Towton

Towton Hall is a mansion, a home, near the village of Towton in North Yorkshire, England. The building, known to been built as a residence in the seventeenth century and renovated and expanded since, is also believed to include the remnants of Richard III’s commemorative chantry chapel, which was built after the Battle of Towton. The commemorative chantry chapel at the Towton Battlefield was built to remember the victory of the House of York in the battle of Towton in the years after the 1461 battle. Many male skeletons of the soldiers were discovered beneath the floor of the dining room of Towton Hall.

The Battle of Towton took place on 29 March 1461 during the Wars of the Roses, near Towton in North Yorkshire, and "has the dubious distinction of being probably the largest and bloodiest battle on English soil". Fought for ten hours between an estimated 50,000 soldiers in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday, the Yorkist army achieved a decisive victory over their Lancastrian opponents. As a result, Edward IV deposed the Lancastrian Henry VI and secured the English throne. Henry VI succeeded his father Henry V when he was nine months old in 1422, but was a weak, ineffectual and mentally unsound ruler, which encouraged the nobles to scheme for control over him. The situation deteriorated in the 1450s into a civil war between his Beaufort relatives and Queen Margaret of Anjou on one side, with those of his cousin Richard, Duke of York, on the other. In October 1460, Parliament passed the Act of Accord naming York as Henry's successor, but neither the queen nor her Lancastrian allies would accept the disinheritance of her son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. They raised a large army, who defeated and killed York and his second son Edmund at Wakefield in December. Financed by the City of London, York's son and heir, Edward, found enough backing to denounce Henry and declare himself king. The Battle of Towton was to affirm the victor's right through force of arms to rule over England. On reaching the battlefield, the Yorkists found themselves heavily outnumbered, since part of their force under the Duke of Norfolk had yet to arrive. The Yorkist leader Lord Fauconberg turned the tables by ordering his archers to take advantage of the strong wind to outrange their enemies. The one-sided missile exchange, with Lancastrian arrows falling short of the Yorkist ranks, provoked the Lancastrians into abandoning their defensive positions. The ensuing hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, exhausting the combatants. The arrival of Norfolk's men reinvigorated the Yorkists and, encouraged by Edward, they routed their foes. Many Lancastrians were killed while fleeing; some trampled one another and others drowned in the rivers, which are said to have run red with blood for several days. Several high-ranking prisoners were also executed. The strength of the House of Lancaster was severely reduced as a result of this battle. Henry fled the country and many of his most powerful followers were dead or in exile after the engagement, leaving a new king, Edward IV, to rule England. In 1929 the Towton Cross was erected on the battlefield to commemorate the event. Various archaeological remains and mass graves related to the battle have been found in the area centuries after the engagement.

Stutton is a small village in the Selby District of North Yorkshire, England, a mile south-west of Tadcaster. It lies in the valley of the Cock Beck which discharges into the River Wharfe one mile to the east of the village. It is in the parliamentary constituency of Selby, the civil parish of Stutton with Hazlewood and ecclesiastical parish of Tadcaster.

Stutton railway station was a railway station in Stutton, North Yorkshire, on the Harrogate to Church Fenton Line. The station opened on 10 August 1847 and closed to passenger traffic on 30 June 1905. It remained open to goods traffic until it closed completely on 6 July 1964.The two-storey brick and sandstone station building was designed by George Townsend Andrews in the form of two side-by-side railway cottages. It was built on the up platform and is now used as a private residence. The roof of its single-storey northern extension was extended as a narrow canopy over the platform. The goods yard consisted only of one siding and a headshunt and had a cattle dock. A wooden signal box stood at the northern end of the station next to the level crossing with Weedling Gate. It was pulled down towards the end of the 1960s. Since the village that was served by the station was rather small, and Tadcaster station very close, passenger numbers remained low, causing the early closure to regular passenger services. Only chartered holiday trains occasionally called at Stutton afterwards.

Saxton with Scarthingwell is a civil parish just south of Tadcaster in North Yorkshire, England. The parish contains the villages of Saxton and Scarthingwell, with two churches and the remains of a castle. Historically the area was a township, however it has been its own civil parish since 1866. Although the main part of the Battle of Towton was fought to the north out of the parish, some of the dead were interred in the parish, and at least one minor skirmish was fought within the parish boundaries.

Grimston Park is a grade II* listed Georgian country house in Grimston, North Yorkshire, England, some 1.7 miles (3 km) south of Tadcaster. Since being owned by the Fielden family, it has been converted into a number of luxury homes. The house is built on two storeys of Tadcaster limestone ashlar with a Welsh slate roof. It has a 7-bay frontage with a projecting portico, and a three-storey tower and a single-storey entrance lodge at each end. A limestone tower in the grounds, designed like the house by Decimus Burton, is also grade II listed.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception is a historic church in Scarthingwell, in North Yorkshire, in England. The church was constructed in 1854 to a design by John Bownas and William Atkinson. It was commissioned by Edward William Hawke-Harvey, 4th Baron Hawke, as a private chapel for his seat, Scarthingwell Hall. It was the first church in England to be dedicated to the immaculate conception. The hall was demolished in 1960, but the chapel survived as a Roman Catholic church. It was Grade II listed in 1988. The church is in the Norman style, built of limestone, with a slate roof. It has a nave with a chancel in the form of an apse. The west end is gabled, and houses four niches. There is also a small stone turret at the west end. The nave has four tall windows, each with two lights, while the chancel has seven lancet windows. Inside, there is highly decorative plasterwork and a wooden gallery at the west end, reached by a staircase, which originally housed the family pew, but now contains an organ.

Grimston is a civil parish about 8 miles from York, in North Yorkshire, England. In 2001 the parish had a population of 59. The parish touches Bolton Percy, Kirkby Wharfe with North Milford, Oxton, Stutton with Hazlewood, Tadcaster and Towton. From 1974 to 2023 it was in the Selby district.

Cock Beck is a stream in the outlying areas of East Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, which runs from its source due to a runoff north-west of Whinmoor, skirting east of Swarcliffe and Manston (where a public house has been named 'The Cock Beck'), past Pendas Fields, Scholes, Barwick-in-Elmet, Aberford, Towton, Stutton, and Tadcaster, where it flows into the River Wharfe. It is a tributary of the River Wharfe, formerly known as the River Cock or Cock River, having a much larger flow than today. The name 'cock' may refer to a mature salmon, as it was a spawning ground for salmon and trout. Industrial pollution reduced the fish stock, but it has been recovering in the 21st century, aided by work from the Environment Agency. In places the beck was relatively narrow, but too deep to cross unaided; a feature which can still be seen today at many points.

Saxton is a village in North Yorkshire, England, 14 miles (23 km) south-west of York and 12 miles (19 km) east of Leeds. The resident population is about 250. The closest town is Tadcaster.

Barkston Ash is a small village and civil parish close to Selby in North Yorkshire, England. It was formerly known as Barkston in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Tadcaster Rural District was a rural district in the West Riding of Yorkshire from 1894 to 1974. It was named after Tadcaster. It was created by the Local Government Act 1894 from the Tadcaster rural sanitary district. It was enlarged in 1937 by the abolition of Bishopthorpe Rural District. It was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. The parishes of Aberford, Austhorpe, Barwick in Elmet and Scholes, Great and Little Preston, Ledsham, Ledston, Lotherton cum Aberford, Micklefield, Parlington, Sturton Grange and Swillington became part of the Metropolitan District of Leeds in West Yorkshire, with the rest going to the district of Selby in North Yorkshire.