In 1066 Ulf had Beeford manor, comprising 12½ carucates there and 13 carucates and 2 bovates of sokeland in Dunnington, Nunkeeling, and Winkton, in Barmston. By 1086 the manor had passed to Drew de Bevrère, and it was later part of the Aumale fee.

Between 1160 and 1182 Meaux abbey was given almost ½ carucate on Beeford moor by Osbert of Frismarsh, and a grange had been established there by 1172. Moor grange was later enlarged by grant, purchase, and exchange. The manor of MOOR GRANGE in 1293 was recorded in the mid 14th century. In the Middle Ages Moor Grange farmhouse presumably occupied the moated site which remained there in 1996, but evidently long before the 19th century it was removed to a site outside the moat.

Sir Robert II Ros, the Knights Templar was 1170-1226 of Helmsley, Holderness married Isabella of Canmore... Sir William I of Hamlake, Ros 1192-1264 married Lucia Fitzpiers...Sir Robert IV, Baron of Belvoir, Ros married Isabel D'Aubigny born at Belvoir Castle.

In the 12th century Ernald de Montbegon held 6 carucates of the Aumale fee at Beeford and 6 carucates more at Dunnington. His service for the estate was given by a count of Aumale to the Knights Templar, to whom Ernald later granted the land at Beeford for quittance of service at Dunnington. In the 12th century a count of Aumale granted the lordship of Dunnington and part of Beeford to the Knights Templar. On the suppression of the order in 1312, the Templars' manor of DUNNINGTON was transferred to the Knights Hospitaller, by their suppression, the lordship passed to the Crown. Two houses, 3 bovates, and other land at Dunnington, formerly belonging to the Hospitallers, were later let by the Crown, and in 1586 were granted in reversion to Sir Christopher Hatton.

Other estates at Beeford have included the 2 carucates of the Aumale fee which Geoffrey le Breton held in the 12th century and which was later divided among his daughters. The St. Quintins held 1 carucate there in 1275–6, when the Templars occupied it under them. The unidentified Richard de Cotes was returned as the other lord of Beeford in 1316. Henry de Fauconberg was granted free warren there in 1324. The sokeland of Beeford manor included 6 carucates at Dunnington which passed with the manor from Ulf to Drew de Bevrère, and later formed part of the Aumale fee.

Lord of Carlton John Bellew was born abt. 1237 in Carlton, North Riding / Bedford who married Laderina Brus b. 1230 daughter of a Kendal Lancaster family and Skelton Brus. Peter was great grandson of 1st Baron of Annandale, Robert Bruce. Another branch of Bretagne lived in Carrick, Argyllshire. On the suppression of the Templars in 1312, their estate was transferred to the Knights Hospitaller, who were returned as one of the two lords of Beeford in 1316 and retained their manor there until they too were suppressed in the 16th century. Hawise, countess of Aumale (d. 1214), granted Fulk d'Oyry free warren in Dunnington, and in 1223 he had 2 carucates there. The estate evidently passed to Sir Geoffrey d'Oyry and then to Fulk's grandson Sir William Constable and his successors. In 1282 William's son Sir Simon Constable settled DUNNINGTON manor on his son Robert and his wife, and their son Sir John (d. 1349) held a house and ½ carcate there of the Hospitallers by knight service.

Besides Moor grange, Meaux abbey established another farm at Beeford. The farm was surrounded by many trees and was said to have taken its name Crow grange, occasionally CROW manor, from the birds there; later in the Middle Ages a tenant was allowed to cut down the trees expressly to get rid of crows. 1570–1, after the Dissolution, the Crown granted Crow grange in fee farm to Henry Scrope, Lord Scrope, and he or a succeeding Lord Scrope is said to have sold it to Robert Naylor. Another part of Meaux's former estate in the parish, comprising the rents of four freeholders and five other tenants holding land at Beeford, was granted by the Crown as BEEFORD manor to John Wells and Henry Best in fee farm in 1595. Houses and land at Beeford, formerly belonging to the priory and including 3 bovates, were let by the Crown later in the 16th century and Swine priory had been given 2 bovates and other land at Beeford by 1249 and retained that estate until the Dissolution. Nunkeeling priory was granted 1 bovate and other land at Beeford by Ernald de Montbegon and Thomas of Beeford, and in the earlier 13th century the house's estate there was altered by further grant and exchange with Meaux abbey. In the 16th century the priory had a toft and 1 bovate at Beeford, let for 13s. 4d. a year.

In 1544 the Crown granted the order's former estate, as BEEFORD manor, to John Bellow and others, who were then licensed to sell it to Richard Empringham. An attempt made in 1558 to restore the estate, including premises at Dunnington, to the Hospitallers at their refoundation had little effect. In 1598 Michael Empringham sold the manor to William Green (d. 1600), who was succeeded by his brother Thomas of GREEN'S NORTON; it then comprised 22 houses and almost 2 carucates. Thomas's son James Green may have had the manor before William Shercliffe, who divided and sold the estate between 1613 and 1616; the manor was bought by Thomas Naylor in 1613–14. Naylor (d. 1627) left the manorial rights to his son Edmund (fl. 1641) and houses and lands at Beeford to each of his other sons, Matthew and Richard; some of the land may have belonged to Naylor's other estate at Beeford.

Beeford

The Goxhills' estate, later held of the Hospitallers and itself reckoned a manor, descended like Little Cowden in Margeret's heirs, the Despensers, and their successors, the Wentworths. In 1539–40 Sir Richard Wentworth's heirs held 2½ carucates of the Hospitallers. Thomas Wentworth, Lord Wentworth, sold Dunnington manor in 1556 to Walter Jobson and Thomas Dalton the younger. Jobson sold his moiety to George Creswell in 1569. Creswell probably also bought land formerly belonging to Meaux abbey in or soon after 1586, and at his death in 1592 he held a chief house, 12 others, and 4 carucates at Dunnington under the Crown's manors of Beeford and East Greenwich.

Another part of the Aumale fee at Beeford was held by the Goxhill (Goushill) family. The overlordship of the successors of the counts of Aumale was recorded until 1593. of Goxhill gave ½ carucate there to Bridlington priory before 1154, and it was presumably another Ralph who was recorded in the late 12th century. In the mid 14th century the Beeford estate was said to comprise 6 carucates, held as ? knight's fee.

Purchases included houses and land at Beeford bought in 1620 by George Acklam, Beeford manor bought by Edward and John Nelthorpe in 1622, and houses and land at Beeford and Dunnington purchased by Ralph Brigham and Anthony Nevill in 1623. The later history of the estate is unknown, but part may have passed to the Acklams.

In the mid 17th century the manor once belonging to the Hospitallers was called ST. JOHN'S or the FRANCHISE FEE, the latter probably because of the testamentary jurisdiction which had descended from the order with that manor. LAY FEE manor may have been that held by the Creswells; by 1658 it perhaps formed part of the Naylors' estate, and it was certainly later held with the Franchise Fee by the Naylors' successors, the Acklams. Elizabeth Creswell b. abt 1520 m. Leonard Ashton b. 1515 in Tixhall, Staffordshire. The Pricketts had had a small estate at Beeford in 1768, and before Marmaduke's death in 1837 that had been enlarged to become the 556-a. Beeford Grange farm. Prickett's son Thomas thus succeeded to c. 1,100 a. of Beeford.

In 1833 Beeford also had two mixed day schools supported by parents, one begun in 1823 with 20 pupils and the other started in 1826 with 31 in attendance.

St. Leonard church with a priest at Beeford in 1086. An unnamed chapel, apparently at Beeford, was recorded in the 12th century, (fn. 89) and the parish includes chapels at Dunnington and Lissett. A register of wills and inventories of the peculiar survives for the period from 1561 until 1768. The jurisdiction of the Hospitallers' court evidently also included view of frankpledge in Beeford. Surviving records of the court, or courts, of Beeford manor, by then comprising also the Lay Fee, include estreats of 1626–59, a list of pains of 1648, and brief minutes of proceedings for 1641 and years between 1762 and 1782.

The chapel of ST. JAMES was so called by 1407 and in 1996 was more fully styled ST. JAMES OF COMPOSTELLA. The church has a brass commemorating Thomas Tonge, rector 1431–72, a 14th century effigy of another priest, and memorials to relatives of George. The registers of burials begin in 1563, baptisms in 1564, and marriages in 1627; those of burials lack entries for some 30 years in the late 16th and early 17th century but the marriage registers are complete and those of baptisms and births. The parish clerk was entitled to 3 sheaves of wheat a yeare from each bovate in Beeford township until 1768, when he was awarded £3 10s. a yeare instead from the land then inclosed. Registrations of burials begin in 1653 and of baptisms in 1679. Marriages are recorded from 1663 but lack entries for a few years in the mid 18th century. A Quaker meeting said to have had 100 members was held in a house at Lissett in 1669. Houses were, nevertheless, registered at Beeford by unidentified protestant congregations in 1779, 1787, and 1788.

 

Beeford-Collina

Only one plough, on the demesne, was recorded in 1086, when there were reckoned to be 12 ploughlands at Beeford. Most of the sokeland was apparently also out of cultivation then, and the manor's value had fallen greatly. Soon afterwards the abbey established a grange on the moor, a development which was opposed by Thornton abbey and the other commoners there. Some of the abbey's tillage may then have been separated from that of the village, and Moor grange was later said to comprise 129 a. in Moor field, 58 a. in the carrs, and 18 a. near the house, presumably in closes. In 1396 Crow grange, or manor, with 6 bovates in Dringhoe and 4 in Beeford, and Moor grange were both let to Richard Stopes. Fisheries at Sandwath, or Hull, bridge were mentioned in the late 12th century, Bridlington priory's estate at Beeford also included a fishery, and in 1353 the demesne at Lissett included a rabbit warren and a fishery.

There were a water mill and a windmill in the late 12th century, both of which were later given to Meaux abbey. The water mill stood close to Crow grange, just across the boundary in Skipsea, and was powered by the stream from Dunnington until its insufficiency in summer caused the mill to fall into decay; the mill had apparently been removed by the 15th century. A replacement had perhaps been built nearby by the 1390s, when a 'Crow mill' was repaired. The windmill was moved by the abbey from Beeford to a higher site in Dringhoe, in Skipsea, partly to secure the tithes for its church of Skipsea, in the late 14th century. The relationship between Meaux's mills and Mill hill, north of the village, and Mill House, on Beeford beck, is unknown.

Common Lands And Inclosure Beeford is the tillage of Beeford lay separated by the village in North and South fields, named in 1535. Both fields evidently had an infield and an outfield; in the southern field the infield was alternatively known as West field and the outfield as East field. Common meadowland lay in New ings, named in 1353, and the hamlet's rough grazing in two pastures, of which Old pasture was certainly stinted and New pasture Enlargement of the arable area by the taking in of waste is suggested by the occurrence in North and South fields of forby, or extra, lands, which had no appurtenant meadow or pasture rights. There was pasture for 300 sheep in the north of the township in the 12th century and more common grazing in the south, on Beeford moor. As in other East Riding parishes, the fields contained broad and narrow strips. Three of the bovates were said to have been inclosed c. 1500. The moorland grazing was restricted by Meaux abbey's establishment of a grange there in the mid 12th century, and later that which remained was intercommoned with North Frodingham. The pastures were overcharged and turves dug on the moor without licence in the 17th century. In 1539–40 the Hospitallers' estate at Beeford was entirely occupied by freeholders and other tenants for rents amounting to nearly £8 7s. a year.

Open-field land was recorded at Dunnington in 1650 but the commonable lands were evidently inclosed soon afterwards, it is said by vestry order. Closes called Great and Little West field and North field were recorded there in 1745, two North pasture closes in 1813, and areas called East field, South field, and South pasture in the 1850s.

Moorheads, Inholms (Inhams, Enholmes), North pasture, and West carr were named as stinted pastures in 1726, when the grazing rights were expressed in gates and divisions of gates called bands. Ridge and furrow evidence suggests that Inholms had once been part of the tillage. Beeford was inclosed in 1768 under an Act of 1766.

Situated in the north of the township and called Collina's Cottage in 1829, Dunnington Grange farm, may have been the chief house of the estate before the 19th century. The house was evidently remodelled then and has a canted bay to the entrance front. The land seems to have been farmed as part of Moor grange when between 1160-1182 Meaux Abbey was given 1 1/2 carucate at Dunnington.

Crow Grange from Crow Manor was enlarged in 1849 by the building onto the existing house of a new threebayed front range. Ponds remain from the moat which once enclosed the grange, and whale bones set up at the entrance also survive.