Thursday 19 September 2013

Snainton, Snainton and more Snainton

Today I headed off to Nortallerton, a town a little north of York, to undertake some research.

Travel time was 1:15 however it was fairly straightforward once I managed to get through Snainton, the first village we encounter when heading west. The roads are fairly narrow and Snainton permits parking on one side of the road. The side changes periodically. There isn't enough space for two lanes of traffic when there are parked cars. getting through the village requires a degree of mad weaving and lots of patience.

It had been a cool night however the sun was shining and the sky was clear. The drive to Northallerton took me through some lovely countryside and some pretty villages. No, Snainton was not one of them!

Arriving at the North Yorkshire Records Office I managed to find a parking spot, an bonus.

The research went quite slowly. It is always slow until you get the gist of how each record Office has their material organised. In the meantime one of the archivist tracked down a record that I wanted. It related to a Quarter Sessions petition from 1691. William Coverley had been a tenant of a William Thompson at Snainton. This was a very normal situation. Most of the land was owned by a small number of people and everyone else, if they were fortunate, could become a tenant and work the land or run a business. Poor William and his wife were destitute as they had been thrown out of their tenament and had no way to support themselves.

I'm not sure what happened to William and his wife in the end. I'm also not sure where he fits by is possibly a many times great grand father. More research is needed.

While I was off doing research Trevor was left home alone. He had been feeling a little off with aches and a sore throat so having a quiet day seemed sensible.

He did take the opportunity to go for a walk and ended up walking to, yes, you guess it, Snainton. At least he managed it which was better than our effort on Saturday when we ended up walking through a pheasant nursery, not once but twice, and upset a local landowner.

Our cottage is about 2km off the A road and down a narrow country lane. We seem to frequently come across pheasants wandering, like drunken sailors, across and along the lane. I'm sure we end up running one over one of these days and then the landowning pheasant farmer will be really upset with us!

I rang Trevor before I left Northallerton and the call went straight to voice mail. When I got back he was very miffed because I had failed to call him to let him know what time I would be back. Oh, gosh, he had a message and had not realised.

Just to finish on a Snainton high, we ate at a pub in Snainton.

1 comment:

  1. Hope Trevor feels better soon although a day at home sounds like a good idea

    ReplyDelete