Wharram Percy Medieval Village
OS grid reference:- SE 858 646
The deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy occupies a remote but attractive site on the chalk Wolds of Eastern Yorkshire.
Wharram Percy is the best known medieval deserted village in England, although there are many others. The village was researched by combined teams of archaeologists, historians and even botanists, from about 1950 to 1990 after its identification in 1948 by economic historian Professor Maurice Beresford of the University of Leeds.
The site appears been inhabited since the early Iron Age, but the village mainly flourished between the tenth and twelfth centuries. It is recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 where it is referred to as Warran or Warron. From the twelfth century there were two manors at Wharram Percy, known to archaeologists as the North Manor and South Manor, one was owned by the influential Percy family, who later aquired the other manor also.
The bubonic plague or Black Death that spread through medieval England 1348-49 does not seem to have played a significant part in the desertion of Wharram Percy although the large fall in population in the country as a whole at that time must have made relocation to a less remote spot more likely. The villagers of Wharram Percy seem to have suffered instead from changes in prices and wages in the fifteenth century, which rendered sheep farming much more profitable than traditional cereal farming. In 1403 the Hilton family of Sunderland purchased the manor and began to convert farmland to sheep pasture.
The village was finally abandoned in the early sixteenth century when Baron Hilton, the lord of the manor, turned out the last few families and had their homes demolished to make room for more sheep pasture. The last four families were evicted between 1488 and 1506. Archaeologists revealed that the last inhabitant of Wharram Percy was either a vagrant or an inhabitant who refused to move out, who was killed when a dilapidated house collapsed on him whilst he slept.
Although only the ruined church of St Martin still stands, there is a recreated Norman manor house and fishpond and much more of the village layout, including the stone foundations and earth works of 30 peasant's houses, can be seen in the surrounding fields. In the thirteenth century the village had two water mills, a fish pond, medieval houses and farmsteads. English Heritage have installed panels around the site, as well as an audio tour downloadable, in MP3 format, from the English Heritage website. A guidebook is available from surrounding, staffed, Historic England sites.
Nearly 700 medieval skeletons have been unearthed from the site of the churchyard. Studies and and DNA tests on the skeletons revealed signs of tuberculosis. Women at Wharram were discovered to be much more muscular and bigger boned than their city counterparts. Following isotope analysis on the skeletons, it was discovered that in general, infant mortality was lower and life expectancy higher at Wharram Percy compared to its Middle Age counterparts. An eleventh century male skull was found to have received a heavy blow with a blunt instrument, this wound was treated by the cutting away of bone to relieve the pressure on the brain and evidence shows the man lived for many years after.
The Wharram Percy site is now in the care of Historic England.
Directions
Wharram Percy lies about a mile (1.6 km) to the south of Wharram-le-Street and is signposted from the B1248 Beverley to Malton road.