High Alwinton : The Village Settlement

The earliest detailed mapping of the village is provided by the tithe map and 1st edition Ordnance Survey, so any attempted reconstruction of its medieval form can only be very tentative. However the various county maps from Armstrong’s (1769) onwards include sufficient detail to give a useful impression of the layout of the settlement.

Armstrong’s map shows a two row village, aligned east-west, opening out on to Clennell Street, which ran past the east end of the settlement. The two rows can still be traced, in rather attenuated form, on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey.  It is likely that this attenuated two row village represented the remnants of the medieval village, which was probably more densely settled than its 19th century counterpart (see below, 6.4.2 Population and extent). Today the south row of the former village has all but disappeared, apart from the Rose and Thistle public house, but the north row was resettled with council houses in the later 20th century.

The proximity of Clennell Street - ‘the great road of Yarnspeth’ (magna via de Ernespeth) as it is labelled in medieval sources - one of the most important routes across the Anglo-Scottish border, must have been an important factor influencing the village’s location and development.

In the post-medieval centuries Clennell Street was one of the most important droveways for Scottish highlanders taking their cattle to the markets of London and the south and this must have brought a good deal of custom to craftsmen and tradespeople of Alwinton between the 17th and 19th centuries.