parlance, she was punching above her weight.

When Edward I had died, Edmund loyally supported his half brother, Edward II. Even as Edward II’s popularity grew, after failures in France and favouritism of the unpopular Piers Gaveston and the Dispenser family, Edmund stayed loyal. In 1321 he was made Earl of Kent and assumed vast landholdings with that title. It was at this time that Edmund married Margaret Wake.

Unpopularity then led to Queen Isabella’s plot with her lover, Roger Mortimer, which led to invasion and Edward II’s relinquishment of the throne to Edward and Isabella’s son, Edward III. Edmund, who had steadfastly supported Edward, had finally joined the Mortimer rebellion, despising the Dispensers more than he distrusted Mortimer. He was initially rewarded by the new regime with new lands previously held by the Dispensers.

Edward III’s minority was under the de facto control of Mortimer. The Mortimer administration itself became unpopular for its maladministration and failures in the struggle with Scotland. In 1328, Edmund and his brother Thomas, Earl of Norfolk, joined with Henry of Lancaster in a plot against the Mortimer regime, but had cold feet when success was not assured.

Then, in 1330, a second plot against the royal regime by Edmund was uncovered. Edmund was condemned to death as a traitor. His lands were stripped from him. The disgraced Margaret and her young family were placed under house arrest at Arundel Castle in Sussex.

And yet, it was probably the execution of the young King, Edward III’s brother, that stirred the King to realise the threat that his Protector posed to his own regime. Aided by his close companion William Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu, and a small number of other trusted men, Edward took Mortimer by surprise and captured him at Nottingham Castle on 19 October 1330. Mortimer was executed and Edward's personal reign began. Among the charges against Mortimer was that of procuring Edmund's death, and the charges against the late Earl of Kent were annulled.

So it was later in the same year that Margaret Wake’s husband had been executed for treason, and her family shamed, that she had the Kent lands returned to her, as Countess of Kent.

Margaret was a powerful woman, married into the Plantagenet dynasty, with extensive landholdings, though having experienced the trauma of her husband’s execution and her short-lived shaming as the widow of a traitor.

When her brother Thomas Wake died of the plague in 1349, Margaret Wake assumed the old Stuteville lands, including Farndale. By now the Countess of the vast landholdings of the duchy of Kent, these lands were added to her now vast noble landholding.

Margaret’s misfortune had not ended however, and only four months later, on 19 September 1349, Margaret too, died from the plague.

The old Stuteville lands passed to the son of Margaret and Edmund, John Wake, who became the third Earl of Kent in September 1349. By 1352, he too was dead. The plague was taking its toll on the family.

It was therefore that in 1352, the twenty six year old Joan, brother of John, daughter of Margeret Wake and the executed Edmund of Woodstock, granddaughter of Edward I, brought up in the royal court, inherited the titles of Fourth Countess of Kent and Fifth Baroness Wake of Liddell, and with it the Farndale lands.

Meantime, in a sign that social distancing was not taken so seriously in the Yorkshire dales, despite the Black Death, an Inquisition taken at Kirby Moorseved in the twenty third year of the reign of Edward III, in 1350, recorded a yearly fair, and Wednesday market in Farndale by that time.

The most beautiful woman in all the realm of England

It is worth a diversion to savour in the life of Farndale’s most exotic proprietor who took title to the Stuteville lands when her brother John died in 1352.

Farndale was part of the lands which fell to the Stuteville/Wake and Kent heir, Joan Plantagenet (1328 to 1385), who came to be known as the Fair Maid of Kent, the daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, and Margaret Wake, 3rd Baroness Wake of Liddell.

The young Joan had been brought up, a royal princess in the Plantagenet court of Edward III and her domain was the royal courts in southern England and France. She was cousin of the King. She was under the charge of Queen Philippa.

In 1340, aged only thirteen, Joan had secretly married the twenty six year old Thomas Holland, her Knight. She had not first gained royal consent, which she was required to do as a royal princess. Shortly after the wedding, Holland left for the continent as part of the English expedition into Flanders and France. The following winter, while Holland was still overseas, Joan's family arranged for her to marry William Montagu, son and heir of William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who had helped Edward secure his throne from the Mortimer regime. It is not known if Joan confided to anyone about her first marriage before marrying Montagu, who was her own age. Later, Joan suggested that she had not announced her existing marriage with Thomas Holland because she was afraid it would lead to Holland's execution for treason. She may also have been influenced to believe that the earlier marriage was invalid by the Montagu family and her ambitious mother, Margaret Wake.

William Montagu's father died in 1344, and William Montagu became the 2nd Earl of Salisbury.

When Holland returned from the French campaigns in about 1348, his marriage to Joan was revealed. Holland confessed the secret marriage to the King and appealed to the Pope for the return of his wife. Salisbury held Joan captive so that she could not testify until the Church ordered him to release her. In 1349, the proceedings ruled in Holland's favour. Pope Clement VI annulled Joan's marriage to Salisbury and Joan and Thomas Holland were ordered to be married in the Church.

Joan had relinquished her place in the Salsbury title, for the lowly, though impressive, knight, Thomas Holland.

Joan and Thomas had five children.

So it was Joan, the royal princess, who inherited the titles 4th Countess of Kent and 5th Baroness Wake of Liddell after the death of her brother John, 3rd Earl of Kent, in 1352. Far to the north from the royal court, part of her landholdings included Farndale.

It is not likely that she ever visited her lands at Kirkbymoorside and so sadly was probably never seen in Farndale. If she did visit her lands there, perhaps riding side saddle as was her want, she would have caused a stir. She was more interested in royal politics and courtly intrigue than in the tedious administration of her distant landholdings.

In 1353 an Inquest taken at York during Edward III’s reign confirmed Joan’s Stuteville holdings in Kirkbymoorside. Kirkeby Moresheved. The manor with its members in Farndale, Gillyngmore, Brauncedale and Fademore (extents given, with field names), held of John de Moubray by service of 1½ knights’ fees. The extent of Kirkeby includes a weekly market on Wednesday and a fair on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin; and the manor is charged time out of mind by the ancestors of the earl with 26s. 8d. yearly to the prioress of Keldholm and 13s. 4d. yearly to the vicar of the church of Kirkeby for tithe of the mill. Decrease in value of land &c. through the pestilence.

The Wednesday market was continuing and a fair on Marymas, 8 September each year.

Thomas Holland, whose modest possessions were unlikely to have kept Joan in the style to which she was accustomed, but whose military charm seems to have nevertheless entranced her, therefore took title to Joan’s lands, though he was not summoned to take the formal title of Earl of Kent until 1360. With the Kent and old Stuteville landholdings, the couple could live more luxuriously.

The years of happy marriage between Thomas and Joan were short. By 1154, Thomas had been sent to Brittany to represent the King’s interests during the minority of the Duke of Brittany. By 1359 he was appointed captain general of England’s possessions on the continent. Then, on 28 December 1360, he died of illness in Normandy.

On the death of Thomas Holland in 1360, the Close Rolls of 20 February 1361, recorded her personal hold of Farndale. Westminster. To William de Nessefeld escheator in Yorkshire. Order to deliver to Joan who was wife of Thomas de Holand earl of Kent the manors of Cotyngham, Witherton, Buttercrambe, Kirkeby Moresheved (with lands in Farndale, Gillyngmore, Brauncedale and Fademore), Cropton (with tenements in Middleton and Haretoft), Aton and Hemelyngton, with the members, lands etc thereto pertaining, taklen into the king’s hand by the death of the earl, together with the issues from the date of his death; as it is found by inquisition, taken by the escheator, that Thomas at his death held no lands in that county in chief in his demesne as of fee, but held the premises of right of his said wife, and that the manors of Cotyngham, Witherton, Buttercrambe and Cropton, one messuage and 14 bovates of land in the manor of Aton are held in chief, and the residue of that manor and the manor of Hemelyngton of others than the king; and the king has at another time taken the homage of the earl for the lands of Joan’s heritage by reason of issue between them begotten.

Inquest taken at Buttercrambe, Thursday after the Purification, 35 Edward III. Cotyngham and Wytheton. The manors held of the king in chief as of the crown by homage and fealty and by service of a barony and by service of finding a mounted esquire suitably armed to bear the king’s coat of mail (lorica) in the war in Wales for forty days at his own costs, if there is war in Wales. Buttercrambe. The manor held of the king in chief as of the crown by homage and fealty and by service of a knight’s fee. Kirkeby Moresheved. The manor, with lands &c. in Farndale, Gillyngmore, Brauncedale and Fademore, held of John de Moubray by homage and fealty and by service of a knight’s fee and a half.

So the Kent and old Stuteville lands passed to Joan.

The lovely Joan did not have to wait long before marrying the heir to the throne. It is suggested that Ned, the young Prince of Wales, already had eyes for Joan, who he had grown up with during their childhood. Joan was the King’s cousin, so Ned was of a different generation, but there were only a few years in age between them.

On 10 October 1361 Joan married her cousin Edward, the Black Prince, son of Edward III, the Prince of Wales. As the Black Prince and Joan were related, the prince also being godfather to Joan's elder son Thomas, a dispensation was obtained for their marriage from Pope Innocent VI, though they appear to have been contracted to marry before it was applied for. Joan was somewhat reckless. The marriage was performed at Windsor, in the presence of King Edward III, by Simon Islip Archbishop of Canterbury. According to Jean Froissart the contract of marriage between Ned and his cousin Jeanette was entered into without the knowledge of the king. The prince and his wife resided at Berkhamsted Castle in Hertfordshire though many sources suggest it was used more as a hunting lodge.

For a short while Farndale was held directly by the Prince of Wales, the Black Prince himself.

In 1365 Joan and her new husband, the Black Prince, formally settled the Kirkbymoorside manor on her son by her former husband, Thomas Holland, the Second Earl of Kent, and Alice FitzAlan, his wife and their heirs, with reversion to the prince and herself. So Joan’s direct interest in Farndale passed on to her Holland sons. Perhaps her elevated lifestyle meant that by 1365 she was not so bothered about retaining her northern lands in her direct ownership. The Kent and Kirkbymoorside lands thus passed down to the line of the Hollands.

There is a record though that the Black Prince ordered his keeper of the Farndale wood to deliver a single oak, suitable for shingles, for the roofing of Gillamoor chapel. So Joan and the heir to the throne did retain some interest over the Farndale lands. Farndale had after all been a royal hunting ground.

Joan and the Black Prince had two sons of their own, Edward of Angouleme (1365 to 1370) and Richard who became Richard II of England.

Edward the Black Prince was the son and heir apparent of King Edward III. He was famously encouraged by his father to earn his spurs. Froissart's Chronicles referred to the Black Prince at the battle of Crécy in 1346, and the instruction given by his father Edward III that those with the prince should suffre hym this day to wynne his spurres, often quoted as Let the boy win his spurs.

The French chronicler Jean Froissart called Joan en son temps la plus belle de tout la roiaulme d'Engleterre et la plus amoureuse, "the most beautiful woman in all the realm of England, and the most loving", although the immortal title of the "Fair Maid of Kent" seems to have been adopted later, though Froissant did refer to her as cette jeune damoiselle de Kent. She was described in the Herald Chandos’ Le Prince Noir, as Une dame de grant pris, Qe belle fuist, plesante et sage, “a lady of great worth, who was beautiful, pleasant, and wise.”

It was Joan whose honour, it was later suggested, Edward III protected in a famous incident which was claimed to have given rise to the motto of Edward’s new Order of the Garter, honi soi qui mal y pense. The story goes that Edward III was dancing with Joan of Kent, his first cousin and daughter-in-law, at a ball held in Calais to celebrate the fall of the city after the Battle of Crécy. Her garter slipped down to her ankle, causing those around her to laugh at her humiliation. Edward placed the garter around his own leg, saying, Honi soit qui mal y pense. Tel qui s'en rit aujourd'hui, s'honorera de la porter, "Shame on anyone who thinks evil of it. Whoever is laughing at this thing today will later be proud to wear it." The story is almost certainly apocryphal, and has also been associated with the Countess of Salisbury, but it is the founding myth of the Order of the Garter. Thomas Holland became one of the small number of selected founding knights who joined to order in 1348. Joan herself was made a Lady of the Garter in 1378.

The incident clearly caused hilarity in the most famous satirical history book which was written in the 1930s.

The impression of Joan’s seal depicted a lady riding on horseback sideways, a style which she is said to have been the first to adopt.

By 1371, the Black Prince was no longer able to perform his duties as Prince of Aquitaine due to poor health. Joan and her prince returned to England, shortly afterwards burying their eldest son. In 1372, the Black Prince attempted a final but abortive campaign in an effort to save his father's French possessions, but the exertion was too much. He returned to England for the last time on 7 June 1376, a week before his forty-sixth birthday, and died in his bed at the Palace of Westminster the next day.

Joan's son Prince Richard was now next in line to succeed his grandfather Edward III, who died on 21 June 1377. Richard was crowned as Richard II the following month at the age of 10. As Queen Mother, Joan exercised considerable influence during the early years of her son's reign. She enjoyed respect as a venerable royal dowager.

Early in his reign, the young King faced the challenge of the Peasants' Revolt. The Lollards, religious reformers led by John Wyclif, had enjoyed Joan's support, but the violent climax of the popular movement for reform reduced the feisty Joan to a state of terror. Nevertheless, on her return to London from a pilgrimage to Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury Cathedral in 1381, when she found her way barred by Wat Tyler and his mob of rebels on Blackheath, she was not only let through unharmed, but she was saluted with kisses and provided with an escort for the rest of her journey.

In January 1382, Richard II married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia.

Joan died on 7 August 1385 aged 57, at Wallingford Castle. She was buried beside her first husband, Thomas Holland, as requested in her will, at the Greyfriars in Stamford, Lincolnshire. The Black Prince had built a chantry chapel for her in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, where he himself had been buried with ceiling bosses sculpted with likenesses of Joan’s face.

There are plenty of historical novels written about the fair maid including The Shadow Queen, 2018 by Anne O’Brien; The Fair Maid of Kent, 2017 by Caroline Newark and The First Princess of Wales, 2020 by Karen Harper. They provide fictional depictions to fill the unknown gaps between the historical evidence, of Joan of Kent's life at the English court in which her mother, Margaret is a supporting character. There are also many biographies such as by Anthony Goodman, 2017.

The Fair Maid did not likely know Farndale, but it was a part of her possessions and she adds some glamour to our story. Her life must have impacted on those who lived there, especially in the thirty years between 1352, when she took title to the lands, and 1385, when she died.

Farndale in the later Middle Ages

By the middle of the fourteenth Century, sheep farming had developed to a scale significant enough to make it worthwhile for Yorkshire wool merchants to collect it. In 1361 two merchants, Roger de Hovingham and Thomas de Kerr of Ryedale, were arraigned before the justices on a charge of selling sacks of wool which were underweight. The evidence recorded that the wool came from Rievaulx, Malton, Kirkby Moorside, Helmsley, Bilsdale, Farndale and Hovingham. Neither Bransdale nor Rosedale were mentioned, which suggests that medieval that Farndale may have been more commercially significant.

The York Archbishop Registers on 19 November 1388 recorded licence for the inhabitants of fferndall to have masses celebrated in the chapel of Farndale.

That there was a chapel in Farndale is evidenced by its being marked on Christopher Saxton's 1577 map, and also by reference to it in the will of William Folancebye made on 3rd May 1537, ''also I bequethe to Farnedall chapell ij torches and ij yowes'. This is the earliest reference to a chapel in the dale. It is possible that De Willelmus Clerico, William the Clerk, named in the Lay Subsidy Roll of 1301 could have been the chaplain there by the turn of the fourteenth century.

In 1397 Joan’s son, Thomas Earl of Kent died and Alice was left in possession of his lands. Of Alice’s sons, Thomas the Elder was beheaded as a traitor in 1399 and his brother Edmund died before his mother in 1408, when the earldom of Kent fell into abeyance.

The Wake line ended in three co-heiresses, one of whom married the Earl of Westmoreland, who succeeded to the barony of Kirkbymoorside, and it remained in the possession of this family until 1570.

Whilst the Stutevilles and their successors the Wakes had lordship over Kirkbymoorside and Farndale since about 1200, they had strictly held those lands as sub tenants still to the original Mowbray interest who continued to hold the tenancy in chief of the King. In 1397, Thomas Mowbray, the twelfth baron, was created 1st Duke of Norfolk, but in the following year he was accused of treason. He was banished by Joan’s son, Richard II, and his estates were forfeited. The manor of Kirkbymoorside and with it Farndale reverted into the King's hands. The tenancy in chief in the manor then reverted more formally to the Holland family, the Earls of Kent who were closely related to Richard II.

It is in the inquisition post mortem held into the estates of Alice, late wife of Thomas late Earl of Kent, in 1415, that we read The said Alice also held the advowson of the chapel of the Brethren of Holy Charity in Farndale, worth 10s a year. It seems that the friary had continued on Blakey Howe since it had been established in 1345. It seems likely therefore that there was a chapel in the valley where the inhabitants of the dale worshipped, and a friary above the dale at Blakey Howe, with its own chapel.

Whenever the Farndale chapel might have been founded, the medieval inhabitants of Farndale could also attend the chapel of ease at Gillamoor whose parent church was the parish church of Kirkbymoorside. They also had access to Kirkdale, which might have been their ancestral home.

Until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Prior and Convent of Newburgh Priory provided priests to both the churches at Gillamoor and Kirkbymoorside. It was for the repair of the church at Gillamoor that the Black Prince, in December 1363 ordered John Forestier, keeper of the wood of Farendale to deliver an oak suitable for 'shengel' towards roofing.

After the Black Death and a series of famines, depopulation had led to a food excess, which was sold for profit to create a new middle class and led in time to greater prosperity. As taxes, continued to be levied, particularly those taxes imposed after 1349, resistance grew, leading to the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, which the Fair Maid had encountered with her son. Wat Tyler demanded There should be equality among all people save only the king. There should be no serfdom and all men should be free and of one condition. We will be free forever, our heirs and our lands. Richard II had at first greeted the protestors and suggested concession, but before long he had supposedly declared Rustics you were and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before but incomparably harsher. The disdain of Joan’s son for the rural community became apparent.

Whilst the rebel leaders were executed, the changed circumstances meant that serfdom was slowly replaced in England, so that an alternative path was pursued in England to that which many of the European nations continued to follow.

The young men of the dale meantime continued to prove an unruly lot. In 1371, the Prioress of Keldholm entered a complaint in the Court of Common Pleas against Thomas del Ker of Farndale for breaking her close and houses at Morehous in Kirkebymoreshead, and taking goods and chattels to the value of 40s. In 1372 John Porter, Hugh Bailly and Adam Bailly, ranging rather farther afield, were accused by William Latymer, of entering his free chase of Danby hunting therein without licence and taking deer therefrom and assaulting his men and Servants.

In 1396, Robert de Wodde of Farndale was pardoned for the death of John Hawlare of Kirkbymoorside whom he killed there on Monday the eve of the Purification, in the eighteenth year. The Wood family appears thus early in Farndale records and their name occurs regularly in wills throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and subsequently on the rent rolls and field books of the Duncombe estate.

About the same period, in the closing years of the fourteenth Century, a certain Thomas Wolthwayt of Farndale was accused by Hugh Gascoigne, the parson of Stonegrave, of breaking into his close and houses at Stonegrave, assaulting him, fishing in his several fishery there and taking away fish and goods and chattels to the value of 200 marks, as well as 1000 marks in money, and assaulting his men and servants.

There were others who terrorised the wild and lonely moors above Farndale, including John of Wighall and John Webster of Beverley who were indicted in 1361 as common robbers and thieves who used to lie in wait on Blakey Moor. The list of their crimes included robbing William Chapman of Battersby, draper, of five marks in silver; robbing John of Durham, at a spot in the moor near Ingleby Greenhow of 17s and 6d; and other similar attacks on wayfarers. They were both hanged.

Perhaps though we have to interpret these records as overly emphasising the law breakers, whilst ignoring the many folk of the dale who continued to go about their everyday lives.

By 1422, when Henry VI came to the throne, Farndale had been assigned to Elizabeth Neville, and for nearly a hundred and fifty years the Nevilles, as Earls of Westmorland, were lords of the manor. A family of Farndale descendants lived at Sheriff Hutton by then. Some from that family fought in the Scottish and French Wars with Richard II and Henry V. That family lived in the main ancestral home of the Neville family, and of Richard III, during the period of the Wars of the Roses.

The glamourous lives of the Farndale overlords was unlikely to have significantly changed the daily life of the Farndale inhabitants. The life of ordinary folk in Ryedale in the fourteenth century was the subject of a 1976 article in the Ryedale Historian. The inhabitants of the dale no doubt continued to spend most of their time in agricultural labour and the challenges of daily existence. There is no evidence from signs left in the land or in the field names of Farndale that the three field system of agriculture operated in Farndale. The chief crop was probably barley which would have been taken to one or other of the two mills in the dale. By 1334, Simon the Miller had been succeeded by two recorded millers and in 1553 when John Wood made his will he wrote, also I give to the mendyng of the upper mylne bridge iiij pence and to the mending (sic) of the nether mylne bridge iiij pence. The upper mylne is the present site of High Mill, below Church Houses, and the nether mylne is Low Mill. Both these mills continued operated well into the twentieth century. They were naturally watermills, built on the banks of the Dove, but in 1560 there were also in the manor of Kirkbymoorside six windmills though there is no evidence that windmills were built in Farndale.

In 1446 William Thornburgh of Farndale was appointed with four other commissioners to levy and collect one of Henry VI's taxes throughout the North Riding. He must have been a man of some standing and substance. And William Folancebye left two torches and two ewes to Farndale chapel, bequeathed more substantial gifts to his relatives, also I bequethe to John Folancebye ii furred gownes, one furred with white lambe and the other with blacke lambe. Also I bequethe to the said John Folancebye my sword, one velvet dublet, (and) my best horse. - also I bequethe to Robert Folancebye, my brother, one russet gowne.

When, in 1569, the rebellion known as the Rising of the North had been crushed, the estates of its leaders amongst whom the Earl of Westmorland was one, were forfeited to the crown. Three commissioners were appointed by Elizabeth to survey these estates and this survey has become known by the name of the chief of these commissioners as Humberston's Survey. His account of the manor of Kirkby contrasted the wealth between the inhabitants of the dales and the town of Kirkbymoorside itself.

Humberstone’s survey of Farndale in 1570 recorded seventy one tenements in Farndale, forty on the east side and thirty one on the west, together with two mills and a few cottages paying altogether just over £54 in rent. It tells us that the hamlets and dales of Farndale, Bransdale, Fadmore and Gillamoor were inhabited with many wealthy and substantial men and they have very good farms by reason of the great and large commons and wastes; and all the tenants except the town of Kirkby hold their farms and tenants by indenture for terms of years whilst the town of Kirkby is a market town inhabited all with poor people and they hold their cottages by copy of court roll and they have no lands or other commodities to their cottages.

The view and surueie of the lordship of Kyrkeby Moresyde, in the county of Yorke, parcell of the possessions of Charles, late erle of Westmerland, wyth all his rightes, membres and appurtenaunces, and of all the landes and possessions in Famedale, Braundesdale, Fadmore, and Gyllymore, parcell of the sayd manour, made by Edmond Hall, William Homberston, and John Jenkyns, the seyxt of June in the yere aforsaid (1570). And the said lordship ys within foure myles of Malton in Ryedale, and in th'est parte of the county of Yorke, in the edge of the moreland, and ys a very stately lordshipp, and extendyth into the townes, hamlettes, and dales of Farnedale, Braundesdale, Fadmore, and Gyllymore, and ys in compas aboue xxvj miles, and inhabyted with many welthy and substancyall men, and haue very good fermes by reason of the greate and, large comons and wastes; and all the tenauntes, except the towne of Kyrkeby, hold their fermes and tenementes by indenture for terme of yeres, whiche are very fynable landes, after the leases be determyned. And the towne of Kyrkeby is a market towne, inhabyted all with pore people, and hold their cotages by copye of courte roll to them and to their heyres, accordyng to the custome of the manour, payeng certeyne rentes, customes, and servyces, and haue no landes or other comodytes to theyr cotages, so as their rentes must of necessyte decay, onles the comens which Henry, late erle,* toke from the tenauntes, aboute viij or ix yeres past, and enclosed them, whiche was th'only releyf of the inhabitauntes of the towne, wherein they kept euery man one, twoo, or three kyen, for the releyf of themselves, their wyves and chyldren.

The scyte of the manour ys scytuat in throne syde of the parke, buylded of stone, and covered parte with leade and parte with slate, and served for a removyng house for th'erles, when their pleasure were to come to hunt and take pastyme in that country. The house is but symple for an erle, but a good house for a gentleman of worshipp; and the demeane very good and batefuU for corne and gresse, and greate plenty of mewn ground, lyeng by a fayre ryver," suffycyent for the provysyon of a house for any gentleman of worship.

The parke adioynyth to the scyte of the manour, very well planted with wood and tymbre, wherin are large laundes, and ys well replenyshed with fallow deere, and conteynyth in compas two myles and a half, and in measure, by the pole of xxj fote, clxxvij acres, wherin ys one keper,' which hath for his stipend yerely \xs, y'ujd.y and suche other casuall comodytes and proffittes as to the sayd office apperteynyth.

Farndale seems to have been a vigorous community growing in independence and confidence. Inquisitions and other records suggest a population significantly greater than most of the other places in the vicinity and by the fifteenth century Farndale could supply 83 men, archers and bill men horsed and harnessed or men on foot without horse or harness for the king's musters, third only in Ryedale to 206 provided by New Malton and 110 from Helmsley.

Medieval settlement in upper Farndale and east Bransdale – the numbered farms are those mentioned in the sources up to 1610.

As the thirteenth century Inquisitions Post Mortem make clear, the size of farms was never uniform. Some farms must have fallen out of cultivation in the later middle ages and may have been combined with others. There was therefore a reduction in the overall number of tenancies. Even so, the community seems to have continued be relatively homogenous to as late as 1610. Farms of 10 to 15 acres producing rents of about as many shillings were still very common. Only five tenants paid over £20 rent and only two paid more than £25.

Farndale’s post medieval story

Whilst our family’s interest in Farndale concerns its antique and medieval past, it is worth a short exploration of the story of our ancestral home after we had left it.

In 1802 William Wordsworth married his childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson, at All Saints' Church, Brompton-by-Sawdon, only 20 kilometres to the east of Farndale along the Pickering and Scarborough road. His well known composition might almost have been written about the dale.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils

Tradition says that the daffodils of Farndale were planted by monks from Rievaulx Abbey, whose interest in Farndale we have already explored.

Farndale has been a nature reserve since 1953 and its by-laws prohibit picking the flowers or uprooting the bulbs. However inflationary pressures do not appear to impact in Farndale.

The sign in 1980 The fine was still the same in 2016 Outrage in 1914

There are two folk tales about Farndale, concerning a mischievous hob who fell out with a local farmer and Sarkless Kitty, a local girl who drowned herself, in her chemise or sark. Over the years, Kitty’s ghost was seen sitting naked in Farndale’s trees, waving her sark to signal the future deaths of young men.

The House of Lords Journal Volume 63 on 16 November 1830 recorded the Wesleyan methodists of Farndale. Upon reading the Petition of the Members of a Society and Congregation of Wesleyan Methodists worshipping at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Farndale, in the County of York, whose Names are thereunto subscribed.

The Farndale Hunt began in 1838.

A Topographical Dictionary of England in 1848 described Farndale as a chapelry, in the parish of KirkbyMoorside, union of Helmsley, wapentake of Ryedale, N. riding of York, 13 miles (N. W.) from Pickering; containing 463 inhabitants, of whom 188 are in Farndale Low Quarter, and 275 in Farndale West or High Quarter. These two townships together comprise about 9780 acres, whereof 6220 are in the latter, which is situated on the west of the river Dove. The chapel has lately been enlarged. Farndale eastside, a chapelry, in the parish of Lastingham, union of Helmsley, wapentake of Ryedale, N. riding of York, 5 miles (N.) from KirkbyMoorside; containing 383 inhabitants. It occupies the east side of the higher part of the deep moorland dale of the river Dove, and comprises 9103 acres, of which 6341 are waste land or common. The tithes have been commuted for £33 15s payable to the Archbishop of York, and £21 to the vicar of the parish, who has a glebe of 1½ acre. The chapel is a small edifice.

The Rosedale Railway was a thirty one kilometre goods only railway line running from Battersby Junction via Ingleby Incline, across the heights of the North York Moors to reach iron ore deposits in the remote hills of the Rosedale valley. It opened to traffic as a narrow gauge railway to Ingleby Incline top in 1858, converted to standard gauge and opened to Rosedale West in 1861. It closed completely in 1929. Apart from Ingleby Incline, no major engineering works were constructed, and as such, particularly the east branch, the railway followed the contours of the surrounding hillside.

It passed across the heights of the northern end of Farndale including through a cutting of Middle Head, the realm of the medieval Edmund the Hermit. There is a walk, known as the Esk Valley Walk, from the Lion’s Inn and Blakely How which passes along the northern edge of Farndale, along the line of the old railway.

By 1857, Farndale looked like this:

By 1875 the folk of Farndale were ready for their first pub and when the future local landlord’s petition was successful, the inn was named after him, the Feversham Arms.

The church of St Nicholas and St Mary, in the parish of Bransdale-cum-Farndale, was built in 1886 to replace an earlier structure. It consists of chancel, nave, south porch and small western tower containing two bells.

The Victoria County History for Yorkshire wrote of Farndale in 1914, Kirkby Moorside is a parish covering about 13,700 acres, chiefly of moorland. It is practically enclosed between two streams, the Dove and the Hodge Beck its tributary, which, flowing down through Farndale and Bransdale respectively, uniting to the south of the town of Kirkby Moorside. The ground is thus well watered and fertile, on a subsoil of inferior oolite with Upper and Lower Lias in the dales. There are brick and tile works at Kirkby Moorside and Cockayne, and jet, coal and limestone have been worked in Bransdale and Farndale. About half the total area is in cultivation, the chief crops raised being oats and barley. The townships of Bransdale Eastside and Farndale Low Quarter have only a few houses scattered here and there among the hills. These with Bransdale Westside from Kirkdale parish and the rest of Farndale from Lastingham were in 1873 formed into the modern parish of Bransdale-cum-Farndale. In the extreme north of Bransdale, between two branches of the Hodge Beck, is the little hamlet of Cockayne, with an old chapel of ease and a hall used by the Earl of Feversham as a shooting-lodge.

Hull was empowered in 1933 to obtain water from Farndale and turn the dale into a reservoir, but the scheme did not proceeded after the Second World War. In 1952 the corporation bought the Elloughton and Brough Water Company, and new works were completed on the River Hull, in Watton parish, in 1959.

Dorothy Farndale (centre front) and Grace Farndale (right front) at Farndale in about 1922

Farndale in the 1980s

Today’s generation of Farndales in their ancestral home in 2016

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Go Straight to Chapter 1 – The Family Cradle, Thirteenth Century Farndale

The Farndale chronology links to the underlying research with references to source material.

If you have an opportunity to visit Farndale, there are two accompanying guides to visiting the Farndale Rim and Driving through Farndale.

You might also enjoy two historical notes written in 1965 and 1966 about Farndale in the Middle Ages in Volume 1 of the Ryedale Historian.

The Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland’s Research Report No 2, edited by B E Vyner, Medieval Rural Settlement in North-East England, 1990 has a chapter by Barry Harrison, New Settlements in the North Yorkshire Moors 1086 to 1340, which has a section on Farndale and East Bransdale.