BOSSALL:
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The Parish of Bossall with Buttercrambe.
By the Rev. NY. Hooper.
In the days when good King Edwin ruled the northern part of what is now known as
"England," his kingdom stretched from the Humber and even overpassed the Cheviots
as far as the Forth, the City of Edinburgh (Edwin's burgh) bearing witness to this fact.
But he resided chiefly in the southern portion of his realm, and had several "royal vills"
(as Bede calls them) as for example at Londesborough, Aldby (alias Buttercrambe) and
Bossall. At that time a portion of the primeval forest came close up to the walls of the
Romano-British city of York and extended northward, westward and eastward as far as
the river Derwent. The forest was known by the name of Galtres (from the British cal-a-
tre, a wood adjoining a town). It occupied over 100,000 acres of land, and contained at
least sixty townships, some of which still bear tell-tale names, as for instance, Marton-
in-the-Forest, Sutton-on-(=in) the-Forest, Stockton-on-(=in) the-Forest and Towthorpe.
The last-named was originally spelled Toulthorpe, the place, that is, where the King's
commissioner received toll of wolves' heads, for which in forest lands taxes were then
generally commuted. The forest abounded in wild animals such as deer, wolves, boars
and wild cats, known locally as foumarts, and was naturally the happy hunting-ground
of the Anglo-Saxon kings. The polecat or foumart continued until quite recent years,
and there is no more common entry in the books of the Bossall Churchwardens than
such as this :-" Easter 1833, paid to Benjn. Harrison, Keeper, for six foumarts, 2s. 0d."
The forest was also frequented by outlaws, and was a place of great danger to the
benighted traveller. To this day may be seen in the church of All Saints, Pavement,
York, a large reflector glass used every night with a beacon-fire which was placed in the
open stone lantern of the tower of the church to guide travellers on their way through
the forest city-wards.
As might naturally be expected, there was a large clearing in this forest on the rising
ground near to the river Derwent now known as Bossall, whence there is a fine view of
the wolds ten miles away south eastward. Here was a double-moated enclosure
surrounding one of the chief palaces of the Kings. This royal vill was succeeded in
Norman days by a castle, erected by the Estutevilles, to whom the manor of Bossall was
given by William the Conqueror. The foundations of this castle may still be traced on
the site now occupied by a picturesque house erected in the days of Charles I, and
known as Bossall Hall.
In the year 625 A.D., Edwin, a widower with two sons, sought to strengthen his throne
by asking in marriage Ethelburga the sister of Eadbald, the powerful king of Kent.
Ethelburga was the daughter of Ethelbert the king who reigned over Kent when St.
Augustine came as a missionary to our shores in 597, and of his Christian wife Bertha.
Eadbald yielded to Edwin's request on the condition that his sister and her attendants
should have full liberty to practise the Christian faith and that Edwin himself would take
into careful consideration the advisability of himself becoming a Christian. So in the
late summer of 625, Ethelburga with her maidens came north, and was married to our
king. A bishop of Roman origin named Paulinus had been consecrated at Rochester on
July 21st of that year for the double purpose of ministering to the young queen and
converting to the faith the wild heathen of Northumbria.
Ethelburga must have been a most sweet and loveable person. Wherever she went, she
was known as Tata, the Anglo-Saxon word for "darling.'' In her later days she founded
a convent at Lyminge in Kent, and some fields near are still known as "Tata's Leas."
Edwin was a typical Anglo-Saxon, slow and thorough, cautious and of down-right
honesty. Bede, who recorded the incidents of this period within two generations of their
occurrence in his Ecclesiastical History, tells us that Edwin was "a man of extraordinary
sagacity,'' and that "he often sat alone a long time, silent as to his tongue, but
deliberating in his heart how he should proceed and to which religion he should
adhere." With him began the English proverb so often applied to after kings '' a woman
with her babe might walk scathless from sea to sea in Edwin's days.' (Green).
The " royal vill near the river Derwent " which may still he seen as a dark mound in the
gardens of Aldby Park on an eminence rising abruptly from the river, was the scene of a
thrilling incident on the eve of Easter, April 19th, 626. The King who was sojourning at
the royal vill of Aldby, narrowly escaped assassination at the hand of an envoy of
Cwichelm, King of the West Saxons, and on the same night Ethelburga gave birth to her
first child, Eanfled, afterwards the wife of King Oswy. Paulinus was not slow to turn the
incident to spiritual account, and Edwin readily consented to the baptism of Eanfled. On
the following Whit-Sunday, she and eleven others of the household were baptized, the
first fruits of the Northumbrian race. After returning from a punitive expedition in
which he was entirely victorious over the King of Wessex, Edwin called together a
council of his nobles, and it was decided to adopt the Christian faith. This meeting was
in all probability held at Londeshorough not far from the great Druid shrine at
Godmundingham (now Goodnanham) and is described in full and beautiful detail by
Bede in his Ecclesiastical History.
At this point, from whatever cause, Edwin ceased to treat the royal vill at Bossall as his
headquarters, and took up his abode in the hitherto deserted Romano-British city of
York. The Anglo-Saxons seem very generally to have had a superstitious dread of
occupying the towns from which they had driven the Britons after the departure of the
defending Romans in 411 A.D. Possibly, under the enlightenment of the Christian
instruction which he received from Bishop Paulinus, Edwin would realize how
groundless were these fears of haunting evil spirits. However this may be, the court was
moved in the autumn of 626 from Bossall to York, and the royal vill near the Derwent
was left unoccupied except when visited for the purposes of the chase. Edwin now
erected a wooden shrine in York, on the site of the present Minster, and in this he and
his nobles were baptized on Easter Eve, April 11th, 627. Many of his people followed
his example, and in all probability a little church would be built in the village at Bossall
not long after this. The village which, like so many others in Yorkshire, was wiped out
by the ' black death " in 1349, was situated in a large field North-West of the Hall now
known as "Old Bossall," and shewing by its upheaving mounds that it was once
occupied by human habitations. Tradition has it that the church stood in the South-West
corner of the present field, and about the year 1870, a workman in the course of draining
operations found there a leaden seal which had been attached to a bull of Pope Urban III
(1185 to 1187 A.D.). This seal passed into the possession of Mr. Robert Belt, then the
owner and occupier of Bossall Hall, and there is an excellent engraving of it to be seen
in the vestry of the present church. The seal is remarkable for the very characteristic
portraits on it of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. Even if there were no evidence of
this sort, the existence of a pre-Norman church at Bossall could be proved in the
following manner. After the battle of Stamford Bridge, in September, 1066, the bones of
the slain lay about for some time uncared for in the fields. At last they were gathered up
and buried (so tradition says) in a little plot of ground "belonging to the priest of
Bossall." This place may still be seen situated in one of the fields of the Primrose Hill
farm, near the scene of the battle on the North side of the Derwent close to Stamford
Bridge. In later days a chapel dedicated to St. Edmund was erected on the site, in which
intercession would be made for the souls of the slain. The plot to this day goes by the
name of Chapel Garth and the grassy mounds covering the ruins of the chapel are still
very evident to the eve. The " priest of Bossall " still owns the garth and receives rent
for it from the owners of the farm.
If there was a Christian priest at Bossall, there must also have been there a Christian
church, and that in the days of the Anglo-Saxon kings. This church, like most other
buildings of that period, would probably be of wood on a brick or stone foundation.
However this may be, it would certainly suffer, as all other buildings suffered in those
days, from the frequent incursions of the Danes. Evidence of these incursions may be
found in the moated enclosures which abound in these parts. Into these enclosures the
people drove their cattle when the enemy appeared. One of them may still be traced in
the gardens of the cottages to the east of the present Church at Bossall.
The name of the village of Bossall is most probably derived from the following incident
in the history of the Northumbrian Kingdom. In the year 678, Wilfrid, the second
Bishop of York, being absent on one of his many wanderings, King Egbert and his
counsellors, acting under the advice of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, decided on
the partition of the diocese, and Bosa (or Boza), a monk of Whitbv, was consecrated
Bishop of Deira, the southern portion. Against all this, Wilfrid protested and appealed to
Rome. Very little is known of Bosa, but Bede describes him as "a man of great holiness
and humility." It is not surprising therefore to learn that in 686, Bosa retired from York
in favour of the forceful and stormy Wilfrid, who had returned to the neighbourhood. In
691, Wilfrid was again dispossessed of York, and Bosa resumed as bishop. During the
period of retirement, he had resided in the "palace" at Bossall which King Edwin had
vacated in 626. And so the adjoining village came to be called " Boza's Hall," which
was soon contracted into "Bozhall" and "Bossall."
In addition to the evidence of the existence of a Saxon Church at Bossall given above it
is definitely stated in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book that at "Boscele" there
was "a Church (St. Botolph's) and a priest and twenty acres of meadow." St. Botolph
was the famous abbot of Ikhano, who died in the same year as the abbess Hilda, 680,
A.D. Ikhano is thought by many to be identical with Boston in Lincolnshire, which is
certainly a contraction of " Botolph's town" the church there being dedicated to that
saint. There are those who think that "Bossall" may in like manner be a contraction of
the abbot's name. The saint had great vogue at that period and 64 English Churches of
ancient foundation bear his name, four of them in London and the rest in eastern
districts. Bossall Church is the most northern of these. The day on which this saint is
honoured is generally given as June 17th but on May 7th each year, " on the eve, day
and morrow of St. Botolph a fair was held at Buttercrambe until very recent days under
licence from King Edward III."
For some reason and at some date both unknown the church was moved in the twelfth
century from the south-west corner of the "Old Bossall" field to its present site due east
of the Hall. The architecture of the existing building (early English) indicates a date of
about 1186. The church is cruciform without aisles. The nave was originally fifteen feet
longer, being shortened in 1805; and the chancel was probably rebuilt on a larger scale
in the early decorated style by the monastery of Durham when the benefice was
appropriated to them in 1387.
The boundaries of Bossall parish were originally wide, including the villages and
hamlets of Bossall, Harton, Claxton, Buttercrambe, Sand Hutton and Flaxton.
The three last named contained each a consecrated chapel; Buttercrambe dedicated to St
John the Evangelist; Sand Hutton to St Leonard; and Flaxton to St Laurence. Sand
Hutton including the village of Claxton) and Flaxton, were made separate parishes by an
Order in Council dated June 26th 1861. The chapels of Sand Hutton and Flaxton both
became ruinous in the early part of the nineteenth century. At Flaxton the building was
pulled down and a new church erected on the same site. It was opened for divine service
on 21st Nov 1853, by the Archbishop of York. At Sand Hutton, an entirely new church
was erected at the distance of a few yards from the old chapel, in the year 1840.
The Incumbent of Bossall is both a Rector and a Vicar. In 1387, by the authority of
Pope Urban VI, the church was appropriated to the monastery of Durham for the
maintenance of sixteen persons, eight of them monks of Durham and eight secular
clerks, at the College in Oxford then called Durham College and now Trinity College.
The benefice of Bossall has ever since then remained an appanage of Durham, and is
now of the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Durham, to whom the possessions of
the monastery passed peacefully at the Reformation. From that date, the incumbent of
Bossall could be no more than a "vicar" appointed by the monastery to perform on their
behalf the spiritual duties of the parish. But the present incumbents being now in
possession of some of the rectorial tithes, notably those of the districts of Aldby and
Buttercrambe, may quite correctly be styled "Rectors".
Old Bossall was one of the many villages in Yorkshire which was wiped out by the
"black death" in the year 1349. More than half the population of England perished of
the plague in that year, and quite half of the priests in the county fell victims. The vicar
of Bossall (William de Garton) at that time seems to have been one of these. He was
appointed on August 4th, 1349, and died within a month of his institution. The visitation
was so terrible that the survivors seem to have been afraid to continue living on the old
site; and so the houses of the village were left untenanted and soon fell into decay. The
cobbled road from the village to the church, which can still be traced on the northern
edge of the outer moat of Bossall Hall, was no longer trodden by the feet of church-
going people each Lord's Day and soon became grass-grown, as it continues to this day.
The spacious old church before long proved too large for the reduced number of
worshippers and shortly after this time the north transept was cut off from the body of
the church by the insertion of a solid wall of stone and brick in the northern archway
beneath the tower. The transept was utilized for various purposes. Hay and coal were
stored there, and at times it was used as a cow-byre, entrance being gained by a
doorway on the east side in the place of the present window. A story is told that when
Sydney Smith, the famous wag, then rector of Foston and afterwards Canon of St.
Paul's Cathedral, London, was preaching at Bossall one Sunday morning; his discourse
was interrupted by various bovine noises from the other side of this wall. Whereupon,
with more ready wit than reverence, he asked " What meaneth the lowing of the oxen
which I hear?" The transept was opened out and restored by the generosity of the Revd.
C. D. Trotter, vicar of Bossall, in the year 1904. One great advantage of this restoration
is that we see the windows in the original simplicity of their Early English beauty. The
windows of the Nave and the southern and western windows of the south transept have
been badly mauled and vulgarized by well-meaning "improvers" in the eighteenth
century.
There have not been many persons of note among the vicars of Bossall. The only vicar
who left for higher promotion seems to have been Dr. Spencer Madan, of Trinity
College, Cambridge, who resigned the benefice in 1766 to become Bishop of Bangor
and Peterborough. Mr. Thomas Bull, who was instituted in 1641, in the sad latter days
of Charles I, seems to have been a veritable "Vicar of Bray, 'a clerical chameleon,
taking his colour from his surroundings. He was vicar during the last years of the reign
of Charles, became "Parish Registrar" in 1653 under the Commonwealth, and resumed
his former ministrations at the at the Restoration in 1660. Mr. Bull was buried at
Bossall, on October 9th 1665. The two Pratts (William, the father, from 1673 to 1701
and John, the son, from 1701 to 1718) seem to have been faithful priests, who brought
order out of the confusion of the Commonwealth period. The church was in their days
refurnished and supplied with things necessary for divine service; and the registers were
kept with exquisite care and neatness. They lie buried on the south front of the Altar of
Bossall Church.
A person of considerable eminence also lies by the side of Janet, his wife, in the middle
of the chancel, Sir Robert Constable, Chancellor of the diocese of Durham, a member of
the great Constable family of Flamborough. He resided for some years at the old Saxon
manor house of Barnby, and died there on 2nd October, 1408. He left instructions in his
will (a copy of which hangs in the vestry) that he and his wife should be buried in the
"quire of Bossall Kirk, Over against where my seat is". The brass figure and plate with
lettering beneath must have been delicately beautiful when first put down. Some of the
Cromwellian vandals, however, have rremoved the coats of arms at the four corners of
the slab and have torn out the middle part of the worthy Knight's body.
The registers date from the year 1610. They are in fairly good condition and contain
many interesting details. The most attractive is perhaps the marriage recorded on July
23rd, 1632, of "Mr. Thomas Shepard" and Mrs. Margaret Tutvile". The prefixes "Mr."
And "Mrs." Indicate that the bride and bridegroom were persons of note; and so they
were. The lady was a niece of Sir Richard Darley of Aldby, evidently a descendant of
the Norman Estutevilles, as her surname implies, to whom William the Conqueror
originally gave the manor of Bossall. Mr. Shepard was a Clerk in Holy Orders,
"silenced" by the Archbishop of York because he would not subscribe to the thirty-nine
Articles. But Sir Richard being of Mr. Shepard's way of thinking, invited him to live at
Aldby and hold services there. This he did for the space of twelve months, and people
came from distances of forty miles round to hear his turgid political sermons. As a
piece of side-play Mr. Shepard managed during that period to captivate his host's niece;
and they were married in Bossall Church, as the registers record. In 1635, Mr. and Mrs.
Shepard emigrated with other Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers to America, landing in
Boston on October 3rd. In the following year, 1636, Mr. Shepard, with others, founded
Harvard University.
No account of Bossall, however, short, could be complete without some mention of the
Belts, one of the o1dest and most honoured Yorkshire families. The manor of Bossall
seems to have passed into their hands from the Estuteville at a very early date, and for
many centuries the Belts resided at Bossall Hall. The church bears on its chancel walls
several memorials of members of this family. Sir Robert Belt (died 1656) was twice
Lord Mayor of York, and his predecessor, William, was Recorder of the City in the
troublous days of King Charles I. His wife, Goodeth, was evidently a woman of great
character and resource. Hearing one day that the citizens of York were coming in a body
to dispossess her husband of his belongings, she advised him to fly and leave her to deal
with the situation.
This he promptly did to Hull, there to obtain assistance from the loyalists. Meanwhile,
Goodeth slaughtered sheep and oxen in great abundance; and when the men of York
appeared, they found viands and dainties and draughts of ale and wine, all temptingly
arranged on the sides of the moat (the drawbridge had not been lowered). Thereupon the
citizens changed their minds, fell eagerly upon the attractive victuals, and having eaten
the Belts' salt went peaceably back to their homes. The manor of Bossall was purchased
in 1890 by Sir James Walker, 2nd Baronet of Sand Hutton, and has remained in the
family since that date.
Article by
By the Rev. NY. Hooper..
transcribed from the Sand Hutton & Claxton Chronicle (circa 1925)
by Andy Kerridge ©2002.
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