Bishop Monkton, North Yorkshire: Archbishop’s gambit is still a winner

Four miles south of Ripon, with an average house price of £790,000, Bishop Monkton remains as salubrious a place to live as French-born Archbishop Thurstan of York concluded more than 900 years ago when he selected the settlement for a palace or manor house.

Using aerial mapping, archaeologists have concluded the medieval estate abutted Boroughbridge Road in the village, stretching from near Laurel Bank Farm caravan site to Renton Close, following the Norman Conquest. The leading 12th century religious reformer, who was instrumental in the establishment of Byland and Rievaulx abbeys, is said to have sheltered monks from York’s St Mary’s Abbey at his grand residence ahead of them founding Fountains Abbey.

While Bishop Monkton villagers built a chapel of ease on an elevated site at the top of what has become St John’s Road in 1356, the Archbishop of York’s influence over the village can be seen continuing two centuries later, during the dissolution of the monasteries, when Prebend of Monkton Sir Christopher Brazley was banned by the senior cleric from living with a single woman, playing cards and dice at the village inn or to carry a dagger.

Commanding views across the village, the early English style St John the Evangelist Church was built in 1878 just to the north of the chapel site. It features an imposing tower of three stages and a short stone steeple.

A Cornish granite Ionian cross war memorial sits beside mature trees in the churchyard, while a lychgate is built atop one of 13 bridges, some pretty primitive, crossing Bishop Monkton Beck, the village’s most distinctive feature.

Also overlooking the beck at St John’s Crescent are three terraces of former Arts and Crafts movement-inspired former council housing.

The stream, a tributary of the River Ure, has been likened to a golden thread running through the village, has heavily influenced its development as well as providing a home for a celebrated flotilla of ducks until in 2014 they mysteriously vanished.

Although villagers have called for their reintroduction, ornithologists have advised against the move, warning it could lead to a rise in predation. Neverthess, ducks, albeit rubber ones, can be seen on the beck every May during the village’s fun day, ahead of a tug of war staged beside the beck, outside the Masons Arms.

Opening from Wednesday to Sunday, it’s Bishop Monkton’s last remaining pub. After serving villagers for about 200 years, the landmark Lamb and Flag, near the recently removated and well-used Methodist Chapel and Schoolroom, never reopened after the Covid pandemic and has since been converted into housing.

The Masons Arms is popular with walkers exploring tracks such as Ings Lane, off St John’s Road, part of the Ripon Rowel Walk and ones leading to the River Ure. The green lane boasts fine views to the west of the Hambleton Hills and Kilburn White Horse.

Off the lane east of the village Bishop Monkton Ings Site of Special Scientific Interest features wetland habitats with interesting species such as curlew, Dyer’s Greenweed and Black Bog Rush, and deciduous wet woodlands dominated by bay willow. It was designated as it represents a remnant of a floodplain habitat threatened by drainage and agricultural improvement.

To the west of the village, just before the humpback bridge on Moor Road, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Bishop Monkton Railway Cutting, a Site of Interest for Nature Conservation, provides another oasis for wildlife along the former London and Northeast Railway line.

Near Moor Road’s junction with Knaresborough Road, the village benefits from another green space with volunteer-run playing fields for cricket, football, bowls and croquet dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. After a Lottery application was rejected, residents spent ten years raising £400,000 for a village hall on the site. Its predecessor, the 1859 Mechanics Institute, featuring a clock tower, has been transformed into housing on Boroughbridge Road, as has the three-storey Freedoms Mill, a former paper mill turned paint factory and Bishop Monkton’s first school.

The historic area of the village features numerous former agricultural properties dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, a time when the local economy was dominated by the cereals and root crops that continue to be grown in the large fields surrounding Bishop Monkton. One of the most remarkable buildings in Bishop Monkton stands on the north side of Boroughbridge Road – the three-storey late 18th century Old Corn Mill with attached pigsties and a two-storey stables. Its first floor has a blocked central loading door.

The village core has a triangular island, beside the beck, where the watercourse takes a sharp turn, with a ford at its eastern corner. The area once formed the village pinfold, where stray livestock was held, before serving as the village tip until shortly before the First World War, when it was decided having piles of waste so close to homes posed a serious risk to health.

One one corner of the island stands St Wilfrid’s Stone, which weighs about two tons and is 13ft in circumference, is said to have been used by the 7th century saint when he preached in the village.

Many of the properties have pantile roofs and some have in-filled cart openings. Interspersed with these are numerous mid to late-19th century terraces and villas and sympathetic modern developments. With a thriving primary school at its heart and picturesque street scenes, demand for housing in Bishop Monkton grow significantly in recent years. So much so it has sparked concerns over the pressure on infrastructure, particularly when the village floods. In response, the parish has been designated a neighbourhood area this summer in an attempt to give residents a greater say over the village’s future shape.