The population of the parish was estimated at 140 in 2016.[1]
History
The village is mentioned in Domesday Book as Fingall, when it belonged to Count Alan and had 13 villagers.[6] The origin of the place-name is the Old English words Fin, inga and hall meaning a nook of land of the family or followers of a man called Fina. The place-name appears as Finegala in Domesday Book of 1086 and as Finyngale in 1157.[7]
In the 1820s Finghall had a population of 126, which had dropped to 111 by 1872 and 99 by 1897.[8][9] The 12th-century church is dedicated to St Andrew[10] and is adjacent to the beck and quite near the A684 road. It is thought that the Medieval village of Fingall was clustered around the church but was abandoned during a plague.[11]
The village had a railway station on the Wensleydale Railway, which opened in the 1850s and closed in 1954.[12] It was reopened on the heritage Wensleydale Railway in 2004. The village has an annual Spring Bank Holiday Barrel Push, which sees competitors push an 18-imperial-gallon (82 L; 22 US gal) metal beer barrel over a distance of 3,300 feet (1,000 m).[13]
Culture and community
The village public house is the Queen's Head.[14] A local legend maintains that the willows that line the beck to the north of the village, of which there is a good view from the dining room and terrace of the pub, inspired Kenneth Grahame to write The Wind in the Willows.[15] The village to the east is Newton-le-Willows.[16]
^ ab"Population Estimates". North Yorkshire County Council. 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2020. In the 2011 census the population was not counted separately but included the civil parish of Akebar
^Mills, A. D. (2011) [first published 1991]. A Dictionary of British Place Names (First edition revised 2011 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 189. ISBN9780199609086.
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