Parish of Bolton Percy
The parish of Bolton Percy was an area of c 6 square miles
on the east of the Ainsty, bordered to the
south by the river Wharfe—c 20 yards wide. In earlier
times the parish comprised 6 vills or 'townships': Appleton,
Bolton Percy proper, Colton, Hornington, Nun Appleton and
Steeton. These were part of the Percy Fee between 12-14th
C (Clay 1963 pp 11-13, 104ff; M J Harrison 2000 p 257). Appleton
and Steeton were a half-hour walk apart—about
2 miles—and no more than 8 miles from York Minster. Lords
of manors were in close and frequent contact with the City,
and could reach its gates on horseback within the hour. The
east window of the Parish Church is a rare surviving medieval
depiction of the Virgin Mary (Jenkins 1999 p 774).
1. Appleton
Now called Appleton Roebuck. In 1379 Appleton comprised c
200 inhabitants living in some 40 houses (M J Harrison 2000
p 74). Cecilia Broket was one householder.
There were 3 manors in Appleton, the largest
being Southwood—later called Brockethall
Manor—a moated site at the east end of the village.
The Fauconbergs and then the Sampsons
were lords of Southwood before the Brokets.
2. Steeton
The Elizabethan Brocketts of Wheathampstead clearly thought
of Steeton as their ultimate place of origin.
Glover traced a
line for them there stretching back to the 1200s [without
dates]. Although this coincides with dates of the earliest
records of Brokets elsewhere in the Ainsty, two 1269 deeds
listed no Brokets among the occupants of Steeton's 27 tofts
(Parker 1932 pp 166, 7). Perhaps marriage first brought them
to Steeton late 13th or early 14th
C from a nearby township.
Including children and those who evaded or couldn't pay the
poll tax, the population of Steeton in 1379 was c
100. They lived in 20 or more houses on either side
of the one street (M J Harrison 2000 p 257). Nicholas
Broket and family were there then and deeds suggest that his
forbears had been landholders there for at least 50 years.
In 1450 half the township was granted to Edward
Broket, although by then there were probably no Brokets living
there.
Steeton is a 'lost village', the traces partially destroyed
by the building of a great pond, now dry. The outlines can
be seen from an aerial photograph (Beresford 1952-5 p 226).
| 'Steeton was like most lost villages
- [It would have] grown up as a community of husbandmen,
whose lives were wholly or partly centred on the growing
of cereal crops. In the century from 1450 to
1550 the owners of the fields wished to put their property
to another farming use, a more profitable use, bringing
them not only more money but smaller labour-costs than
in corn-growing. These men wished to become graziers of
sheep or cattle. Such a transformation ... took away the
need for the services of most of the villagers. ... [They]
left or were evicted' (Beresford 1954 pp 28, 392). |
Subsidy records in York City Archives actually suggest that
it was cleared for sheep a good deal later.
3. Nun Appleton
Edward's Broket will
of 1485 mentioned a manor called Jewleas. This was probably
the ancient moated site in Nun Appleton bordering the Wharfe
(MJ Harrison 2000 p 70).
|
