Wharram Percy deserted medieval village

Reasons for Designation

The village, comprising a small group of houses, gardens, yards, streets, paddocks, often with a green, a manor and a church, and with a community devoted primarily to agriculture, was a significant component of the rural landscape in most areas of medieval England, much as it is today. Villages provided some services to the local community and acted as the main focal point of ecclesiastical, and often of manorial, administration within each parish. Although the sites of many of these villages have been occupied continuously down to the present day, many others declined in size or were abandoned throughout the medieval and post-medieval periods, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries. As a result over 2000 deserted medieval villages are recorded nationally. The reasons for desertion were varied but often reflected declining economic viability, changes in land use such as enclosure or emparkment, or population fluctuations as a result of widespread epidemics such as the Black Death. As a consequence of their abandonment these villages are frequently undisturbed by later occupation and contain well-preserved archaeological deposits. Because they are a common and long-lived monument type in most parts of England, they provide important information on the diversity of medieval settlement patterns and farming economy between the regions and through time.

Wharram Percy is of exceptional importance not only because of the excellent state of preservation of its remains but because of the depth and breadth of study that has gone into interpreting the site as entirely as is possible using current techniques. Few other monuments have provided such a large corpus of data yet the majority of the site is still undisturbed. Remains from all periods of this multi-period settlement site will survive well and in situ throughout the unexcavated areas.

Details

Wharram Percy, situated on the high chalkland of the Yorkshire Wolds, is one of the best known and most intensively studied deserted villages in England. Partial excavations have been carried out there since 1950, with 1990 being the fortieth and final season of the current programme. In that time evidence has been recovered of a multi-period settlement site with occupation spanning more than five thousand years from the Neolithic to the post-medieval period. The monument comprises a single area which includes the remains of the medieval village, the parish church of St Martin which is also a Grade II* Listed Building, the sites of the medieval mill and fishpond and the sites of two medieval manor houses. Also included are the Iron Age and Romano-British settlement, the early-middle Saxon vill, the post-medieval farmstead and also the medieval and post-medieval vicarage. Around the area but not included in the scheduling are traces of ridge and furrow, the earthwork remains of medieval ploughing. The last record of the village dates to 1517 when legal proceedings were taken against the landlord for the eviction of what may have been the last four families living there. Clearly the tenants lost their case because, at about that time, the village was depopulated and given over to pasture with only the parish church of St Martin continuing in use down to the 20th century. In the late 14th century, on the eve of this last act of depopulation, the village consisted of thirty houses laid out in two facing rows, an arrangement typical of the Yorkshire Wolds. The longer western row comprised about twenty houses built along the edge of a flat hilltop while the shorter eastern row lay along the valley floor. The remains of these two rows appear today as the grassed over foundations of stone-built houses and outbuildings associated at their rear with banked rectangular enclosures. The enclosures were known as crofts or garths while the ground on which the buildings stood was called a toft. A headrow with a manorial complex and additional tofts and crofts lay across the north end, the whole being a planned village laid out at some point between the tenth and 12th centuries. Entering the village from the north is a prominent hollow way which formed the main road through the village and formerly linked it with the deserted village of Towthorpe which shared its church. A network of shallower sunken tracks link up with the hollow way from the west and represent paths through the main part of the village. On the north side is one which led north-westward to New Malton, the principal market place for the region. North of this is a separate complex of earthworks which represents the site of the late 13th century manor house and its outbuildings. In addition to the lord's accommodation, among its elements are a circular dovecote, service buildings, a barn and also a garden. An earlier manor house, dating to before the mid-13th century, has also been located near the centre of the village remains. This consisted of a stone- built solar block (the private accommodation of the lord) and one wall of a timber hall which was partially destroyed by late 13th century quarrying after the manor site shifted. Features found at the rear of the house include a hayrick stand, a cold store and a latrine-pit. In the early 14th century the area was levelled prior to the building of a new peasant houses. Excavation of some of these houses has indicated that the local chalk was not used as a building material for peasant dwellings before the 13th century. Post-holes and beam slots show that, prior to this, houses were timber-built. The chalk houses of the later Middle Ages were cruck-built longhouses typically consisting of three bays which included a living area with a central hearth flanked on one side by a room which may have doubled as both dairy and sleeping accommodation and, on the other, by a cow-byre divided from the rest by a cross passage. In cruck buildings the roof is supported independently of the walls by the timber crucks and excavations have shown that these timber frames were permanent features while the chalk walls in between were frequently renewed or rebuilt. Small finds from the peasant houses include spindlewhorles, sewing implements, gaming boards and pieces, domestic pots, and metal objects such as keys and hinges. Examples of the latter designed to hold heavy doors and window shutters also indicate the sturdiness and permanent nature of the later medieval houses. The only surviving medieval building is the parish church of St Martin which continued in use till 1949 and has been the site of occasional services since. The earliest documentary reference for the church dates to c.1210 but excavation has shown that there has been a church on the site since the tenth century. The first church, which was timber-built, was replaced in the late tenth or early 11th century by a small two-celled stone church with a rectangular nave and chancel. This is believed to have been not the parish church but the private chapel of a late Saxon lord. In the mid-12th century, when the parish was formed, a larger two-celled church was built which had, in addition, an apse at the east end. A large west tower was begun but abandoned because of structural problems and a smaller tower, built unusually half-in and half-out of the west-end, was added instead. This tower collapsed in 1959. In the late 12th century a large south aisle with an arcade of Norman arches was added while, in the 13th century, a north aisle with pointed arches was also built to accommodate an increasing parish population. The last addition, the north-east chapel, dates to the early 14th century. After that the church began to decline, the south aisle first being reduced in length then, in c.1500, demolished along with the north aisle and the chapel. In the 17th century, the chancel was also reduced in size. North of the church is the medieval cemetery of which some 600 burials have been excavated. This was in use throughout the late Saxon and medieval periods and will provide important demographic evidence. East of the church, in the valley bottom, is the stream which provided the village with its water. Excavations carried out south of the church showed that, from the late Saxon period a complex sequence of low clay dams had been built to create a millpond for a horizontal water mill which survived in use till the 13th century when it became derelict. The dam was then heightened and milling continued. Prior to the mid-13th century, when there were two manors, there were also two mills, one to the north of the village and one to the south. The site of the northernmost has not yet been found though a 13th century grain-drying kiln was located in the north manorial complex and it is known that, in the 14th century, it was this mill that continued in use after the southern millpond was converted to a fishpond and a larger rubble dam constructed in place of the earlier dams. The fishpond was restored in the 18th century and, in the 19th century, a sheep-wash was built against the dam. Evidence for pre medieval occupation was first discovered during the partial excavation of the hall belonging to the later manor when Iron Age and Romano- British material was found beneath the south wall. Later, trial trenches, cut through the medieval village boundaries, demonstrated that the main medieval earthworks followed earlier Iron age or Romano-British boundaries. These small scale excavations, in addition to geophysical survey, indicate that a high status Iron Age settlement consisting of two farms lay north of the medieval village. A defensive ditch with its entrance was found and also a ladder system of rectangular enclosures lying on an east-west axis. The enclosures were modified slightly during the Romano-British period for which evidence of timber buildings and late Roman grain drying ovens has been found. The medieval hollow way to New Malton was also found to have been laid out at this time with the settlement lying on either side. In all, along with two Roman burials and a late Iron Age/Romano-British quarry, five farms of the period have been located indicating expansion of the settlement from the Iron Age to the mid Roman period. It is not yet known whether these farms were independent or based on a Roman villa which has not yet been located. The possibility of continuity between the late Roman and early Saxon periods has been indicated in the discovery of sixth century material in one of two sunken floored buildings found cut into the Iron Age road. The postholes of a Saxon timber building of uncertain date were also found north of this road and also two further sunken floored buildings dated to the eighth century. A major Saxon site was found beneath the first medieval manor where a Saxon midden preserved Middle Saxon pottery, a smith's workshop containing large amounts of slag, and more postholes. The evidence so far indicates at least six areas of Saxon occupation, five of which were of high status with evidence for metalworking, coins and imported pottery. They suggest a spaced group of independent farms dating from the mid seventh century to the ninth. There is also evidence of continued occupation into the tenth century at the time of Scandinavian settlement. The lack of 14th century pottery at the later medieval manor house, in addition to documentary evidence detailing the deterioration of the manorial buildings by the mid 14th century, suggests that the lord was no longer resident at this time and that the services owed to him by his tenants had been commuted to rents. Although the process is not fully documented, it seems likely that the gradually declining population over the latter half of the century, and the corresponding loss of revenue, would have been the cause of the final eviction of the tenants and the subsequent giving over of the land to pasture. This pasture, and the sheep flocks that grazed it, were managed from a single farm located in the valley north of the church. The 16th and earlier 17th century farmhouse has not been excavated though its location at the southern end of the east row of village houses is known. It is partially overlain by the late 17th century farm which was itself rebuilt on a slightly different alignment by Sir Charles Buck between 1775 and 1779. The later farm comprised a substantial seven roomed house faced with brick and a courtyard of outbuildings to the north. The south range of the complex survives to the present day as a line of cottages. By 1851 this farm had been demolished, its role taken over by the present day Wharram Percy Farm. Also near the church are the remains of the vicarage. The postholes of a large timber building believed to be the late Saxon or early medieval vicarage have been found north of the churchyard boundary. In the 12th or 13th century, however, the churchyard was expanded and the vicarage was moved, possibly to the south side of the churchyard where rubble from a building demolished in the early 14th century has been found in the south east corner and is of better quality than the material of the contemporary peasant houses. The succeeding late medieval vicarage was a larger building built north of the church, partly overlying the old churchyard. Little is yet known about this building since excavation was only recently carried out. Two buildings have been identified: the cruck barn known to have burnt down in the 16th century and a 16th century rebuild of an earlier kitchen. After the fire, the vicarage of the 16th and 17th centuries was built to the east and included among its buildings a stone-built cold cellar. In the 18th century a new parsonage was built still further east but had been demolished by the mid-19th century. There are a number of features which are excluded from the scheduling. These include all fixtures such as interpretation boards, all modern fencing and gates, the telegraph poles crossing the site and the labourers' cottages but the ground beneath all these features is included. The church and remains of Wharram Percy have been in State care since 1972 and 1974 respectively.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

13302

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Beresford, M, Hurst, J, Wharram Percy Deserted Medieval Village, (1990)
'Annual Reports of the (Deserted) Medieval Village Research Group' in Annual Reports of the (Deserted) Medieval Village Research Group, (1954)
Other
Annual Reports of the Medieval Settlement Research Group, 1986, in progress

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