Etymology The name of the village derives from the given name of Hrafn, the founder of the settlement. Originally called Ravenswath, "wath" was the
Old Norse word meaning "
ford" and would suggest that the Holme Beck that passes through the village was forded in Viking times.
Early settlement The earliest archaeological find in the Ravensworth area is a coin from the early Roman period. There has also been a number of finds from the Anglo Saxon era. The
Lord of the Manor in 1066 was Thorfin, who also held the manor of
Didderston. The Lord of the Manor owned the surrounding
demesnes, and the villagers were tenants of his land. The village is documented in
the Domesday Book of 1086 as having 21 households, which was then quite large for a settlement. There was also a church and a priest. Bardolph's son,
Akarius Fitz Bardolph, donated lands for a monastery which were later to become
Jervaulx Abbey. A fortress was built during the reign of
Henry II as the ancestral home of the Fitzhugh family, who purchased the land from the
nuns of
Marrick Priory. The fortress would have offered protection to the local population during Scottish raids from north of the border.
King John was entertained there in 1201. The Fitzhughs were appointed
barons on 15 May 1321.
Ralph de Greystoke, 3rd Baron Greystoke, was born in the castle, home of his uncle Henry, Lord Fitzhugh, on 18 October 1353.
Henry FitzHugh, 3rd Baron FitzHugh was appointed
Lord Chamberlain of the Household by
Henry V. Henry Fitzhugh built the now Grade I
listed Ravensworth Castle in 1391 on the site of a previous fortress from the 11th century, and also received licence to enclose 200 acres of land around the castle to make a park.
Robert FitzHugh became
Bishop of London in 1431. After the end of the Fitzhugh male line in 1513, ownership of the castle and estate was passed through the female line to
Sir Thomas Parr. Following his death, it passed to his son, a minor,
William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton by which time it was ruined, largely as a result of being quarried for local building materials. The castle began to be pulled down in the middle of the 16th century, shortly after the visitation by the antiquarian
John Leland, however almost the entirety of the
gatehouse remains intact. In 1629 the estate was conferred from the Crown to Edward Ditchfield. In 1633 it was sold to the Robinson family, who later sold it to Sir Thomas Wharton in 1676.
Ancient parish Ravensworth was historically the largest settlement in the
ancient parish of
Kirkby Ravensworth. The ancient parish encompassed an area of 15,000
acres, including Ravensworth itself, as well as the
townships of
Dalton,
Gayles,
Kirby Hill (or Kirby-on-the-Hill),
New Forest,
Newsham and
Whashton. The parish church since 1397 has been the
St Peter and St Felix's Church, situated in
Kirby Hill, about one mile (1.6 km) from Ravensworth; it is believed to have been built on the site of a much earlier Saxon church. The cleric and historian
John Dakyn was
rector of the parish from 1554 until his death four years later. In 1556 he established the Kirby Ravensworth Free Grammar School (free from external control rather than free at the point of use) and an
almshouse, and his benefaction continues to fund charitable causes for the parishioners.
John Leland, and many others since, have described Ravensworth as a "pretty" village. There were a number of skirmishes in the area during the
Civil War, and the region was a
Royalist stronghold. As with many English villages, much of the housing stock consists of Grade II
listed buildings, dating from the mid to late 17th century onwards. The poet
Cuthbert Shaw was born in the village in 1738–9. The astronomer
William Lax was born in the village in 1761, producing
A Method of finding the latitude by means of two altitudes of the sun there in 1799. There were
Inclosure Acts passed for the
common fields in 1772–3 and 1776–7. The publisher
Effingham Wilson was born in the village in 1785. In 1793, a
gold penny dating from around 1257 during the reign of
Henry III, was found in a field in Ravensworth; at the time it was one of only two known to exist, and as of 2011 only eight are known to exist.
Nineteenth century Walter Scott referenced the village in "
Rokeby" (1813), an
epic poem set in the area. The artist
J. M. W. Turner made several sketches of the castle on 13 July 1816. The
Wesleyan chapel was built in 1822. The
blacksmith's shop has been situated at the same site since 1841.
The Bay Horse Inn public house dates as far back as at least 1857 (it claims a date of 1725), and its stone door case is 17th century or earlier, almost certainly built using material from the castle. According to the 1881 and 1891
Censuses, agriculture and mining were the main industries. In the late nineteenth century, Speight noted the great longevity of many of the parishioners, owing to the space and pure air.
Twentieth century The parish lost 23 men in the
First World War and 5 in the
Second World War. The
roll of honour is held in the parish church. John Scott Bainbridge is additionally remembered in the First World War memorial at
Barnard Castle School (then the North Eastern County School). The Kirby Hill
grammar school closed in 1957, having operated for almost 400 years. The school educated the
Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Hutton and the antiquarian
James Raine as well as the aforementioned Shaw and Lax. In 1967 the new primary school building was opened. In 1974, the village became a component of North Yorkshire, having previously been situated in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The village's 15th century
cruck house was dismantled in the late 1970s and reconstructed at the
Richmondshire Museum. The land on which it stood was used to build the Mill Close housing estate in 1977. The former school premises became a
village hall in 1987. The
Post Office closed down in the mid-1990s. His 17th century
farmhouse situated on a 30-acre estate is his "most treasured possession" and Botham has commented that, "we like our Yorkshire home too much ever to leave it". Local and national media refer to him ironically as "The Squire of Ravensworth". His son
Liam Botham has a house in the farmhouse grounds. ==Governance==