Burghwallis

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Burghwallis
Yorkshire
West Riding

St Helen's church, Burghwallis
Location
Grid reference: SE534119
Location: 53°36’4"N, 1°11’39"W
Data
Population: 300  (2011)
Post town: Doncaster
Postcode: DN6
Dialling code: 01302
Local Government
Council: Doncaster
Parliamentary
constituency:
Doncaster

Burghwallis is a small village in the rural south-eastern part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The population of the parish as of the 2011 census was 300.

The village is found amongst mixed farmland and woodland on a slight rise roughly six miles north of Doncaster, and one mile off the A1 road, where here runs on the route of the ancient Great North Road.

The village church is St Helen's. The village pub is The Burghwallis.

In contrast with most of the villages surrounding Doncaster, very little in the way of residential development took place in Burghwallis during the 19th and 20th centuries. Today the village is one of a handful in the area to have retained much of its original character and has a very peaceful small-scale rural feel.

History

The village is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Burg; a name derived from the Roman fort or forts on the Roman road which runs by. Michael Woods suggests that the name may once have been Brunnan burh, meaning 'Spring fort', from the gushing spring in the fort (now called Robin Hood's Well) and the location of the cataclysmic Battle of Brunanburh fought in 937.[1]

No church is mentioned in Burghwallis' entry in the Domesday Book; however St Helen's Chapel is likely to have been either standing or under construction at the time. Several architectural features suggest it is of a pre-Conquest design, and it is held to have been built between 950 and 1100 AD. The chapel, now the Church of St Helen, is a Grade II listed building.[2]

Name

Burgh in general refers to a fortified place or town. The parish is referred to simply as "Burg" in the Domesday Book, becoming Burghwallis in the early 13th century, after the Wallis family: the manor came into the Wallis family when Dionysia – one of seven surviving daughters of the local lord – was married into the family. The Wallis family line persisted among the local landowners through to the early 17th century.[3]

See also

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Burghwallis)

References