WENSLEYDALE

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 520 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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WENSLEYDALE , the name given to the upper part of the valley of the river Ure in the North Riding, Yorkshire, England. It is celebrated equally for its picturesque scenery and for the numercus points of historical and other

interest

INTEREST

within it. The Ure rises near the border of Yorkshire and Westmorland, in the uplands of the Pennine Chain. Its course is generally easterly as long as it is confined by these uplands, but on debauching upon the central plain of Yorkshire it takes a south-easterly turn and flows past Ripon and Boroughbridge to form, by its union with the Swale, the river Ouse, which drains to the Humber. The name Wensleydale is derived from the

village

VILLAGE

of Wensley, some 25 M. from the source of the river, and is primarily applied to a section of the valley extending 10 m. upstream from that point, but is generally taken to embrace the whole valley from its source to a point near Jervaulx abbey, a distance of nearly 40 m., below which the valley widens out upon the plain. The dale is traversed by a branch of the North-Eastern railway from Northallerton.
As far up as

Hawes

HAWES, STEPHEN (fl. 1502-1521)
HAWES, WILLIAM (1785–1846)

, the dale presents a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of landscapes in which the broken limestone crags of the valley-walls and the high-lying moors beyond them contrast finely with the rich land at the foot of the hills. Beyond

Hawes

HAWES, STEPHEN (fl. 1502-1521)
HAWES, WILLIAM (1785–1846)

, towards the source, the valley soon becomes wide, bare and shallow, less rich in contrast, but wilder. On both sides throughout the dale numerous narrow tributary vales open out. Small waterfalls are numerous. The

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

are Aysgarth Force, on the main stream, Mill Gill Force on a tributary near Askrigg, and Hardraw Scaur beyond Hawes, the finest of all, which shoots forth over a projecting ledge of limestone so as to leave a clear passage behind it. The surrounding cliffs complete a fine picture. The small river Bain, joining the Ure near Askrigg, forms a pretty lake called Semerer or Semmer Water, m. in length.
Following the valley upward, the points of

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

interest

INTEREST

apart from the scenery are these. JERV AULx ABBEY was founded in 1x56 by Cistercians from Byland, who had previously settled near Askrigg. The remains are mainly transitional Norman and Early English, and are not extensive. Of the great church hardly any fragments rise above ground-level, but the chapter-

house

refectory

REFECTORY (med. Lat. refectorium, from reficere, to refresh)

and cloisters remain in part, and the ivy-clad ruins stand in a beautiful setting of woodland. Above the small town of MIDDLEHAM, where there are large training stables, rises the Norman keep of Robert Fitz-Ranulph, which passed to the Nevills, being held by the " King-maker," Warwick. The subsidiary buildings date down to the 14th century. In Cover Dale near Middleham is the ruined Premonstratensian abbey of CovERHAM, founded here in the 13th century and retaining a gatehouse and other portions of Decorated date. Farther up Wensleydale BOLTON CASTLE stands high on the north side. This was the stronghold of the Scropes, founded by Richard I.'s chancellor of that name. Its walls, four corner-towers and fine position still give it an appearance of great strength.
WENTWORTH; the name of an English family distinguished in the parliamentary history of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Wentworths traced descent from William Wentworth (d. 1308) of Wentworth Woodhouse, in Yorkshire, who was the ancestor of no fewer than eight distinct lines of the family, two main branches of which were settled in the 14th century at Wentworth Woodhouse and North Elmshall respectively. From the elder, or Wentworth Woodhouse branch, were descended Thomas Wentworth the celebrated

earl

EARL

of Strafford (q.v.), and through him the Watson-Wentworths, marquesses of Rockingham in the 18th century, and the earls FitzWilliam of the present day. To the younger branch belonged Roger Wentworth (d. 1452), great-great-grandson of the above-mentioned William. Roger, who was a son of John Wentworth (fl. 1413) of North Elmshall, Yorkshire, acquired the manor of Nettlestead in Suffolk in right of his wife, a grand-daughter of Robert, Baron Tibetot, in whose lands this manor had been included, and who died leaving an only daughter in 1372. Roger's son Henry (d. 1482) was twice married; by his first wife he was the ancestor of the Wentworths of Gosfield, Essex;by his second of the Wentworths of Lillingstone Lovell, Buckinghamshire.' Another of Roger Wentworth's sons, Sir Philip Wentworth, was the grandfather of Margery, wife of Sir John Seymour, mother of the Protector Somerset and of Henry VIII.'s wife Jane Seymour, and grandmother of King Edward VI. Margery's brother Sir Robert Wentworth (d. 1528) married a daughter of Sir James Tyrrell, the reputed murderer of Edward V. and his brother in the Tower; and Sir Robert's son by this marriage, Thomas Wentworth (1501-1551), was summoned to parliament by writ in 1529 as Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead. He was one of the peers who signed the

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to the pope in favour of Henry VIII.'s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and was one of the judges of Anne Boleyn. He was lord chamber-lain to Edward VI., and died in 1551 leaving sixteen children.

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