Preston-under-Scar 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. It is situated approximately west of Leyburn. The village population was 120 at the 2001 census, increasing to 170 by the 2011 census. The village is 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 ...

as belonging to Thorfin of Ravensworth, but the tenant-in-chief being Count Alan of

Bedale Bedale ( ), is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. Bedale Beck is a tributary of the River Swale, which forms one of the Yorkshire Dales. The dale has a predominant agriculture sector and its related small traditional t ...

. The name of the village derives form a mixture of

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 ...

and

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

and was originally ''prēost tūn sker'', which translates as ''Priests farm (or settlement) under rock (or cliff).'' The village used to be in the

Wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

of Hang West and in the parish of Wensley. 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 ...

, it is now 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 ...

. Traditionally, worship was undertaken at the church in Wensley as there was no church in the village save for a small Methodist chapel, but the village does have a small "mission room" (St Margarets Church) that was constructed in 1862 and is now a

grade II 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 ...

listed building. However, services are only held twice-monthly. The Wensleydale Railway passes just to the south of the village. Previously, the village and that of neighbouring Wensley were served by railway station on the line and whilst the line has been re-opened as a heritage railway, the station is in private hands and has not been opened up to passengers. The village is mostly contained in a conservation area that was designated in 1989. It is just outside of the

Yorkshire Dales National Park The Yorkshire Dales National Park is a national park in England which covers most of the Yorkshire Dales, the Howgill Fells, and the Orton Fells. The Nidderdale area of the Yorkshire Dales is not within the national park, and has instead ...

due to

quarrying A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to manage their s ...

and a military firing range which lie just to the north of the village. Besides quarrying (which is still ongoing in the modern era) the area was also known for its iron ore and lead industries. These were documented as far back as the early 14th century though may have been explored earlier. There are remains of the old lead mining industry in the nearby Condenser Wood. Some of the old lead processing buildings are still standing and are now listed buildings, including the peat store that would house a years' worth of peat to be used in smelting lead. Various chimneys were built to vent the fumes from the smelting process, but these were quite low in the valley and would cling to the surroundings rather than disperse. Because of this, a flue was constructed that extended for in a northerly direction and fed into a chimney at Cobscar Mill above Preston-under-Scar at above sea level.

References

External links

Villages in North Yorkshire Civil parishes in North Yorkshire Wensleydale {{Richmondshire-geo-stub