Middleton Tyas 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 ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England, near

Scotch Corner Scotch Corner is a junction of the A1(M) and A66 trunk roads near Richmond in North Yorkshire, England. It has been described as "the modern gateway to Cumbria, the North East and Scotland", and is a primary destination signed from as f ...

History

The name Middleton is of

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

origin and means middle farm or middle settlement. Tyas is a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

family name but there seems to be no evidence that Middleton Tyas once belonged to a family of that name. The village lies on a substratum of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, which has been extensively

quarried A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

. Limestone quarrying still takes place at the nearby Barton roundabout. There was also an 18th-century

copper mine Copper extraction is the multi-stage process of obtaining copper from its ores. The conversion of copper ores consists of a series of physical, chemical, and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ...

and works near the village. Just outside the village is the Middleton Lodge Estate. Middleton Lodge itself was built in 1760 and is a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. It also has a number of Grade II listed buildings and of parkland. St Michael and All Angels' Church, Middleton Tyas lies just outside the village on the road towards Moulton. It is an ancient structure, with

arches and pillars on the north side and Early English on the south. It was restored and renovated between 1867 and 1879 under the direction of Sir

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he ...

Primitive Methodist The Primitive Methodist Church is a Christian denomination within the holiness movement. Originating in early 19th-century England as a revivalist movement within Methodism, it was heavily influenced by American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–18 ...

chapel was erected in the village in 1877; only three years later it was sold to the

Wesleyans Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christian tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother Charles Wesley were also significa ...

. It is no longer used as a church, having been closed down in 1984.

Notable people

The fraudster

Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet (20 October 1873 – 8 January 1944) was a British oriental scholar, Sinologist, and linguist whose books exerted a powerful influence on the Western view of the last decades of the Qing dynasty (1644� ...

, and his brother, the naval officer Roger Backhouse, were both born in the village. Lady Alicia Blackwood lived in the village, as did Arthur Francis Pease, who also died there. The two brothers

Almroth Wright Sir Almroth Edward Wright (10 August 1861 – 30 April 1947) was an English bacteriologist and immunologist. He is notable for developing a system of anti-typhoid fever inoculation, recognizing early on that antibiotics would create resistan ...

and Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright were born in the village. Top poker player Keith Hawkins currently lives in the village

Amenities

There is one pub in the village, ''The Shoulder of Mutton''; there is also ''The Scotch Corner Hotel'' at the famous roundabout. The village is served by Middleton Tyas Church of England primary school, which moved from the Victorian building in the centre of the village to a new purpose-built building on the outskirts. The old school was built in 1861-62 and the new school in 2003–04. The old school was sold and is now being extensively refurbished. The

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

and shop closed in April 2003, leaving the village with no retail facilities within its boundaries, so the local community decided to open a new shop. Using grant aid from the

Countryside Agency The Countryside Agency was a statutory body set up in England in 1999 with the task of improving the quality of the rural environment and the lives of those living in it. The agency was dissolved in 2006 and its functions dispersed among other bo ...

and DEFRA the villagers founded the Community Co-operative village store in the Memorial Hall. It was opened by the local MP,

William Hague William Jefferson Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond (born 26 March 1961) is a British politician and life peer who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001 and Deputy Leader from 2005 to 2010. He was th ...

, in April 2004. The shop is open 55 hours a week and sells basic groceries, local produce, fruit and vegetables, newspapers and magazines; it has an in-store bakery and serves as an

off-licence A liquor store is a retail business that predominantly sells prepackaged alcoholic beverages, including liquors (typically in bottles), wine or beer, usually intended to be consumed off the store's premises. Depending on region and local idiom ...

. There are two part-time staff and eight volunteers. The nearby Scotch Corner Service Station acts as a useful 24-hour shop for Middleton Tyas and other neighbouring villages.

Governance

The

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

with the same name stretches south-west to Skeeby and had a total population at the 2011 Census of 1,183. From 1974 to 2023 it was part of the district of

Richmondshire {{Infobox settlement , name = Richmondshire District , type = Non-metropolitan district , image_skyline = , imagesize = , image_caption = , image_blank_emblem= Richmondshire arms.png , blank_em ...

and since then has been administered by the unitary

North Yorkshire Council North Yorkshire Council, known between 1974 and 2023 as North Yorkshire County Council, is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of North Yorkshire, England. Since 2023 the council has been a unitary authority, being a county coun ...

References

External links