Warsill

Warsill
Warsill Hall Farm
Population70 (2015)
OS grid referenceSE226651
Civil parish
  • Warsill
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townHARROGATE
Postcode districtHG3
PoliceNorth Yorkshire
FireNorth Yorkshire
AmbulanceYorkshire
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Yorkshire
54°05′N 1°39′W / 54.08°N 1.65°W / 54.08; -1.65

Warsill is a settlement and civil parish in the Harrogate district, in the county of North Yorkshire, England. It consists of a few scattered farms 5 miles (8 km) south west of Ripon. In 1961 the population of the parish was 42.[1] The population was estimated at 70 in 2015.[2]

Warsill was historically an extra parochial area. It became a civil parish in 1858.[3] Today it shares a grouped parish council with Bishop Thornton.[4]

The toponym, first recorded in 1132 as Warthsala, probably derives from the Old English weard sæl, meaning "watch castle".[5] In the Middle Ages there was a grange of Fountains Abbey here, later the home of Stephen Proctor.[6] Warsill Hall Farmhouse, a 17th-century Grade II listed building, now stands on its site.[7]

The Abbey Grange at Warsill included a dairy farm, providing milk and cheese to the Abbey, and there were also sheep, with wethers kept over winter. In 1526, Peter and Agnes Smyth, employed as the keepers of Warsill, had a plough for arable.[8]

  1. ^ Vision of Britain: Census Reports
  2. ^ "Population Estimates". North Yorkshire County Council. 2015. Retrieved 7 April 2017. In the 2011 census the population of the parish was included with Hartwith cum Winsley and not counted separately.
  3. ^ Vision of Britain website
  4. ^ Bishop Thornton, Shaw Mills and Warsill Parish Web Portal
  5. ^ Smith, A. H. (1961). The Place-names of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Vol. 5. Cambridge University Press. p. 186.
  6. ^ John Richard Walbran, Memorials of the abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, 1 (Durham, 1863), p. 357.
  7. ^ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1251860)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  8. ^ David Michelmore, Fountains Abbey Lease Book (Leeds, 1981), pp. lvi, lix, 165–168