Nun Monkton
Encyclopedia
Nun Monkton is a village and civil parish
in the Harrogate
district of North Yorkshire
, England
. It is situated 8 miles (12.9 km) north of York
at the confluence of the rivers Ouse
and Nidd
. Cottages and houses are grouped around a village green of 20 acres (80,937.2 m²) with a duck pond and a maypole
. The Ouse is navigable for another 30 km and river traffic played an important part in the village's life until the middle of the twentieth century.
or Anglian
settlement in the 8th and 9th centuries. The village is mentioned in the late 11th-century Domesday Book
where it is referred to - like all villages in North Yorkshire
- as vastatus i.e. deliberately wrecked by the invading Normans
to prevent uprisings against them.
, prior to the arrival of the Vikings, giving rise to the 'Monkton' part of the village's name. The arrival of the nuns came about a century after the Norman Conquest.In 1172 an Anglo-Norman
landowner, Ivetta of the Arches, endowed a small Benedictine
nunnery
which owned the village and stood on the important ford
route from York
and Moor Monkton
to the south and Beningbrough
and Shipton
to the north, coming across the river. These routes ended when the ferry was discontinued in the middle of the 20th century. The Priory existed until 1536 when it was dissolved by Henry VIII
, despite a plea from his second wife, Anne Boleyn
, that it be spared. Records suggest that some of the nuns, returned to their families with small pensions of £4 a year and still under monastic vows of celibacy
, endured considerable hardship as a result of the closure of the convent.
. Its first owner was John Neville
, the 3rd Baron Latimer and the second husband of Katherine Parr the last wife of Henry VIII. Latimer, who had been granted in 1538, bequeathed it and lands in Hammerton to his daughter at his death in 1543. During the later 17th century and the first half of the 18th century, it was owned by the Payler (or Paylor) family.
On 2 July 1644 the Battle of Marston Moor
, one of the largest battles ever fought on English soil, took place in fields some miles to the southwest of the village. Royalist troops under Prince Rupert crossed the Ouse
between Beningbrough and Nun Monkton and proceeded on to Skipbridge where they crossed the Nidd
and joined battle with the Parliamentarian army. Because of its proximity to the battlefield, Nun Monkton must have been directly affected but there seem to be no traditions, though older villagers in the late twentieth century reported claims that fallen soldiers were buried around St. Mary's Church.
In 1748 the estate and those in surrounding villages passed to William Tufnell Jolliffe upon the death of his uncle Nathaniel Payler. A painting dated to 1773 shows Squire William Tufnell with his son on horseback amid a pack of hounds, looking across from the Moor Monkton
bank of the Nidd at Nun Monkton Priory and Church. Despite the passage of 237 years, the view is relatively unchanged today. An elaborate early nineteenth century monument to the Tufnell family is today in the sacristy on the north side of the church. Before 1871 it was in the old sanctuary of the church and seems to have been somewhat damaged during while being moved.
George IV while Prince of Wales
, is believed to have had lunch at the Priory during a visit to Yorkshire..
In the 1840s one visitor to the village would have been the novelist Anne Brontë
, and her brother Branwell. During her time as a governess
to the Robinson family at Thorpe Green, Little Ouseburn
, Brontë taught the children of the rector of Nun Monkton.
In 1860, Isaac Crawhall, a Durham
-born gentleman, bought Nun Monkton from the Tufnell family and his family owned the estate and lived at the Priory until it was bought by the Whitworth family in the 1920s. Crawhall was responsible for the redesigning of the church and the building of the new roof and chancel between 1871 and 1875.
A painting of villagers standing outside St.Mary's church by the landscape artist John Henry Leonard was sold at Christies in January 2009. It appears to date from the 1860s and may have been commissioned by Isaac Crawhall.
Nun Monkton was visited in the summer of 1898 by the future Provost of Eton
and ghost story writer, M.R.James on a boat trip from York during a meeting of Convocation. James was enchanted by the Priory house and gardens and its chinoiserie summer house near the river. He wrote in a letter: 'At Nun Monkton a beautiful house adjoins the church — Queen Anne with a sweet garden and leaden statues and a summerhouse." Nun Monkton later appears to have provided some of the background for his gruesome ghost story "The Ash Tree", though in the story the house is situated in Suffolk.
The largest secular building in Nun Monkton and architecturally by far the finest after the church, is the hall or manor house formally known as the Priory, and used as a location in the television series A Touch of Frost
in an episode entitled Endangered Species. Observant viewers who know the location will note that when Jack Frost (played by David Jason) drives up to The Priory it shows the gate to the left of the cattle grid, over which a temporary wall was erected for the TV programme. In the grounds of the Priory is Avenue Cottage, an 18th century grade II listed building.
The village church of St Mary's is the Church of England
parish church. It is the sole surviving structure from the former priory and of considerable interest for students of Anglo-Norman
architecture. At the Reformation
the east end of the church was demolished and, until the 1870s, St Mary's Nun Monkton was a truncated low-roofed building with standard 18th-century Anglican
fittings such as box pew
s and monument
s. In the 1870s, however, as a result of the impact of the Tractarian movement, the village squire of the day, Isaac Crawhall, commissioned a new east end, built in high Anglican
style. There is a conspicuous red sanctuary lamp, though the altar does not feature a tabernacle. Most impressive is the magnificent east window with glass by Edward Burne-Jones
and William Morris
which has a claim to be the best stained glass in North
or West Yorkshire
.
Until the first half of the 19th century, Nun Monkton villagers annually performed a ceremony of digging up, parading, and reburying a statue supposed to represent St Peter, the village’s patron saint. The custom is said to have been stopped by a vicar who regarded it as a pagan survival. The fullest modern account of it seems to be given in the adjudication ruling by A.A.Baden Fuller which ruled that the village common was a green
in 1974. Fuller writes as follows:,
"St. Peter’s Day, June 29th, is the Feast Day in Nun Monkton and a correspondent writing in the Daily Herald in 1868 stated that it was customary in former years to observe a Festival known as “Rising Peter”, but that it was almost obsolete in 1868.
According to the writer – “The Festivities extended over a week, and the same procedure was observed year after year."
On the Saturday evening preceding the 29th a company of parishioners headed by fiddlers and players of other instruments went in procession across the Great Common to Maypole Hill where there was an old sycamore
tree, for the purpose of “Rising Peter”, who had been buried under the tree after the last St. Peter’s Day. This effigy of St. Peter, rudely carved in wood and clothed in a fantastic fashion was placed in a box and conveyed to the neighbouring house (possibly the Inn) where it was exposed to view and kept there until the following Saturday, when another procession formed and St. Peter was reinterred. This was called “burying Peter.
On the evening of the first day of the Feast young men went through the Village with large baskets for the purpose of collecting tarts and cheese cakes and eggs for mulled ale, all being consumed at the above ceremonies. Afterwards – dancing, sports, and suppers took place in the Village every day while the Feast lasted.
Nun Monkton ceased to be an estate
village in 1934 when the estate houses of the village were sold off. The population today, of around 250, is well below its high point of about 350 in the 1890s and consists largely of commuters travelling daily to York
, Harrogate
and Leeds
and retired people. The last shop in the village closed in 1986. The village green
, however, continues to be grazed by cows and other animals and is one of the last working greens in Yorkshire
. The Alice Hawthorn public house was named after the 1840s equine winner of the Doncaster Cup
and Queen's Vase
and was formerly The Blue Bell Inn. 'The Alice' closed in 2007 after 220 years, but reopened after refurbishment under new management in September 2009.
at least since the 1790s. A Norwegian pine maypole was erected in 1871 by the village squire of the time Isaac Crawhall. Constant work is needed to preserve a maypole and in the 1920s the pole had to be shortened and re-erected. A similar operation was carried out by the British Army
in 1975. But in March 2004, Isaac Crawhall's 78 feet (23.8 m) high green-and-white striped maypole finally snapped and fell down in a gale. The village has now replaced the maypole with a 88 feet (26.8 m) pole, reportedly the tallest in England, though unlike its predecessor it is a two-piece construction.
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
in the Harrogate
Harrogate (borough)
Harrogate is a local government district and borough of North Yorkshire, England. Its council is based in the town of Harrogate but it also includes surrounding towns and villages...
district of North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is situated 8 miles (12.9 km) north of York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
at the confluence of the rivers Ouse
River Ouse, Yorkshire
The River Ouse is a river in North Yorkshire, England. The river is formed from the River Ure at Cuddy Shaw Reach near Linton-on-Ouse, about 6 miles downstream of the confluence of the River Swale with the River Ure...
and Nidd
River Nidd
The River Nidd is a tributary of the River Ouse in the English county of North Yorkshire. In its first few miles it is dammed three times to create Angram Reservoir, Scar House Reservoir and Gouthwaite Reservoir which attract around 150,000 visitors a year...
. Cottages and houses are grouped around a village green of 20 acres (80,937.2 m²) with a duck pond and a maypole
Maypole
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, particularly on May Day, or Pentecost although in some countries it is instead erected at Midsummer...
. The Ouse is navigable for another 30 km and river traffic played an important part in the village's life until the middle of the twentieth century.
History
Some sort of settlement has probably existed since the earliest times. The name 'Monkton' appears to reflect a pre-VikingViking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
or Anglian
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
settlement in the 8th and 9th centuries. The village is mentioned in the late 11th-century Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
where it is referred to - like all villages in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
- as vastatus i.e. deliberately wrecked by the invading Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
to prevent uprisings against them.
Medieval Benedictine Nunnery
A hermitage or small monastic settlement may have existed at Nun Monkton during the Anglian period in NorthumbriaNorthumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
, prior to the arrival of the Vikings, giving rise to the 'Monkton' part of the village's name. The arrival of the nuns came about a century after the Norman Conquest.In 1172 an Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman
The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
landowner, Ivetta of the Arches, endowed a small Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
nunnery
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
which owned the village and stood on the important ford
Ford (crossing)
A ford is a shallow place with good footing where a river or stream may be crossed by wading or in a vehicle. A ford is mostly a natural phenomenon, in contrast to a low water crossing, which is an artificial bridge that allows crossing a river or stream when water is low.The names of many towns...
route from York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
and Moor Monkton
Moor Monkton
Moor Monkton is a village and civil parish in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the Ouse and north west of York.Moor Monkton is a peaceful village with around 110 houses and a handful of unique businesses....
to the south and Beningbrough
Beningbrough
Beningbrough is a village and civil parish in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England. The parish includes Beningbrough Park and Beningbrough Hall. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 55. The River Ouse forms the border of the parish with the Harrogate district and the...
and Shipton
Shipton, North Yorkshire
Shipton is a village and civil parish in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England, about north-west of York.-History:...
to the north, coming across the river. These routes ended when the ferry was discontinued in the middle of the 20th century. The Priory existed until 1536 when it was dissolved by Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, despite a plea from his second wife, Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...
, that it be spared. Records suggest that some of the nuns, returned to their families with small pensions of £4 a year and still under monastic vows of celibacy
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
, endured considerable hardship as a result of the closure of the convent.
Post-Reformation Village and Estate
Though Nun Monkton village remained a single estate until the 1930s, it changed hands several times after the Protestant ReformationProtestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
. Its first owner was John Neville
John Neville
John Neville, OBE, CM was an English theatre and film actor who moved to Canada in 1972. He enjoyed a resurgence of international attention in the 1980s as a result of his starring role in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen .-Early life:Neville was born in Willesden, London, the...
, the 3rd Baron Latimer and the second husband of Katherine Parr the last wife of Henry VIII. Latimer, who had been granted in 1538, bequeathed it and lands in Hammerton to his daughter at his death in 1543. During the later 17th century and the first half of the 18th century, it was owned by the Payler (or Paylor) family.
On 2 July 1644 the Battle of Marston Moor
Battle of Marston Moor
The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on 2 July 1644, during the First English Civil War of 1642–1646. The combined forces of the Scottish Covenanters under the Earl of Leven and the English Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester defeated the Royalists commanded by Prince...
, one of the largest battles ever fought on English soil, took place in fields some miles to the southwest of the village. Royalist troops under Prince Rupert crossed the Ouse
River Ouse, Yorkshire
The River Ouse is a river in North Yorkshire, England. The river is formed from the River Ure at Cuddy Shaw Reach near Linton-on-Ouse, about 6 miles downstream of the confluence of the River Swale with the River Ure...
between Beningbrough and Nun Monkton and proceeded on to Skipbridge where they crossed the Nidd
Nidd
Nidd is a small village and civil parish in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated 3 miles north of Harrogate and near the River Nidd.-External links:...
and joined battle with the Parliamentarian army. Because of its proximity to the battlefield, Nun Monkton must have been directly affected but there seem to be no traditions, though older villagers in the late twentieth century reported claims that fallen soldiers were buried around St. Mary's Church.
In 1748 the estate and those in surrounding villages passed to William Tufnell Jolliffe upon the death of his uncle Nathaniel Payler. A painting dated to 1773 shows Squire William Tufnell with his son on horseback amid a pack of hounds, looking across from the Moor Monkton
Moor Monkton
Moor Monkton is a village and civil parish in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the Ouse and north west of York.Moor Monkton is a peaceful village with around 110 houses and a handful of unique businesses....
bank of the Nidd at Nun Monkton Priory and Church. Despite the passage of 237 years, the view is relatively unchanged today. An elaborate early nineteenth century monument to the Tufnell family is today in the sacristy on the north side of the church. Before 1871 it was in the old sanctuary of the church and seems to have been somewhat damaged during while being moved.
George IV while Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
, is believed to have had lunch at the Priory during a visit to Yorkshire..
In the 1840s one visitor to the village would have been the novelist Anne Brontë
Anne Brontë
Anne Brontë was a British novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.The daughter of a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England, Anne Brontë lived most of her life with her family at the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. For a couple of years she went to a...
, and her brother Branwell. During her time as a governess
Governess
A governess is a girl or woman employed to teach and train children in a private household. In contrast to a nanny or a babysitter, she concentrates on teaching children, not on meeting their physical needs...
to the Robinson family at Thorpe Green, Little Ouseburn
Little Ouseburn
Little Ouseburn is a small village and civil parish in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated near the A1 road motorway and 6 miles south east of Boroughbridge.-External links:...
, Brontë taught the children of the rector of Nun Monkton.
In 1860, Isaac Crawhall, a Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...
-born gentleman, bought Nun Monkton from the Tufnell family and his family owned the estate and lived at the Priory until it was bought by the Whitworth family in the 1920s. Crawhall was responsible for the redesigning of the church and the building of the new roof and chancel between 1871 and 1875.
A painting of villagers standing outside St.Mary's church by the landscape artist John Henry Leonard was sold at Christies in January 2009. It appears to date from the 1860s and may have been commissioned by Isaac Crawhall.
Nun Monkton was visited in the summer of 1898 by the future Provost of Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and ghost story writer, M.R.James on a boat trip from York during a meeting of Convocation. James was enchanted by the Priory house and gardens and its chinoiserie summer house near the river. He wrote in a letter: 'At Nun Monkton a beautiful house adjoins the church — Queen Anne with a sweet garden and leaden statues and a summerhouse." Nun Monkton later appears to have provided some of the background for his gruesome ghost story "The Ash Tree", though in the story the house is situated in Suffolk.
The largest secular building in Nun Monkton and architecturally by far the finest after the church, is the hall or manor house formally known as the Priory, and used as a location in the television series A Touch of Frost
A Touch of Frost (TV series)
A Touch of Frost is a television detective series produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV from 1992 until 2010, initially based on the Frost novels by R. D. Wingfield....
in an episode entitled Endangered Species. Observant viewers who know the location will note that when Jack Frost (played by David Jason) drives up to The Priory it shows the gate to the left of the cattle grid, over which a temporary wall was erected for the TV programme. In the grounds of the Priory is Avenue Cottage, an 18th century grade II listed building.
Church
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
parish church. It is the sole surviving structure from the former priory and of considerable interest for students of Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman
The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
architecture. At the Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
the east end of the church was demolished and, until the 1870s, St Mary's Nun Monkton was a truncated low-roofed building with standard 18th-century Anglican
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
fittings such as box pew
Box pew
Box pew is a type of church pew that is encased in panelling and was prevalent in England and other Protestant countries from the 16th to early 19th century.-History in England:...
s and monument
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
s. In the 1870s, however, as a result of the impact of the Tractarian movement, the village squire of the day, Isaac Crawhall, commissioned a new east end, built in high Anglican
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
style. There is a conspicuous red sanctuary lamp, though the altar does not feature a tabernacle. Most impressive is the magnificent east window with glass by Edward Burne-Jones
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...
and William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
which has a claim to be the best stained glass in North
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
or West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
.
Village custom
Rising Peter : An Ancient Nun Monkton folk customUntil the first half of the 19th century, Nun Monkton villagers annually performed a ceremony of digging up, parading, and reburying a statue supposed to represent St Peter, the village’s patron saint. The custom is said to have been stopped by a vicar who regarded it as a pagan survival. The fullest modern account of it seems to be given in the adjudication ruling by A.A.Baden Fuller which ruled that the village common was a green
Green
Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...
in 1974. Fuller writes as follows:,
"St. Peter’s Day, June 29th, is the Feast Day in Nun Monkton and a correspondent writing in the Daily Herald in 1868 stated that it was customary in former years to observe a Festival known as “Rising Peter”, but that it was almost obsolete in 1868.
According to the writer – “The Festivities extended over a week, and the same procedure was observed year after year."
On the Saturday evening preceding the 29th a company of parishioners headed by fiddlers and players of other instruments went in procession across the Great Common to Maypole Hill where there was an old sycamore
Sycamore
Sycamore is a name which is applied at various times and places to three very different types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms....
tree, for the purpose of “Rising Peter”, who had been buried under the tree after the last St. Peter’s Day. This effigy of St. Peter, rudely carved in wood and clothed in a fantastic fashion was placed in a box and conveyed to the neighbouring house (possibly the Inn) where it was exposed to view and kept there until the following Saturday, when another procession formed and St. Peter was reinterred. This was called “burying Peter.
On the evening of the first day of the Feast young men went through the Village with large baskets for the purpose of collecting tarts and cheese cakes and eggs for mulled ale, all being consumed at the above ceremonies. Afterwards – dancing, sports, and suppers took place in the Village every day while the Feast lasted.
Nun Monkton today
Estate (house)
An estate comprises the houses and outbuildings and supporting farmland and woods that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house or mansion. It is the modern term for a manor, but lacks the latter's now abolished jurisdictional authority...
village in 1934 when the estate houses of the village were sold off. The population today, of around 250, is well below its high point of about 350 in the 1890s and consists largely of commuters travelling daily to York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, Harrogate
Harrogate
Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. The town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters, RHS Harlow Carr gardens, and Betty's Tea Rooms. From the town one can explore the nearby Yorkshire Dales national park. Harrogate originated in the 17th...
and Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
and retired people. The last shop in the village closed in 1986. The village green
Village green
A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...
, however, continues to be grazed by cows and other animals and is one of the last working greens in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. The Alice Hawthorn public house was named after the 1840s equine winner of the Doncaster Cup
Doncaster Cup
The Doncaster Cup is a Group 2 flat horse race in Great Britain which is open to thoroughbreds aged three years or older. It is run at Doncaster over a distance of 2 miles and 2 furlongs , and it is scheduled to take place each year in September....
and Queen's Vase
Queen's Vase
The Queen's Vase is a Group 3 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbreds. It is run at Ascot over a distance of 2 miles , and it is scheduled to take place each year in June.-History:...
and was formerly The Blue Bell Inn. 'The Alice' closed in 2007 after 220 years, but reopened after refurbishment under new management in September 2009.
Nun Monkton Foundation Primary School
There has been a school in Nun Monkton at least since the early eighteenth century when the Dorothy Wilson Trust was set up in York to endow education for both boys and girls in the village. While many other villages were losing their primary schools, the Nun Monkton community fought hard in the 1970s and 1980s to preserve its school and the school, now enjoying foundation status, continues to thrive and play an essential role in village life.Maypole
Nun Monkton has had a maypoleMaypole
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, particularly on May Day, or Pentecost although in some countries it is instead erected at Midsummer...
at least since the 1790s. A Norwegian pine maypole was erected in 1871 by the village squire of the time Isaac Crawhall. Constant work is needed to preserve a maypole and in the 1920s the pole had to be shortened and re-erected. A similar operation was carried out by the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
in 1975. But in March 2004, Isaac Crawhall's 78 feet (23.8 m) high green-and-white striped maypole finally snapped and fell down in a gale. The village has now replaced the maypole with a 88 feet (26.8 m) pole, reportedly the tallest in England, though unlike its predecessor it is a two-piece construction.
