Our History

Interesting historical information about our Parish from a local resident - Barry Heaton

What do the place names mean?

What did the Romans ever did for us?

Before the Romans

After the Romans

Before the Normans

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Extracts of Descriptions edited from Langdale's Yorkshire Dictionary (1822) and Baine's Directory of the County of York (1823) and Bulmers history and Directory of East Yorkshire (1892)

The Parish of Rowley

The isolated church of Rowley, some 12km. west north west of Hull, stands towards the western end of a parish that stretches for nearly 10km. from the high wolds to the valley of the river Hull. Rowley village is largely depopulated, as are the hamlets of Hunsley and Riplingham on the high ground further west and Risby on the lower wold slopes to the east. The large village of Little Weighton stands at the centre of the parish and the hamlet of Bentley near its eastern end. All the settlements were probably Anglican except the Scandinavian Risby and all have names, which may indicate the one-time dominance of woodland and scrub in the district.

Rowley is best known as the parish from which the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers emigrated in 1638 to Massachusetts, where he founded a township of the same name, and for the depopulation of the village as a supposed result, though it is now known that most of those who sailed with Rogers came from elsewhere in the East Riding and even further afield. Rowley was of small extent at that period and it had probably not been regarded as a separate township since its depopulation. The area of the parish is still unchanged.