page_title: Lealholm
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Lealholm / History
caption_attribution_description: English: St James The Greater Church of England, Lealholm, North Yorkshire
context_page_description: Lealholm is a small village in the Glaisdale civil parish of the Borough of Scarborough, in North Yorkshire, England. It is sited at a crossing point of the River Esk, in Eskdale which is within the North York Moors National Park. It is 9.5 miles by road from the nearest town of Whitby, and approximately 27 miles from both Middlesbrough and Scarborough. The village is typical of those found all across the North York Moors which straddle the main through-routes along the valley bottoms. It is mostly built of local stone with pantiled or slate roofs.
  Settlement around modern-day Lealholm can be traced back to the Domesday Book of 1086, with entries concerning the Manor of Crumbeclive and "Lelum" at the site of Lealholm Hall, Lealholmside. Lealholmside is a hamlet by Lealholm, and was a popular location with the photographer Francis Meadow Sutcliffe.
  A honeypot during the summer months, Lealholm is located midway along the Esk valley between the villages of Glaisdale, to the east and Danby to the west. Lealholm is on the route of the Esk valley railway line, which runs from Whitby to Middlesbrough, and is served by Lealholm railway station.
context_section_description: The origins of this community stretch back to a period when farming and the movement of stock was almost exclusively the main source of activity. Lealholm was a convenient place for travellers to cross the River Esk. People set up residence here in the hope and expectation of earning a living from such travellers. 
  The etymology of the Lealholm name is uncertain but "lǣl" was the word for a willow twig or withy in the Old English language and holm was a settlement, thus the settlement by or near the willow trees.
  At the time of the Domesday survey, the site of the current village was heavily wooded, but with five charcoal-hungry iron smelting furnaces operating at the manor by 1274 A.D, the valley floor was cleared quickly of trees enabling drainage, cultivation and settlement of the land. Fulling mills, hostelries and other traders set up bases around this river crossing and thereby formed the nucleus of today's village centre.  Until the middle of the 19th century Lealholm was the main centre of the parish of Glaisdale and many of the parish offices and functions were administered from here.  Lealholm was home to at least one mill for centuries, and the earliest records show a water mill located within the village in 1336 belonging to the Lord of the Manor, William le Latimer, 3rd Baron of Danby. As the mill was fed by the small Cow Beck, water could have been in short supply during dry summer months, and by 1709 it was demolished. A Quaker, Thomas Whatson, built a new mill on the old site, constructing a long mill-race from Crunkly Ghyll through the village to join Cow Beck. The mill-race now forms the boundary of the cricket pitch surrounding it on most sides as it passes the mill. The mill owners had the authority to clean and remove any woodland, earth or rubbish within 40 yards (37 m) of the mill-race. Also, "all persons that shall grind corn and grain at the mill" had the right "to sieve and sift on two parcels of ground called Adam Rigg and Ellergates". Thus, the outcrop of hillside rising towards the station became known as Oatmeal Hill. When the semi-detached houses at 3 and 4 Railway Cottages were purchased 1970, they were combined and the building became known as "Oatmill Cottage". The village also had a paper mill, which employed up to 20 people in its heyday. The site is now a garden centre, known as "Poet's Cottage" after John Castillo, who lived in a cottage on the site, now demolished. In more recent times, a mill, owned by the Nelson family, was used as the village hall, and became known as Nelson Hall. In the late 1980s it was sold and converted into a house.  The historic Shepherds Hall was built in 1873 and was a meeting place for the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds Friendly Society. It is a unique building housing a tea rooms and riverside tea gardens.
  The way of life in the village changed little over the centuries as the farming was always the mixed inbyland and open moors system. Village craftsmen such as blacksmiths and joiners provided for the needs of their own farming community and combined their specialist skills with subsistence farming. An 1823 trade directory lists 17 farmers, four shoemakers, three corn millers, two blacksmiths, two butchers, two victuallers (one also a tallow chandler), a tailor, a wheelwright, and a "blue, brown, and shop paper manufacturer" in Lealholm. The Industrial Revolution absorbed some of the local population as the nearby boom town of Middlesbrough expanded its iron and steel industry but essentially, in this remote area, the farming economy survived until after the Second World War and the mechanisation of agriculture.
  Despite Queen Elizabeth I's Penal laws, Catholicism flourished across many parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire during the 1600s, thanks to the support of local gentry and priests such as Fr. Nicholas Postgate. Today, Catholic churches are sited at both Lealholm and Egton Bridge along the Esk Valley.
  On Friday 27 April 1979, an USAF Phantom aircraft from Alconbury was performing low level tactical reconnaissance over the North York Moors when th
caption: St. James the Greater
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