Gilling, North Riding

Description
Gilling, a village, a township, and a parish in the N. R. Yorkshire. The village stands on Gilling Beck, 3 miles N by E of Richmond town and railway station, dates from Saxon times, and has a post and money order office under Richmond; telegraph office, Richmond. The township includes the village, and comprises 4877 acres; population, 754. The parish contains also the hamlets of Hartforth and Sedbury. A castle, said to have been a seat of Saxon earls, stood on a hill nearly a mile south of the village, but has disappeared. Oswy, King of Deira, was murdered here by Oswin of Bernicia, and Queen Ethelfleda, in penance for the crime, built here a monastery which was destroyed by the Danes. Gillingwood Hall a seat oftheWhartons, was burnt in the 18th century, and is now represented by a farmhouse£ Gilling Beck is an affluent of the Swale, and has a southeastward run of about 9 miles. Freestone of good building quality is quarried. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ripon; gross yearly value, £1025 with residence. The church. has Norman features, contains a number of old monuments, and is good. There is a Wesleyan chapel. The Free Grammar School at Hartforth, founded and endowed in 1678, by Sir Thomas Wbarton, has been closed by the Charity Commissioners, and the endowment applied to providing two exhibitions of £30 each, to be competed for by the boys of the-neighbouring townships.