Yorkshire

Yorkshire, historic county of England, in the north-central part of the country between the Pennines and the North Sea. Yorkshire is England’s largest historical county. It comprises four broad belts each stretching from north to south: the high Pennine moorlands in the west, dissected by the Yorkshire Dales; the central lowlands—including the Vale of York—draining into the River Humber estuary in the southeast; the North York Moors and Yorkshire Wolds in the east; and, in the far southeast, the Holderness plain along the North Sea. The historic counties bordering Yorkshire are Durham to the north, Westmorland to the northwest, Lancashire to the west, Cheshire and Derbyshire to the southwest, and Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the southeast.

Administration and government

Yorkshire comprises all or most of the following administrative units: the administrative county of North Yorkshire; the unitary authorities of Redcar and Cleveland, Middlesbrough, Kingston upon Hull, and York; the part of the unitary authority of Stockton-on-Tees south of the River Tees; and all or most of every metropolitan borough in the metropolitan counties of West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. The exceptions are the parish of Finningley and the area west of Bawtry—both in the metropolitan borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire—which lie within the historic county of Nottinghamshire; the area around Beighton and Mosborough in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, which belongs to the historic county of Derbyshire; and the area west of Todmorden in the metropolitan borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, which lies within the historic county of Lancashire. The historic county of Yorkshire also includes three large areas in other administrative units: much of the eastern part of the administrative county of Lancashire, including the areas around Earby and Barnoldswick in the borough of Pendle, and much of the borough of Ribble Valley, including the entire Forest of Bowland region; Garsdale, Dentdale, and the area around Sedbergh in the South Lakeland district of the administrative county of Cumbria; and the area south of the Tees in the Teesdale district of the administrative county of Durham. In addition, small areas along the southeast border of the historic county of Yorkshire lie in the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire.

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Historically, Yorkshire was divided into ridings (“thirds”), each of which had the full administrative status of a county: the North Riding (the entire unitary authorities of Redcar and Cleveland and Middlesbrough, most of the administrative county of North Yorkshire, and parts of the administrative county of Durham and the unitary authorities of Stockton-on-Tees and York), the East Riding (the entire unitary authority of Kingston upon Hull, most of the unitary authority of East Riding of Yorkshire, and parts of the administrative county of North Yorkshire and the unitary authority of York), and the West Riding (almost the entire metropolitan counties of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, parts of the administrative counties of North Yorkshire, Cumbria, and Lancashire, and small parts of the unitary authorities of East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, and York). The historic city of York (a small area within the present city and unitary authority of York), where the ridings converged, had the status of a fourth administrative county. Although there was one high sheriff for the county, for most purposes the ridings were separate administrative units for a thousand years. Each riding had its own court of quarter sessions and its own county council. Yorkshire and the ridings lost their administrative powers in 1974.

History and architecture

Many prehistoric remains have been discovered in Yorkshire, including extensive burial monuments on the North York Moors and the Wolds, stone monuments in the Vale of York, and hill forts throughout the county. The most impressive of these is the vast earthworks at Stanwick (near Aldbrough St. John, a few miles south of the River Tees), a fortress that the Brigantes built to resist the Roman invasion. The Romans defeated the Brigantes in the north and west and the Parisi in the east in the 1st century ce and garrisoned the town of Eboracum (now York). Yorkshire served the Romans as a military stronghold from which to repel invasions from the north. After Roman rule there ended in the early 5th century, much of Yorkshire seems to have remained under the control of the indigenous Britons, whose kingdom of Elmet maintained its independence until the 7th century. Meanwhile, the Germanic Angles established themselves on the coast and around the Humber. They founded the kingdom of Deira in the late 6th century and conquered most of Yorkshire. During the 7th century Deira fell under the domination of the kingdom of Northumbria, and the town of York became the seat of an archbishop and the ecclesiastical centre of the north. The Danes conquered Yorkshire and the rest of Northumbria in the 9th century, and Yorkshire remained strongly Anglo-Scandinavian in culture until the Normans crushed all resistance to their rule in 1069.

In the ensuing two centuries the Benedictines, Augustinians, and Cistercians founded important monasteries in the county, while the Percys, Mowbrays, Nevilles, Warennes, and other aristocratic families established large landed estates. Yorkshire served as a defensive stronghold against Scottish raids from the north. After the population losses of the Black Death during the 14th century, much of Yorkshire’s cropland was converted to sheep pasture to produce what was then England’s most important export, wool. Kingston upon Hull flourished from this time as a wool port. Two of the most important battles of the Wars of the Roses occurred in Yorkshire: Wakefield (1460), in which Richard, 3rd duke of York, was slain, and Towton (1461), which saw the decisive defeat of the Lancastrians by the Yorkists. The county was the principal site of the Pilgrimage of Grace, an unsuccessful uprising in 1536 against Henry VIII’s Reformation legislation. One of the crucial battles of the English Civil Wars was fought in Yorkshire at Marston Moor in 1644.

Local wool production in the 14th and 15th centuries stimulated woolen manufacture in many of the towns of the West Riding, which converted the raw wool into more valuable cloth. During the same period, Sheffield developed a reputation as a metalworking centre, but agriculture remained Yorkshire’s dominant economic activity. Yorkshire entered the Industrial Revolution as a centre of woolen textile manufacturing in the towns of Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Wakefield, and Huddersfield, where rivers flowing from the Pennines provided both waterpower and a means of transport to the seaport of Kingston upon Hull. During the 19th century railways augmented water transport and encouraged the expansion of coal mining in the southern West Riding and the development of the iron and steel industries of Sheffield, Rotherham, and Doncaster. Industrialization shifted the economic focus of Yorkshire from agriculture to manufacturing and spurred the growth of the urban centres of West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire that still contain most of the county’s population. While coal mining, steel production, and textile manufacture declined during the late 20th century, service activities and newer industries—including engineering and electronics—took their place.

Because of its long history, Yorkshire has a wealth of historic architecture. Several parish churches, notably those at Kirkdale and Kirk Hammerton near York, preserve pre-Norman interiors. After the Norman conquest, Yorkshire gained impressive ecclesiastical architecture, including the now ruined Bolton and Rievaulx abbeys, Ripon Cathedral (incorporating styles ranging from late Norman to Perpendicular Gothic), and the outstanding Gothic York Minster. The historic walled city of York also preserves several examples of medieval secular architecture, including the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall and the Guildhall. Yorkshire’s noteworthy castles include Bolton, Helmsley, Pickering, and Scarborough. Notable among the great 18th-century country houses of Yorkshire are Wentworth Woodhouse and Castle Howard.