Long Lane, Beverley

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Long Lane, Beverley, Yorkshire

Long Lane is a road from Beverley to Woodmansey and so part of the way to Hull.

Direction Beverley to Woodmansey

The road starts at the (western) towers of Beverley Minster and runs about 3 miles (4 kilometres) to the crossroads in Woodmansey formed by the more recent high road from Beverley to Hull (roughly north to south) Long Lane at that point roughly west and Thearne Lane to the hamlet of Thearne roughly east. The crucial change to the high road which made it superior to Long Lane was the building of causeways to lift that road above the marshes, which took centuries from medieval times to the present day, but was most obvious with the creation of an eighteenth century toll-road.

Location Woodmansey

Much the greater part of Long Lane is actually in the village of Woodmansey, and the area associated with that village which in medieval times was largely the property of the Archbishop of York and the canons of Beverley Minster, and so in the Parish of St John, the larger of the two parishes of the Minster which was and is (2022) entirely outside the town of Beverley.

This includes Beverley Parks, the area immediately south of Beverley Minster which was originally the deerpark of the Archbishop of York and the canons of Beverley Minster, Even before the Reformation and the seizure of many church lands by Henry VIII this area was being sold off and over a period it became an area for gentleman farmers who enjoyed having at least part of their land, and often the best of their homes, in easy reach of the lively social life of Beverley, the county town

Only a small part of Long Lane, about the first 300 yards/metres from the towers of the Minster on the west side only, was and is (2022) inside the town boundary, and so in the Parish of St Martin the smaller of the two parishes linked to the Minster, which is entirely inside the town. This area has been built up for centuries with relatively small houses for working families.

Sources

This Free Space Profile would benefit from the addition of detailed sources and you are very welcome to provide them.

For the meantime I will merely summarise my own authority.

• For 70 years I have been a political activist and for much of that time an agent, candidate and town councillor in the town of Beverley and have become familiar with the peculiar boundaries of the town (detailed in the Registers of the Wards of Beverley) which remain the boundaries for present day political battles.
• For over 30 years I was a teacher of history in schools in Hull and so increasingly involved in Local History in the area as a whole and especially my own home town of Beverley.
• For over 30 years I have been involved in researching my own family history and my more immediate family have been involved in Beverley for 200 years (the Horsleys, the Walkers and the Marshalls) and even 400 years (the Acklams/Ackloms).