Watercolour artist David Work visits Pocklington as part of his painting tour of the region. But how much do you know about this historic town . . ?

Burnby Hall and Gardens. The two lakes that contain the famous water lilies are set in acres of gardens, including a Victorian Garden and Secret Garden

Local history sources say that at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, Pocklington was the second largest settlement in Yorkshire, after York itself. Situated at the foot of the Wolds, some 13 miles from York, it has been an important settlement, whose history can be stretched back to the Bronze Age.

On-line encyclopedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) says: “Pocklington gets its name via the Old English ‘Poclintun’ from the Anglian settlement of Pocel’s (or Pocela’s) people and the Old English word ‘tun’ meaning farm or settlement.”

A great wealth of information about the town is available on the local history website www.pocklingtonhistory.com and it’s here we learn that: “Evidence of  Neolithic people living in the area is abundantly found in the area. Bronze Age burial mounds and Bronze and Iron age earthworks are to be found in the vicinity.”

Pocklington owed much of its prosperity in the Middle Ages to the fact that it was a local centre for the trading of wool and lay on the main road to York, an important national centre for the export of wool to the Continent at a time when wool was the country’s principal export.

The town’s skyline is dominated by the tower of All Saints Church, known locally as the “Cathedral of the Wolds”. It is an important Grade I-listed building – the foundations, of which, date back to the Saxon era, although most of the building dates from the 12th to the 15th centuries.

“It is likely that the missionary St. Paulinus established the first Christian church in Pocklington on his way from Goodmanham to found York Minster,” Wikipedia tells us.

A view of Pocklington Market

A famous name connected with the town is that of William Wilberforce, who was a border at Pocklington School in 1771. His family originated from nearby Wilberfoss, with the spellings of the family name as Wilberfoss, Wilberfos, Wilberfosse, Wylberforce and Wilberforce being practically interchangeable throughout much of the Middle Ages.

Many visitors’ first memory of the town is a visit to Pocklington’s Burnby Hall Gardens, home to the National Collection of Hardy Water Lilies and the biggest such collection to be found in a natural setting in Europe.

David’s watercolour painting of The Feathers, an old coaching inn allegedly haunted by a ghost named Charlotte

Looking towards All Saints Church and The Pavement from Regent Street in Pocklington