It has witnessed Druidism; Britons, their fight against Rome and their adoption of Romanism; the start of Christianity and the clash with Rome's catholic Christianity; a Bardic tradition in a Brythonic tongue and then in the highest quality Latin, the struggle against the English; the struggle against the Norse; the coming of the Normans; civil war in the 12th century; Scottish raids; the rise & fall of the Percy's; the bloodiest battle in the Wars of the Roses; religious rebellion in the Tudor times; sieges and battles in the English Civil War; the growth of great estates through the 18th century; the centre of the Industrial Revolution. Tradition & culture - it is all here, in this small corner of what is now Yorkshire!

All these have left their mark - still visible today.

These pages were last updated 21/03/2006

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Investigating local history has its problems, the greatest of which is that most people think it is all already known to us. So many books have been written over so many years, so how could it not have all been covered? Sadly sometimes evidence is lost because these new finds conflict with the 'known' facts and so must be worthless and is discarded. What folly. All these books have been written with page after page of 'history' and yet, so often, the evidence they are based on would fit on a postage stamp - and still leave room for the Queen's head! The Victorian authors were the worst for this, romantic fiction often glossing out the few true known facts. And a good number of today's works are little more than expansions upon those Victorian themes.

That being said, just what is true history is not easy to determine, but it is very much a treasure hunt, intriguing, interesting and very enjoyable.

The reason is simple - there is so very, very much left for us to find. Take our little area here in Yorkshire, still called Elmet but far smaller now than the 6th century kingdom of Elmet was, now no more than ten miles wide and fifteen miles from north to south, yet what has happened here over the past 2000 years? As much, if not more than any such area in this land. British towns, Roman invasion and building, Celtic warlords, Saxon invasion, Viking raids, some of the earliest Christian churches, mediaeval villages, castles, forts and battles. And what do we really know of it? So very little.

It is not always easy to picture the way things were in the mediaeval period, let alone during the well-named Dark Ages, from the landscape. Present roads do not all match the roads of even 300 years ago as the craze for 'enparking' grand houses moved not just road lines but whole villages and their attendant roads. Names of villages have not always come from the easy, obvious source. Late, mechanised farming has levelled out hints and evidence of previous usage in what is now open countryside. Streams and rivers are often silted up to a mere nothing of what they may once have been.

So where do we start? Where do we look? If things are so changed then have we any chance at all?

Yes. Yes, we do.

There are books, maps and the Internet. Books cannot always be relied upon for reasons already noted, they are but one person's investigation and may show a bias on that person's behalf for what they wanted to find. But they hold many clues.

Maps are few and far between before the great advances of the Ordinance Survey in the 1840's. Roads are rarely shown on maps before the late 1700's - just the towns, villages and rivers. But there may well be more local maps or plans of holdings and estates - they need to be found. They are out there somewhere.

Then there is that new phenomenon - the Internet! Now here is something our history-writing forefathers could only have dreamed of. Why? Because it helps people find cross references that would earlier have never been found. Someone delving into the history of a village or town will come across family names that mean little enough to them. But to someone researching that family there may be no other reference that helps them. Folk researching a battle may never find where participants originated from - but someone researching their own family have found a poor soul that died at such-and-such a battle. Put these finds together and now the battlefield researcher has another clue, another name.

Doesn't sound like much - but it is so important. Let me give just one example.

Between the villages of Towton and Saxton in 1461 was enacted the bloodiest battle ever to be recorded on British soil. It changed the rule of a kingdom from one king to another. Certainly a very special event. Yet what is truly known of it? Very little indeed. So research goes on. And, a couple of years ago I chased through on the internet to see if anything about Towton had been published. Now the way the internet works is that the user asks a 'search engine' - sort of yellow pages. - for any references to 'Towton'. It will look through its files for anyone who has informed it of a site in which the word 'Towton' is to be found. This where it beats all other systems, which generally are based purely on the subject of the piece or the title,  but this system searches the content. Many times this name cropped up - for all kinds of reasons - but one web site on the list in particular interested me, one which mentioned a Sir David ap Mathew. To be precise, Sir Davyd ap Mathew of Llandaff in Wales. This was part of the Mathew family website. A genealogy effort with their family history. In there is the said knight with the story of how he saved King Edward IV's life at Towton. Now previously there was no mention of this man ever being involved in the battle, nor of Edward ever being at direct risk. But here we have a web site where the story goes that this man saved Edward's life at Towton. For that he was made Royal Standard Bearer of England. Above his family coat of arms he was permitted to bear the banner 'Towton' and he was granted lands in Wales further to those he already owned.

Also, without any reference as to why or where he died, the web site also gave his eldest son's date of death as the same as that of the battle of Towton. A coincidence?

So what have we here? This knight certainly did something special to become the Royal Standard Bearer of England. He was evidently at Towton. His son likely died there. Were either or both of them instrumental in saving a king's life? A whole new avenue of possible evidence opens and people are looking into this. Yet it was nothing really important to those who posted it upon the internet - just part of their family history. They doubtless figured it was common knowledge. What else lies upon this vast library of data? Only time - and luck - will tell. Such is the way with this new instrument of communication. What will we find?

Because of this kind of thing everyone's efforts are doubly of interest. Not only to their aimed audience but to many other researchers too. So to everyone I would say 'Go On Line!'. So much is there and so much more can be if we all put our own findings and interests on the Web.

Copyright © John Davey 2001-6.  All rights reserved

My good lady Lynne & myself - Summer 2002

     Britt Gwenn ha Du 

Information and comparisons between Cumbrian, Welsh, Cornish and Breton histories. Under constant construction but with many items of interest to the Romano-British, Cornish & Welsh enthusiast.

Abred Breizh.............

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