Bedale, North Riding

Description
Bedale, a market-town a township, and a parish in the N. R. Yorkshire. The town stands on a small tributary of the Swale, adjacent to the Northallerton and Leyburn railway, near the Leeming Roman way, 8 miles SW by W of Northallerton. It consists chiefly of one street, and has a head post office, a railway station, two banks, two chief inns, petty sessions, court-house, and assembly rooms, a reading room and free library a parish church, a Wesleyan chapel, two endowed schools, almshouses, a workhouse, and several charities. The church is Early English and large; has a square embattled tower, so strong as to have been used for defence in the Border forays; it contains monuments to the Earl of Arundel and others, and was renovated in 1855. A weekly market is held on Tuesday, and fairs on Easter Tuesday, Whit Tuesday, 6 July, 11 Oct., and on Monday week before Christmas. The circumjacent country is highly cultivated, and has a character for producing excellent riding-horses. Bedale Hall, an elegant mansion, and Bedale Grange, another chief residence, are adjacent. A castle was built by Brian Fitzallan, Earl of Arundel, on a spot now within the grounds of Bedale Hall, but has disappeared. The township includes the town, and comprises 1682 acres; population, 1090. The parish contains also the townships of Firby, Crakchall, Aiskew, Langthorno, East Brompton, and Rands-Grange in the district of Bedale, and the townships of Burrill-cum-Cowling and Hutton-Hang in the district of Leyburn. Population of the ecclesiastical parish with Bunill, 2204. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Ripon; gross value, £2200 with residence. Patron, Sir H. Moiison de la Poer Beresford-Peirse, Bart.