Sherburn in Elmet - <>

Sherburn in Elmet is a large village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England, situated near to Selby. It is one of only three places in the area to be explicitly associated with the ancient Celtic kingdom of Elmet via featuring the kingdom's title in its name, the others being Barwick-in-Elmet and Scholes-in-Elmet. According to the 2011 census, Sherburn has a population of 6,657.HistoryThe village is of ancient establishment, possibly with Roman origins and was part of the wapentake of Barkston Ash in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The field adjoining All Saints' Church is the site of the palace of kings of Elmet, which was given (with the manor of Cawood) by Athelstan to the Archbishops of York on his conversion to Christianity in or around the 10th century.The church itself is unusually large for a village parish church and dates from around 1120, with Norman pillars and a later-built large tower housing a ring of eight bells. It was built on the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon church. The Battle of Towton was fought nearby in 1461 and local legend tells that King Edward IV, who won the battle, used the church tower as a point for surveying the battle lines. This is indeed a legend as due to the topography of the land and the weather conditions on the day of the battle, it is not possible to see the battle ground from the tower.

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