Finghall: The Yorkshire village featured in the Domesday book which is said to have inspired The Wind In The Willows

While in those days Finghall was a hilltop hamlet overlooking the main Leyburn to Bedale Road, comprising one public house, four farms and 12 houses surrounded by parkland, the settlement has since swelled significantly, and after a string of council housing and infill developments, to a population of 180 at the 2021 census.

Residents say they greatly prize rural character of Finghall, and in the last year have underlined this by opposing plans for 12 homes on a grass paddock in Blewhouse Lane, which they say has been uned by dog walkers for years and is much-needed for a children’s playground.

Those objecting to the development said they wanted “to preserve some green open space within the village", but its historic core has remained similar for hundreds of years.

With almost all properties made from locally sourced building materials, such as rubble and sandstone and two rows of properties facing each other over a former village green, Finghall appears a well preserved example of a village created by Normans.

Although the green is now partly enclosed as front gardens, it continues to serve as the focal point of the village, with several of the settlement’s listed heritage assets overlooking it.

Some of the properties, most of which are detached, have long narrow plots, typical of smallholdings at the time it appeared in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Finegala and in 1157 as Finyngale. There are surviving ridge and furrow earthworks in numerous back plots.

Evidence has been unearthed that Finghall was a village of some significance before then. The Saxon Chronicle records a Synod was assembled there in 788.

However, the oldest surviving structure is the grade II listed Church of St Andrew, to the north of the village, off Chapel Lane, which dates to the 12th century.

The ancient fabric includes a rare double bell-cot in the centre of the church roof, a blocked doorway into the nave dating to 1140 and a 9th century Anglo-Saxon cross-head which forms part of the chancel.

The place of worship is known as a ‘plague church’ having served a hamlet that was abandoned in the 16th century by people who moved away from the beck beside the church, which was believed to be exacerbating the spread of the disease, to Finghall.

Nevertheless, potentially partly due to the closure of other places of worship in Finghall, the small church continues to hold services.

Back up Chapel Lane towards Finghall, surrounded by farmland, stands an isolated railway station that first opened in 1856 on a line rich crossed the Yorkshire Dales, between Northallerton and Garsdale.

It was closed to passengers in 1954, but passenger services resumed 49 years later when the Wensleydale Railway heritage line developed.

The station, which was used as a backdrop in the original All Creatures Great and Small television series for which it was renamed Rainby Hall, comprises two houses built for railway workers alongside the platform.

The village is perhaps best known in the area for its tradition of staging an event every May in which competitors, often in fancy dress, push an empty 18 gallon beer barrel up the hill over a distance of 3,300 feet.

The ascent into the village is of a grade to warrant grit boxes on the verge and on arriving on the Finghall’s main thoroughfare, West Moor Lane, there are no pavements and instead grass verges featuring painted rocks and poles to protect them from car parking.

At the centre of the village stands The Queens Head which dates from the late 17th century.

A car park stands in front of the inn, which boasts an 80-cover restaurant and accommodation, alongside an old street light that is towered over by the pub’s sign and an area information board for visitors. The Campaign for Real Ale has heralded it for “retaining its focus as a community pub”.

The premises, once known as the Board Inn, has served as an pub since 1789, and an extension to it as a sweet shop.

The Manor House is believed to date from the same period and was once a pretty grand village rectory, boasting acres of parkland and featuring a central two storey porch and unique vertical sash first floor windows with 20 panes and arched lights.

Other heritage assets include several 18th century properties used as homes, while in Hargill Lane, the old Wesleyan Chapel dates from 1854.

It was replaced after just 55 years by an incongruous red brick chapel on the main street, which held its final service two years ago. Southwick Grange is only other red brick building in the village.

The land for both buildings belonged to a family who owned a shipyard in Sunderland where the bricks were used.

Other buildings of note are Blew House Farm, where there was a village forge for hundreds of years until 2018, and Hargill House, where the village post office was run from a hallway until 2017.

Nearby is the site of a Second World War camp where 25 German and Italian prisoners of war were housed in Nissen huts to work on local farms.