Rathmell 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 county of

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. The population of the civil parish in the 2011 census was 305. It is close to the

River Ribble The River Ribble runs through North Yorkshire and Lancashire in Northern England. It starts close to the Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, and is one of the few that start in the Yorkshire Dales and flow westwards towards the Irish Sea (t ...

and about three miles south of

Settle Settle or SETTLE may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places * Settle, Kentucky, United States, an unincorporated community * Settle, North Yorkshire, a town in England ** Settle Rural District, a historical administrative district Music * Settle (band), an in ...

. Other towns and villages nearby include Wigglesworth,

Tosside Tosside is a small village on the modern border of North Yorkshire and Lancashire in Northern England. It lies within the Forest of Bowland, and is between the villages of Slaidburn in Lancashire and Wigglesworth in North Yorkshire. It lies 11. ...

Giggleswick Giggleswick, a village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England, lies on the B6480 road, less than north-west of the town of Settle and divided from it by the River Ribble. It is the site of Giggleswick School. Until 1974 it was part ...

and

Long Preston Long Preston is a village and civil parish in the county of North Yorkshire, England, in the Yorkshire Dales. It lies along the A65 road, and is from Skipton and from Settle. The population of Long Preston in 2001 was 680, increasing to 74 ...

. Until 1974 it was part of 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 1974 to 2023 it was part of the district of Craven, 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 ...

Origins

The name Rathmell comes from Old Norse 'red' + 'sandbank'. Indeed, the area has a long history of Norse settlement. Rathmell was formerly a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in the parish of Gigggleswick, in 1866 Rathmell became a civil parish in its own right. On 1 April 1938 432 acres was transferred from

Gisburn Forest Gisburn Forest is a civil parish in the Ribble Valley, in Lancashire, England. Mainly lying within the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the parish includes the larger part of the village of Tosside and the hamlet of Grunsag ...

Dissenting academy

Rathmell is the birthplace of

Richard Frankland Richard Joseph Frankland is an Australian playwright, scriptwriter and musician. He is an Aboriginal Australian of Gunditjmara origin from Victoria. He has worked significantly for Aboriginal Australian causes. Early life Richard Joseph Fra ...

(1630–1698), the nonconformist divine. He was ordained by

presbyter Presbyter () is an honorific title for Christian clergy. The word derives from the Greek ''presbyteros'', which means elder or senior, although many in Christian antiquity understood ''presbyteros'' to refer to the bishop functioning as overseer ...

s under the

Cromwellian Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially a ...

regime, but was ejected from his ministry at the Restoration. He retired home to Rathmell, where he founded a

dissenting academy The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries (often institutions with aspects of all three) run by English Dissenters, that is, Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a significant part of educatio ...

, which migrated to

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

after his death. This academy was the germ of the institution now known as

Harris Manchester College, Oxford Harris Manchester College (HMC) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It was founded in Warrington in 1757 as a college for Unitarianism, Unitarian students and moved to ...

. The location of the original Academy at Rathmell is marked by a

memorial plaque A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, or in other places referred to as a historical marker, historic marker, or historic plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, bearing text or an image in relief, or both, ...

on the end of a small terrace of cottages which still bears the name "College Fold".

Notable people

* Martin Kaye, resident of the village

References

Bibliography

* Edward Allen Bell, ''The History of Giggleswick School 1499–1912'', Leeds: Richard Jackson, 1912. * Harold Blaxland Atkinson, ''The Giggleswick School Register 1499–1921'', Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumberland Press, 1922.

External links

{{authority control Villages in North Yorkshire Civil parishes in North Yorkshire Craven District Harris Manchester College, Oxford