Glaisdale Parish Council Website1

Glaisdale Parish

The parish of Glaisdale sits in the heart of the North York Moors National Park and extends from the tumulus of Great Dinnod close to the Danby interchange on the A171 moors road, all the way down to Blue Wath bridge on the moors high above Glaisdale head. It encloses four separate communities as well as the surrounding farmland and the high moors to the north and south of the main communities. The villages are typical of those found all across the North York Moors and are mostly built of local stone with pantiled or slate roofs, and straddle the main through-routes along the valley bottoms.

Reproduced from the 1929 Ordnance survey map - © Crown Copyright

The main community centres are :

Glaisdale : This, the largest community is situated at the northern end of Glaisdale Dale and its main development started in the 18th and 19th centuries. First as a trading centre for the local wool and cloth producers and later in the mid 19th century as a somewhat unlikely iron ore mining and smelting centre. This expansion also gave rise to a number of new quarries needed to provide the materials for new housing, workshops and construction. Traces of all of these activities can still be found today by those with a little knowledge and an enquiring mind. Glaisdale village acts as a focus for the farmers and residents of the Dale as well as providing some of those amenities and essential services necessary to everyday life.

Lealholm : The origins of this slightly smaller community are less defined than Glaisdale and stretch back to a much earlier period when farming and the movement of stock was almost exclusively the main source of activity. Lealholm was a convenient place to cross the river Esk and, where people converge for any reason, there will others set up residence in the hope and expectation of earning a living from such travellers. Fulling Mills, Hostelries and other itinerant traders set up bases around this river crossing and thereby formed the nucleus of todays village centre. Until the middle of the 19th century Lealholm was the main centre of the parish of Glaisdale and many of the parish offices and functions were administered from here.

Houlsyke and Street : These two smaller communities should really be referred to as hamlets, having none of the essential facilities common to villages such as a school, public house, shop or village hall. Houlsyke in the 17th and 18th centuries was the hub of a thriving pig farming area located in the upper esk valley and once boasted a public house "The Fat Ox" at which much of the pig dealing took place, but this has long since been transformed into a domestic dwelling. This community is now principally a satellite of Lealholm - although residents of Houlsyke would think of themselves as having very much their own identity. Street is even smaller than Houlsyke and is much more isolated from all of the other communities (being in another dale!) It is a small collection of dwellings which has grown from the development of redundant farm buildings originally situated next to each other. Its isolated location has given it status as a community focus, although again without any of the attendant amenities.

Glaisdale Parish - Some Vital Statistics
Population		Geographical Facts
Total	974		Total Area	521 sq km
Male	487		Max height above sea level	402 mtrs
Female	487
Children 0 - 4 yrs	46		Urban Area	1%
5 - 15yrs	128		Urban Population	73%
Adults 16 - 24yrs	78
25 - 64 yrs	539		Rural Area	99%
65 & over	183		Rural Population	27%

Statistics taken from 2001 National Census results