The name Thixendale comes from Sixtendale, which is derived from the Scandinavian for Sigsten’s valley. Evidence of Thixendale’s prehistoric past is abundant in the form of flint scatters and tumuli in the surrounding fields. Few Roman finds have been found but, following the pattern of surrounding villages, it would be surprising if there is not a Roman settlement beneath the present village.

In medieval times all the cultivatable land was laid out as Open Fields composed of ridge and furrows.  Permanent pastures and any woodland would have been confined to the unploughable dale sides.  Houses in the medieval village were laid out in rows, surrounded by banks and ditches.  To the south of the village, outlines of these ditches and house platforms can still be seen in the field. 

During the medieval period the church acquired lands in Thixendale as a result of individual bequests.  The major monastic holdings in Thixendale were St. Mary’s Abbey at York (four bovates, three messuages and a windmill granted in 1383), and Kirkham priory (34 oxgangs).  Over time these holdings were consolidated into blocks of land and turned over to sheep walk.

From the 15^th to the 17^th century the turning over of land to sheep walks led to the depopulation of a number of neighbouring villages.  In the 17^th century William Vessey began the process of acquiring land that could have led to the depopulation of Thixendale.  Fortunately, the process was interrupted by his death and his son did not continue the acquisition of land.  By this time Thixendale was a small village of thatched chalk cottages (the Hearth Tax of the 1670s listed only 18 houses in the village) with a few hundred acres of cultivated land on the closer Wold tops.

Sir Christopher Sykes of Sledmere began buying-out the cottagers and their landholdings in 1783 and by 1795 he had become the dominant landowner.  He enforced enclosure of the old open fields and replaced them with the modern layout.  He then built farmhouses, away from the village, amongst the newly enclosed land.

As an estate village, the cottages of Thixendale became principally the homes of married farm labourers.  The village benefited from the generosity of the Sykes family in the 1870s when a church, vicarage and school were built.  No longer did the congregation from Thixendale have to make the journey to Wharram Percy to attend church.  In 1919 and again in 1941 the Sledmere estate sold off its land and properties in Thixendale.

 For more information about Thixendale please visit

 www.thixendale.org.uk      -       www.thixendale.org.uk/Sledmere/