Village of the Week: One of the most expensive houses in East Yorkshire, a murderous Bishop and mobile chips

At Cherry Burton, the village shop has been bought out by a chain, census records would suggest the population is falling and it wasn’t until last year that the village was earmarked for full-fibre broadband.

But during COVID, residents staged a campaign against plans for new homes that they feared would ruin the village’s “picture postcard” appearance.

There are elements of that undoubtedly.

The village of Cherry Burton is based around one aptly named, Main Street, and a few cul-de-sacs and country roads that sprout off and head towards the likes of Leconfield, Bishop Burton and Beverley.

Throughout the mix of houses - detached, semi, new build, 60s and 70s builds - I am particularly struck by the smaller red-brick built buildings. Some are houses, the quaint cottage type that you see in this part of the county but the village hall made me think immediately of Dad’s Army - and in a nostalgic and heart-warming way.

The village hall seems very 1940s and at the heart of community life. You can almost see the history and backdrop to people’s lives while you look at it. Like a black and white montage reel on a film of times gone by, you can imagine dances, birthday parties, weddings and royal street parties dancing past the windows and spilling through the door.

Actually though, the village hall dates back further than that. It came about in 1928 when the Wesleyan Methodist chapel was extended to create the village hall.

Around this time though, Cherry Burton was mainly a farming and agricultural hamlet. Working farms probably outnumbered homes.

The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Burtone, and belonged to the then Archbishop of York and its name was a combination of Old and Middle English; Burh-tūn and Chiri, signifying a farm with a palisade and a cherry tree.

Another theory is that Cherry Burton was one of eight Burtons in the East Riding, but became North Burton to distinguish it from the nearby village of South Burton, now Bishop Burton. However, by the 17th century, the word 'north' had changed to 'cherry'. In spite of some argument, it is now accepted that this was because of the large numbers of cherry trees which grew in the area.

An account from The East Yorkshire Village Book, written by members of East Yorkshire Federation of Women's Institutes says written history of the community goes back 1,300 years, and starts about the year AD 687, when St John of Beverley is reputed to have come to consecrate the church.

While in the township he cured a servant of Addi, who had been close to death. The next time that the township is recorded is some 400 years later - in the Domesday Book. Over the next 400 years there are only fleeting glimpses of the parish through such things as entries in wills and the poll tax returns of 1381.

Little else is known about Cherry Burton around that time, or its residents, and little had been recorded but the WI account does include some intriguing snippets.

“Those we do know something about are such people as curate Thomas Davey who was in trouble for rushing through church services; Edmund Bonner, who as Bishop Bonner was reputed to have had at least 200 people put to death, and many more tortured during the 1530s; and then there was Thomas Micklethwaite, who was nicknamed 'Burnroast' on account of the length of his sermons.”

It isn’t until the 1800s that you can start to get a feel for the life and times of Cherry Burton. The manor had been sold to David Burton Fowler and the physical layout of the village started to resemble what you can still see today in terms of the layout of roads and fields.

In the early 1850s, the old church was pulled down, and the present one, St Michael’s and All Angels, was built at a cost of about £2,000.

The Primitive Methodist chapel which stood in Main Street opposite the village shop by this time has gone and The Bay Horse pub is the only remaining watering hole from the few that existed at the turn of the 19th century to still be pulling pints.

The reading room, village post office and old school house are now private houses, as is the old railway station. The old school, built in 1872, made way for two modern bungalows.

Cherry Burton had its own railway station on the York to Beverley Line between 1865 and 1959. For another five years the station would remain open for the inward and outward transportation of agricultural produce before the line closed completely in 1965.

It was around this time that Cherry Burton really started to increase in popularity as the end of rail saw the beginning of rapid housing development.

The East Yorkshire Village Book documents it.

“While the railway, which was on the line from Hull and Beverley to Market Weighton and York, finally closed in 1965 having served the area along its route for almost exactly 100 years, housing development was taking place in the village. The first such development was the building of The Drive on the western edge of the village in 1963. The Meadows development started in 1965, Canada Drive in 1967, and Highcroft in 1972. The old foot field and tennis courts were sold by the Borough Council developers in 1984, and in 1989 to 1990 Elm Tree farmyard part of a field between Canada Drive and the Etton Road developed, as was a field on the eastern side of the Bishop Burton Road.”

It saw a population that had been around 400 or so expand to 2,000 at one time although it is a little lower now.

The village continues to provide and serve its people with the facilities needed to make a community - evening classes, a sports field for football, cricket and tennis, scouts, a village school that opened in 1967.

And what is not there gets brought here. Cherry Burton has a regular slot with the mobile library and a fish and chip van. A good book and chips - what more do you need?