Burtersett

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Village in North Yorkshire, England

title: "Burtersett" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["villages-in-north-yorkshire", "hawes"] description: "Village in North Yorkshire, England" topic_path: "general/villages-in-north-yorkshire" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burtersett" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Village in North Yorkshire, England ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox UK place"]

FieldValue
countryEngland
static_imageShaw Lane, Burtersett - geograph.org.uk - 808008.jpg
static_image_captionShaw Lane, Burtersett
coordinates
official_nameBurtersett
unitary_englandNorth Yorkshire
lieutenancy_englandNorth Yorkshire
regionYorkshire and the Humber
os_grid_referenceSD890892
london_distance_mi210
london_directionSE
::

| country = England | static_image = Shaw Lane, Burtersett - geograph.org.uk - 808008.jpg | static_image_caption = Shaw Lane, Burtersett | coordinates = | official_name = Burtersett | population = | unitary_england = North Yorkshire | lieutenancy_england = North Yorkshire | region = Yorkshire and the Humber | constituency_westminster = | post_town = | postcode_district = | postcode_area = | dial_code = | os_grid_reference = SD890892 | london_distance_mi = 210 | london_direction = SE ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Wensleydale,_below_Burtersett.jpg" caption="The [[River Ure]] in [[Wensleydale]], near Burtersett, breaks its banks during floods in 1994"] ::

Burtersett is a small village in the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire, England. It lies approximately 1 mi east from Hawes and Gayle. The village is known for its former quarrying industry and being the seat of the Hillary family, with one strand of the family emigrating to New Zealand and raising Sir Edmund Hillary, the famous mountaineer.

History

Whilst the village is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, its name is recorded as far back as 1280 as Beutresate. The village has also been called Birtresatte and Butterside, with the derivation being Shieling near the alder tree. It was known that the area surrounding Burtersett was a Royal Forest during the reign of Edward I, but gradually the local industry gave way to sheep farming, then later quarrying and dairy produce.

Other industries included knitted products and a candles. The candle factory, a four-story building, still exists today, but the operation is believed to have stopped in the early 20th century.

Quarrying on the moor south of the village reached a peak in 1890, when two stone slate quarries were in operation; Burtersett and Seavy. Although the men referred to themselves as quarrymen, both sites were actually mines which operated 2 ft gauge tramways to transport the stone into the village. The stone was called slate, but it was a sandstone, typically used as a flagstone, but thicker beds were used as a building stone in the area. When the Wensleydale Railway arrived in Hawes, the quarries were exporting 15,000 tonne per month via the railway station.

Hillary Hall

The late 17th/early 18th grade II listed building known as Hillary Hall was formerly the seat of Sir Henry Hillary, a landowner in Upper Wensleydale. The house was the birthplace of many in the Hillary family, including William Hillary (physician) (1697–1763), who was known for his work on tropical diseases. His nephew, Sir William Hillary, who campaigned for the institution of the RNLI, was born in the village. The grandparents of the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary emigrated from Wensleydale to New Zealand in the 19th century.

Governance

Historically, Burtersett was in the Parish of Aysgarth and the wapentake of Hang West. Whilst it now belongs in the civil parish of Hawes which it is nearer, Aysgarth was the largest settlement around until the Richmond to Lancaster Turnpike was diverted off Cam High Road (south of Burtersett) to go through Hawes and over Widdale.

References

References

  1. (2009). "Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 98 ''Wensleydale & Upper Wharfedale''". Ordnance Survey.
  2. "Burtersett :: Survey of English Place-Names".
  3. Speight, Harry. (1897). "Romantic Richmondshire". E Stock.
  4. "Out of Oblivion: A landscape through time".
  5. (2011). "Conservation Area Appraisals in the Yorkshire Dales National Park Gayle".
  6. "Out of Oblivion: A landscape through time".
  7. (2017). "The Place Names of Yorkshire; Cities, Towns, Villages, Rivers and Dales, some Pubs too, in Praise of Yorkshire Ales". Stenlake.
  8. (2016). "Quarrying in the Yorkshire Pennines : an illustrated history". Amberley.
  9. (2001). "The geology of building stones". Donhead.
  10. (2017). "A Building Stone Atlas of North Yorkshire, West".
  11. (2007). "Lost railways of North and East Yorkshire". Countryside Books.
  12. "Out of Oblivion: A landscape through time".
  13. {{NHLE
  14. Booth, Christopher C. (23 September 2004). "Hillary, William".
  15. (2004). "Yorkshire Dales walking : on the level". Sigma Leisure.
  16. "Genuki: In 1822, the following places were in the Parish of Aysgarth:, Yorkshire (North Riding)".
  17. "Hawes Parish".
  18. Spensley, Ian Metcalfe. (2014). "Mines and Miners of Wensleydale". UK Book Publishing.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

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