England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Yafforth All Saints

The Parish

The chapelry of Yafforth, within the wider parish of Danby Wiske, lies in northern Yorkshire about 2 miles west of the market town of Northallerton. Yafforth is a small and compact village which sits on the B6271 road which connects Northallerton with Richmond. Whilst only a chapelry Yafforth was licensed for marriages during the period of this transcript. Like many villages in the northern Vale of York Yafforth would have had a farming economy dominated by pastoral farming, mainly of cattle, today the area has moved more towards arable. Modern developments have come to Yafforth, the East Coast main railway line between London & Edinburgh cuts through between Yafforth & Northallerton. Yafforth is drained southwards by the River Wiske, this joins the Swale and eventually reaches the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Yafforth is sited at around 40 metres above the sea in gentle terrain which rises to only 60 metres or so within some distance. Yafforth chapelry covered roughly 1,100 acres of Danby Wiske parish and within that area would have been supported a population of just under 200 parishioners. In Domesday times Yafforth was a direct holding of King William but was described at the time as "waste" being largely unproductive land but with potential for many ploughs.

The Church

All Saints' church sits on the northern side of the B6271 as it performs a sharp right-angled bend through the village, the road forming two sides of the churchyard. Sadly this is not some medieval masterpiece nor indeed the venue for these marriages as the current church was built in 1870 to replace its earlier version. Medieval materials, in the form of a Norman Romanesque style window and parts of the southern doorway, were reused in today's church which is indicative of a date of c1200 for the prior version. Today's church was clearly of little architectural interest for Pevsner as his account is brief and covers just a handful of lines. As the B6271 is quite busy and narrow with blind sight-lines it is fortunate that the western side of the churchyard has a pull-in for parking. Wooden gates lead through the hedged churchyard for acces where there is no obvious obstruction to the photographer.