Pocklington
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All Saints' Church is known in the area as the Cathedral of the Wolds and it dates from the late 12th to early 15th century.
Near the centre of Pocklington is Burnby Hall Gardens. These gardens are home to the National Collection of Hardy Water Lilies - the biggest such collection to be found in a natural setting in Europe.
Pocklington is also the home to Pock FM a local radio station run by young people for the community.
William Wilberforce, Tom Stoppard, Adrian Edmondson and Ralph Ineson were educated at Pocklington School which was founded in 1514 by John Dolman. Woldgate College is nearby Pocklington school, which is run by the council.
The Armorial Bearings of Pocklington Town Council
The shield is based on the arms of the Dolman family, founders of Pocklington School and was granted to the town council in 1980. The crown at the base of the shield which is the emblem of the Saints, along with the gold cross, symbolises the town's historic connection with Paulinus and the Archbishop of York. The wheat sheaves note Pocklington's agricultural importance and the water lily the famous lily lakes at Burnby Hall Gardens. The arms were designed by H Ellis Tomlinson MA, Fellow of the Heraldry Society and heraldic advisor to the Rural District Councils Association (1954-74).
Brief History
Pocklington has always been the commercial and civic centre for the district and was the focal point of an area which has seen significant events through the centuries, many influencing English history.
It is reputed the ancient kingdom of Deira has its capital nearby. In AD627 Edwin and subsequently the rest of Northumbria was converted to Christianity at the old pagan temple at Goodmanham. It is likely that the missinary Paulinus established the first Christian Church in Pocklington on his way from Goodmanham to found York Minster.
The Southeby Cross dating from the late 1300s in Pocklington Church has the inscription "Paulinsus here preached and celebrated AD627".
William Wilberforce wrote his first public letter against the slave trade while at Pocklington School from 1771-76 and went on to be the driving force behind the abolition of slavery in the early 19th Century. This is celebrated by the broken linked chain in the present town coat of arms.
More recently the group of five airfields based in and around Pocklington played an active role in the Second World War. The 102 (Ceylon) Squadron based there holds its annual reunion in Pocklington. Those serving on HMS Volage also keep close ties with the town that adopted them during the war, sending letters and parcels.
Pocklington gets its name from the Anglian settlement of Pocel's (or Pocela's) people, but the town may precede Anglo-Saxon times and there is evidence of much earlier inhabitation nearby.
The Parisii, an ancient Briton tribe which inhabited what is now East Yorkshire, had a regional capital there.
Pocklington steadily evolved from Anglo Saxon times as the centre of the surrounding agricultural area. Before the Norman conquest, when King Harold's brother-in-law Earl Morcar was Lord of the Manor, it was a prosperous settlement.
After the conquest it became a royal manor - with the Percy family as the King's overlords - and under this royal patronage, Pocklington continued to prosper.
Pocklington has one of the few Cromwellian charters in the country. The town charter was granted on the 8th September 1656, one of the few during Cromwell's 11 years.
A weekly market and regular fairs in the town were held by Royal Charter in 1245. Regular fairs continued until the early 1900s and there is still a weekly market.
The town's All Saints Church is the only survivor from the Middle Ages. Known as the "Cathedral of the Wolds", it dates from the late 12th to early 15th centuries. Although containing some fragments of the earlier Norman church, its foundations go back further to the original Saxon era. The clerestory is 13th Century and the tower is 15th. There was some minor restoration during the Victorian period but there is not alteration to the basic structure. Inside is a fine 14th Century churchyard cross and a beautiful 16th Century continental wood carving of the Crucifxion. Twice a week someone must climb the tower to wind the huge old clock. Its gravestones offer an insight into the families, trades and professions of Pocklington. North of the chancel a group of stones commemorates the Collinson family of brewers and malsters who owned the brewery which used to be on the north side of the churchyard alongside the Beck river which is still open at this point.
That first church was founded by Paulinus following the dramatic events of Goodmanham, bestowing Pocklington with a prestigious early religious history and helping establish it as an important religious centre throughout the ages.
Pocklington School was originally founded in 1514 as the Guild of the Parish Church by senior churchmen and politician John Dolman. His family became Lords of the Manor in the 14th Century.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was a frequent visitor to Pocklington in the late 1700s, and is among several notable churchmen, bishops and titular archbishops, born or educated in the town.
Pocklington developed through the Middle Ageswhile many similar places fell into dramatic decline.
In 1400 Pocklington was one of 30 East Riding settlements which could be termed market towns. By 1750 there were just 10 and Pocklington was one. Over the next 150 years the town trebled in size with a host of new trades joining existing agricultural, brewing and milling interests.
Entertainment also earned the town notoriety. The celebrated [Flying Man of Pocklington]], Thomas Pelling, attempted in 1733 to travel along a rope between the church and the Star Inn in the Market Square. He crashed to his death fracturing his skull against the wall of the church following a misunerstanding with men working the windlass. He is buried where he fell at the east end of the church where a plaque celebrates his memory.
Pocklington also lays claim to being the last place in England to hold a witch burning. In 1630 the parish register for that year records Old Wife Green burnt in Market for a witch.
And 19 years later, the town's most notorious resident Isabella Bilington aged 32 was sentenced to death at York Assizes for crucifying her mother at Pocklington. After the killing she burnt a calf and a cock as a sacrifice. Her husband too was hanged as an accomplice.
In 1848 a cache of more than 500 coins from 1500 to 1700 was found on the edge of town.
Steady further growth continued during the 19th Century which saw much of the town completely rebuilt.
By this time the seat of the Lord of the Manor had transferred to Kilnwick Percy Hall. The present house was built in 1784 although there had been a hall there for many centuries.
In 1818 the Pocklington Canal linked Pocklington to the River Derwent.
The hall was taken over in the mid-1980s by Buddhists who have worked hard to refurbish the run down building and it is now the largest Buddhist community in the Western World.
Throughout its long history Pocklington has faced difficult times like recession, wartime and the closing of the railway but each time the town has overcome and gone on to develop further.
And in the 20th Century Pocklington has continued to thrive with an enviable diversity of small businesses, sporting organisations and ever increasing facilities. Not least among these is the Pocklington Arts Centre, which opened in 2000 and "offers a mixed programme of Film, Music, Drama, Dance, Lectures, Workshops and Exhibitions".["About Pocklington Arts Centre"] Previous performers at the Arts Centre include the comedians Jenny Éclair and Barry Cryer and the musicians Midge Ure and Steve Harley.
References
External links
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