Wressle village has a late 18th-century church, St John, and on the western fringe of the village is the Grade I listed structure and scheduled monument, the ruins of Wressle Castle.[2][3]Wressle railway station is located within the village.
The parish includes the hamlets of Brind, Newsholme and Loftshome. Wressle lies within the Parliamentary constituency of Haltemprice and Howden an area that mainly consists of middle class suburbs, towns and villages. The area is affluent, placed as the 10th most affluent in the country in a Barclays Private Clients survey,[4] and has one of the highest proportions of owner-occupiers in the country.[5]
The civil parish contains Wressle and the hamlets of Brind and Newsholme.[1][6] The place of Loftsome lies less than 0.6 miles (1 km) south of Wressle on the bank of the Derwent.[6] The Hull to Selby railway line runs east–west through the parish, passing Wressle on the southern edge, and the A63 also passes east–west through the southern part of the parish, skirting Newsholme, and passing Loftsome Bridge.[6] The parish contains predominately agricultural land at around 16 feet (5 m) above sea level.[6]
Wressle was listed as a Manor (Weresa) in the Domesday Book of 1086.[9]
An early church is thought to have been destroyed during the English Civil War as it represented a potential fortification; church services were then held in the chapel in the remains of Wressle Castle, until that was destroyed by fire (1796).[10][11] The parish church of St John of Beverley, now a Grade II listed building, was built in 1799 of brick with stone dressings, as a replacement.[12]
Other 18th-century buildings still extant include the Castle Farmhouse (1796) built to house the farmer after the fire in Wressle Castle;[13] and the Long Barn (late 18th century) near to the castle site, Holly Cottage in Wressle village (mid-18th century); all built of brick.[14][15][16] Rowland Hall, east of the village was built in the late 18th century in brick with stone dressings and is now Grade II listed.[17]
In 1840 the Hull and Selby Railway was opened, passing south of Wressle, with a cast-iron bridge over the Derwent; services calling at Wressle are recorded as early as 1843, with a full train service at Wressle station by 1855.[18] A school with an attached schoolmaster's house was erected in 1854.[11]
A windmill was built at Mill Farm, east of the village church, in the 19th century; by 1890 it was out of use.[19][20]
The village has had minimal urban growth in the industrial and modern age.[21] In 1997 planning permission was obtained for a new small street of 5 houses off Main Street, named 'Derwent Court'.[22]
Loftsome
The Loftsome toll swing bridge
Loftsome and Loftsome Bridge were small hamlets in the parish of Wressle.[23] The Derwent was once crossed by a ferry at Loftsome. A swing bridge crossing of the Derwent was built at Loftsome in 1804, operated as a toll bridge.[24][25][26]
There has been an inn at Loftsome Bridge since at least the 1800s.[27] By 1823 the inn was known as the Loftsome Bridge Inn.[28]
The original Loftsome Bridge remained in use to the early 1930s, at which time a new bridge was built for the Hull-Selby road (part of the A63).[24][30]
(In the parish of Barmby on the Marsh) In the early 1980s Yorkshire Water constructed a water supply treatment works "Loftsome Water Treatment Works" approximately 0.6 miles (1 km) south-west of Loftsome on the banks of the Derwent.[31] The site was refurbished and upgraded in 1994, including ozone treatment, giving a capacity of 114,000 cubic metres (4,000,000 cu ft) per day,[32][31] in 2005/6 the site added additional treatment units to deal with increased pesticide and trihalomethane content from the Derwent.[31]
In the late 2000s Yorkshire Water had two 1.3 MW wind turbines installed at its site in Loftsome.[33][34][35]
^The Monthly Magazine, or, British Register. Vol. 16. 1 October 1803. p. 285. It is intended to build a new swing bridge over the river Derwent, at or near a place called Loftsome Ferry House, ...
^Journals of the House of Lords. Vol. 44. 1802. p. 202. (Loftsome Bridge Bill) An Act for building a Bridge over the River Derwent, at or near Loftsome Ferry, from the Parish of Wressel, to the opposite Shore, in the Parish of Hemingbrough, in the East Riding of the County of York
^"The History". Loftsome Bridge Coaching House Ltd. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
Pevsner, Nikolaus; Neave, David (1995). Yorkshire : York and the East Riding. The Buildings of England (2nd ed.). pp. 766–769.
Further reading
Brears, P. (2010). "Wressle Castle: functions, fixtures and furnishings for Henry Percy 'the magnificent', fifth earl of Northumberland, 1498–1527". Archaeological Journal. 167: 55–114.
Emery, Anthony (1996). Northern England. Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. pp. 414–419.
Neave, D. (1984). "Wressle Castle". Archaeological Journal. 141: 58–60.
Savage, James (1797). An Historical Account of the Parish of Wressle, in the East Riding of the County of York.
Savage, James (1805). The History of the Castle and Parish of Wressle, in the East Riding of the County of York.
