England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Burnsall St Wilfrid

The Parish

The parish of Burnsall lies in western Yorkshire roughly 9 miles northeast of the market town of Skipton. Burnsall sits on the B6160 road which follows the western banks of the River Wharfe from close to Ilkley into its upper reaches before passing across the moors to Wensleydale. Burnsall is a small village, rather linear in structure as a result of its site, with properties lining the B6160 for something like a half mile. The wider parish, however, covers a vast area of Yorkshire's Dales incorporating the chapelries of Rilston & Conistone with Kilnsay as well as no fewer than 5 townships, some of these subsidiary settlements will have their own pages within this project.  Much of the parish comprises open moorland home to rough upland grazing for hardy sheep, or for cattle in the valley pastures, as well as the driven-shooting industry built upon the local grouse. There was some experimental extraction of mainly lead but the main source of income, other than pastoral farming, was from the power supplied by the Wharfe, itself. Three mills, two for cotton & one for wool employed many in the village and wider parish. Today Burnsall's economy is underpinned by tourism, the Dales Way National Trail crosses the Wharfe's Bridge and squeezes between village and river offering many overnight stays whilst the Wharfe itself provides quality fishing and water-sports. Burnsall is drained southeastwards by the Wharfe which eventually meets with most of the other Dales rivers to reach the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Burnsall is sited on a rising site from 140 to 165 metres above the sea, it sits in a deeply cut valley, however, and land either side rises impressively to local high points notably 506 metres on nearby Thorpe Fell to the southwest. The total acreage of Burnsall parish is an astonishing 25.950 acres, some of which is assigned to the chapelries, however, making it one of the most extensive parishes in the land; within that acreage there would have been supported a population of around 2,700 parishioners. In Domesday times Burnsall was on the fringes of Norman occupation, shared between Osbern d'Arques and local lad Hardwulf it was an undeveloped location described simply as waste, a term indicative of such a state, with no recorded assets.

The Church

St Wilfrid's church sits on the eastern side of the B6160 as it passes through the village. Whilst the re has undoubtedly been a church here from early times little remains of the earlier periods of the medieval, a few scraps include two windows at the eastern end of the southern chapel which Pevsner tentatively dates to c1300, the boundary between Early English Gothic and Decorated styles usually formalised as Transitional. The remainder of the architecture is firmly from the great church-building era of the Perpendicular. Helpful mason's marks on the western tower indicate work was ongoing in 1520 and that date seems not unreasonable for much of the work. The basic nave and chancel structure is enhanced by aisles which also embrace the western tower as well as side chapels to the shorter height-ed chancel, all show the style of late-Perpendicular. Restorations came early to St Wilfrid, as further inscriptions in the southern aisle record the repair & beautification of the church as early as 1612. A more thorough, and typically timed, restoration took place in the late 1850s which saw many changes to the building. The Perpendicular clerestory was increased in height and new windows inserted, further windows changed as well as almost a complete re-roofing of the entire building. Whilst the B6160 carries much traffic there is street parking outside the churchyard which is entered by a small lychgate, the churchyard has a low wall heavily covered in rampant ivy-growth. Once within there are few obstacles for the photographer with most of the favoured aspects readily available.