Burtersett

Burtersett is a small village in the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire, England. It lies approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) east from Hawes and Gayle.[1] The village is known for its former quarrying industry and being the seat of the Hillary family, with one strand of the family emigrating to New Zealand and raising Sir Edmund Hillary, the famous mountaineer.

Burtersett

Shaw Lane, Burtersett
Burtersett
Location within North Yorkshire
OS grid referenceSD890892
• London210 mi (340 km) SE
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
PoliceNorth Yorkshire
FireNorth Yorkshire
AmbulanceYorkshire
The River Ure in Wensleydale, near Burtersett, breaks its banks during floods in 1994

History

Whilst the village is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, its name is recorded as far back as 1280 as Beutresate. The village has also been called Birtresatte and Butterside, with the derivation being Shieling near the alder tree.[2] It was known that the area surrounding Burtersett was a Royal Forest during the reign of Edward I, but gradually the local industry gave way to sheep farming, then later quarrying and dairy produce.[3][4]

Other industries included knitted products and a candles.[5] The candle factory, a four-story building, still exists today, but the operation is believed to have stopped in the early 20th century.[6][7]

Quarrying on the moor south of the village reached a peak in 1890, when two stone slate quarries were in operation; Burtersett and Seavy. Although the men referred to themselves as quarrymen, both sites were actually mines which operated 2-foot-3-inch (0.69 m) gauge tramways to transport the stone into the village.[8] The stone was called slate, but it was a sandstone, typically used as a flagstone, but thicker beds were used as a building stone in the area.[9][10] When the Wensleydale Railway arrived in Hawes,[11] the quarries were exporting 15,000 tonnes (17,000 tons) per month via the railway station.[12]

Hillary Hall

The late 17th/early 18th grade II listed building known as Hillary Hall was formerly the seat of Sir Henry Hillary, a landowner in Upper Wensleydale.[3][13] The house was the birthplace of many in the Hillary family, including Sir Henry (1697–1763), who was known for his work on tropical diseases.[14] His nephew, Sir William Hillary, who campaigned for the institution of the RNLI, was born in the village. The grandparents of the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary emigrated from Wensleydale to New Zealand in the 19th century.[15]

Governance

Historically, Burtersett was in the Parish of Aysgarth and the wapentake of Hang West.[16] Whilst it now belongs in the civil parish of Hawes which it is nearer,[17] Aysgarth was the largest settlement around until the Richmond to Lancaster Turnpike was diverted off Cam High Road (south of Burtersett) to go through Hawes and over Widdale.[18]

References
  1. Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 98 Wensleydale & Upper Wharfedale (Map). Ordnance Survey. 2009. ISBN 9780319231586.
  2. "Burtersett :: Survey of English Place-Names". epns.nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  3. Speight, Harry (1897). Romantic Richmondshire. London: E Stock. p. 484. OCLC 252008733.
  4. "Out of Oblivion: A landscape through time". www.outofoblivion.org.uk. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  5. "Conservation Area Appraisals in the Yorkshire Dales National Park Gayle" (PDF). yorkshiredales.org.uk. 2011. p. 23.
  6. "Out of Oblivion: A landscape through time". www.outofoblivion.org.uk. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  7. Chrystal, Paul (2017). The Place Names of Yorkshire; Cities, Towns, Villages, Rivers and Dales, some Pubs too, in Praise of Yorkshire Ales (1 ed.). Catrine: Stenlake. p. 22. ISBN 9781840337532.
  8. Johnson, David (2016). Quarrying in the Yorkshire Pennines : an illustrated history. Stroud: Amberley. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-4456-5367-9.
  9. Howe, John Allen (2001). The geology of building stones. Abingdon: Donhead. p. 417. ISBN 978-1-873394-52-6.
  10. "A Building Stone Atlas of North Yorkshire, West" (PDF). bgs.ac.uk. 2017. p. 16. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  11. Suggitt, Gordon (2007). Lost railways of North and East Yorkshire. Newbury: Countryside Books. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-85306-918-5.
  12. "Out of Oblivion: A landscape through time". www.outofoblivion.org.uk. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  13. Historic England. "Hillary Hall  (Grade II) (1316893)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  14. Booth, Christopher C (23 September 2004). "Hillary, William". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13318. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  15. Buckley, Norman (2004). Yorkshire Dales walking : on the level. Wilmslow: Sigma Leisure. p. 129. ISBN 1-85058-439-7.
  16. "Genuki: In 1822, the following places were in the Parish of Aysgarth:, Yorkshire (North Riding)". www.genuki.org.uk. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  17. UK Census (2011). "Local Area Report – Hawes Parish (E04007489)". Nomis. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  18. Spensley, Ian Metcalfe (2014). Mines and Miners of Wensleydale. UK Book Publishing. p. 136. OCLC 897500715.
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