Exelby is a village in the Hambleton district of

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by national parks, including most of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. It is one of four cou ...

, England. It is south-east of

Bedale Bedale ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the district of Hambleton, North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, it is north of Leeds, south-west of Middlesbrough and south-west of the county town of ...

and west of the

A1(M) motorway A1(M) is the designation given to a series of four separate motorway sections in England. Each section is an upgrade to a section of the A1, a major north–south road which connects London, the capital of England, with Edinburgh, the capit ...

and is part of the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

of Exelby, Leeming and Londonderry. The civil parish had a total of 2,788 residents at the time of the 2011 census, though Exelby had only 80 homes. The name of the village derives from

Old Danish The Danish language developed during the Middle Ages out of Old East Norse, the common predecessor of Danish and Swedish. It was a late form of common Old Norse. The Danish philologist Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen divided the history of Danish into ...

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

and means ''Eskil's farm'' or ''Eskil's settlement''. Exelby

In the 1086 ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

'' Exelby is noted as Aschilebi, with only one man but 20 ploughlands, and in the

North Riding The North Riding of Yorkshire is a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point is at Mickle Fell with 2,585 ft (788 metres). From the Restoration it was used as a ...

's Land of Count Alan. In 1066 Merleswein the Sheriff was

Lord of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as s ...

, which by 1086 had been transferred to Robert of Moutiers, with Count Alan of Brittany as

Tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, the term ''tenant-in-chief'' (or ''vassal-in-chief'') denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opp ...

. The village lies on the B6285, which connects Bedale with Exelby, Theakston,

Burneston Burneston is a village and civil parish in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England. According to the 2001 Census it had a population of 244, increasing to 311 at the 2011 Census. The village is close to the A1(M) road and is abou ...

and the A6055 road just east of Burneston. In October 2018 the residents of the village, along with other community investors, bought the closed village pub, The Green Dragon. It was revamped and renamed Exelby Green Dragon (EGD), reopening in December 2018. Since then a deli-cafe, high quality letting rooms and a lottery funded community garden (incorporating the pub garden) have been added. The pub also acts as a community hub, accommodating local groups and serving as a base for a folk club.

References

External links

Villages in North Yorkshire Hambleton District {{Hambleton-geo-stub