Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for CAWOOD

CAWOOD, a village and a parish in Selby district, W. R Yorkshire. The village stands on the river Ouse, 3 miles ESE of Ulleskelf r. station, and 4½ WNW of Selby. It was formerly a market town; is a seat of petty sessions; and has a post office‡ under Selby, and fairs on 13 May and 23 Sept. A castle was built at it, about 920, by King Athelstane; given to the see of York; rebuilt, in a palatial style, in the time of Henry VI., by Archbishops Bowett and Kempe; held, for two years, by the royalists, in the wars of Charles I.; and taken and dismantled by the parliamentarians. Many of the archbishops lived in the castle as their chief residence; Archbishop Matthew, famed for extemporaneous preaching, and Archbishop Montaigne, a native of Cawood, died in it; and Cardinal Wolsey retired to it after his fall, and was arrested in it by the Earl of Northumberland. The only remains of it are the gateway tower, square and buttressed, and a brick building, which seems to have been a chapel. The parish comprises 2,840 acres. Real property, £6,566. Pop., 1,243. Houses, 301. The property is much subdivided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of York. Value, £300.* Patron, the Archbishop of York. The church is early English and good; and there are Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels. An hospital has £76 from endowment; a school, £103; and other charities £252.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Cawood Ch/AP/CP       Yorkshire AncC
Place: Cawood

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