Muscoates

Muscoates
Lane into Muscoates
Muscoates Location within North Yorkshire
OS grid reference	SE687802
Civil parish	Nunnington
Unitary authority	North Yorkshire
Ceremonial county	North Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	YORK
Postcode district	YO62
Police	North Yorkshire
Fire	North Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
UK Parliament	Thirsk and Malton

Muscoates is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the parish of Nunnington, in North Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Riccal, 4 miles (6 km) to the south of the town of Kirkbymoorside.

Heritage

Muscoates is first mentioned in a 12th-century document. The name derives either from the Old English mūsa cotes, meaning "mouse-ridden cottages", or from an Old Norse personal name Músi.[1] Muscoates was a township in the ancient parish of Kirkdale,[2] and became a separate civil parish in 1866.[3]

Muscoates was a small parish with an area of 1,045 acres (423 ha) and a population of 23 in 1961.[4]

In 1974 it became part of the new district of Ryedale, and on 1 April 1986 the parish was abolished and merged with Nunnington.[5] Ryedale was abolished in 2023 and the area is now administered by North Yorkshire Council.

Singular writer

Sir Herbert Read, the poet and art critic, was born at Muscoates in 1893, the son of a farmer. His fantasy novel The Green Child (1935) was described by the critic Geoffrey Wheatcroft in 1993 as "singular, odd, completely original".[6]

References

1. Watts, Victor, ed. (2010), "Muscoates", The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978 0 521 16855 7
2. Page, William, ed. (1914). "Parishes: Kirkdale". Victoria County History. A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 1. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
3. "Vision of Britain:relationships and changes". Retrieved 26 August 2014.
4. "Vision of Britain: 1961 census report". Retrieved 26 August 2014.
5. "The Ryedale (Parishes) Order 1985" (PDF). Local Government Boundary Commission for England. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
6. Wheatcroft, Geoffrey (11 December 1993). "Off the Shelf: Trailing baroque clouds of glory: Geoffrey Wheatcroft ponders Herbert Read's entrancing novel, The Green Child". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 19 October 2009.