Above : 14th century barn plan and below : the foot print left by the 18th century vicarage .
Wharram Percy
The finest example of a deserted medieval village is high on the Yorkshire Wolds , off the B1248 Hull to Malton road . Perched on the side of a remote dale Wharram Percy presents a perfect example of an abandoned village , untouched for centuries . Years of archaeological research and careful farming methods have unearthed the history of this once thriving village .
A sunken track 2-3000 years old leads down from the English Heritage roadside car park , down into a quiet valley . Here the medieval track divides to pass on either side of what was once a village green . Surrounding it are the outlines of simple ‘ long houses ’ where the family lived at one end and cattle sheltered in the other . Each house had its own strip of arable land or croft attached to it that was ploughed on a rotating system to prevent the land becoming over-used by a single crop . Immediately by each house is a toft , the forerunner of kitchen gardens . Here vegetables and herbs could be grown and chickens and the odd pig or two were kept for selling at market , or to help feed the family . The remains of the earthen walls of a manor house stand towards the northern edge of the village , home of the squire . Another house , slightly larger than those immediately surrounding it , was probably the home of an overseer .
The village was self-supporting , with its own flour mill . Apart from the excavated foundations of the mill , its pond is still there in the valley bottom , naturalised by the passing of at least nine centuries . Nearby is the shell of the village church which served Wharram Percy and surrounding villages from around AD 1050 until 1845 . Scientific analysis of bones excavated from the churchyards gave an insight into the health and everyday living of people dwelling there . Apart from the odd case of leprosy and old age , the locals were reasonably healthy even by modern standards . They even had the help of a surgeon : one excavated skeleton was of a man whose life was saved by trepanning ( removal of part of the skull ), following being hit over the head .
The group of three still standing cottages to the east of the church were the homes of Victorian farmworkers . The houses are built on the site of a small farmhouse dating from the 1770s . Until the Beeching Axe closed the line , Wharram Percy had its own railway station , but all that is left is the station nameplate now fastened on to the gable end of one of the cottages .
While the site of Wharram Percy village is owned by English Heritage , access is free and the site is open all and every day .
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