Gowdall is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, often abbreviated to the East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, S ...

, England. It is situated approximately west of the town of

Snaith Snaith is a market town in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, close to the River Aire and the M62 motorway, M62 and M18 motorway, M18 motorways, west of Goole, east of Knottingley, south of Selby, southwest of Howden and northwest of ...

, 1 mile to the north of the

M62 motorway The M62 is a west–east Pennines, trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting Liverpool and Kingston upon Hull, Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield; of the route Concurrency (road), is shared with the M60 motorway, ...

and the A645 road, and just south of the

River Aire The River Aire is a major river in Yorkshire, England, in length. Part of the river below Leeds is canalised, and is known as the Aire and Calder Navigation. The ''Handbook for Leeds and Airedale'' (1890) notes that the distance from Malha ...

. According to the

2011 UK Census A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National ...

, Gowdall parish had a population of 356, an increase on the

2001 UK Census A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194. The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...

figure of 318.

Toponymy

The name "Gowdall" originates from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

. It translates as "Nook of land where marigolds grow", and is composed of the elements ''golde'' ("marigold") and ''halh'' ("nook of land"). The village was not mentioned in the ''

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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' but was recorded as ''Goldale'' sometime in the 12th century.

History

The parish was part of the

Goole Rural District Goole was a rural district in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England from 1894 to 1974. It was created under the Local Government Act 1894, based on most of the Goole rural sanitary district (two parishes of which in Lincolnshire became part of ...

in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

from 1894 to 1974, then in Boothferry district of

Humberside Humberside () was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber, created from portions of the East Riding of Yorkshire, West Riding of ...

until 1996. In 2000 the village was severely flooded, and made national news. In February 2020, Gowdall along with other villages surrounding

suffered from further flooding after the

"over-topped". Each October, before 2017 when the annual festival permanently ceased to occur, Gowdall residents hosted a 'Scarecrow and Pumpkin Festival'. The village formerly had a

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

called The Boot and Shoe Inn. It has been closed since 2018.

References

External links

Gowdall flood photographs
Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire Civil parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire {{EastRiding-geo-stub