b'The Settlement of Bishop Wilton - Part 1A Speculative Assessment: Mike PrattIntroduction To give some idea of scale: on the ground the village is just over 1/2 mile from top to bottom (or 0.87 I t is intriguing that the layout of the village of Bishopkm) and just under 1/5 mile at its widest point (or 0.31 Wilton fits into a historical context that is repeatedkm).in other parts of the country.In certain instances, at some point in time, farmsteads and homesteads that were dispersed over the countryside were brought together to form compact villages, leaving the surrounding countryside clear for communal cultivation. Such compact villages are called nucleated settlements. Although the process of nucleation is thought to have been started as early as the 8th or 9th century, it is possible that settlements were re-planned after that, thereby changing village layouts.Through the use of diagrams, the aim here is to assess the evidence that survives, on the ground, for the settlement process at Bishop Wilton.I was not aware of the possibility that the layout of Bishop Wilton might have changed as a result of re-planning until a landscape historian, Stephen Harrison, gave a talk whilst leading a group round the village on a spring evening in 2003.One of the points heThe Anomaliesmade was that the village appeared to have been re- Three anomalies affect the regularity of the planned, probably in the 11th or 12th centuries. rectangular shape. Two of them (illustrated here) can be explained by the contours of the land at the points where the beck enters and leaves the village. In both cases it would appear that these contours result from man-made features. They are also points at which water mills are known to have existed. At the north-east end, banking that is related to the landscaping of the Palace site that probably acted as a dam for a mill-pond gives rise to a kink. Similarly, at The dwelling at the top end of the village in the kink shown in the diagram above is called Mill House and we believe that a water mill has existed on the site since the 13th century, if not before. The loop at the bottom of the village skirts an area of land known as Mill Hills. The Basic Shape In recent years a pond has been recreated The accompanying diagram shows the continuouson the site occupying what must have been village boundary in black with the road from Garrowbythe mill pond. The new pond is surrounded Hill to Pocklington dissecting the village and the beckby four holiday chalets of wood construction. flowing through it. Whether or not the actual mill house was also The original inhabited area of the village has aon the Mills Hills site or further downstream is roughly rectangular shape as delineated by the twonot known. The oldest known documentary back lanes and the header and footer lanes thatreference to this site is from 1611 when a connect them. Survey of Bishop Wilton identifies Water Mill One slightly odd feature is that at the expense ofHill against the name of the tenant, Robert being rectangular the village layout is not symmetricalMoore (Hull University, Brynmor Jones Library around the beck Archives, Ref: DDKG/27). BULLETIN 15 283'