England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Bossall St Botolph

The Parish

The parish of Bossall lies in central Yorkshire about 10 miles northeast of the city of York and on the southern border of the North Riding where it meets the East Riding, here formed by the course of the River Derwent. Whilst the parish may be named Bossall the hamlet, where lies the church, is a very small place indeed, a deserted medieval village with today just a handful of farms and cottages. The population would have been, and still are, spread over the breadth of the parish in a collection of hamlets. The hamlet of Bossall sits just over 2 miles east of the A64 road which connects York with Malton. The parish sits on a fertile flood plain with rich soils leading to good arable crops and farming would have dominated the local economy. The Derwent drains the parish southwards to reach the Ouse near Drax and thence to the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Bossall hamlet is sited at around 30 metres above the sea, other areas within the wider parish rise gently reaching a little over 50 metres at the larger hamlet of Harton. For a lowland Yorkshire parish Bossall was remarkably extensive, covering just over 9,800 acres it is more typical of an upland northern parish, within that extensive area a population of of almost 1,200 parishioners would have lived with fewer than 100 of them in Bossall itself. In Domesday times Bossall was a holding on one Hugh, the son of Baldric, and could ofer 15 ploughs and a small meadow.

The Church

St Botolph's church sits at the heart of the tiny hamlet of Bossall at the main junction of lanes within it. The design is cruciform with a central crossing tower, this is usually an indication of an early church and St Botolph doesn't disappoint. Pevsner places the building's origins within the Transitional period, a period covering the last quarter of the 12th century when Norman Romanesque style was being replaced by the Early English Gothic. Whilst the windows within the nave have been restored they still show characters of the earlier Romanesque period whilst those within the transept are lancets from the early Gothic. Naturally an early church such as this doesn't remain static and by the late 13th century the chancel was either built or replaced with a more typical design of the Decorated style. Ab early 19th century restoration was kind and changed little of the basic structure. The lane which approaches Bossall from the A64 winds around the churchyard before meeting the crossroads, the narrow verge is slightly widened to permit a car to park outside the lychgate which forms the entrance. The hedged and fenced churchyard is now left un-mown as a reserve for nature and the churchyard is open, uncluttered and with no obstacles to the photographer.