Tithe records for the five townships (Arkengarthdale, Grinton, Melbecks, Muker, Reeth) can be searched on this web site using three different data tables and the township plans:
Township Detailed Records – Each record provides all the relevant information for each plot of land, identified by a plan number, which can also be found on the township plans.
Township Summary Records – Each record is a summary of the total land and tithes due for each pairing of landowner and occupier within the township. Landowners have separate records for each different individual occupier with whom they were paired, and occupiers have separate records for each different individual landowner with whom they were paired. For some unknown reason, an exception is the record for Melbecks township, which shows only the landowners. These summaries do not identify the location of the lands within the township. For this information, see the Detailed Records.
Combined Townships Detailed and Summary Records – this much larger table combines the two datasets above for all the five townships, making a total of 6,703 detailed records and 378 summary records. This is useful for identifying landowners and occupiers connected with land in more than one of the five townships.
Township Plans – The original township plans were produced at a scale of one inch to six chains, which is a little higher than 1:5000, or more than five times bigger than a modern OS Explorer map. Consequently, the physical plans are very large. For ease of readability, the digital copies on this website have been reproduced in sections. They will open in a condensed version but with an option on your computer’s pointer to click to a much-magnified view. You can also achieve finer degrees of magnification, up or down, by using the keyboard functions Control + and Control -. Even on the original huge pans, some of the smallest plots, in villages, hamlets, and some farmsteads, are difficult to distinguish from one another, so the plan-makers created inset plans of these areas at even larger scales. For ease of discovery, these inset plans have been copied separately and each one can be opened as a stand-alone file.
Searching techniques (all Data Tables)
Opening and viewing records – Be patient! The data tables are large and might take a few seconds to load. There are 100 records in each page to view. To see the next 100, use the Next Page function at the foot of the current page.
Default order of records – When you open a table, the records will appear in a default order. In the cases of the individual Township Records, the default is by the surname of the landowner in alphabetical order. In the case of the Combined Records, every record has an identity number in the first column, and the default is identity numerical order.
Search Function – There is a Keyword Search function at the top of every page view. Enter a name and the dataset will automatically filter out all records that do not contain that name. Personal names viewable might be in both landowner and occupier columns. Where a personal name coincides with a field name, e.g., ‘Close’ the filter will show all records containing that word, whether it’s a personal name or a field name. For this reason, instances of the personal name you seek won’t necessarily appear grouped together. To achieve this, after your Keyword Search, click the column header for either Landowner or Occupiers once. This will automatically reorganise the records in that column in alphabetical order.
Order by column headers only – Depending on the nature of your search, you might find it easier not to use the Keyword Search function, but instead to reorganise the records by placing the entries in any single chosen column in alphabetical order. To do this, just click on the column header once. To reverse the order, just click the column header again. To reorganise the records differently, click in a different column header.
Leaving the table – You can leave the table with the records in any order. When you return to it, the table will have reverted automatically to the default order.
